The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London

by Charis Michaels

  “This must mean lackey.”

  “Yes. That is what it means. I became his right-hand man. His primary counselor, advisor, and—in my case—begrudging confidant.”

  “A promotion.”

  Trevor shook his head. “You would see it that way. In a word, no. It was not a promotion. It was . . . ” He paused. “It was a way of life that I will not discuss with you now. Or ever, if there’s any justice in the world.”

  She nodded slowly. She wanted to know more, could barely restrain herself from imploring him, but instead she said, “This is exactly what I worried would happen.”

  “It is unfortunate that I distress you, but if you insist upon engaging me, you should know my true nature and my—to put it very mildly—colorful past. If for nothing more than this, I’m glad that I’ve gone on as I have. Perhaps now, you’ll see.”

  “Oh, it’s not your true nature that gives me distress, my lord.” She sighed and stepped closer to him.

  He took a step back.

  “I am distressed because now I must tell you my story.”

  His eyes narrowed, and she smiled.

  “Did you hear anything I just said?” he asked.

  She didn’t answer, and he turned away. “I cannot worry about anyone else’s story but my own. I cannot care, Piety, do you see? I don’t wish to know. The only thing I wish is to throw you over my shoulder and carry you to my bedroom.” He turned back. “And make love to you until you’re too delirious to bother me ever again, and I can think with a level head!”

  He spun away again. “There,” he said, with a low growl. “I’ve said it. You push too far.”

  “Just to be clear,” she said, rolling the words over in her mind, “the love making is meant to render me delirious but you able to think? Well. That makes no sense.”

  “Get out,” he said, pivoting to grab her by the elbow and drag her to the passage. “Joseph will usher you down when you’ve finished.” He shoved her through the small doorway. “After that, arrange with him when you want to come or go. I will take pains to be out of the bloody house.”

  “I won’t inconvenience you unnecessarily,” Piety said.

  “Far too late for that, Miss Grey! Far too late for that!” And he slammed the door behind her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Jocelyn was alarmed to learn that the most efficient way to clear the upper floors of debris and castoffs was to hurl it, timber and all, over the balcony ledge to the marble floor of the rotunda below. As cleaning strategies went, it was teeth-rattlingly loud but satisfying. Even Marissa, who embraced Piety’s unconventional behavior far more readily than Jocelyn, hesitated before she grabbed up the nearest board and let it fly. Within minutes, all three women were laughing as they hurled first the shutters, then the drapes, over the edge.

  It was physical work—exhausting but also, oddly, exhilarating—and they worked for the rest of the day. When darkness fell, Piety declared it well past time to make their way back downstairs to sleep for the night. She need only call Joseph, she said, so they could be admitted to the earl’s house and descend by way of his stairs.

  The earl. Jocelyn’s head pounded at the very thought of him. And of Piety. Alone. Together. In his deserted music room. While she had been four bedrooms away, airing mattresses. She had discovered their interlude only after it happened, and she was still piecing together exactly where they had, collectively, gone so wrong.

  Not a chaperone one full day and already a failure.

  Jocelyn had come upon her stumbling through the passage from Falcondale’s music room, with cheeks flushed and hair and dress more disheveled than when they’d last seen her, which was saying quite a lot, but making no excuses.

  About her reasons for being next door, Piety had been carefully unspecific. She’d given a vague excuse about an extemporaneous meeting with the earl—something to do with hearing him berate Joseph through her bedroom wall and wishing to defend the boy. As explanations went, it did not sound fabricated, merely incomplete. It was the first topic on which Piety was nearly entirely mute.

  When Jocelyn pressed, Piety had drifted over to the landing, dropped to her hands and knees and busied herself with pulling a stuck rug from the floorboards, one stringy strip at a time. There she had remained, strangely quiet, humming and avoiding everyone’s gaze, for nearly an hour. When they grew hungry, they had convened to share food from the basket. Here, she was her usual chatty, helpful self, but she said nothing about the earl.

  Finally, when they were nearly ready to call Joseph, Piety sent Marissa on an errand in the attic, and Jocelyn managed to approach her alone.

  “So you are sure it will be the boy, Joseph, who will release us this evening and not the earl?” Jocelyn kept her eyes on her broom.

  Piety was rummaging through a hallway cupboard. “ ’Twill be Joseph, I believe,” she said, not pausing.

  “I see.” Jocelyn searched for the next, least-incriminating question. “So the boy has not been punished for admitting us?”

  “No,” Piety answered vaguely. “The earl was not cross, at least not with Joseph.”

  This was not near enough, and they both knew it. Jocelyn added, “But the earl is not too cross with you, I hope?”

  Piety reached deeper into the cupboard and did not answer.

  Jocelyn tried again. “Or, perhaps, Lord Falcondale has had a change of heart? Did he give you permission to use the passage?”

  No answer.

  Jocelyn pressed on. “Piety, has he agreed?”

  Finally, Piety nodded her head. “He has, in fact,” she said, and then she all but disappeared inside the cupboard, rifling and cleaning and . . . hiding.

  Jocelyn hesitated a moment more, drifting closer. “I have wished, since I learned of your exchange, that you had summoned me,” she said to Piety’s back. “I am happy to help with the mattresses or whatever work is at hand, but my first business is your companionship. Please think nothing of finding me in these instances. I am more open than the marchioness to practicality, as you call it, but I will have my limits. I, too, must insist upon basic rights and wron—er, situations that may not be so right.” She craned around, trying to see Piety’s face. “Among them, you cannot meet this man alone; you simply cannot.”

  Piety nodded but said nothing, so Jocelyn waited. And waited.

  Finally, punitively, speaking to a dusty comb she’d pulled from the cupboard, Piety said, “He . . . He is a complicated man—the earl. I am struggling with my temptation to leave him and his house entirely alone. To forget the option of using his stairway and the passage, even though he’s now said he’ll allow it. It’s merely that I am not complicated, but my dilemma is.” She nodded to herself and reversed from the cupboard, ambling across the landing to the master suite.

  Jocelyn followed behind, weighing her words carefully. “Your situation is complicated. Perhaps if the earl learns of your circumstances, in the proper setting, of course, with the proper companionship, with your solicitors present, perhaps then there is a chance that he could be swayed. This would be allowed. It would be odd, but if properly overseen, it would be allowed.”

  Piety nodded grimly and looked at the floor.

  “Right,” said Jocelyn. “Well, then, what did you discuss when you were alone with him?” It was as direct a question as she had yet posed. Piety answered with a silent shrug, her eyes still downward.

  Frustrated, Jocelyn tried another approach. “You appeared flustered. I hope there were no unpleasantries.”

  “Not unpleasant to me,” Piety finally said. “We spoke of the passage. You know. Chatter. He is angry with me. I am trying to be reasonable.” She crossed to the focal point of the room, an alcove seat, ringed with tall, boarded windows. Deftly climbing, she stood on the window seat and began testing the boards for give.

  Without looking over her shoulder, Piety said, “His eyes convey a deep, sort of loneliness, don’t you think?”

  Jocelyn blinked and stepped closer. “I beg yo
ur pardon?”

  “The earl,” Piety explained, “Falcondale. He has lonely eyes.”

  “Oh, no.” Jocelyn sighed and drifted to the window seat, collapsing on the lumpy cushion.

  “What?” Piety took a deep breath and pulled harder on the shutter. “I only mention it because it’s something I observed, and it is at odds with the way he behaves. Perhaps you’ve noticed it, too.”

  “No, Piety, I have not. I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed about his eyes—”

  “Because,” Piety continued, wresting the first board free and sailing it behind her with a whoosh, “he makes such an effort to not welcome people, but his eyes betray him. They are so lonely. What he needs is more people in his life, not fewer.”

  “What I’ve noticed about his eyes,” Jocelyn said, “is that he stares at you like a wolf stares at sheep.”

  “Does he truly?”

  “Piety!” She moaned, easing back against the shutter behind her. “This is a dangerous thing, not a desirable one. What am I to do? You’re making me think that it’s necessary to be with you every second.”

  “Don’t be silly. I am a sensible girl, Jocelyn, truly. I merely find myself in a . . . in a senseless situation. Tiny and my father raised me properly. It’s merely—” She pulled a second board from the next window. “I asked about his eyes, because I wondered if I was the only one who noticed. It’s not like me. And, I’ve only just met him. And when he does not cooperate, he undermines my repairs.”

  “Piety, you’ve only just met me and look how much you have revealed. Your familiarity is part of your charm, but I worry about unleashing this charm on the so-called lonely-eyed bachelor next door. At least until we have working locks on all the doors and a proper place to dress and wash.”

  “Yes! Hear, hear!” she agreed. “My thoughts exactly. Locks, and furniture, and drapes, and stairs most of all. Oh, my kingdom for a staircase!”

  Jocelyn nodded, trying to share Piety’s optimism and carefree spirit, but too much had been left unsaid.

  “Piety?” She kneeled beside her on the floor to help collect the cast-off shutters. “As happy as I am that you agreed to include me in this exciting business with your house, I was hired as your chaperone. And, you should know that I am neither trained in, nor, I think, predisposed toward, this sort of work. I know practically nothing about chaperoning.”

  They stood, each holding a pile of debris. Piety tried to interject, but Jocelyn shook her head and continued as they carried the rubble from the room. “I have had no exposure to the social whirl of high society and even less experience with young women of your age and station. Although I am grateful and, it should be said, willing to try, I would be remiss if I did not reveal to you how terribly afraid I am that I will be a disappointment at best and a failure at worst—both to you and the marchioness.”

  They reached the landing and heaved the dusty boards over the banister. When the ensuing crash died away, she continued speaking. “I have only the very vaguest notion of how to protect your reputation and absolutely no idea at all how to engender any sort of successful match with a suitable husband.”

  “Engender a successful match?” Piety laughed, clapping the dust from her hands.

  “But, of course,” Jocelyn said. “This is the primary task of a chaperone. To assess the current season’s stable of eligible bachelors and to guide and gild her charge into capturing the affections of the most suitable one.”

  Piety cocked her head. “Did you say, guide and gild?”

  “Perhaps a better phrase would have been to guide and goad?”

  Piety let out a burst of laughter. “Believe me, Jocelyn Breedlowe, the last thing I require is to be guided, goaded, or gilded.” She turned her back to the bannister and leaned, crossing her arms over her chest. “No, the very last thing I need in life is a bachelor, eligible or otherwise. So, if you’re worried about dressing me up and launching me at some knight gallant, then stop. I have come to England to escape marriage, not to launch myself into one.”

  “But I am not even sure I can keep you properly situated in this neighborhood or in London society,” said Jocelyn. “I’ve scarcely been in your service for six hours, and already I’ve allowed you to slip away and meet in private with a bachelor neighbor. I know you are accustomed to a very independent way of life, but in England, this sort of fraternization is strictly forbidden. The marchioness has assigned me here for a reason, perhaps an entirely selfish reason, but here I am. You must allow me to endeavor, at the very least, to do you a small amount of good.”

  “Of course, Jocelyn. I shall try, really, I shall. As to the other work, I hope you’ll tell me if you do not wish to take part in the heavy lifting and deep cleaning of this house. I have a way of asking far too much of people, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

  “It’s not that, Piety,” said Jocelyn. “Truly, it is not. I am invigorated by the idea of this old house, and I pride myself on helpfulness, regardless of my position. Let us, at least endeavor to work together. To make a go of the sort of relationship that may suit the both of us. That is all I ask.”

  “Absolutely,” Piety said, returning to the window-seat alcove, which glowed dimly with the setting sun. Grinning and holding out her arms, she spun in a slow circle in the soft light. “Just look at this room at sunset! Will it not be simply perfect? Oh, I cannot wait to begin work!”

  Indeed, thought Jocelyn. Work. Weeks and weeks of work. She looked around. The room was, quite literally, coated with dust, swimming in moths, and pocked with eroding plaster. The windows were yellowed with neglect—two of them cracked—and the window-seat cushions coughed what looked like ash on contact. Could its current condition really be promise enough for a young woman of Miss Grey’s station? Any lady of quality or means ever known to Jocelyn would have covered her face with a handkerchief and fled at the first sign of dank disorder.

  But then again, perhaps Piety Grey was not the lady of quality and means that she portrayed herself to be; perhaps Lady Frinfrock’s suspicions had been correct. It seemed nearly mutinous to consider it, but what did they really know about her? She was confident. Well spoken. She dressed exquisitely, and her manners were, if not always employed, then available to her when she felt a situation warranted them. She claimed to have bought the house, to have plans to employ workers and a staff, yet she thought nothing of pulling lumber off of windows with her own hands.

  Considering this, Jocelyn watched Piety float around the room, smiling eagerly, poking her head in every nook, and running her hand along the dusty shelves. She seemed genuinely undisturbed by the chaotic state.

  Curiosity got the better of Jocelyn. “Piety? Is this room as grand as your accommodation in New York City? In the house you deeded to your mother?”

  “Well, it is certainly dirtier.” She looked around. “And home to more vermin. And leaks.”

  “But this room pleases you? It is up to your previous standards?”

  “Oh yes, very much. My previous standards amounted to a pin box at the top of five flights of stairs. It was lovely, but hardly spacious. Or convenient. My mother insisted that I remain in the nursery for years and years—far longer than is custom. Finally, when I was oh, about eleven or twelve, my father put his foot down and insisted I have my own suite of rooms elsewhere in the house. My mother responded with this ridiculous theory that I might appear overindulged—spoiled—if I had a lavish room on the family floor. So when I left the nursery, she installed me into a tiny guest room near the attic.”

  “Oh.”

  “That was where I grew up. And where I grew to understand that nothing I could do would please my mother. Not by living in the room she wished, not by living anywhere at all.”

  Jocelyn looked away, allowing her a private moment with such a sad memory. She thought of her own mama, sweet and generous to the end, begging Jocelyn to leave her sickbed, to find a husband while she was still young, rather than stay in Derbyshire to serve as nursemaid. Even as she lay dyi
ng, her mother’s only thought had been of Jocelyn’s future.

  Across the room, Piety had begun to pull the faded cushions from the window seat and beat them with the broom. Clouds of dust rose from each strike, and Jocelyn moved to pry open a window.

  “My heart aches for you, Piety,” Jocelyn said. “That your mother is so, well, that your mother is as you say. Nothing can be done to salvage your relationship?”

  “For that, dear Jocelyn, I have given up trying. Our rapport deteriorated rapidly after my father died, and I had to free myself from, well, from her. My first step was to move as far away as possible. My second step was to spend my money as quickly as possible. An investment in property, I’m told, will be more difficult for her to eventually wrestle away. Especially a property as difficult to re-sell as this one. I bought a house no one wanted. No one that is, but me.”

  She looked around again, holding her broom like a sword. “This house,” she said, “and an ocean between us. It should be a very good start, don’t you think? And now I shall have whichever bedroom I wish.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  After an uncomfortable night spent on dusty, threadbare couches in a chilly parlor, Piety convened Jocelyn and Marissa in the drawing room to sort out their plan for the day. Coldness permeated the very brick and wood of the walls, their bleakest morning in the dilapidated house. It took longer than usual for Piety to stoke up her optimism and brightness, not unlike the smoky, struggling fire in the grate.

  “I will call upon my London solicitor and banker before luncheon, if possible,” Piety assured Jocelyn and Marissa over bitter coffee and yesterday’s cake. “We will need far more money than what I brought from New York, not to mention a significant line of credit at a number of shops. Also, this business with the earl must be addressed by my solicitor. Joseph saw us out last night with no trouble, so perhaps Falcondale has relented about the passage, but I might as well get the terms in writing.” She glanced to Jocelyn, hoping to reassure her.