by Carola Dunn
At last he reached the library. For a moment he thought no one was there, then he saw that Fitz was slumped in one of the big leather chairs by the fire, his head in his hands, an untouched glass of brandy on the small table at his side. Selwyn, the lawyer, was standing at the locked, glass-fronted cabinet where Edmund’s most valuable books were kept, peering at the titles.
“My lord,” he was saying in an abstracted way, “I do believe Lord Wintringham was correct in thinking that a little brandy will steady your nerves.”
Edmund closed the door behind him. They both looked round as the latch clicked. Fitz sprang to his feet.
“Ned, how is she?”
“Lady Fitzgerald charged me to tell you that she will do very well. Indeed, she appeared to be perfectly comfortable, and I have every confidence in Miss Gracechurch.”
“I agree.” Reluctantly Mr. Selwyn left the books. “Though I met Miss Gracechurch only today, I have spoken with her at some length, confined as we were in the coach, and I find her a thoroughly sensible, competent woman. Miss Brooke, also, I believe to be capable, despite her youth and a certain levity of manner.”
A twinkle in the staid lawyer’s eye suggested that he regarded Miss Brooke’s levity with more indulgence than disapprobation. Edmund unwillingly warmed towards him. Fitz, however, refused to be reassured and began to pace with frantic energy.
Edmund wished he could take his friend for a long gallop. Failing that, he insisted on trying for revenge for his earlier defeat and all three gentlemen repaired to the billiard room. Mr. Selwyn, unfamiliar with the game, declared that he wanted Lord Fitzgerald, the victor, to teach him. Being too good-natured to turn him down, Fitz was distracted from his woes.
There Alfred found them. Miss Brooke had sent him to report on progress, “though there ain’t a great deal as yet, my lord,” he said apologetically. “First babies often takes their time, the young lady says, but her ladyship is resting comfortable between the pains, and in good spirits.”
“Pains!” Fitz groaned. Mr. Selwyn hastened to ask his advice on a difficult shot.
Edmund went over to his valet and murmured, “Thank Miss Brooke for the news.”
“A fine young lady, my lord, and kind, too.”
“Admirable. How is it that you are her messenger?”
“I took it on meself to make sure the ladies has all they need, my lord, seeing as how her ladyship’s housekeeper were grumbling fit to bust about taking orders from strangers.”
“Thank you, Alfred. What should I do without you?”
“I’m sure I don’t know, my lord,” said the valet with the familiarity of many years acquaintance.
He reappeared several times as the night wore on into the small hours of the morning. The gentlemen returned to the library to play endless games of cribbage and vingt-et-un. At intervals a sleepy footman came in to build up the fire and replace guttering candles. Then a different footman arrived to draw back the curtains and douse the candles. Outside, the fog was a ghostly, luminescent white.
It was not Alfred but Jane Brooke who entered next. Her honey-coloured hair had escaped its pins to hang in uneven loops framing her tired but exultant face.
“You have a daughter, my lord!”
Jumping up, upsetting the cribbage board, Fitz dismissed this irrelevance. “Daphne—how is Daphne? May I see her?”
“If you come at once, sir. She was very nearly asleep when I left.”
Fitz sped to the door. She tucked her arm through his in the friendliest way and started telling him about his child as they went off together.
Edmund watched, trying to ignore a twinge of jealousy. Miss Jane Brooke disturbed his emotions in a way he was quite unused to and strongly objected to. He put her out of his mind and turned to the lawyer with a grin.
“Dare we go to bed?”
Mr. Selwyn grinned back. “I believe we might venture to do so, my lord.”
* * * *
“May I offer you a drop o’ port, Miss Ella?”
“Thank you, Mr. Alfred, I won’t say no.”
“Been a long night. Cheers.”
“Cheers. It don’t seem so long, though, when there’s a babe at the end.”
“You’re right, it don’t, somehow. We’d’ve been in the suds all right without your lady.”
“My...Miss Gracechurch is always ready to lend a hand.”
“And that Miss Brooke, a fine young lady, and kind with it, like I was saying to his lordship. A spot more for you, Miss Ella?”
“Not for me, ta all the same, I’m off to bed. What did his lordship say to that?”
“Admirable is what he said. And that’s a change of tune, I tell you no lie, for he took agin her from the first.”
“Miss Jane c’d win over the Devil himself. Good night, Mr. Alfred, or good morning, I should say.”
“Sweet dreams, Miss Ella.”
CHAPTER SIX
The library was empty. Jane was beginning to realize how vast Wintringham Abbey was. Since coming downstairs shortly before noon, she had met only the Tuttles and Mr. Parmenter, all in the breakfast room.
She had decided on waking that she was more in need of sustenance than sleep. Now, after satisfying her appetite at the munificent buffet, she wanted to curl up with a book. She looked around the huge library, of which she had caught a glimpse last night, and wondered where to begin. It would take a lifetime to explore the delights gathered on those well-dusted shelves.
Purely by chance, she came across Boswell’s Life of Johnson. Having found his Tour to the Hebrides entertaining, she took down the first volume and retired to one of the cavernous wing-chairs by the fireplace.
A footman came in to poke up the fire, adding coals, and to light a branch of candles on the mantel, for the fog-dimmed daylight made reading difficult. Jane resisted the temptation to chat with him, not wishing to bring down Bradbury’s ire upon him. No one else disturbed her, and after a while she kicked off her slippers, tucked her feet under her, and made herself thoroughly comfortable.
Not unnaturally after her busy night, comfort led to drowsiness. She was unaware of the library door opening, and the sound of a firm tread on the polished floor boards registered only faintly. The scrape of a chair roused her just enough to think that she ought to sit up straight and put on her shoes, but when silence followed, the effort of moving seemed too great. She fell back on a hope that no one would notice her presence.
A voice startled her into full wakefulness.
“Come in, Judith. Pray be seated. I daresay I need not enquire why you asked to see me.”
Lord Wintringham, at his most sarcastic. Jane decided it was too late to beat a retreat.
“I am too agitated to sit down. Edmund, you must help us.” That sulky whine was his sister, Mrs. Parmenter.
“Must I?”
“If you do not, we shall be ruined!”
“I doubt it.”
“Remember that Henry is not a peer. He has no immunity to arrest for debt. Think of the scandal if he is dragged off to the Marshalsea!”
“I cannot think it likely.”
“It is certain, if you will not aid us! Can you bear to see the name of Neville, the name of Wintringham, dragged through the mire?”
“The name dragged through the mire will be Parmenter,” the earl pointed out with cold contempt.
“Everyone knows the connexion. People will say you have no family pride, that you are too mean to assist your closest relatives.”
“Might I suggest that you sell the rubies you were wearing last night, Judith?”
“They are not paid for,” she said resentfully.
“Then if you return them to the jeweller you will be relieved of a considerable part of your obligations. And if you rusticate this spring instead of going up to Town for the Season, no doubt you will manage to come about.”
“Not go to Town! It’s all very well for you, you prefer to moulder in the country, but...”
“My habits are not u
nder discussion, ma’am. You would do well to look to your own, and your husband’s. It is past time you learned to be beforehand with the world. I have no intention of throwing my money at your debts only to allow you to contract new ones.”
“But, Edmund, we are at Point Nonplus!”
“Not a penny. Now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.”
“You odious, cold-hearted brute! You are well named My Lord Winter. I am ashamed to call you brother.” Bursting into tears, Mrs. Parmenter rushed from the room and slammed the door behind her.
Jane knelt on the seat of her chair and peeped over the back. Lord Wintringham was standing behind the desk, his face grim.
“You were not very kind,” she said.
He started. “What the devil are you doing here?”
“Eavesdropping,” Jane admitted candidly. “I beg your pardon, my lord. I did not intend to, but I was reading and I must have fallen asleep. By the time I woke up you were already bullying Mrs. Parmenter and I thought it best not to interrupt.’’
“Bullying!” He came round the desk and strode towards her.
She sat down quickly and reached for her shoes. Her head bowed as she tucked her toes into one of them, she said with slightly nervous resolution, “Yes, bullying. You were unconscionably harsh, my lord. Can you spare your sister nothing when you are so wealthy? Or—oh dear—perhaps you cannot afford to help her. Is all this luxury built on a heap of debts? I beg your pardon, sir, but such things are known.”
“My dear Miss Worldly-Wise, I could afford to pay the Parmenters’ debts twice over and never know the difference.” Looking almost amused, the earl dropped into the chair opposite Jane and stretched out his long, muscular legs in their skin-tight pantaloons. “In fact, I have paid the Parmenters’ debts a dozen times already. I give Judith an allowance, as I do all my purse-pinched brothers and sisters, and I pay for my nephews’ schooling.”
“Oh.” Jane was aware that her response to this revelation was inadequate, but she was trying to put on her second slipper unobtrusively. Without success—he watched her every move, his lips quirking.
“My other siblings, I am happy to say, manage to live within the means I provide,” he went on. “Unfortunately Judith, though merely the daughter of a younger son and married to a gentleman of modest means, aspires to live up to the glory of having an earl for a brother. Henry is swept along in her wake. If I continue to tow them out of the River Tick at every request, they will never attempt to curb their extravagances.”
“No, I expect you are right. But surely you would not let Mr. Parmenter be incarcerated in debtors’ prison!”
“I own I should be surprised to see the bailiffs on their doorstep. Judith is by far too calculating to allow things to come to such a pass. No, I believe she is prevaricating to induce me to frank her in advance, and I cannot abide deceit.”
“But if you are wrong?”
“If Henry were actually hauled off to the Marshalsea, I daresay I might gallop to the rescue, after a few days there had taught him a lesson.”
“I am not sure any lesson would enable him to stand up to his wife. He looks so spineless. Oh!” She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror at where the license she had granted her tongue had led her.
His crack of laughter reassured her—and took her breath away. Relaxed, his haughtily handsome face became devastatingly attractive. The ice in his grey eyes melted and they glinted with mirth. Jane gazed at him entranced, her heart performing a peculiar flip-flop. If only he were always like this!
And then, suddenly uneasy, she remembered that she ought not to be closeted alone with a gentleman. Gracie had impressed upon her that such behaviour was fast, and for a young lady to be considered fast was instant social death.
“Don’t look so worried, I shan’t clap you in irons for lèse majesté. Spineless, you say? I have always thought my brother-in-law closely resembles a boiled codfish.”
“Oh yes, not so much spineless as chinless.” She beamed at him. After all, she was not, at present, Lady Jane, daughter of the Marquis of Hornby. She was plain Miss Brooke, daughter of no one in particular, and Society would never know of her fast behaviour.
“Am I forgiven for leaving him and Judith to come about by their own efforts?”
“Certainly, but you might have told her in a more civil manner. She is your sister, not a street beggar.”
For a horrid moment she thought she had gone too far. His lips tightened and a touch of frost reappeared in his expression. Then he said dryly, “A library beggar, rather. But it is most improper in me to be discussing my family’s intimate affairs. What were you reading, Miss Brooke, that sent you to sleep?”
They talked for a few minutes about James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, until they were interrupted by a timid tapping at the door. Lord Wintringham pulled out his watch.
“Three o’clock—my cousin Neville. I am sorry to disturb you. Miss Brooke, but when I arranged to interview my relatives in my library, I had not expected it to become a place of common resort.”
“You wish to speak privately with Miss Neville?”
“I do. I promise I shall not bully her.”
Jane laughed, levering herself out of the deep armchair. “Then I shall go and see if I can visit Lady Fitzgerald and the baby.”
He took her hand and gazed down at her with warmth in his grey eyes. “I have not thanked you yet for your invaluable service to Lady Fitzgerald last night.”
“We were glad to be able to help,” she said, blushing.
As the library door closed behind her, she put her hand to her hot cheek. What had come over her? She was not given to changing colour like a ninnyhammer, and the earl had merely expressed his gratitude. It must have been the way he looked at her. Who would have guessed that grey could be such a warm colour? His hand had been cool, strong yet gentle. Her own still tingled from the contact.
No wonder young ladies were not allowed to be alone with gentlemen, she thought, if the result was to leave young ladies feeling peculiar all over!
A footman was watching her, with curiosity that changed at once to rigid impassivity when he realized he was observed.
“Pray direct me to the nursery,” Jane requested. She would go there first, so that she’d be able to take news of the child to Lady Fitzgerald.
Despite precise directions, it took her some time to reach the nursery, tucked away at the top of a distant wing. There she found Miss Gracechurch instructing the housemaid who had been put in charge of the baby because she had once held a position as nursery maid. She had never been in sole charge of a newborn before, and she was absorbing Gracie’s words with wide-eyed anxiety.
Rather than interrupt, Jane went straight to the cradle where the Honourable Miss Fitzgerald was fast asleep in a lace-trimmed gown and cap—Gracie disapproved of swaddling bands. The baby’s tiny, dimpled fists pressed to her cheeks. Jane thought her decidedly plain with her snub nose and squashed chin, though she wouldn’t have dreamed of saying so. She had yet to see an infant whose looks justified the inevitable admiration, but perhaps it was different when one had children of one’s own, at least until they reached an age to be bothersome.
Not for the first time, she vowed to herself that her own children, however bothersome, should never be sent away to a distant estate to be reared by servants. This nursery was far enough, isolated enough, from the more frequented parts of the house.
“Too far,” said Gracie as they retraced their steps together. “Lady Fitzgerald has to nurse the child herself until a wet nurse can be hired and it is most unwise to carry so young a babe back and forth along miles of draughty corridors. I wonder whether I ought to speak to the housekeeper or to Lady Wintringham herself about preparing a closer room.”
“If you like, I will ask the earl.”
“The earl! I hardly think you are on such terms with his lordship as to request his assistance in a matter that is the concern chiefly of the lady of the house.”
&nbs
p; “I have been talking to him, and I believe he is not so black as he is painted. Indeed, when he forgets how important he is and comes down off his high horse, he is an amazingly agreeable gentleman.”
“His high horse? Jane, pray do not...”
“...use my brother’s slang—I mean, colloquialisms. I beg your pardon, Gracie dear. But do you wish me to speak to Lord Wintringham, in the King’s English, about changing the baby’s room?”
“I think not. He might mount again onto his high horse.”
Jane giggled and impulsively hugged her governess. “I do love you, Gracie.”
“And I you, my dear.” Smiling, she touched Jane’s cheek lightly before reverting to her subject. “Perhaps it will be best if the Fitzgeralds themselves approach Lady Wintringham.”
“They might not care to approach so unapproachable a lady for a favour after setting her household at sixes and sevens already. I know: we shall have Ella ask the advice of his lordship’s valet, who was so helpful last night.”
“An excellent notion. Now the only remaining question is whether I send a footman to fetch Ella or go to my chamber and ring for her. What a trial it is to live in such vast magnificence, to be sure!”
Laughing, they parted and Jane continued to Lady Fitzgerald’s room. Both her husband and her sister were there. The Fitzgeralds were delighted to see Jane, but Lavinia Chatterton seemed uncomfortable. After a few minutes, she crossed to the window, glanced out, and said awkwardly, “I fear you may be stranded here for some time to come, Miss Brooke. The fog is as thick as ever,”
Surprised by her overture, and a trifle wary, Jane went to join her. “So it appears,” she agreed, looking out at the formless whiteness. “I do not recall ever seeing so dense a fog. The poor coachman cannot be blamed for driving the Mail into a ditch.”
“And I cannot be sorry for it, since no one was hurt. What should we have done if you had not arrived so opportunely to help Daphne? I do not know how to thank you, Miss Brooke.”