by Lynn Kerstan
Other Novels by Lynn Kerstan
A Regency Holiday (anthology)
The Golden Leopard (The Big Cat Trilogy)
Heart of the Tiger (The Big Cat Trilogy)
The Silver Lion (The Big Cat Trilogy)
A Midnight Clear
Lord Dragoner’s Wife
Raven’s Bride
A Spirited Affair
by
Lynn Kerstan
Bell Bridge Books
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.
Bell Bridge Books
PO BOX 300921
Memphis, TN 38130
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-646-8
Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-627-7
Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.
Copyright © 1993 by Lynn Kerstan Horobetz writing as Lynn Kerstan
Published in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
A mass market edition of this book was published by Zebra Books Kensington Publishing Corp in 1993
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Cover design: Debra Dixon
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Photo/Art credits:
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:Esaq:01:
Dedication
For my sister, Nan-Celia
Chapter One
THE EARL SAW the black lumps right away, although he couldn’t make out what they were through the rain-streaked carriage window. With a sigh, he leaned back against the leather squabs to wait for Perkins, who, judging from the clatter overhead, was rummaging through the driver’s box for an umbrella.
It was unlike Perkins to be unprepared, but the evening had been starlit and balmy when they set out for a night on the town. The driver steered the crested coach from club to club as the Earl of Coltrane stopped in to dine at Watier’s, toss the dice at Brooks’s, and play a few hands of whist at White’s. Then, stubbornly resisting an order to return home, Perkins hunched inside the carriage until noon, waiting for his master to emerge from the Swan’s Nest. Mark took a mental note to reward him with a bonus, and the Swan with that diamond bracelet she’d admired. They had both served him well last night, and Coltrane men always paid their debts.
Yawning into his white glove, he leaned forward and peered again through the glass at the wide marble staircase leading to his front door. Three black lumps . . . on the stoop if he were not mistaken.
How came Jaspers to permit lumps on the doorstoop? Even in a rainstorm, Berkeley Square scarcely permitted windblown leaves to defile its pristine sidewalks. At the first sign of clearing, servants would bustle out to spirit them away. No doubt puddles evaporated faster in Berkeley Square than in lesser neighborhoods, and of all the imposing mansions enthroned there, none was less likely to be blighted by unsightly blotches than his own. The Old Earl, rest his icy soul, had been fastidious to a fault, and in his thirty-three years Mark Delacourt had never detected so much as a dust mote on a polished armoire at Coltrane House. Black lumps in full public view were unthinkable.
The Earl, hearing Perkins clamber down, tugged his curly-brimmed beaver lower on his forehead. As he picked up his whitethorn cane the door swung back, carried by a gust of wind, and an enormous black umbrella appeared directly in front of him. “Higher, please,” he said, tapping the umbrella with his cane.
Perkins was not a tall man, and from his position on the sidewalk he could do no better. The Earl scrunched his long body double and maneuvered with unaccustomed gracelessness out of the coach.
“Watch your feet, Milord,” advised Perkins just as Mark’s polished Hessians submerged in the water-logged gutter.
“Thank you, Perkins.” The capes on the Earl’s greatcoat flapped in the wind, muffling his always quiet voice. “I’ll take the umbrella now.”
“Oh, no, Milord. ‘T’wouldn’t be proper.”
His servants had a knife-edged sense of what was due his consequence, however impractical, and some battles were not worth fighting in the rain. Mark turned up the stairs, with Perkins trailing behind and umbrella spines jabbing at his forehead. Blinded by a curve of black silk, he got scarcely a glimpse of the three black lumps as he swept by them to the door. It opened in front of him.
“I shall require the carriage at nine o’clock this evening, Perkins,” said the Earl, passing his hat and cane to the waiting butler.
“Ay, Milord,” the coachman acknowledged with a bow. He was still bent over when a sudden hard blow at his shoulder sent him flying. He skidded on his buttocks down the wet marble stairs to the sidewalk, while the umbrella took off in a blast of wind. Scrambling to his knees, Perkins saw a black shape launch itself inside the house. It might have been a small bear on the attack. The door slammed shut and he heard a loud screech.
Mark was unfastening his greatcoat when a furious commotion erupted behind him.
“Oh no you don’t!”
“Take your hands off me!”
“Yeouch!”
“Get out of my way, you great booby!”
Pivoting on his heel, the Earl spied his butler grappling with a mass of wet fabric. Jaspers shuffled like a pugilist, dancing a frantic fandango with something resembling a sackful of angry cats. A head emerged from the sack, nearly invisible beneath a water-soaked hat, and Mark guessed it was a young boy. He watched with some amusement as the boy planted several hard kicks on Jaspers’s shins.
“Get out!” screamed the butler. “Stop kicking me, you little beast. Get out!”
“Let go of me, jackass. I said let go!”
“Eeahh!” He let go.
“That will be enough.” The Earl spoke so softly it was amazing the two combatants even heard him, but they untangled themselves and stood panting, eyeing each other belligerently.
Jaspers was nursing a spot on the pad of his hand, just above his thumb. “She bit me,” he whined.
“She?” Mark examined the black-cloaked creature with more interest. No way to tell under all that wet wool. A limp hat concealed hair and forehead, but two dark eyes blazed at him over a stubborn, triangular chin. When her mouth, a very wide one, opened, he wagged a gloved finger. “I’ll get to you later,” he said meaningfully, and the mouth snapped shut. “Jaspers, there is what I take to be luggage on the doorstep. I presume it belongs to this person. How long has it been there and why was it not removed?”
“It wouldn’t go, Milord.”
The Earl sighed. “Can you not manage to dispose of a small girl and two cases?”
“Not without a direct order, Milord.” The butler’s long, skinny legs drew up, rigid as fenceposts, until he stood just a shade higher than the tall man he served. Jaspers relished that half inch and never failed to exploit it. “Unusual situations always require a decision from the Master. That was my instruction from the Old Earl when I came here eight-and-thirty years ago, but of course the Old Earl was generally available when a decision was r
equired. It was not his habit to absent himself for the entire night.”
Mark saw from the comer of his eye that the girl’s mouth opened again, but not to speak. She was clearly aghast, whether at the butler’s insolence or at his own nocturnal roamings he couldn’t tell. “Apparently, Jaspers, my father dared not rely on you to make an intelligent decision for yourself, even in trivial matters such as this. In future, I shall expect more of you. For now, you may remove my coat.”
The Earl felt as if he’d drawn a line across the black-and-white checked foyer with a saber. These days, nearly all the excitement in his life was occasioned by such petty squabbles with his staff. His father’s staff, he reminded himself as Jaspers deliberately moved first to retrieve the cane and beaver hat from the floor. Mark undid the last few buttons and held out his arms expectantly. To acknowledge the butler’s slanted defiance would be to concede him a tiny victory.
“I fear, Milord,” said Jaspers as he lifted the greatcoat from the Earl’s broad shoulders, “that your valet will find bloodstains on this cloak from my wound.”
Mark would have sworn Jaspers didn’t have a drop of blood in him. “Foxworth will doubtless commend your gallantry in the line of duty,” he said acidly.
“What shall I do about her, Your Lordship?” The Earl ran his gaze up and down the small shape, now quivering with barely leashed fury, streaming water like a fountain over the polished marble floor. “Ah, yes. Something must certainly be done about her. Have you ascertained the purpose of her encroachment?”
“Ascertained the purpose of her encroachment?” The girl stared at him in wonder. “Sheep dip!” When Mark lifted an eyebrow, she lowered her gaze. The chit’s accent was surprisingly cultured, although everything else about her was straight from the streets. Streets to which she would be returned, rain notwithstanding, as soon as he determined if the butler merited the pleasure of evicting her himself. With help, of course.
The Earl groaned, wondering why he ever bothered to come back to this ice cave. The minute he walked in the door, he invariably felt cold to the bone. “You first, Jaspers. Explain yourself. What has been going on here?”
“As to that, Your Lordship, I can tell you only that this creature appeared at the front door at four minutes to seven and demanded to speak with you. I did not, you understand, take the message myself, as my duties commence at precisely eight o’clock. The footman instructed her to apply at the tradesmen’s entrance and she instructed him to go to perdition. He interrupted my breakfast to inquire where that might be.”
“You don’t mean to say that pile of trash has been arrayed on my doorstep since seven this morning?”
“Just so, Milord. Of course, at eight o’clock I made it my first duty to deal with the situation, but the trash refused to take herself off. In your absence I could only guess that you would not wish a public scene, so I left well enough alone.”
“A squatter at my door all morning is not a public scene? Jaspers, you never cease to amaze me.”
“It was what she said, Milord. What she threatened to scream out in Berkeley Square for all to hear if anyone put a hand on her.”
“Ah, blackmail.” Mark’s eyes narrowed. “Exactly what story did our neighbors miss hearing, thanks to your discretion?”
Jaspers drew his tall, angular body to new heights. “The wench declared, Milord, that she finds herself in a desperate situation and that you are responsible.” Thin, greyish lips widened to a smirk.
The Earl had long suspected that Jaspers, approaching his sixties, approached them as a virgin. Mark sliced a glance at the bedraggled, fire-eyed wisp of a girl he was supposed to have got with child and wondered that anyone, even a dried-up old stick like Jaspers, could imagine him with such execrable taste. The tall, leggy blonde he’d left only an hour ago was the best money could buy. “In that case,” he said smoothly, “I must speak with her. But not, I think, immediately. Clean her up, Jaspers. She’s dripping all over the floor. And present her to me in one half hour. The library will do.”
“Now!” She stomped a mutinous foot, producing an unsatisfying squish. “I want to see you now.”
Mark glanced up in surprise. Foolish child. Did she fail to apprehend that she’d just won? “I beg your pardon?” he inquired coolly.
“And well you might! Didn’t you hear that old goat? I’ve been waiting five hours for you. Five hours!”
“Then a few more minutes will be no hardship, firebrand. Take yourself off with Jaspers and behave, because if you do not, I shall personally toss you out that door. And if you hunker down to wait me out, you will remain only so long as it takes to summon the Watch. No arguments, little girl. Another word from you will send you back to the streets.”
Without looking at her again, Mark strode up the sweeping staircase. If eyes could fire needles, he thought with an interior smile, his back would be a pincushion. And if ever two baseborn reprobates deserved each other, they were his butler and that tiny extortionist. Could she really be swollen with child under her shabby, voluminous cloak? Too young, really, but on the streets they started young. If she was properly humble during their interview, perhaps he would see her cared for. She had, after all, done to Jaspers what he’d longed to do since he was five years old.
Jillian had remained silent through most of the proceedings, with unnatural self-discipline. After twenty hours crammed into a stuffy mailcoach, where she was sneezed on by two ill-mannered children, and more hours making her way in a run-down hack. Not easy to come by for a diminutive female with few coins in her purse, but she’d reached her goal, only to be confronted by a stiff-rumped donkey with an intellect to match his breeding. And the Earl was measurably worse. An iceberg on two legs, dictating her fate as if she were a mildly interesting insect that had scuttled into his home to get out of the rain.
She could not believe how effortlessly he’d controlled her. He never raised his voice. Scarcely moved a muscle. Tall, yes, but compared to her, most men were. And for all that she could chew the even taller Jaspers into little pieces and spit him out, Jillian was certain the Earl could as easily dispose of her. It was his confidence, she decided, studying the broad back and long legs as he disappeared up the arced staircase. One ought never to underestimate self-assurance. It was her own stock-in-trade, and she respected it when she saw it.
The butler strode down the hall, leaving it to her to follow, and with a shudder, she obeyed. What energy she had left must be hoarded for that glacier of an earl, not squandered on a witless toothpick. He led her to a narrow staircase and through swinging doors into a large kitchen, fragrant with baking bread. Jillian paused at the door, cold and wet and suddenly ravenous. The apple she’d saved for breakfast seemed eons ago.
A short, fat woman, all rolls and bulges under her high-necked grey dress and white apron, regarded the intruder with hostile eyes from a wooden chair. The housekeeper, judging by a large key-ring where her waist should have been, although she didn’t look capable of mounting a staircase to the second floor without two men pushing from behind.
“What’s this refuse doing in my kitchen?” the woman wheezed. Greasy fingers, plump as sausages, pinched a currant-studded scone from the platter on the table and waved it in the air. A tiny maid scurried over with a saucer of fresh butter, and Jillian watched enviously as the housekeeper slathered the scone and chomped off an enormous bite. Crumbs settled on her chin like snowflakes. “Take her out of here,” she mumbled between chews. “The chit is dripping over everything.”
“His Lordship wishes to speak with her, God knows why,” Jaspers said with a scowl. “She is to be dried and presentable in”—he drew out his watch and studied it—“twenty-six minutes.”
“Do it somewhere else, then,” the housekeeper grumbled. “Take her to the mews, Ribley.”
An acne-pocked footman jumped from his slouched position at the trestle table. “Yez, Miz
Jaspers.”
Jillian chuckled under her breath. That skeletal butler was married to the suet pudding? What a pair.
“His Lordship was very precise about the time,” Jaspers objected, sliding his watch into a waistcoat pocket. “I shall leave this business in your hands, Arabella, and retrieve her in twenty-four minutes. Ribley, you will find luggage outside the front door. Bring it in, and then mop the hallway. Polly, remove your finger from your mouth and be of some use. Conduct this creature into the pantry, dry her off, and select something from her cases appropriate for an interview with His Lordship.” In a huff he was gone, followed quickly by the nervous boy.
“My, my,” said Jillian. “What a lovely welcome.” She turned to the maid, who stood gawking at her. “Where, pray tell, is the pantry?”
“Well, see to it, girlie,” snapped the housekeeper. A currant flew out of her mouth and bounced across the table.
The pantry was cramped and dark. Jillian stripped down to her wet chemise and accepted, with genuine gratitude, a handful of kitchen towels to dry herself. The maid’s shy smile was the first indication of human life she’d encountered in this mausoleum.
“I’ll get you sumfin’ to wear, M’lady,” the girl offered, bobbing a curtsey. She was gone a long time, and Jillian stood nearly naked in the pantry, examining shadowy jars and packets on the shelves, looking for something edible. She was considering a sack of rice when the maid returned, holding out a scruffy dress of indeterminate color which Jillian didn’t recognize as one of her own.
“Sorry, M’lady, but your cases are soaked through and nothin’s fit to put on. This is me Sunday dress. It’s old and not much to look at, but it’s dry.”
“Why, Polly . . . is that your name?”
The girl, too thin, with straggly brown hair and a face full of freckles looked absurdly young. “Yes, M’lady, if it pleases you.”
Jillian knew how easily small females could get trampled on, and her heart went out. “Polly is a lovely name. Lots of character. I’m very grateful for the loan of your dress, but you must not call me that. Lady, I mean.”