A Perfect Gentleman (6 page)

The dealer did not answer, and Blanchard shrugged again and turned his attention to his new cards. If an heiress was out of bounds or out of reach, she was of no interest to him. A good hand was.

Stony waited through the deal to see if anyone remembered anything further. When the play paused again, he started to leave, but Blanchard called him back. “Hold a minute, Wellstone. All this interest in the house and the heiress… You haven't heard anything I should know, have you?”

Stony was not about to toss Miss Kane to the wolves, no matter what he felt about the woman. Blanchard and his oily ilk were too hungry, too quick to slaver over a tender morsel. They were just the kind of scoundrels Stony steered away from the young misses in his care, when he had young lambs—ladies—to shepherd about. He waved a casual farewell. “No, nothing you should know, I am sure, Blanchard. It was just something I recently read.”

*

Gwen learned nothing Stony did not already know, to her chagrin. Stony's valet was nearly as unhelpful. A closemouthed household was the Sloane Street residence, he reported, with mostly female servants, as befitted a single gentlewoman's establishment. Most had found new employment since the mistress's demise. There was no valet for Stony's man to chat with, naturally, and the old butler was said to be an odd chap who kept to himself since Lady Augusta's passing. He should have been pensioned off, the neighboring servants all agreed, resentful on his—and their futures'—behalf. But old Lady Lickpenny must have died the way she lived, hoarding every shilling.

Stony's valet had also found out that Miss Isabelle Kane had left the Sloane Street dwelling on the very night her aunt's body was discovered, which fact led to a lot of conjecture on the servants' part. Time, not the coroner's jury's ruling of death by natural causes, slowed the flood of gossip to a trickle. Oh, and Blanchard's man admitted that Lady Augusta's door had been slammed in the gambler's face when he tried to call there.

Neither Gwen's coterie of gabble-grinders nor the servants' grapevine had heard so much as a whisper of Miss Ellianne Kane's arrival in the metropolis.

Well, she was here now, and waiting for Stony to call. He had used all the delaying tactics he could think of by the next afternoon: exercising his gelding, then needing a bath; leaving his card of thanks at last night's hostess's door, and a posy at Lady Valentina's; sending a letter to his bailiff at Wellstone Park, and another to a schoolmate he had not seen in ten years; shaving again, closer, which meant tying a fresh neckcloth; selecting a bouquet of flowers to bring so he did not arrive like an applicant for a position, then putting back half the blooms so he did not look like a suitor; deciding which one of the extras he should wear in his buttonhole.

Oh, he could have wasted another whole day deliberating if he should send a note around first, if he should ride, drive, or walk, or if he should take Gwen along. He would gladly have sent Gwen alone, if he could have, which would have been everything proper, one gentlewoman welcoming another to the city. Unfortunately, Miss Kane was not precisely a lady born—and Gwen was too liable to have him in leg shackles before he could say Jack Rabbit.

Stony had to go. He had to accept the heiress's offer. That one hundred pounds had one hundred good uses.

He hated the necessity, all hundred of them, and was growing to hate Miss Kane, too, knowing that she knew that he had to accept her terms.

Stony swallowed his pride and, hat in hand along with the bouquet, he set off to see how he might serve Miss Ellianne Kane. His only consolation was that his hat was a fine curly-brimmed beaver, not a little red cap with bells on it like the organ-grinder's monkey wore. He was dancing to her tune, but doing it as a gentleman, by Jupiter.

*

The stooped butler who opened the door at Number Ten Sloane Street was so frail that Stony feared the weight of his beaver hat would topple the old relic. The ancient retainer certainly should have been retired, and Stony's contempt for Miss Kane grew at the omission. The aunt might have been a miser, or she might have gone on to her reward before she could reward her loyal servitors, but Miss Kane ought to know better. She ought to act better. A true gentlewoman, titled or otherwise, would have.

The old fellow seemed to know his business, however, carefully placing Stony's hat and gloves on a well-polished table and holding out his trembling hand for Stony's card. His powdered wig and black suit and white gloves were as proper as any majordomo's in Mayfair. He bowed over the coin Stony proffered with as much punctilio as any of the prince's staff, if one ignored the slight wheeze and groan as he straightened.

Then he drew a pair of thick-lensed spectacles from his coat pocket. Even with the glasses he had a hard time reading the small calling card.

“Aubrey, Viscount Wellstone,” Stony said to save the man the effort and the embarrassment, “to see Miss Ellianne Kane. She is expecting me to call.”

Timms, as the butler introduced himself, placed his spectacles on the hall table, missing by mere inches. He smiled when Stony bent to pick them up, showing a perfect pair of gleaming dentures. Then he stiffened his spine, which took years off his age, making him seem a mere ninety, instead of one hundred. He stared over Stony's left shoulder and started praising the Lord. Not Lord Wellstone, but the Lord.

“Ah, our prayers are answered. Thank you, thank you on high. Your blessing has arrived.”

Stony looked around. High or low, he and Timms were the only ones in the marble-tiled hallway.

Timms noticed. “Ah, but He is everywhere. His grace knows no boundaries. His mysteries and goodness are equal.”

“He?”

“The Almighty, of course, who saw fit to bring you into our lives at our time of need and despair.”

Almighty gods, were they so religious here? No wonder the woman had not been seen at the opera or at card parties, if such were the case. Hell, she would never find a husband if she were Bible-bound. Sunday morning sobriety was about all the lip service the
ton
paid to piety.

“May He shine His light down on your shoulders. May His infinite wisdom guide you on the path to righteousness. May—”

“May I see Miss Kane?” Stony asked in a hurry, praying—well, not literally, as Timms seemed to be doing—that the woman was no zealot. He'd rather waltz a wallflower around Almack's than ferry a fanatic to every church in London. He'd be damned if he got down on his… That is, he'd be darned if his trousers' knees needed darning again.

The butler placed his card on a small silver salver. “If you would be so good as to wait here, my lord, I shall see if Miss Kane is receiving.” Timms turned, but could not resist a parting “God bless you” on his way.

Stony had not sneezed, but his breathing was definitely obstructed.

He took the opportunity to look about him. Lady Augusta had not stinted on her own comfort, it appeared. The entry was elegant, with expensive furnishings gleaming with polish. One table held a priceless Oriental urn filled with so many exotic blooms that his own floral offering looked like a handful of wayside wildflowers. Two small portraits that Stony would love to have examined closer hung beside an exquisite—and undoubtedly expensive—marble statue of Apollo, a naked Apollo. No puritanism here, then, Stony was relieved to see.

He was about to reach for his looking glass to identify which Old Master had painted the portraits, when he heard Timms's slow, stately tread coming back down the hall. Actually, the tread was slower than it was stately, with a shuffle here and there, and a pause to rest against the carved newel post at the foot of the stairs.

Stony heard another noise coming from that direction, too. At first he could not make out the words; then he could not believe the words.

“Numb-nuts nobility, I say. Numb-nuts nobility.”

The butler's hearing must have been better than his eyesight, for spots of color appeared on his gaunt cheeks. “Pardon, my lord. It is the, ah, parrot. Yes, the parrot. No telling what they will say, eh? All God's creatures, you know.”

Timms looked like he would cheerfully strangle that particular evidence of the Creator's sense of humor, but he did say, “Do follow me, my lord, this way.”

Stony did not shuffle, but he walked as slowly as Timms, like a tired old man, or like a condemned convict walking toward the gibbet.

Chapter Five

“Aubrey, Viscount Wellstone.”

Stony could not recall when he had been announced with such solemn, heartfelt fervor.

“Oh, botheration, Timms. I told you to wait. I still have glue on my fingers.”

Stony could not recall when he had been greeted so rudely. He would have backed out of the small, sunny parlor, to wait on the lady's convenience, but Timms had shut the door at his back. He took a few steps into the room, waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the light. “Miss Kane?” he asked, addressing the woman who was scrubbing at her hands with a handkerchief.

She was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. Hell, he thought, she would have been of indeterminate gender under all the yards of black that shrouded her from her bony neck to her narrow feet. What looked like a black lace sack covered her head and her hair, and was tied under a pointed chin. He'd forgotten she was in mourning, but this was beyond proper grieving for a mere aunt. How the devil did Miss Kane expect to attract a gentleman while she looked like a crow—or a corpse?
She bobbed a slight curtsy without looking up from her scrubbing. “I am sorry I cannot offer my hand.” She raised her right one. The handkerchief was stuck to it. Despite that, she gestured toward a spindly ladies' desk in the corner. “I am trying to make some order out of things here.”

He looked toward the desk and saw that she had been affixing small pieces of paper to a larger one. From where Stony stood, her project made no sense. He doubted it made sense at any distance.

As he looked, he noticed another woman sitting in the other far corner. This one was definitely old, also black-clad, with a black scowl on her face. She had an embroidery frame in front of her and kept right on jabbing her needle into the fabric, pulling it out, jabbing it in. This must be the aunt who accompanied the heiress to Town.

Stony looked back at Miss Kane, one blond eyebrow raised as he waited to be made known to the older woman.

“Oh, of course. Please forgive my manners.”

Stony was relieved to discover she had any.

Miss Kane fluttered her hand, free now of the clinging linen. She rushed through the introduction. “My aunt Lally, that is, Mrs. Lavinia Goudge. Lord Wellstone.”

Stony bowed and stepped closer, expecting the aunt to offer her fingers for him to salute. The needle went in. The needle came out.

“My aunt, um, does not speak,” said Miss Kane, pouring water from a pitcher on the desk onto the handkerchief.

“She is mute?”

“Drat.” Now the handle of the pitcher seemed stuck to Miss Kane's hand. “What's that? Mute? Oh, no. She has, um, taken a vow of silence.”

Good grief, they were Papists after all. That enveloping black must be some sort of habit, then. Miss Kane was taking herself, her fortune, and her sticky fingers to a nunnery. The fortune would be missed. “Which, ah, religious order does she follow?” Stony asked out of politeness.

“Religion? That is Timmy's new hobby. Aunt does needlework. She just, um, took her vow in memory of her beloved husband. She spoke unkindly to the dear captain before his ship sailed. He never returned.”

Stony nodded in the widow's direction. She appeared to be choking back tears. “My condolences, ma'am. But a sea captain. That would explain the parrot.”

“The parrot?”

Miss Kane was looking at Stony as if he were queer in the attic. Hah! That was the kettle calling the pot black if he ever heard it. “Your butler said the distasteful language I heard was from—”

“You heard…? Oh, that parrot. We, um, put it away when guests call. In a closet. With a blanket over the cage. Polly is not fit for company, you see.”

Mrs. Goudge was choking again, most likely at the reminder of her lost sailor. Stony wondered if he should offer his handkerchief to her, or to the heiress, whose own cloth was now hanging off the front of her skirt like a flag of surrender. No one had offered him a seat or refreshments, and he still held the bouquet. No one seemed liable to take charge, either, with the aunt not speaking and the niece's fingers stuck together. “Won't you sit down?” he asked finally, when Miss Kane stopped staring at her hand like Lady Macbeth.

“Of course.” She did, on a comfortable-looking armchair, immediately tucking her offending fingers in her skirts, out of sight. That left him to choose between a low, pillow-strewn sofa and a hard-backed chair with claw-foot legs. He chose the sofa.

Mrs. Goudge made gagging sounds and Miss Kane leaped to her feet. “Oh, no, not there!”

Before Stony could react, a brown-and-white pillow detached itself from the sofa, yawned, stretched, and unfolded into the fattest, ugliest, smelliest bulldog Stony had ever encountered. He held out his fingers, in hope that at least someone in this household knew what to do with a gentleman's hand. The dog sniffed, snarled, then lunged, trying to launch a drooping, drooling jaw toward Stony's throat. It fell short, on its short, bowed legs.