“Loosen your grip on the reins, man, before she bites one of us.” Fitzhugh pulled his mount up short and barely missed the snap of Sebastian’s beautiful white mare’s teeth. Fitzhugh’s bay, Titan, old warhorse that he was, snorted and shook his head.
“Lovey does not bite.” Sebastian loosened his grip on the horse in question and scratched between her ears. He managed to miss her attempt to snatch the toe off his new Hessians by at least an inch.
“Tell that to the arse of my new buckskins.” Fitzhugh dismounted and began to lead Titan down the shadowed drive. “My valet burst into tears when he saw what she did to them.”
Sebastian leapt off the sidestepping mare and, rather than join his friend on the perfectly laid cobblestones leading to the Earl of Creighton’s country home, he led his horse onto the endless front lawn. “Is that why you sent him ahead in the comfort of your second best carriage and had us ride into the wilds of Kent on horseback? Lovey, not my jacket.” He dodged a wicked lunge by the horse and stumbled into Fitzhugh, who had joined him in the grass.
“Try not to cripple me before we’ve had a bath and some dinner. Creighton Hall is hardly a hunting box and the only wild thing in Kent is your harpy of a horse. Speaking of harpies.”
“Were we?” Sebastian lengthened his stride in an attempt to escape the resumption of a conversation his friend had beaten to death all the way from Derbyshire.
Fitzhugh scrambled to catch up, dragging a reluctant Titan behind him. “Is there a reason we are crossing the lawn like a couple of under gardeners? Damn. There are Aubusson carpets not as plush as this grass.”
“Precisely. The lawn is kinder to my boots and there is sunlight out here.” He stopped for a moment and raised his face to catch the heat. Time spent in company with bone-piercing cold gave the sun nearly the same allure as a woman’s arms. Nearly. “That way is like a cemetery. Has Creighton never heard of English oak or beech trees, something that lets in the light?”
“To be fair, those trees look to be several hundred years old. Some Norman relation of his probably planted them.” Fitzhugh glanced back at the offending yews and then at Sebastian, serious for the blink of an eye. Then he grinned.
Sebastian had few friends. Fortunately, he counted Fitzhugh as one. “About time they came down then. The timber would fetch a pretty price.” He turned and tugged the tail of his coat from Lovey’s questing lips. Hell. She’d slobbered all over it. Where the devil was his handkerchief? He fished it out of his pocket.
“I’ve never understood your aversion to yew…” Fitzhugh stopped and looked him up and down, eyes narrowed as if assessing the conformation of a horse at Tattersall’s. “You’ve bought new clothes.”
“I’ve what? Dammit, Lovey, stop that.” He tugged his hat away from her and slapped it against his thigh before jamming it back on his head. “What the devil! Fitzhugh, have you lost your wits?” His oldest friend had commenced an inspection of Sebastian’s clothes that would have done an army of nursery maids proud. “I’d rather not be ransacked by you and my horse at the same time.”
“New jacket, new hat, new hessians, new waistcoat. I’ll venture you’re even sporting new drawers.”
“If you try to find out I will draw your cork.” Sebastian turned back towards the house. The trouble with old friends is one spent entirely too much time in their company to hide anything from them. “What are you on about anyway? You buy new clothes more often than Prinny changes mistresses.”
“And you hold on to yours like a blue-stocking virgin at a Cyprian’s ball.” Fitzhugh tugged Titan away from the neatly trimmed grass and matched his steps to Sebastian’s. “I would wager my new carriage, my cattle, and next quarter’s allowance you haven’t bought new clothes in twelve years.”
“I bought new clothes when we joined the cavalry.”
“Only because they wouldn’t let you fight the Corsican in that ugly brown hunting jacket.”
“It wasn’t brown, it was beige.”
“It started out beige. It ended up looking like you stored it in a dung heap.”
“Are we quite finished discussing my wardrobe?”
“Absolutely. Speaking of harpies.”
Blast. Should have let him go on about the clothes.
Fitzhugh slowed his steps and stopped as the palatial country home of their old school friend came into view. “Are you certain this is necessary, Brightworth?”
“This?” It wouldn’t do for Sebastian to show any doubt. Doubt was an expense. He avoided expense like the plague.
“It’s a foolish wager at best and a disaster in the making at worst. The last two of our friends who took Creighton up on his offer ended up leg-shackled.” He shuddered and dragged his hand across his mouth.
“There are fates worse than marriage, Fitzhugh.”
“Name one.”
Sebastian laughed. “Point taken. I am perfectly capable of seducing a woman without stepping into the parson’s noose. I’ve been doing it since I was seventeen.”
“Seems a dashed foolish way to make one’s fortune, if you ask me. Lovey, that is my hat.” He snatched the crumpled beaver from the mare, looked at it, and sighed.
“I am not making my fortune. Merely adding to it.” As he’d been doing for the last twelve years. Fitzhugh, a beloved only son, had a loving father in possession of a title and a doting mother. His parents also owned a large fortune and generous natures. There were things he did not know and would never know. Sebastian was glad of it for his friend’s sake. It did not change a thing.
“Your fortune has surpassed your brother’s threefold. When will it be enough?” Fitzhugh was far more entertaining when he played the fool.
They had not yet reached the series of imposing steps leading to the front portico when a pair of grooms trotted out to meet them. The unfortunate servants made it nearly out of sight with the horses before Sebastian and Fitzhugh heard a cry of pain followed by some splendid curses in English, Gaelic, and Welsh.
Sebastian grinned and slapped his friend on the back as they started towards the front of the house.
“Brightworth, I don’t know what has driven you to take on Creighton’s lunatic wager, but—”
“Are we going to be so crass as to discuss money for the entire duration of Creighton’s wedding festivities?” The problem with having a friend who was the voice of reason was one had no control over shutting him up, especially when what he said began to sound like sense.
“If you win your thousand pounds there will be no wedding festivities,” Fitzhugh grumbled. He gazed up toward the house. “All these damned steps. My arse hurts and Creighton has us make an alpine climb to arrive at his front door.”
“If you recall, not taking the carriage was your idea.”
“I had hoped over the length of the journey I might persuade you to abandon this ridiculous notion.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Liar. Next time remind me to settle for comfort rather than the chance to match wits with the witless. Good God, why is it I never remember what a trial it is to enter Creighton Hall?”
“Because we usually arrive in a carriage and we have not visited here since shortly after Waterloo.” Sebastian bumped his friend with his shoulder. “We have grown soft since we sold out. Some of us more than others.”
“Wiseacre.”
“Dandy prat.”
They stood side by side, hands on hips and took the measure of the climb ahead of them. As if the imposing façade of Creighton Hall, situated on top of a man-made rise overlooking front gardens that seemed to go on forever, was not enough. A scheme of three progressively higher terraces spanned the front of the house. Each level was gained by one of the curved stone staircases on either end. The third terrace was crowned by a single voluptuous set of steps followed by an ornate front portico guarded by rampant lions on either side of the double oak doors. The word ostentatious did not begin to do the entrance to the ancestral home of the Earl of Creighton justice.
>
Fitzhugh groaned.
Sebastian sighed and took his friend’s arm, dragging him to the near staircase. Once they reached the first terrace, Fitzhugh draped himself over the golden stone balustrade overlooking an extensive flower garden.
“Go on without me. Have Creighton send footmen with a bath chair.”
“You know what he will say.” Sebastian propped his foot on the base of the balustrade and closed his eyes to the beds of color draped over the front lawn like a lady’s shawl. A soft summer wind rifled his hair with a touch made heavy by floral inducements.
“Something rude, no doubt.”
“Hmmm.” Hyacinths, there must be hundreds of them to send such a heavenly perfumed breeze over the terrace. Lured closer, Sebastian refused to look, but he did place his hands on the cool stone barrier and leaned out to discern what other blooms made up the carpet of blues, purples, and white he’d glimpsed before he’d forced his eyes closed. Closed against the faint memory that ached like a bone never quite healed.
Lavender.
Lilacs.
Sweet William.
And wisteria. Wisteria evoked a far more visceral memory. One he visited from time to time when he could no longer stay away. On either side of the terrace, tall branches of Chinese wisteria added their exotic scent to the mix. How could he have forgotten? He had not, and therein lay the problem. From now on he’d limit his visits to grouse season and Christmas. Memory tended to either seep in like a London fog or club one over the head with a cudgel. A flowery cudgel at that.
“Hyacinths were your mother’s favorite.” Fitzhugh stood next to him, hands in his pockets.
Sebastian opened his eyes. The color and symmetry of the flower garden nearly blinded him. Fitzhugh mimicked his pose and leaned out to take in the Dowager Countess of Creighton’s contribution to the grandeur that was her home.
“Creighton’s mother’s as well, it seems.” His throat was dry from their long ride. No other reason for his voice to crack.
“Is this Capability Brown’s work?” Fitzhugh, God bless him, knew when to change the subject. And he knew Sebastian had a fondness for garden design.
“No, this is Repton. Too many flowers for Brown.” Sebastian pointed past the front lawn to a grove of horse chestnut trees next to a large lake with a Grecian temple on the other side. “That is Capability Brown. Remember the ha ha?” He turned and looked back at the next staircase.
“Ah, yes. The one you stumbled into and couldn’t get out.”
“Stumbled, my Aunt Fanny. You and Creighton pushed me in and left me there.”
“Calumny and slander. You don’t have an Aunt Fanny.”
“You do. I borrowed her.”
“You may as well. You borrow my grandmother often enough.”
“You grandmother loves me.”
“All women love you. At least you’d better hope they do or this is a wasted trip. Must we?” He indicated the stairs.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friend.” He gripped Fitzhugh behind the shoulders and pushed him toward the stairs.
“Bugger, Shakespeare.” Fitzhugh limped up each stone step, emitting a heartfelt groan as he did. His feet scuffed in time with his complaints.
“It is a sin to threaten England’s greatest playwright with untoward advances.”
“He’s dead. His arse doesn’t ache from being in the saddle the last fortnight.”
“I thought we weren’t going to talk about your fundament for the remainder of this visit.”
“Yes, I know. And we aren’t to speak of your new drawers either. The longer I know you, the less amusing you become. And you weren’t a great deal of fun to begin with.”
“My drawers are not amusing and not to be discussed, new or otherwise.” Sebastian turned to find his friend standing with a hand pressed to his side. “What are you doing? We are almost there.”
“I would hope you have purchased new drawers for such a venture. A lady is unlikely to take interest in what is in your drawers if she is thinking about how useful they might prove polishing the tables in her parlor.”
“If I am fortunate ladies have me out of my drawers too quickly to notice.”
“Lightskirt.”
“Prude.”
“Clothes cost money.”
“Which you have in abundance.”
“Because I don’t spend it like a young tulip his first week in Town. Abundance can turn to want when one least expects it.”
“I know… Your mother—”
“Is on the list of topics we shall not discuss these next two weeks. My mother, my drawers, the condition of your arse and Creighton’s odd starts.” Damn. He’d raised his voice to the level of not-quite-shouting-but-give-me-a-moment. “One does not climb stairs with one’s arse.”
“I may not be climbing the stairs with my arse, but I am conversing with one. What the devil ails you, Brightworth?”
“Nothing.” Time for him to change the subject. “Who is the latest betrothed but-never-to-become Lady Creighton?”
Fitzhugh coughed. When he looked up from his feet he was grinning his idiot grin once more. “Oh, we can discuss the bride you are about to seduce for a thousand-pound purse but not my aching arse?”
“Only her name. It is ill-mannered to discuss the fee.”
“Only Creighton would pay a woman not to tup him.”
“Bad manners to discuss her tupping or not tupping him too.”
“And it is good manners to seduce her into jilting her fiancé?”
“Her name?”
“Devil if I know. I’ve been traipsing about England with you these last six months. Athena, I think.”
“Athena?” What did an Athena look like? Surely Creighton would not be so cruel.
“Or Hera or Aphrodite or Hecate, one of those goddess names. Are these bloody steps ever going to end?”
“We could have taken my carriage.” Sebastian shoved him up the last few steps. Before they even reached them, Creighton’s butler, Peel, had the doors open and footmen approaching to take their hats and gloves.
“Colonel Brightworth. Lord Fitzhugh. Lord Creighton will be pleased to see you.”
“You look well, Peel.”
“Good to see you, Peel. Hell and the devil, more stairs.” Fitzhugh threw his hand in the direction of the elegant marble staircase leading from the entrance hall to the first floor. He turned and glared at Sebastian as if he had invented stairs specifically to torture him. “If we had taken your carriage you would have demanded we travel straight through, sleeping in that uncomfortable conveyance, and only stopping to change the horses and use the necessary because you are too stingy to pay for a room. I’d rather walk.”
“Yelper.” Sebastian glanced at the butler and winked.
“Nip cheese.”
“Wastrel.”
Peel looked heavenward and sighed. He’d known them since they were schoolboys.
“Pinch penny.
“Spendthrift.”
“At the name calling stage and you have only just arrived. This does not bode well.” Dionysus Harold Forsythe, Earl of Creighton, marched into the entrance hall and grabbed Fitzhugh’s outstretched hand only to pull him into a bear hug. “Good to see you, Fitzhugh.”
“The bridegroom cometh,” Fitzhugh replied as he slapped their old friend on the back.
Creighton treated Sebastian to the same greeting. “Not if you want your thousand pounds, he doesn’t,” the man muttered so only the three of them might hear.
“Perhaps we can discuss this after I’ve had a bath and some dinner.”
“Fitzhugh has been complaining since we left Derbyshire.” Sebastian studied Creighton. For a man who had been jilted twice and was looking to be abandoned a third time his demeanor was nothing short of jovial. Not a word used to describe their old school friend, not even in when they’d terrorized their schoolmasters to the point of being sent down. He’d either succumbed to his mother’s machinations or he’d gone just a bit mad.
Neither boded well for Sebastian. The Earl of Creighton was a menace whilst perfectly sane.
“Creighton, dear, have you seen your sister?” a deceptively genteel voice called from just beyond the first floor landing.
As one, the three of them looked at Peel in abject terror and promptly made a mad dash for the corridor to the right of the staircase. Sebastian swore he heard a very un-butler like chuckle and “Cowards.” follow them as they escaped into the stately maze of public rooms on the ground floor.
“The lair.” Creighton mouthed back at them. “This requires a drink.”
“God, yes.” Fitzhugh exclaimed and then clapped his hand over his mouth.
Sebastian quite agreed. This entire side of the corridor consisted of a spacious billiards room (which the dowager despised) which opened into the monstrous library Creighton had made his study and private domain. Most of the estate’s vast collection was housed here. The walls were lined with towering oak shelves stained dark to match the wall paneling. There was a smaller library on the first floor for the ladies. They might enter the main library to borrow a book or to return one, but women were not allowed in the cavernous, hallowed halls of Lord Creighton’s personal lair. Even the maids entered but once a day under Peel’s direct supervision.
Sebastian’s townhouse in London was a Spartan domicile at best. However, he might well consider bearing the expense of a library as magnificent as this one. His own butler, McWhorter, would no doubt die of the shock.
“Don’t just stand in the doorway gawping, Brightworth. Mama will see you.” Creighton waved him in and then crossed the thick Persian carpet to one of the two sideboards on either side of the library doors. He busied himself sorting through the various decanters of liquor there. A footman slipped inside the doors as quiet as death, a bottle of French brandy in one hand and a plate of sandwiches in the other.
“Robbie, you are a king among footmen, my good man.” Fitzhugh captured a sandwich from the plate and set to devouring it.
Her Perfect Gentleman: A Regency Romance Anthology Page 62