The Last Earl Standing

by Blackwood, Gemma

  “That’s exactly what I did.” But there had been no spy. Only George, and his innocent blundering into a situation Anthea had known would be poisonous. Only a tender embrace shared on a rooftop, the memory of which she would never enjoy again.

  She had lied to him. She had been so outraged by his presumption in telling her what she could and could not do that she had posted the article directly to Mr Harding, instructing him to publish it as soon as possible.

  She had been absolutely certain that she was in the right until the London Chronicle appeared on the breakfast table with her recklessness printed in black and white.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Edith, casting the newspaper aside as tears threatened to spill from Anthea’s eyes. “Surely you don’t feel guilty about exposing a worm like Lord Wetherton?” She rolled off the bed and stood behind Anthea, taking up the hairbrush and running her fingers through the half-done hair. “You ought to be proud of yourself. I am proud of you!”

  “Thank you.” Anthea raised her hand and interlinked her fingers with Edith’s, holding her sister’s hand tightly. Edith would not be proud if she knew that Anthea had betrayed the first man she had almost loved. Edith set such great store by fairy-tale romances, waltzes at midnight and true love’s first kiss.

  She could not know that love itself was horribly complicated. That a man otherwise perfect might have opinions that simply did not match his partner’s. That he might give orders where no orders should be given. That he might never understand that women had to wield power where they could in a world so dominated by men.

  Anthea prayed that, when Edith found love, it would all be much simpler.

  “Here,” said Edith softly, tugging the brush through Anthea’s hair. “Don’t cry. You did the right thing.” The hairbrush jerked to a halt, caught in a knot. Edith put her tongue between her teeth and gave it an almighty yank.

  “Ouch!” Anthea wrested her head away, clapping a hand to the place that felt as though it had been stripped bald. “What are you doing?”

  “I was trying to be nice!” Edith flapped her hands around in distress, nearly catching Anthea in the eye with the hairbrush. “I’m sorry!”

  Isobel popped her head around the door, eyes wide and fearful. “Is someone being murdered?”

  Anthea rubbed her sore head. “Edith is attempting it.”

  “Thea, I’m sorry!”

  Isobel sighed and came into the room. She was holding a letter, which she handed to Anthea. “This came for you.” She frowned and leaned closer to inspect Anthea’s face. “Your eyes are very red. Have you been sneezing?”

  “Yes,” said Anthea emphatically, at the same time as Edith declared, “No!”

  Isobel rolled her eyes. “I expect this has something to do with darling George.”

  Anthea turned busily to the letter, opening the envelope with a hairpin, as Edith embarked on an elaborate performance of a swoon that nearly took down the bed curtains.

  “Watch out!” cried Isobel, jumping to catch Edith before she hit her head on the bed post. “Darling George isn’t worth cracking your head open!”

  Anthea laughed, despite herself, and the hairpin tore the envelope in half.

  A black feather drifted out of it and landed on her dressing table.

  Isobel and Edith were laughing on the bed, each outdoing the other with their suggestions for Anthea’s next outing with George. Anthea stared at the feather. The rest of the world grew faint and distant.

  Her fingers fumbled to pull the letter from the envelope. It was a little torn, but the writing was clear. A familiar hand, looping and elegant and yet undeniably cold.

  Libel is a dangerous game to play, Lady X.

  There will be consequences.

  W

  Nausea clawed its way up Anthea’s throat and threatened to spill from her mouth. She clutched at the dressing table, sending a perfume bottle tumbling to the floor. The bloom of scent that overwhelmed her was sickly, rotten.

  Isobel was at her side in a moment, snatching up the letter and reading it while Edith clutched Anthea in her arms.

  “You are ill,” she said, pressing her cool hand to Anthea’s forehead. “Oh, I should have known! I am sorry for teasing you! Come to bed, and we will send for a hot cup of tea.”

  “Anthea,” said Isobel, passing the note to Edith, “what is this? Who is W? Why is he calling you Lady X?”

  Edith scanned the letter and let out a shriek of horror. “Oh lord! He knows!” She threw the letter to the ground and sprang away from it as though it were a snake. “How does he know? Even Mr Harding doesn’t know who you really are! Anthea, how did he find you?”

  Isobel picked up the black feather and blew on it, making its dark fronds quiver. “You’ve done something foolish,” she surmised.

  Anthea dropped her head into her hands. “I have.” And worst of all, George had warned her against it.

  Isobel’s hand fell on Anthea’s shoulder, small yet strong, and gripped it firmly. “I won’t ask you to confess to me. But I think you ought to tell our brother.”

  “Alex can’t fix this.”

  “Then tell somebody.” Isobel pulled Anthea towards her so that her head fell against Isobel’s chest. “Perhaps George?”

  “No. Never.” Anthea brushed the back of her hand briskly across her eyes. “He warned me, Isobel. He didn’t know what I was going to do, but he knew it was something, and he told me it would get me into trouble. There isn’t a deceptive bone in his body. I can’t possibly tell him what I’ve done. He’ll never understand why I lied to him.”

  “Very well,” said Isobel. She snatched the letter from Edith and crumpled it into a ball, crushing the feather with it. “Then there is only one thing to do with these.” She dropped them into the wastepaper basket beside Anthea’s desk. “Hold your head high, and confound your enemies with your confidence.”

  The image of Lord Wetherton floundering in the face of her unshakeable poise was enough to bring a watery smile to Anthea’s face. “You don’t want to know all the dreadful details?”

  “Of course she does,” Edith interrupted, but Isobel merely shook her head.

  “You keep your secrets and I’ll keep mine,” she said, smiling at some inner joke. “If you cannot tell Alex, and you cannot tell Lord Streatham, you must find a way to solve the problem yourself. I will be here if you need any help.” She beckoned to Edith. “Come, Edith. Your fussing won’t do any good. Let’s leave Anthea in peace.”

  Edith obeyed, dragging her feet so slowly that she tripped over the rug and catapulted herself into Isobel’s back as they left together.

  Anthea dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief, grateful to be alone. She picked up the newspaper that Edith had left scattered in several pieces over the bed, crumpled the whole thing into one ball, and dropped it into the wastepaper basket with the letter and the feather. She brushed her hair until it gleamed and pinned it up in a reasonable approximation of Selina’s elegant chignon.

  She ignored the way her heart ached for George and the way sickness still churned in the pit of her stomach.

  She was on her own, just as she had been when she started the Lady X business, and she would finish it alone, too.

  When the maid knocked on the door and announced that Lord Wetherton had come to call on her, she watched the colour drain from her reflection in the mirror but remained otherwise calm.

  “Tell his lordship I am not at home,” she said.

  The maid retreated, and Anthea clasped one hand over the other to stop the shaking. There were still ink stains on her fingers. She wondered how long she would have to scrub to remove them.

  A few moments later, the maid returned. “Pardon me, my lady, but Lord Wetherton says he will wait for you. He said I ought to tell you that he has come to apologise.”

  “Apologise?” Anthea frowned at her reflection. Wetherton was a slippery creature. She did not put it past him to lure her downstairs by any means necessary. “Really, Hettie, you must
make it clear. I am not at home to Lord Wetherton. I will not be at home to him ever again.”

  The maid bobbed a nervous curtsey. “He said you would say that, my lady, and he told me I should say that he has made an honest mistake, that Lord Streatham has been to see him and cleared it all up, and please will you come down and accept his humble apology.”

  Anthea’s head whipped around so quickly that the maid stumbled backwards. “Did you say Lord Streatham?”

  13

  Julian picked up one of the duelling pistols George had set before him and examined it expertly. He clicked the safety catch off and took aim at an unlucky rosebush. He shot.

  The cursing began immediately afterwards. The rosebush remained unharmed.

  Julian passed the second pistol to George, who took brief aim and shot a wilted rose clean away.

  “At least you’re a decent shot, Streatham,” sighed Julian, preparing his pistol for reloading. “Though for the life of me I cannot understand how you have managed to wind up fighting a duel with the man we were supposed to investigate.”

  “The situation was unavoidable.” George took the freshly loaded pistol and closed one eye as he aimed at the rosebush again. “The moment I saw Anthea’s column decrying Wetherton, I knew he would retaliate against her. The only way to protect her was to go to his house and claim that I was behind the column, with Anthea as my accomplice in collecting the payment. Once I convinced him of that, it was perfectly natural for him to challenge me to a duel.”

  “And how do you intend to protect Lady Anthea when Wetherton has shot you in the heart?”

  George shot another fading flower from the bush. The slap of hasty footsteps along the gravel path prevented him from responding to Julian’s barbed question.

  “My lord!” gasped his gardener, puffing and panting as he reached them. “I heard shots!”

  “You did, Crowley.” George took the first pistol back from Julian, freshly loaded. “We are deadheading the roses for you.”

  The gardener gaped from George to the beleaguered rose bush.

  “You may thank us, Crowley,” said George. “And then you may busy yourself at the other end of the garden.”

  “Th-thank you, my lord!” The gardener scurried away, stumbling over his feet as George fired off another shot.

  Julian sighed and sat down in a garden chair. “Do you enjoy tormenting your staff as much as you enjoy tormenting me?”

  “Crowley is made of stern stuff. He’ll forgive me when I show him my plans to expand the orangery.” George set his pistol down and cracked his knuckles. “Well, that all seems in order. I’d say I’m ready, wouldn’t you?”

  “No!” Julian pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed it across his forehead. “No, I would not say you were ready to embark upon the hare-brained scheme of exchanging bullets with the man we were supposed to quietly investigate!” He stuffed the handkerchief back into his top pocket, where it made an unsightly lump. “Has Lady Anthea stolen your wits, as well as your heart? She lied to you, Streatham. You told her not to act against Wetherton, and she lied. She got herself into this scrape of her own accord, and she has made matters dashed difficult for us in the process. I don’t understand why you felt the need to involve yourself.”

  George ran a polishing cloth over the barrel of his pistol. He looked at the rose petals scattered on the grass. “When it comes to Anthea, I am already involved, Julian. There is no escaping it. And I cannot hold a little white lie against her. She had no idea that Lady X’s identity had been compromised. I could have told her that, and I did not.”

  “You would have risked our mission!”

  “Perhaps if I were a little less concerned with the mission and a little more concerned with Anthea, she would have told me everything herself!” George set the pistol back in its case and snapped the cover shut. “I warn you, Julian, I won’t hear another word against her.”

  Julian groaned. “I didn’t mean to speak roughly of her, Streatham. She isn’t the pin-headed fool who has compromised herself for love.”

  George opened his mouth to deliver a scathing retort, but found his heart was not it. His heart, in fact, was nowhere to be found in his now bullet-riddled garden.

  It was in Mayfair, in Anthea Balfour’s drawing room, watching her writing so busily that she did not even notice the ink stains on her fingers.

  “It was a marvellous column, though,” he said, collapsing into a chair. “And a brilliant scheme to find her way into Wetherton’s gaming hell. If she were a man, I’d invite her to join the service.”

  “But since she’s a woman, you’ll invite her to your bedchamber.”

  George clenched his jaw so hard his teeth hurt. “Tread carefully, Julian. You’re speaking about a woman I greatly admire.”

  Julian grinned. “I greatly admire the Duke of Wellington. The way you feel about Lady Anthea is something quite different.” He leaned back, stretching out his arms airily. “Go on, Streatham, admit it. The man who broke hearts in every city in Europe has finally been caught in someone else’s net.”

  George lowered his head into his hands, seizing two fistfuls of his dark curls. “You’re right,” he groaned. “I love her. And I have let that love blind me.” He raised his head. “But no longer. From this point forwards, I will keep Anthea and our mission absolutely separate. I have already taken steps to ensure she cannot provoke Wetherton with another column. Her involvement in this matter is done.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” said Julian. He glanced up at the house and shaded his eyes to better focus on what he saw there. “Who’s this, now? Another of your staff frightened out of their wits by the gunfire?”

  “No,” said George, turning around to see a portly figure scampering across the lawn with a walk that might equally well be described as a waddle. “If I’m not mistaken, that is our new friend, Shrewsbury.”

  Lord Shrewsbury was out of breath, though whether it was from the walk or his excitement, George could not tell. “Wetherton has sent me here to open negotiations!” he spluttered, eyeing the gun case on the table nervously. “I am his second. He says you are to fight!”

  George privately thought that Shrewsbury was the last man on earth he would have chosen as his second in a duel. Presumably Wetherton did not have many friends on whom he could rely.

  “Well, you are here now, Shrewsbury,” he said, opening the gun case and running a finger lovingly down the barrel of a pistol. “Negotiate.”

  Shrewsbury bent down and whispered as though he were imparting extremely sensitive information. “All negotiation is useless! Wetherton will not accept anything but blood to repair his honour. He means to shoot you dead.”

  “That is a pity,” said George. “I would have preferred to resolve matters in a more civilised fashion.”

  Shrewsbury’s eyes were bulging with the excitement of it all. For a small man with petty pastimes, the prospect of a duel must have been unbearably exciting. “Will you kill him, d’you think?” He seemed to relish the prospect.

  “Ideally, not. I will send you strict instructions as to how you are to prepare for this duel, Shrewsbury. You must give me your word that you will follow them to the letter. Remember our arrangement.”

  “Yes, yes.” Shrewsbury bobbed his head up and down so fast his chins wobbled. “Of course I remember!”

  “Then, for a start, you will return to Wetherton and tell him I have taken to my bed in a fit of nerves. Tell him I am beside myself with fear and begging for a reprieve. You may make yourself as much a hero as you wish. Say that you spat in my face and refused all mercy. Perhaps you left me in tears. Do you understand?”

  “Tears, yes,” Shrewsbury nodded. “Very good, Streatham. Very good.”

  George set aside his doubts that Shrewsbury could pull off a successful deception. A skilled workman made use of the tools he was given, even when their quality was wanting. “I have eyes everywhere, Shrewsbury,” he said, pleased to see his fellow earl trembling at the reminder. “E
ven in Wetherton’s own house. I will know if you betray me.”

  “Never!” Shrewsbury whined, pressing his chubby hands together. “Never, I swear it!”

  “Then be gone.”

  Shrewsbury’s piggy eyes darted towards him slyly. “I have one question, Streatham. Are you really the man behind that column?”

  “Don’t tell me you are an admirer of Lady X,” said Julian. George stifled a laugh at the thought of Shrewsbury reading Anthea’s expertly constructed arguments.

  “Oh no, no. Don’t care for the papers much myself. Mother reads Lady X out at the breakfast table.” His cheeks plumped into a grin. “What a joke, to think that all this time Lady X has been you!”

  “A joke indeed,” said George gravely. “Don’t keep Lord Wetherton waiting, now.”

  “I won’t, I won’t!” Shrewsbury made George an elaborate bow. “Goodbye, Lady X!” He snorted with laughter at his own joke and waddled back towards the house.

  Julian was looking at George gravely, his chin propped in a hand. “The Shrewsburys are the most renowned gossips in London,” he said. “Even if you survive this duel, which is by no means certain, the ton will talk of nothing for months but the fact that the Earl of Streatham impersonated a lady columnist in the London Chronicle.”

  “Let them talk,” George shrugged. “You and I know well enough that the truth often goes unremarked.”

  Julian raised an eyebrow. “I hope Lady Anthea is worth the trouble. She will be most grateful when she finds out what you have done.”

  “Worth it? Certainly.” George leaned back in his chair and turned his eyes to the sky. “Grateful, when she discovers that I have taken credit for her work? And not only that, but taken steps to scupper any future attempts at writing her column?” He winced. “I can only imagine that gratitude will be the last thing on her mind.”