Barbara Metzger (9 page)

Unfortunately St. Sevrin wasn’t the one in the business of rescuing fallen sparrows. Lud, what was he thinking of, to entertain the notion of wedding the appealing little waif? Worse, what was he thinking of to let her go home alone through the woods? She didn’t even have a light. St. Sevrin pushed himself away from the window and went to the kitchen, where his greatcoat hung on a peg.

Kelly was sitting at the scarred table, having a cup of well-fortified tea. Another of those precious bottles of brandy sat half empty next to him.

“You went into the village today,” St. Sevrin casually remarked. “Did you happen to hear anything about a Miss Neville, the baron’s daughter?”

Kelly whistled. “What, we been here a whole day now and you’re tumbling into trouble already?” The ex-soldier shook his grizzled head. “I don’t see how you do it, Yer Grace. I swear I don’t.”

The duke frowned. “What do you mean, trouble?”

“The Neville gal. She’s trouble. You’ve hardly been out of your own stable, and you’re up to your neck in manure already.”

“Come on, old man, what have you heard?”

“The chit’s all they find to talk about around here. Except you, a’course. But after trying to get me to open my budget about Yer Grace, which I ain’t about to, a’course, it’s Lady Annie this and Lady Neville that. Or worse.”

St. Sevrin left his coat on the hook and took a seat across from his manservant, who got up and found another chipped cup. The baroness would be long gone into the woods, Sloane realized, and he’d never find her in the dark. He’d just have to trust in that dog to see her home safely.

“But what are they saying about her, Kelly?” he asked.

“Fey.”

“Faye? No, her name is Lisanne.”

“Fey. Touched. Fairy-dusted. Pixilated.”

“That’s absurd. There’s no such thing, just ignorant folks trying to explain away someone else’s peculiarities.”

“A wee lass what can charm birds down from the trees sounds a tad peculiar to me, too.” Kelly scratched his head. “But there’s others who say she’s a natural. You know, simpleminded.”

“They’re far off the mark there. The lady quoted me Latin, French, and Shakespeare.”

Kelly slapped his hands down on the table, jostling the cups and bottle. “I knew it. You’ve gone and met the female somehow, not hours after that guardian of hers spread word around the village that he’d have your hide if you so much as looked at the chit. Warned all the locals to lock their daughters up, too.”

“What, did he think I was in the habit of ravishing milkmaids and dressmakers’ assistants? Forget about Findley for now. What else do they say about the baroness?”

“One man claimed he’d never heard her speak a word in ten years.”

“Nonsense. She most likely had nothing to say to the dolt.” She’d had plenty to say to St. Sevrin tonight. “Anything else?”

“Well, they was all agreed she had the healing hands.” Kelly stared at the handkerchief wrapped and neatly tied around the duke’s hand. “But you wouldn’t be knowing nothing about that neither, would you?”

“What a lot of claptrap. I forgot how narrow-minded and superstitious people were in these small villages and outlying shires. Did anyone happen to mention anything about the Neville inheritance? How it was divided, that kind of thing.”

“Weren’t divided at all. Every last farthing comes to this female, what the uncle doesn’t manage to skim off. He’s too smart to let the land go to waste, unlike some others I could name, but that handsome profit the bailiff collects ain’t all making it to the London bank. They might split hairs about the girl, but no one hereabouts has a decent word to say about the uncle. A regular dirty dish, I figure. Miserly and mean, he turned off all the Neville staff without a groat when he took over. Brought in London servants. What with the Priory gone to the dogs, there’s a heap of folks nearby on the dole.”

“A few more hints like that, old man, and you could be joining them.”

Kelly ignored his employer, as usual. “They say the old baron was a downy cove what tied up most of his fortune with a London solicitor so Findley couldn’t get at it. So now the scurvy bastard makes money by charging a fee to anyone doing business at the Hall. You know, the carter, the coal man, the chandler. Some London butlers pull that rig. First I heard of the gentry doing it.”

St. Sevrin was staring at his cup. “I don’t suppose the solicitor is aware of any of this. I’ve a good mind to go tell him.”

“Now, why would you want to go and stick your nose in someone else’s business? It’ll just get bitten off. And ain’t we got enough in our dish right now?”

“Yes, but there’s a lady who needs rescuing, and she just might be the salvation of us all.” Sloane took a swallow. “Tell me, old man, do you think I’m beyond hope?”

“The devil hisself is not beyond hope. They call it religion. Why don’t you try going to church instead of to that accountant bloke?”

“I wasn’t thinking of divine intervention. Let’s start off with small miracles.”

*

“Oh, dear; oh, dear. This is all my fault.” Mr. Mackensie had been shocked when the Duke of St. Sevrin sent in his card that morning, asking for an interview with the Neville solicitor. From what Mackensie heard, the duke never took the time nor made an effort on anyone’s behalf but his own.

“I remembered the baron and his lady fondly from my own childhood,” Sloane lied when he read the suspicion on the elderly gentleman’s face. “I thought it my duty to help their daughter. As a concerned neighbor, don’t you know.”

“Much obliged, Your Grace, to be sure. And you say things aren’t what they ought to be?”

Mr. Mackensie was even more shocked after he’d listened to St. Sevrin’s claims against Sir Arthur, but not precisely surprised, Sloane thought.

“I should have gone in person,” the solicitor bemoaned, “when I first heard those rumors. But…”

St. Sevrin understood. Mr. Mackensie was a white-haired, bespectacled old man, with fingers bent and swollen with arthritis. Two canes were propped against his desk in the well-appointed office. The roomful of clerks in the outer office would run all of the gentleman’s errands here in Town, but he could never have traveled to Devon. “I’m sure you did not want to give credence to idle rumor.”

Mr. Mackensie nodded, thankful for the rescue. “I did send one of my assistants with some papers to be signed some years back. I could have put them in the post, of course, but I asked the lad to look around. He found everything in order.”

“Did he actually see Lady Lisanne? Speak to her?”

“Unfortunately no, she had a putrid sore throat at the time. The baronet was very concerned. He wrote me as soon as she was recovered.”

“I’m sure he included a tidy bundle of doctor’s fees, too. I doubt the chit ever saw a physician. She’s the one the villagers call on for their aches and pains.”

“But my clerk saw nothing untoward.”

“Possibly he was gulled, but more likely greedy. Sir Alfred would have given him a handsome douceur to insure a good report.”

“I take it you have no high regard for human nature, Your Grace.”

St. Sevrin brushed that aside. It was a fact. “Did that clerk stay in your employ? Is he here now? Can we speak to him?”

“Unhappily I had to dismiss him from my employ several years ago for irregularities in his accounts.” Mr. Mackensie was looking even more old and pained. He kept rubbing at his swollen fingers. “I should have sent another when I started to hear those disturbing rumors. One of my other clients told me word was going around the clubs that the child was sickly. Her mother was, do you recall?”

St. Sevrin could honestly say no. He had no memory of Lady Neville whatsoever, and still hadn’t remembered the gossip he had more recently heard. “I daresay that Lady Lisanne is in better health than either of us, sir.”

Mr. Mackensie smiled, reassured. “Then there was talk that the heiress was high-strung, of a nervous disposition. I didn’t know what to think. An old bachelor like me, what did I understand about children, female children besides? I thought her aunt and uncle would know what was best for her.”

“I fear, sir, that they were worrying about what was best for themselves.”

Mr. Mackensie removed his spectacles and painstakingly wiped them with his handkerchief. Not until he was done and the glasses were back on his nose did he continue. “I was relieved when Sir Alfred sent notice that he was bringing my client to Town for the coming fall Little Season. It’s more than time. I don’t know why he’s putting it off so long; most debutantes make their curtsies in the spring. I suggested my staff could have Neville House opened, aired, and ready by mid-April.”

“Most likely his own daughter is still too young.”

“Yes, well, I thought I could see Lady Lisanne for myself, then talk to the poor dear.”

“I seriously doubt you’d have been given the chance. Lady Lisanne believes she would not be permitted to come to Town if she had intentions of doing so. Findley will give some excuse or other: a lasting fever, a broken ankle. Frankly, sir, she is not ready to make a come-out. From what I saw, the baroness has no wardrobe, no care for her appearance, no drawing-room accomplishments, no sense of decorum.” Hell, if he told this old gent how she climbed through bachelor windows in the middle of the night, the solicitor was liable to have apoplexy right there, and St. Sevrin needed him safe and sound.

“But the estate has been paying for expensive governesses for years,” Mr. Mackensie protested.

“I’d wager the estate has been paying for a great many things Lady Lisanne never received. Oh, there may have been an instructress—for the younger girl. No governess worth her salt would turn out a hoyden like the baroness; she’d never find another position with such a recommendation. Lady Lisanne’s education does not seem lacking, just her social skills. The villagers say she hardly speaks, she runs barefoot in the woods…”

“Oh, my; oh, my. I’ll have to send someone. Perhaps two so they cannot be suborned if what you surmise is correct. But with the Findleys named my lady’s legal guardians, it would mean a scandalous court case to have them declared unfit. I cannot think that will help Lady Lisanne’s chances of making an eligible match. And there is no one else, no other family on either side except very distant cousins. I know of no one who could arrange the proper introductions and smooth her path.”

“I thought perhaps a match might have been arranged in infancy or some such, since Sir Alfred does not seem concerned with putting his ward in the way of eligible gentlemen. Maybe he’s contracted with a wellborn family in Devon.”

“Oh, no, I would have been notified at once. The settlements, don’t you know. And there was nothing like that in Lord Neville’s will, you may be assured. You say she is eighteen and has never been to a local assembly?”

“She is past eighteen, plaits her hair in schoolgirl braids, and wears her cousin’s castoffs.”

Mr. Mackensie pawed through a thick folder of papers. “But these are dressmakers’ bills from this past quarter.”

“I’m sure they are. Sir Arthur’s wife and daughter are very a la mode, according to the local vicar. I spoke with him because I wanted to verify my facts before coming to you, without stirring up a hornet’s nest.”

“Oh, dear, what is to be done now?”

St. Sevrin handed over Lisanne’s letter.

The poor old solicitor almost fell off his seat. If things were bad before, this was disastrous. “Oh, my stars. She wants to marry—you?”

St. Sevrin inspected his boots. “As they say, there’s no accounting for tastes.”

“This is a love match?” Mackensie asked hopefully.

“Don’t be ridiculous, man. I hardly know the chit. The union’s to her advantage, though. She’s positive no one else will be allowed near her until she’s twenty-five. She’ll be firmly on the shelf by then, and so set in freakish ways that no one will have her, no matter how large the fortune.”

“But, Your Grace…”

“I know, Mr. Mackensie. I wouldn’t wish a female in my care to throw herself away on a loose screw like myself, either. But Lady Lisanne wishes it. She needs it. And I’m not fool enough to turn her down. I know you have no reason to trust me and years of indiscretions not to, but I do mean to improve. Furthermore, you shall see that her settlements are so securely tied that Lisanne will never be at the mercy of any man again, myself or any other. Neville Hall is to remain hers and her issue’s, along with its income. Whatever would have been her dowry joins her portion. You might have to stay on until she is of age to satisfy the law, but the money is hers, to do with as she wishes.”

“Ahem. That’s very generous, Your Grace.”

“I need to pay my bills and mortgages. I need to reclaim my estates from bankruptcy. I do not need to look in my mirror every morning and see a fortune hunter looking back. As soon as my own property turns a profit, I will pay her back. I swear to you Lisanne will want for nothing.”

Except a decent man as husband. Mr. Mackensie could foresee the little baroness abandoned within a month of the wedding, in favor of the card tables. Leopards didn’t change their spots. “And you’ll bring her to court for presentation, as her parents would have wished?” he tried.

“If she is willing, yes, I can do it. There are certain advantages to playing cards with Prinny, don’t you know. The lady is much happier decocting herbal remedies and going for walks with her dog, though. I cannot imagine what the polite world will make of a lady with snails and spiderwebs in her pocket, but I can try. It would not suit me to have my duchess outcast from Society.” Actually it wouldn’t bother him a whit—Society be damned—but St. Sevrin was of a mind to rub Sir Alfred’s nose in the mud, and Cousin Humbert’s, too.

Mr. Mackensie sighed. “I can’t see how I can refuse if it is what my lady wants.”

“That’s how I looked at it.”

Alone. Alone. Alone.

St. Sevrin had gone back to London. Lisanne’s uncle had gone back to ignoring her. And she had gone back to the forest, where silence reverberated in her mind.

Lisanne visited all the secret places, called all the names, played all the songs on her flute. No one came, no one answered. She was alone.