A Perfect Gentleman

by Barbara Metzger

  Miss Kane was listening, head cocked to the side, but not nodding her agreement, so he went on: “As you must know, I have looked after other young women, and none in my care has ever come to harm.” Except for Lady Valentina, who landed in clover. “I do not wish you to be any less well attended.”

  “Thank you, my lord, for your caring about my welfare as well as the fee. And I shall reconsider. Why, if I do not hear from either Strickland or Mr. Lattimer in a sennight, I shall be at my wits’ end.”

  Oh, it would not take half as long, Stony was positive, not with her wits. They’d never stretch so far. “I think you should send me a note after two days, rather than waiting any longer, or venturing out without escort. That way, you can see something of the city, and I shall know you are safe.”

  She agreed and Stony left, wondering why he had tried so hard for a position he did not want. The only place he’d feel safe escorting Miss Ellianne Kane to was Bedlam. The only question was which of them would return.

  Chapter Six

  Saint Homobono’s ballocks, Ellianne, what were you thinking, dismissing that prime goer before you’d tried his paces?”

  Miss Ellianne Kane looked around to make sure none of the housemaids would be embarrassed by her aunt’s speech. Ellianne was not surprised that Aunt Lally was talking; nor was she surprised at the vulgarity. Her aunt was known throughout Devon for speaking her mind, in whatever terms she saw fit. Her freebooter husband had encouraged the freer speech, and Ellianne’s father had laughed at his sister’s eccentricities. Lavinia Goudge, nee Kane, was old enough, wealthy enough, and uncaring enough of anyone’s opinion. Hence the phantom parrot. And hence the occasionally practiced vow of silence. Without it, London would have been an impossibility. They’d have been shunned by everyone, from high society to shopkeepers. As it was, they were nearly housebound, but that was by choice.

  No, what surprised Ellianne was that her aunt seemed to have approved of Lord Wellstone. “I thought you wanted me to have nothing to do with the viscount,” she said. “‘A useless bit of pomp’ is what you called him.”

  Aunt Lally had called the viscount a lot worse, and the rest of the British peerage along with him. In fact, she had urged Ellianne to toss Lord Wellstone out on his aristocratic arse.

  “Faugh, that was before I saw him,” Aunt Lally declared, setting aside her needlework. “I have changed my mind.”

  Ellianne was back to working on her charts and scraps of paper, being more careful with the glue this time. “So have I. We need not engage a highborn squire. If Mr. Lattimer cannot help, or Lord Strickland will not, we shall go about our business on our own. Timmy can hire extra footmen, that’s all. I should feel uncomfortable explaining our situation to his lordship, or accepting his escort.”

  “Uncomfortable? Is that what you called that mealymouthed performance you put on for him?”

  “I was not mealymouthed. I was simply embarrassed by the glue and the dog and the parrot and—”

  “Rubbish. One smile from that handsome jackadandy and your knees went weak, admit it!”

  Ellianne spilled the glue again. This time she kept her fingers out of the mess, using the blotter instead to rescue her bits of newspaper clippings. “I shall not! My knees did no such thing. They performed just as they ought.”

  “Well, mine turned to blancmange, I swear. If I were ten years younger…”

  “Ten?”

  Aunt Lally ignored the insolent query. “I suppose you are going to tell me that you never noticed the bonny breadth of his shoulders, or how his breeches hugged those muscled thighs. No, you don’t have to tell me. I can see the red in your cheeks.”

  “A lady does not notice such things,” Ellianne insisted.

  “Is that what they taught you at that fancy academy? To go deaf, dumb, and blind? Of course you noticed. You’re a female, ain’t you?” She frowned at the encompassing black her niece wore. “For all anyone can tell, in that crepe sail you’re wrapped in. But that is beside the point. If his smile did not set your pulse racing, and his physique did not knock you to flinders, why did you turn muckle-minded when he walked in the room? And why, by Saint Cecilia’s corset, did you let him walk out of the room?”

  Ellianne stuck down another list of names on her chart, to delay answering. Finally she sighed and said, “Because I am not blind. You saw him. He is the handsomest man I have ever met.”

  “So what? You’ve seen pretty fellows before. In fact, you’ve dealt with good-looking men your whole life, at the bank. You’ve hired and fired scores of them. And at the local assemblies you danced with any number of fine specimens. Maybe not as well rigged as Wellstone, but I never saw you go arsy-varsy over one before.”

  “Well, I was never dressed like this when I met them, with my fingers stuck together! I meant to change, of course. I thought he would send a message setting a time for an interview.”

  “Instead of paying a proper call, with flowers, no less.”

  “But that is just it. I do not want an elegant escort with perfect manners and a perfect knot in his cravat. That is not why I wrote to him. Lord Wellstone is too much the Town beau for my purposes.”

  “Then change your fustian purposes,” Aunt Lally muttered. “Or else ignore his looks.” She laughed at her niece’s inelegant snort of disbelief. “And think of his connections. That’s what you said you needed.”

  “And you said a member of his elite circles would be as useful as teats on Atlas.” The dog was back on the sofa, wheezing in his sleep. “He would not want to assist one of my birth in such a havey-cavey matter.”

  “A lady shouldn’t repeat everything she hears. Besides, I think that young bucko might be ripe for a challenge. He plainly thought you’d be better off with him than with Strickland or the Bow Street fellow.”

  “You think he wanted my company, after he saw me and Atlas?”

  “He said so, didn’t he?”

  “That was the money speaking. Anyone could tell he was dreading the notion of being seen with either of us. He wanted my business, that was all. We always knew Lord Wellstone needs to earn an income.”

  “I don’t hold that against him, and neither should you. Your own father was a self-made man, as was Mr. Goudge. I admire a chap, especially one with a title to his name, trying to make something of himself, not being a barnacle on the backside of society. The fellow’s got b—”

  Ellianne cleared her throat.

  “Bottom,” Aunt Lally amended.

  “I do not hold ambition against anyone of any class. I simply feel that Lord Wellstone’s sincerity can be had for sixpence.”

  “Perhaps. But he does know his way around a lady’s drawing room. Bedroom too, less’n I miss my guess, but he just might be a help in finding that featherheaded sister of yours. The sooner the peagoose is back in the nest, the sooner we can go home.”

  “I am sorry if you are missing your cottage, Aunt Lally.”

  “It ain’t just the cottage or my cats. At home a woman can walk wherever she chooses, can entertain as she pleases.” It pleased Lavinia Goudge to entertain her husband’s first mate, who had taken over Captain Goudge’s ships and lucrative smuggling routes. “And at home a rich young female doesn’t have to hide herself away for fear that every caller is a rake ready to kidnap her to force a marriage or a ransom.”

  “Until we know what happened to Isabelle, we ought to take care, is all.”

  “Is that what you are doing? I thought you were hugging shore to avoid being swamped by fortune-hunting swells.”

  Ellianne cut another article from a newspaper and pasted it down under the appropriate date, pressing firmly enough to tear a hole in the page. “Oh, bother.” She glued another scrap atop the first. Her project was a mess, and it was all that man’s fault. “I did not enjoy my last encounter with London’s bachelors. I do not intend to repeat the experience.”

  “Well, at least Wellstone is aboveboard in his goals. No secret that he sails under whatever flag is paying
him. For what it’s worth, though, to my ears he did sound like he cared about leaving you on your own.”

  “Perhaps he did, a little.”

  “Well, you think on it, Ellianne. To my mind, he’ll do.”

  “Do for what, Aunt Lally?” Ellianne asked, peering at her aunt over yet another newspaper. “You would not be trying to matchmake, would you? You know I do not intend to marry.”

  If Aunt Lally had her own views about her niece’s intentions of remaining single, she was, for once, wise enough not to speak them. “Promote a match between you and Wellstone? Zounds, no. A blueblood like the viscount will marry one of his own kind when he gets around to it. An earl’s brat or better, I’d wager. You’ve too wise a head on your shoulders to expect anything else. If I thought the bounder would break your heart I’d not be encouraging you to keep him on, would I?”

  “I should hope not. There is no chance of my heart being remotely involved, at any rate. It would take a great deal more than a handsome face”—and a devilish smile, a Greek god’s build, and a courtier’s glib tongue—“to change my mind.”

  *

  Timmy agreed with Mrs. Goudge. “He’ll do, miss.”

  Contrary to popular opinion, the two households, the Kanes’ and Lady Augusta’s, were on long-standing terms of familiarity. The rift had been between Ellianne’s mother, Annabelle, and Annabelle’s father, Lord Chaston, not the two sisters. Like her father and then her brother, the current marquess, Lady Augusta never chose to socialize with Ellis Kane, but she did invite her nieces to spend school holidays or summer vacations with her in London or at the seaside. Lady Annabelle, Mrs. Kane, was pleased to send her daughters, perhaps to counter the influence of their other aunt, Lavinia Goudge. So Ellianne and Timms were old friends. Mellowed by the Madeira, the ancient butler sat in the kitchen, his aching feet up, his false teeth out, his spectacles on. Ellianne sat across from him, her charts spread on the table and her heavy, mantilla-like head covering spread on another chair. Her hair trailed down her back, and her shoes were back in the parlor. She too swirled a glass of wine between her hands.

  “That is what my aunt says, that the viscount might help find Isabelle.”

  “You should listen to her. Not in the general way, of course,” Timms quickly added. “But his lordship seemed a decent sort, bless his soul and hopes for heaven.” Timms recalled the second coin the viscount handed him, on his way out this time, while everyone knew the young peer’s own pockets were to let. Timms blessed him again.

  “But he is so very elegant,” Ellianne complained.

  “Aye, top of the trees, as they say. A Nonpareil.”

  “Precisely. He’ll think I am a desperate spinster, so starved for male attention that I have to pay for it.”

  “Now, missy, no heiress has to pay to have men at her feet, especially one as pretty as you, and Lord Wellstone is sure to know that. A downy one, he is, and right as rain, they say. You’ll not find a more honorable gentleman in all of London, as God is my witness. And discreet, which is what you need to save Miss Isabelle’s reputation if you find her.”

  “When I find her,” she corrected him.

  Timms looked at her over the rims of his spectacles. “You don’t fear she met her maker, then? That Bow Street fellow, he seemed convinced of it.”

  “I refuse to believe that. We shall get her back, wherever she is. You must have faith too, Timmy.”

  “Oh, I do. And I get down on my knees and pray for Miss Isabelle every night, and most mornings when my old knees aren’t too stiff.”

  Ellianne reached out and touched his age-spotted hand. “Thank you, Timmy. I do not know what I would do without you.”

  Neither did Timms, and he was afraid to find out. He wanted Miss Ellianne and her sister provided for before that time came. Oh, they had enough blunt between them to be merry as grigs, but that did not suit the butler’s opinion of the proper futures for young ladies. Hadn’t the Lord commanded His children to go forth and multiply? For all Miss Ellianne’s ability to add and subtract, to manage an entire bank as well as other women balanced their household accounts, she knew nothing about the world. She needed a man to teach her, and hadn’t the Savior provided the perfect one? Unlike Mrs. Goudge, who was firmly entrenched in the merchant class, Timms had a romantic fondness for misalliances, for marriages made for love. Stranger things had happened than a handsome lord falling in love with a beautiful heiress. He’d wager it could happen again, if he got these youngsters together.

  Well, he would not wager. He’d given his word to Miss Ellianne. Right after he’d had to confess losing his entire pension at the races. She’d reinstate it, the darling promised, as soon as he proved he was cured of the gambling disease. With the good Lord’s help—and fear of the poorhouse—he was. Now the sooner they found Miss Isabelle and got both girls hitched, the sooner he could retire to that little cottage he’d found, right near Epsom Downs. To that end, he tried to puff up the viscount’s virtues.

  He pointed to her charts and said, “My old memory is no help to you with those, but Viscount Wellstone is bound to know everyone on your lists. In addition, he has been squiring ladies about town for three or four years now, and no one ever knew it, he was that circumspect.”

  “You knew it.”

  “I am a butler, missy. It is my job to know everything.”

  She smiled, as Timms knew she would. “But everyone knows it now, you told me. All of London knows Viscount Wellstone was taking money to act as escort to young ladies so their fathers and brothers did not have to.”

  “A very unfortunate affair indeed,” Timms said, needing another swallow of wine to rid himself of the bad taste of such a social debacle. “Orchestrated entirely by that scheming Pattendale female and her mother, I’d lay odds—that is, I would lay my soul in the hands of the Almighty. Then with that officer friend of his shabbing off, Lord Wellstone’s own reputation was blown to bits. He was frequently lampooned in the scandal sheets, where they said his services went far beyond dancing with the ladies. A Fancy Fred, they were calling him.”

  “Why Fred?”

  “They say it came from a farmer’s hog what got hired out to service the sows. The farmer had Fred all washed and combed, fancified, as it were, as if the pigs cared one whit.” Timms recalled he was not at his local pub, from which he was exiled, along with the racetracks, by his vow to his young mistress. “Pardon the indelicacy, Miss Ellianne.”

  She brushed that aside. “I am no green girl, you know. Go on. Tell me more about Lord Wellstone and his situation.”

  “It got worse. One cartoonist even portrayed his poor lordship as Othello, the Moor of Venice. Except the newspaper captioned his likeness, ‘the M’whore of London.’ A male whore, you know. It was despicable, and not true, on my word as a true believer.”

  “The poor man,” Ellianne said, sympathetic to the viscount’s plight, as Timms had intended. Then she thought about it, and the blue-eyed Adonis with a smile that could tempt birds out of trees, or ladies into his bed. “How can you be sure it was all untrue?”

  Timms pushed his spectacles back on his nose. “I told you, butlers know everything. Besides, it is simple, really. He’d have been caught long since, were he visiting the paddock with the fillies before the races, so to speak. If he’d been serving the old mares, he would not have needed to keep half his house shut up to save money.”

  “So you think he can be trusted?”

  Timms nodded. “He’ll give good value for your coin or have me to answer to, miss. As for your father’s money—if that is what you are worried over, that he’s seeking more than temporary employment—his lordship could have wed an heiress anytime.” Granted, few with so large and tempting a fortune as Miss Ellianne Kane, but the principle was there. “He didn’t. The lad is no fortune-hunter, and bless him for that.”

  “Good, because he’ll only be disappointed.” Ellianne sat up straighter on her chair. “I do not intend to marry, as I told you.”

&nb
sp; And she told him again, to Timms’s disgust, and once again after most of the wine was gone.

  “No, I am better off single,” Ellianne finished with a yawn, “than with a man who likes my money better than he likes me. Besides, the spinster life was good enough for Aunt Augusta.”

  Timms emptied the bottle into his glass. “Who left her house to a blessed dog.”

  * * *

  So Ellianne consulted the dog. “What did you think of Lord Wellstone?” she asked as they went for a short walk in the small walled garden behind the house, all the old dog was capable of before he wheezed himself into a faint. “Will he do?”

  Atlas had no tail to speak of to wag. He did raise his leg, though.

  “Well, you liked his flowers.”

  So had she, before the dog ate them, anyway. Despite what she’d told her aunt, she still liked the fact that Lord Wellstone had thought to bring her a token. Ellianne had received flowers before, of course. At eight and twenty, she had enjoyed her share of suitors. Unfortunately, she had not truly enjoyed them. She always doubted their sincerity, wondering how many would call, how many would bring flowers or sweets, if her dowry were less generous. Lord Wellstone did not have to bring a bouquet to win her regard; he already had her check.

  None of those other gentlemen, the well-born ones who deigned to honor a banker’s daughter with their attentions, or the ambitious ones who thought to ally themselves with her family, had impressed her. Not the way Lord Wellstone had.

  Ellianne reassured herself that she was far past the age of being swept off her feet, not that the viscount was wielding a broom or anything. He was simply devilishly attractive, and she could appreciate that—the way she could admire a painting in a gallery without having to own it, or touch it, or sit staring at it for hours like a moonling.

  She was in no danger of falling for his practiced charm, of course, flowers or no flowers. Aunt Lally was right about that. Along with the bouquets and bonbons, she’d had more than her share of hot, wet, horrid kisses from men claiming ardor while calculating her income. She’d been pawed at and pressed into corners by men claiming affection while trying to compromise her into marriage. They had shown her how revolting, how self-serving and sycophantic a man’s attentions could be. The charming ones had been the worst, for she’d almost believed them, especially when she was younger and less experienced. Now she wanted nothing to do with men or their passions or their promises.