Never Resist a Rake (11 page)

They say that travel is broadening, that one is enriched by new sights and sounds, by the experience of life in a different venue. But they only say that to distract one from the general inconvenience of it all.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

Porter paced the length of the below stairs common room in Somerfield Park. It was a pleasant enough space, dominated by the long pine table at which the servants gathered for communal meals. There was a cozy fireplace to warm the room, and Lord Somerset didn't stint on firewood as some employers were known to do, letting their servants shift for themselves to find wood to burn or be forced to bundle up even inside when the weather turned foul. In the evenings, ample tallow candles released a faintly beefy scent into the air along with light enough to read or do some mending or play a hand of cards. Now that Porter was finally settled into the great house as Lord Hartley's valet, he thought he'd be happy all the day.

Instead, he was wracked with worry.

“Something must have happened to them,” he muttered.

“Still fretting, Mr. Porter?” Mrs. Culpepper bustled in with a tray laden with a steaming pot of tea, a sugar bowl, and a pitcher of milk.

The servants wouldn't be given their supper till the Family was done with theirs, so this late afternoon fortification was essential for keeping everyone sharp as the workday slid into the evening. Mrs. Culpepper's new helper, Theresa Dovecote, followed the cook with a basket of fresh buns and a pot of clotted cream. The girl so closely resembled her sister Eliza, Porter had to look twice to make sure which of them it was. Of course, Theresa wore her blouses ever so much tighter than Eliza did. The little horn buttons that marched down the center of her bosom were taxed mightily by remaining fastened.

Porter feared that looking twice at Theresa might get him into trouble some day.

“If I'm fretting, it's with good reason,” Porter said as he plopped into one of the chairs around the table. Worried or not, he wasn't about to miss an opportunity to sample some of Mrs. Culpepper's baked goods. Her cooking was one of the best things about his position as Lord Hartley's valet.

And if something horrible happened to Lord Hartley, he'd lose his livelihood and access to her cooking, almost before the appointment had begun. It was nearly enough to kill his appetite.

“His lordship ought to have arrived home last night,” Porter said as he held up his teacup for her to fill. “Thank you kindly, Mrs. C.”

“But ye don't know for certain when Lord Hartley left London, so how can ye know when he should arrive?” Mrs. Culpepper plopped a brown lump of sugar into his tea without him having to ask for it.

She
remembers
how
I
take
my
tea
, he told himself and did a little self-congratulatory jig in his mind. Of course, he usually liked two lumps, but he could get used to just one.

“Ye ought not to borrow trouble,” Mrs. Culpepper went on, moving down the long table to serve Sarah, Drucilla, Toby, and the others who'd gathered for a bite and a respite.

Porter noticed that she gave each of the others a single sugar lump too. So she didn't remember how he took his tea…or how he could learn to take his tea.
Oh
,
bother
and
confound
it!
He was in a state of constant befuddlement when Mrs. Culpepper was around. This business of fancying a woman was making a muddle of his usually orderly mind.

“Ye don't know if they decided to stop along the way—oh, I know ye can make the trip to Town in a day, but it's a long, hard day by all accounts, and then only if the weather's fine.” Mrs. Culpepper rounded the end of the long table and started back up the other side. “And old Lady Somerset isn't the traveler she used to be. She might not want to pound out the miles as vigorously as a young man might. Likely that's why Lord Hartley and the rest are taking their time.”

Privately, Porter thought that the dowager could put them all under the table at whatever she decided to attempt. But Mrs. C's words did comfort him a bit.

“You're right,” he said. “Women don't travel as well as men.”

“Hold a moment, now. I expect I could travel just as well as any man,” Theresa said as she deposited a fragrant bun on the plate before Porter and slapped a dollop of clotted cream beside it. “I'd make the trip on my knees if only I could see London, so I would. Tell us, Mr. Porter, was it wonderful?”

London was loud and dirty and Porter was nearly beside himself each time Lord Hartley left the town house because he never knew when his lordship would deign to return. He might be gone for hours or days. There was no way to tell.

Being a servant with no one to serve meant time had hung heavy on Porter's hands. Of course, his lordship's activities while in London were hard on his wardrobe, and that kept Porter stitching and cleaning. But one could only polish a pair of shoes or brush a jacket so often while waiting for freshly dirtied items to appear.

London wasn't a bit wonderful. It was one big knot in Porter's stomach. That's what it was. But when he saw the wistfulness on Theresa's face, he couldn't disabuse her of her dreams.

“Of course, I spent most of my time at the Family's home in Mayfair, you understand,” Porter said. While the Barrett family town house was properly elegant, it didn't hold a candle to Somerfield Park in his estimation. “But I did manage to walk down to attend services at Westminster Abbey one Sunday.”

He spent his time in the gothic cathedral praying that the new Lord Hartley would come to his senses and go home—or at least start keeping country hours.

“Westminster Abbey? Ain't that the place where all them dead people are buried inside the walls and under the floors?” Theresa asked, her eyes wide.

“Well, if they're buried there, I'd hope to shout that they're dead,” Toby the footman said with a laugh. “It'd be silly if they tucked live ones into the walls.”

Theresa stuck out her tongue at Toby and whisked the bun she'd just given him off his plate. He snatched it back from her and held it out of her reach until Mrs. Culpepper threatened to box both their ears and withhold their suppers later if they didn't mind their manners now. The maid and the footman murmured contrite apologies to the cook, but exchanged dagger glares at each other behind her back.

“Actually, Theresa is right, Toby,” Porter said. “The Abbey is the final resting place for many of our kings and queens.”

“I'm all for the royals like any good English girl, you know I am,” Theresa said, “but gorblimey, Mr. Porter, didn't you go nowhere where there was live people? No plays? No trips to Vauxhall? I hear that's ever so lovely.”

“What do you know about it?” Toby challenged.

“More than you, pudding-head,” she returned tartly. “They say there's tightrope walkers and balloon rides. And once the sun goes down, the whole park is lit by gas lamps, so it's bright as day.”

“All but the Druid Walk,” Toby said. “That's the part of the park what isn't lit at all, and for my money, folk are more like to spend the better part of their evening there than watching some bloke wobble on a tightrope.”

Theresa arched a brow at Toby. “What is there to do in the dark?”

“Walk out with me some evening and I'll show you.”

Theresa laughed and one of the buttons on her blouse lost its battle with remaining fastened. A bit of lace at the bodice of the girl's unmentionables peeped through the slit. Porter glued his gaze to the bun on his plate.

“That's enough, now,” Mrs. Culpepper said crossly, “or I'll toss a tub of wash water on the pair of ye. Toby, if ye say another word, I—”

“What's this?” Mr. Hightower's gruff tones interrupted as the butler entered the room and made his stately way to the head of the long table. All the others assembled leaped to their feet and stood at attention as if Hightower were still a sergeant in the military and they were his raw recruits. “Has Toby been causing trouble again?”

Mrs. Culpepper moderated her tone. “No trouble, Mr. Hightower.”

“There had better not be,” he warned, “or Master Toby shall celebrate the beginning of the hunting season by hunting for a new position.”

A somber pall fell over the entire assemblage. As far as Porter was concerned, to lose a position as sought after as one at Somerfield Park was a tragedy of biblical proportions. No one wanted to see anyone sacked, not even one who pushed himself forward as often as that irritating Toby.

“The arrival of the new Lord Hartley marks a sea change in the life of the estate,” Mr. Hightower said. “It is incumbent on all of us to do our utmost to help the Family through this difficult period.”

David Abbot, Lord Richard's valet, clattered down the back stairs and into the common room. “There's a coach coming up the drive.”

“Right. Well, that's likely our travelers, home from the city. Sharp's the word, everyone,” Hightower said as he led the way to form a receiving line at the front door. “We must put our best foot forward.”

“Don't you mean feet, sir? Best feet forward,” Toby said, his mischievous face a mask of seriousness. “If we're all doing it, shouldn't it be feet, not foot?”

Not many could get a rise out of Mr. Hightower when he was set on leading his troops into behaving with the utmost decorum, but now he stomped up the steps, muttering imprecations under his breath.

“Mr. Porter, sir, a word, if you please.” Theresa caught him by the elbow before he could follow Hightower. As a kitchen maid, she wouldn't be allowed to join the liveried footmen and uniformed chambermaids to greet their new lord. But as said lord's valet, Porter had better make an appearance with the rest of them, and on the quick too. Still, her hazel eyes were so importunate, he didn't have the heart to pull away from her.

“No one ever tells me much down here in the kitchen,” she said in a furious whisper. “You'd think as I was a mushroom and could live on only darkness and dung, the way they treat me.”

“If you're unhappy, you should take up the matter with Mrs. Culpepper,” he said.

“Oh, I'm not unhappy,” Theresa said quickly. “If you say I am, I'll dispute it with my dying breath. No, it's not that. I only want to know a thing or two, that's all.”

If he yanked himself away from her now, he'd still have to take the stairs two at a time to catch up to Mr. Hightower. Porter sighed. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, as I hear tell it, Lord Richard didn't spend much time here when he was Lord Hartley, what with his time at university and traveling abroad and suchlike. It don't seem as if having the heir about is all that important, but Lord Richard and his lady traveled all the way to London to find him. Even old Lady Somerset went to fetch him back here.” A lock of her mouse-brown hair had escaped her mobcap and she twirled it on one of her fingers. “Why is the Family so set on making sure the new Lord Hartley comes home, in any case?”

Porter didn't care why the Family wanted Lord Hartley home. He was just grateful that his lordship was. “Well, I suppose they want to get to know him.”

“Balderdash,” Drucilla, the head chambermaid said with a sniff as she breezed past them and started up the stairs. “They want to get on the new lord's good side while they can.”

“Why would they need to do that? They're all lords and ladies up there, ain't they?” Theresa followed Porter and Drucilla up a few steps. “They don't need to be on anyone's good side. Their side
is
the good side.”

“Shows what you know, ninny.” Drucilla stopped and turned around to sneer down at her. “The new Lord Hartley is the son of his lordship's
first
wife. And the rest of them are the current marchioness's children.”

Theresa scratched her head. “I don't see as that makes a difference. They're all still lords and ladies, ain't they?”

Drucilla snorted. “Once the old marquess dies, and may he be spared for many a year yet, the new marquess is under no obligation to provide for the family of the old one. It happens all the time with second marriages. The children from the second wife are turned out with naught but a handful of fingers.”

Theresa's eyes widened. “But her ladyship didn't know she was his lordship's second wife when she married him, did she?”

“No, that she didn't,” Porter said. “Now we'd best get on with our jobs or Mr. Hightower will turn us out with naught but a handful of fingers too.”

The best time to mend one's fences is before the livestock has escaped. Unfortunately, such events rarely occur in that order.

—Phillippa, the Dowager Marchioness of Somerset

John rode alongside Lord Richard on the narrow seat of the gig, trailing the Somerset coach. After the debacle on the road, Lady Somerset wasn't about to allow them to become separated again. Repairs to the coach had been made with record speed, and the others had straggled in to join John and Rebecca at the inn at Tincross Bottom shortly after midnight. After a late-morning country breakfast—and according to the dowager, a wholly inadequate one at that—the party set out for Somerfield Park. Once they reached the estate, they stopped long enough to deposit old Lady Somerset at Somerset Steading, the dower house.

Richard, Sophie, and Rebecca had helped the old lady into her house. John had remained in the gig the entire time. He hadn't regretted his decision until Rebecca had shot him a reproving glance as she climbed back into the coach with the wife of his half brother.

He knew he was being churlish, but he didn't care. These people had no claim on him. Not really.

“Gran seemed happy to be home,” Richard said, obviously trying to fill the silence that yawned between them.

“And well she should be. Somerset Steading is a veritable palace.” At least it seemed so compared to the humble Wiltshire cottage in which John had grown up. He'd rarely seen such a fine home as the dower house, with its gray-slate roof and intricate brickwork. Of course, that was before he caught his first glimpse of Somerfield Park.

At the end of the tree-lined lane ahead of them, the imposing manor of Somerfield Park rose in four glorious stories of Georgian majesty. It was stately, elegant, and most astonishing of all, the place John might live in for the rest of his life.

His chest constricted. No matter how impressive, bricks and mortar did not make a home.

“Your grandmother seemed relieved to be back in the country,” John said, “which is not quite the same thing as being happy.”

“She's not a good traveler under the best of conditions.” Richard chuckled. “You must admit that coaching inn at Tincross Bottom is not up to the dowager's usual standards.”

Neither was John, evidently.

“But she was impressed that you were able to command rooms for us all, and on market day too,” Richard said.

After John had left Rebecca in that tiny chamber the day before, he'd used his pent-up frustration to behave in the worst of lordly fashion, demanding that the innkeeper turn out his current guests in favor of the party from Somerset, which had yet to straggle in. He'd rank his performance as only slightly more imperious than when Blackwood demanded that poor doorman's shoes, but his lordly fury got results.

However, if the dowager felt he deserved any praise for making sure she didn't have to share a room with Miss Kearsey once Lady Somerset's coach had limped into the village, he hadn't heard it from her.

“You might be a bit easier on Gran, you know,” Richard said. “She's already well past her allotted threescore and ten.”

John's lips tightened into a thin line. “She disavowed me once. I'm just returning the favor.”

“Gran didn't mean it badly. You must allow that she didn't know all the facts at the time.”

Oh, well, that makes it all right.
Was that what his half brother wanted from him? Easy for him to say. He grew up here in the bosom of his family. Sheltered. Privileged. Sure of his place in the world. It was easy to be magnanimous when you had everything.

Of course, Richard didn't have it all now.

Why wasn't he angry about that?

“This must be difficult for you, the change in your inheritance, I mean.” John would have added that he was sorry for it, except it wasn't his fault.

“On the contrary, learning that I am not our father's heir could not have come at a better time. It meant I could marry Sophie. Believe me, I am more than happy to step aside for you, old chap.”

John gave Richard a sharp, assessing gaze but could detect no guile. “Keep that up and I may decide to like you.”

“Good. I'm partial to the idea of having a brother myself. We'll have to join forces if we hope to prevail against the Barrett women. And speaking of women, Miss Kearsey seems to be quite a fine one.”

“She is.”

“Since you invited her here, am I right in assuming you harbor a
tendresse
for the lady?”

“Assume what you like,” John said. Then he regretted his surliness. Richard had been trying very hard to befriend him. It had been so long since someone had, it was hard not to respond with his reflexive brand of standoffishness. Better to be the first to withdraw, he reasoned, than to be set aside by others. “In truth, I shouldn't have invited her.”

“Why?”

“Because…” How could John explain to the man whose title he just usurped that he felt unworthy?

“If you fear Miss Kearsey will be scared off by the Barrett family, I confess you've got reason.”

“What's wrong with the family?”

“I wouldn't say there's anything
wrong
with us Barretts. Not exactly. I'd rather class us as ‘unconventional.' In order to keep the estate afloat, I'm hip-deep in trade. That's enough to set tongues wagging. After his accident last spring, Father is becoming dottier by the day. Dr. Partridge predicted a full recovery, but Father seems determined to run to foolishness just to spite him.”

Richard gave a weak chuckle, but John could see his father's illness worried him.

“My sisters are a force to be reckoned with, both separately and en masse. Ella is constantly harping on the fact that she hasn't had her Season yet and is certain I'm conspiring to make a spinster of her. Petra, who's only a year younger than Ella, is more interested in books than boys and doesn't care who knows it.” Richard sighed. “Then there's Ariel. The only governess she wasn't able to run off was the one who threatened to blackmail Father over his first marriage. Since that plot was uncovered, our youngest sister has sent three successive governesses fleeing for the hills.”

John laughed and found himself suddenly looking forward to meeting Richard's family. If the Barretts weren't the perfect, ever-correct members of the
ton
he'd envisioned, he might, just might, have a better chance of fitting in with them.

“I don't think Miss Kearsey is the type to be put off by a little eccentricity,” John said. If she were, she wouldn't have accepted his invitation. “I notice you haven't mentioned your mother.”

“That's because she's the only one of us who's at all normal. A rock, that's what she is.” Richard lifted his hat and waved toward the great house. “Look. There they are, spilling out of the front door to welcome us.”

Welcome
you, you mean.
No matter how unconventional the Barretts were, none of them could be truly happy to see John here. He'd been the stray on the edge of the group, never quite allowed into the inner circle. Now the whole Somerfield Park pack clamored to greet him.

The servants flanked the left side of the great double doors. They were lined up with near military precision in two straight queues.

On the right side of the door, he saw only women—well-dressed women in gauzy gowns that fluttered in the slight breeze, like eiderdown on a swan's neck.

His father was not there to meet him.

As the coach rolled to a stop, John was quick to climb down and beat the footman, who was on his way to open the coach's door. John wanted to hand Rebecca down himself. He knew he ought to stay away from her, but he couldn't resist this chance to touch her, even if it was only her gloved hand.

“Thank you, John,” Sophie said as she climbed down first.

Rebecca followed. She murmured her thanks and gently tugged her fingertips from him when he didn't release them quickly enough. But she still rewarded him with a smile.

It was like a full plate of nourishing fare, that smile. A warm fire on a cold night. Shelter for his unworthy soul. Lord, he could live on just one of those smiles a day.

For the rest of his life.

He batted away that thought. He didn't deserve someone like Rebecca Kearsey, and he knew it.

Still, he couldn't help admiring her as she moved toward the receiving line. She knew how to carry herself, curtsying prettily before Lady Somerset the younger and then nodding to each of Richard's sisters in turn.

John, on the other hand, felt all knees and elbows as he walked behind her.

The current Lady Somerset was not at all what John had envisioned. He'd expected her to have that imperious, dragon-like quality so common in wellborn matrons. Instead, she was a woman in the final bloom of beauty, her face unlined but for a few wrinkles at the corners of her brown eyes. There were more smile lines around her mouth than frown lines between her even brows.

“Whatever face a person has at twenty, God gave 'em,” his foster mother, Lady Coopersmith, used to say. “The face they wear at fifty, they earned for themselves.”

If that was so, Lady Somerset had lived a good life, for her face was still quite lovely. She surprised John by offering him a deep, graceful curtsy.

“Lord Hartley,” she said, “I know you've traveled a long way and must be tired, but I wonder if I might offer you tea and refreshment in my parlor before you repair to your chamber to rest?”

The request astonished him into stammering, “Yes, of course,” when he really ought to have insisted on having Porter draw him a bath and dress him in fresh clothing. He was seriously regretting traveling in the outfit he'd slept in the last night he was in London.

But he followed the swish of Lady Somerset's skirts up a broad, polished staircase to a frilly parlor on the first floor.

“Please be seated and make yourself comfortable,” Lady Somerset the younger said.

John perched on the edge of a pink-striped settee. The parlor made him nervous. The furniture seemed too delicate to support him, the space too crowded with knickknacks and oddities for him to move comfortably without knocking some valuable something over.

“How many lumps do you take in your tea, Lord Hartley?”

“None. There was little sugar in Wiltshire. Never developed a taste for it.” He accepted the delicate china cup and saucer and took a sip. The tea was an aromatic blend with a hint of orange. “Where is Lord Somerset?”

The lady's brows drew together in distress. “You must understand. His lordship waited all day yesterday for you. He even went up to the roof to watch for your approach, though I chided him so much for it that he finally came down. Even after all this time, it still sends cold chills through me to think of him on that roof.”

That still didn't explain why he wasn't there to greet his firstborn.

“His lordship and his valet are in the woods now, scouting out good spots for hunting blinds and such.” She added a dollop of milk to her cup and took a refined sip. “He'll be home in time for supper.”

But not in time to welcome John.

“I gather Richard has told you about his accident,” she continued.

John nodded. “The marquess took a catastrophic fall from the parapet last spring and was only saved from death by a well-placed lilac bush.”

“He's much better than we have a right to expect, but he is still not quite himself. In fact, he has deteriorated since his initial injury. His memory is…flawed.”

“So you're saying he won't know who I am.”

“No, no, he understands that you've been found…”

Found?
John was never lost. He was misplaced.

“…and that you are coming here,” she continued. “But since he never knew of your existence, he naturally wouldn't have any memories of your earlier life.”

“I suppose that makes us even, because I have no recollection of him either.”

She didn't seem to catch the irony in his tone.

“Lord Hartley, what I'm trying to prepare you for is that he has no memory of your mother.”

For a moment, his mother's face flashed across his mind. She was lovely and young and foolish and sad all at once. It made John's gut burn that she only lived in his hazy recollections from when he was six years old. He didn't remember her favorite song or what color she liked or if she wished her life had been different. Surely someone ought to know who Sadie Mae was.

“But I want to tell you something about Lord Somerset,” she went on, as if John's silence were perfectly normal. He blessed her for not requiring him to hold up his side of this unusual conversation. “My husband is a very proud man, an honorable man, and a man of deep feeling. He must have cared deeply for your mother, even if he cannot remember her now.”

“My lady, I've no wish to contradict you, but how can you know something his lordship can't even remember?”

One of Lady Somerset's brows quirked up. “I know this because he defied his parents for her. By the time I came to know him, his father was already gone, so I cannot speak to the previous marquess's temperament, but believe me, one does not cross the dowager with impunity. Your mother must have been quite special.”

It did his heart good to hear someone say something positive about his mother. Too often the Coopersmiths had cast her in the role of Whore of Babylon and weren't shy of speaking their opinion before John while he was growing up. Passing strange that it should be his father's second wife who praised his first one.

“Yet he let her go,” John said, meeting her gaze.

“No doubt he was convinced that it was for the good of the estate, or some such noble reason. However, I have it on good authority that your mother was amenable to the separation. In fact, she insisted upon it.” Lady Somerset looked around the room as if it were some gilded cage. “The demands of being a marchioness were perhaps more than she expected. She wasn't prepared for everything that came with being married to your father. I fear our mode of life seemed…too staid and regimented for her.”