by Candace Camp
Royce cast a jaundiced eye at his younger brother. “I beg your pardon. Need I remind you that I can still draw your cork?”
Fitz let out a bark of laughter. “You haven’t bested me since I was nineteen.”
“Yes, yes, no doubt you are both exemplary pugilists,” the earl put in. “But we are talking about the Bascombe girls.”
“A delightful topic they are, too.” Fitz heaved an exaggerated sigh. “So sad that they are relatives.”
Both his half brothers rolled their eyes, and Royce went on as if Fitz had not spoken. “What do you plan to do about them?”
“Obviously, I cannot toss them out to starve. Besides, I think Grandfather would have mended the rift with his daughter if he had had the opportunity.”
“The old earl spoke to me once of her,” Royce said. “I had forgotten all about it until this came up. He did not say her name, as I remember, but he spoke of her with regret.”
“Too bad he didn’t change his will to reflect that,” the earl remarked.
Royce shrugged. “I imagine he didn’t consider the possibility of Flora returning. I think he believed she was dead. He wouldn’t have known about her daughters.”
“I haven’t the slightest notion what to do with four young girls!” Oliver burst out. “Especially ones as unready as these for London society. I feel I ought to do more than feed and clothe them and immure them somewhere in the country. Surely they deserve a marriage portion and a Season—a chance to find husbands and marry.”
Fitz grinned. “I can see Camellia at a ball now, describing how best to wield a knife at close quarters.”
Stewkesbury groaned. “That is precisely what I mean. Much as I dislike the Season, I could steel myself to that, I think. But the entire ton would be appalled by them. They would have no hope of marrying well—or even of being accepted by their peers.”
“Too bad you can’t marry them off before they face the world,” Royce joked. “Find some squire or Cit happy to ally himself with the Earl of Stewkesbury. Then it’s his worry.”
“Perhaps you would like to marry one of them and take her off my hands,” the earl tossed back lightly. “Grandfather would have been pleased to see you tied to the Talbots.”
Royce’s face tightened. “I should shackle myself to a half-civilized hoyden of questionable origins just for the honor of attaching my name to the Talbots?”
“Bloody hell, Royce.” Oliver returned his frown. “Don’t be a fool; I was jesting. You know I wouldn’t expect you to take on a wife like that to rid me of a problem.”
Royce grimaced and started to retort, but at that moment the door swung open with great force. Mary Bascombe strode into the room, clad in dressing gown and slippers, dark hair tumbling in a wild mass over her shoulders and her face lit like an avenging angel’s.
“Don’t worry your head over marrying us off, either one of you,” she announced. “My sisters and I will leave your house tomorrow, and you won’t have any ‘problem’ to deal with.”
Chapter 8
For a moment, the three men sat stunned, gaping at her. Oliver recovered first. He rose to his feet, all dignity even in his shirtsleeves and with his cravat loosened, a glass of liquor in his hand.
“Don’t be absurd. I told you I accepted you and your sisters as my responsibility. There is no need—”
“We were looking for our family,” Mary cut in, her words like acid. “Not someone to take on a ‘responsibility.’”
Her eyes burned through him. She pivoted, sending that same red-hot gaze searing into Royce. “We certainly were not asking anyone to sacrifice himself in marriage.”
Mary whirled and strode out of the room, leaving the men staring after her. Fury drove her, hot and consuming. Clearly, it was true that one never heard good about oneself by eavesdropping. Mary’s cheeks burned with humiliation. The way Royce had rejected her! The words he had used to describe her! It was too much to bear.
“Mary!” Sir Royce’s voice echoed down the hallway, and there was the sound of running footsteps. “Mary, wait!”
Mary walked faster. She was at the foot of the stairs when he caught up with her.
“Mary! Blast it, stop!” Royce grabbed her arm, pulling her around to face him. “Don’t run off like this. Listen to me.”
“I have heard enough from you. I don’t need to hear any more.”
“You mustn’t act hastily,” he told her, his handsome face so earnest it hurt her to look at him. “Oliver is not a hard man or unkind. I am sure he doesn’t think of you as ‘problems.’ He was simply blindsided. He doesn’t know what to do with young girls.”
“Don’t you mean he doesn’t know what to do with ‘half-civilized hoydens of questionable origins’?”
Royce flushed, and his jaw tightened. He dropped his hand from her arm. “I’m sorry. I did not mean to speak so harshly. I—it’s just Oliver. He’s bloody infuriating, the way he tries to control everyone around him. Always playing the big brother. I was irritated at Oliver, and I didn’t mean—I wouldn’t want you to think—”
Mary crossed her arms over her chest as he fumbled to a halt. She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “What? What would you not want me to think? The truth?”
“No! It wasn’t the truth! I don’t believe that.”
“Don’t you? What exactly did you say that you didn’t mean? Do you not think I am a hoyden?”
“No, not a hoyden,” he demurred, a smile twitching at the corners of his lips. “Perhaps more of a romp.”
Mary let out an inelegant snort. “Perhaps it’s the ‘half-civilized’ part you didn’t mean. Is that it?”
“Mary …” He shifted uncomfortably.
“Then maybe it’s the part about not wanting to marry one of us that you didn’t mean. You do intend to ask for my hand. Is that it?”
“No,” he snapped back. “I bloody well don’t.”
“That’s fortunate, since I would not marry you if you were the last man on earth!”
Mary whipped around and ran up the stairs. Sir Royce started after her, but stopped on the second stair. His jaw clenched as he stood there for a long moment, scowling. He stepped back down into the hall and glanced toward the dining room, where Oliver and Fitz stood in the doorway, watching him. With a grimace, Royce turned and stormed out the front door.
“Well.” Fitz turned toward his half brother. “That certainly went well.”
The earl sighed. “I hope this is not an indication of what my future evenings will be like.”
“From what I have seen, I fear that your life of quiet order is finished—unless, of course, you can find someone on whom you can foist our American cousins.”
“Would that I could.” Oliver walked back to his seat. “But who? None of the aunts would take them, and even if they would, I couldn’t be so cruel to those poor girls—or even to Aunt Euphronia—as to throw them together.”
“Mmm. I fear there might be murder done.”
“Probably mine,” the earl retorted dryly.
“Of course, Miss Bascombe could do as she threatened and walk out of here with her sisters. Then all your problems would be solved.” Fitz dropped into his seat, stretching his long legs out in front of him.
Oliver grimaced. “I suspect a cooler head will prevail on the morrow. She must know the prospects that await her if they leave my protection. If she does not, I will point them out. I cannot allow our cousins to roam the streets of London, penniless.”
“Still, her feelings were wounded, and she seems a most headstrong girl.”
“She appears to be a shrewd one as well. She had the wit to come here and present her case to me, after all. She must be aware of the advantages of being acknowledged a Talbot. I am sorry that she overheard our comments—and even sorrier that I invited the aunts to meet them. I was hoping I could induce one of the aunts to take the girls on, but I should have had the foresight to realize what would result.”
“I doubt anyone could have envisioned the tale of
standing guard against wild Indians along the frontier.”
A smile twitched at the corners of the earl’s mouth. “Indeed. I’m not sure which appalled Aunt Euphronia more—that or their living above a tavern.”
Fitz let out a crack of laughter. “God, yes. I’d have given a yellow boy just for the chance to see that look on Aunt Euphronia’s face.” He paused, then added meditatively, “I wonder if any of what they said was true.”
“Who knows? What I do know is that the majority of the ton would react as Aunt Euphronia did. And their clothes—I never dreamed that they did not know to dress for dinner. Or did not have the proper clothes. I would have expected them to be out of fashion, but … surely even Marigold Bascombe must see how inadequately prepared they are for society.”
“Still, one does not always like to hear the truth.”
“No, but I will make sure that she listens to reason.” Oliver sighed and swirled his brandy around in his snifter, looking thoughtful. “I wish I were as certain about my ability to deal with Royce.”
Fitz waved a negligent hand. “Don’t worry about Royce. He will be fine.”
“I have no doubt. But I will assuredly have another black mark against my name. Why is it that whatever I say to him strikes him the wrong way? I did not mean to offend him when I said he might marry one of the Bascombes. I was only joking—I would not try to saddle Royce with an unsuitable wife.”
“He knows that.”
“Although I would like the connection, really. I’ve always considered Royce a brother, but I know he does not feel the same. If he were married to our cousin, the tie would be stronger, more legal. Of course, I should have realized that Royce has little interest in being tied to me. Still … he was fond of Grandfather. I would have thought he might like the idea of being married to one of the old earl’s granddaughters.”
“He was very close to Grandfather. But this whole issue of family is, well, something of a sore spot with him. You know he’s always felt a bit of an outsider.”
“Then why wouldn’t he want a closer tie?”
Fitz shrugged. “People don’t always act logically. I know that must be a trial for you.”
His older brother rolled his eyes in response.
“It isn’t that he doesn’t want to be connected to you,” Fitz went on. “But he chafes at—well, you have always had a tendency to, um, arrange people’s lives.”
Oliver’s brows shot up, and he opened his mouth to speak.
Fitz added quickly, “For their own good, of course.” He cut his eyes toward his brother, mischief glinting in them.
Oliver had to chuckle. “Yes, so I have heard. Many times.” He sighed. “I do not mean to annoy Royce, you know. Or run his life. Yours either.”
“I know. I am sure Royce knows that, too. Deep down.”
“Very deep down,” Oliver added with a wry smile. “Ah, well. Enough of such gloomy talk.” He shrugged. “Let’s speak of something else. Tell me the gossip. I heard you shot out the lights at a gambling hell last Tuesday.”
“Untrue—untrue!” Fitz protested with a laugh. “It was not a hell, but a perfectly respectable club, and I shot out only one light. Fullingham bet me that I could not take out the central candle without hitting any of the others. I could hardly allow that to pass, could I?”
“Indeed not,” Oliver murmured.
And, pouring another drink, the two brothers settled down to convivial conversation.
Seething from her confrontation with Royce, Mary ran into her bedroom and barely kept from slamming the door after her. Casting a glance at her sister’s sleeping form on the bed, she pushed the door shut with a quiet snick. She did not want to have to talk to anyone at this moment, not even Rose, to whom she usually told everything. She was too embarrassed.
No, embarrassed wasn’t even the word for it—humiliated, that was what she was. To think she had believed Sir Royce liked her! He had not kissed her because he had been attracted to her particularly. No, it had been because he thought her a woman “of questionable origins”—too low in stature for a gentleman to have any concern for her reputation.
She had thought him kind because he had brought them here to meet the earl. Now she saw that it had all been a joke to him. He had wanted to cause his stepbrother consternation. All the times he had smiled or winked or warmth had glinted in his eyes, he had merely been laughing at her. She remembered the way she had responded this evening to the mere brush of his lips upon the back of her hand, the shiver of desire that had shot through her. She had thought that the glint in his eyes meant that he had felt it too—when all it really signified was that he was amused at her naïve reaction.
Mary winced as she recalled the anger and resentment in Royce’s voice when he rejected the earl’s suggestion that he marry one of the Bascombes. It had been painful hearing the earl say that she and her sisters would not be accepted by London society, but it had not surprised her. The earl’s reception had been anything but warm, and she suspected that he had invited the aunts to dinner simply to drive home to her and her sisters how little they belonged here. He had intended to show them up as country bumpkins, without proper clothes, manners, or sophistication.
But she had thought that Sir Royce would defend them. That he would point out that they were clever or self-sufficient or pretty—something besides social pariahs. Instead, he had rejected with great indignation the idea of marrying one of them.
She had been an utter fool. All she could hope for was that Royce had not realized how much she was drawn to him. Mary tried to remember if she had appeared to flirt with him. Had she looked at him like some moonstruck young girl? She knew she had responded to his kiss, but surely any woman would have done that. It had been far too exciting not to respond.
But maybe other women—sophisticated women, those raised to be ladies—would not have kissed him back. Perhaps that was why he had called her half-civilized. Her thoughts went round and round on this track for some time, and the more she thought about it, the worse she felt. She could not bear to think of facing Royce. Perhaps he would not come to the house tomorrow, and she could leave without seeing him.
She ignored the pang that idea caused and tried to focus on leaving. She would have to explain it to her sisters, of course, and she dreaded that. It would hurt them to learn what she had overheard. But she could hardly expect them to go just because she told them to. It made no sense to leave just when they had finally achieved their goal. No, she would have to admit that the earl and his relatives did not find them good enough. Then her sisters would not wish to remain any more than she did.
The problem, of course, was where they would go. They had no money and knew no one. They could not return home; they hadn’t enough money even to pay their fare. They would have to find a place to live and some sort of employment to keep themselves fed. It was a daunting prospect, especially in an unfamiliar city and country. Still, she told herself, there was nothing else she could do. They could not stay here, knowing how the earl—and the others—felt about them.
Her eyes filled with tears, but sternly she blinked them away. She would not cry. She refused to let Sir Royce make her cry. She wished with all her heart that she had never gone downstairs tonight.
When Mary awoke the next morning, she found herself alone. Rose must have already dressed and gone downstairs. It was quite late, she realized. She had slept poorly, waking from vague, half-remembered dreams that left her unsettled, even afraid. Accustomed as she was to the quiet of their small country town, every unfamiliar city noise—from the sound of a late hackney rolling down the street to the rumble of vendors’ carts and their cries early in the morning—had brought her awake.
Mary pulled herself out of bed and dressed sluggishly. She wondered whether there would be any breakfast left or whether she would have to leave the house on an empty stomach. It would make for a more satisfying, dramatic exit if she did not prosaically go downstairs to eat breakfast—the heroines in Lily’s bo
oks would not even think of food. However, Mary was aware that she was far too dull and pragmatic to be a heroine. She hoped that at least the earl would not be there at such a late hour.
When she slipped into the dining room a few minutes later, she was relieved to see that the earl was, in fact, not at the table. Unfortunately, his brother Fitz was. She hesitated in the doorway, tempted to turn and flee, but Fitz rose gracefully to his feet and the chance was gone.
“Cousin Mary.” He smiled, the corners of his blue eyes crinkling in a charming way. “Just the person I was hoping to see.”
“Indeed?” Mary walked to the table. Fitz nimbly rounded the corner to pull out her chair, and by the time she had sat down and placed a napkin in her lap, a footman was pouring her tea.
“Thank you, Will,” Fitz told the footman. “You may go now. We will serve ourselves this morning.”
The footman nodded and left the room.
“Hope you don’t mind,” Fitz said to Mary. “But I particularly wanted to talk to you, and it’s better without servants around. Shall I fill your plate for you?”
He turned toward the sideboard, where an array of chafing dishes stood, and picked up a plate. Mary jumped up and followed him.
“I can get my own, thank you.” She jerked the plate from his hands and started down the line, slapping a little something from each dish onto her plate.
Fitz waited to pull out her chair again before returning to his own food, already half-finished. He was silent at first, but when the first sharp edge of Mary’s hunger was taken off and she settled back in her chair to sip her tea, he pushed his plate aside and leaned forward.
“I want to apologize for both my brothers. They are, quite simply, fools.”
Mary set down her cup and crossed her arms. Fitzhugh Talbot was entirely too easy to like, and she had the suspicion that many people had found themselves agreeing to whatever he said before they even realized what they were doing.
“Yes, they are,” she agreed, steeling herself to ignore his charm.