Her Beguiling Butler (17 page)

“I caught ‘im, I did. Old bugger. He came up them stairs, full of ‘imself. Mad man, he was. Yelling at me.” Sweeting sneered. “It were easy to push ‘im down the stairs.”

Alicia sought a chair. “Why would you do that? Push Norden. Poor man. And why kill my husband? What did he ever do to you? He was kind to you. Gave you a raise…often. Why kill him?”

Sweeting stared at her mistress with hatred in her little eyes. “He got my girl with child, ‘e did.”

Alicia stared at her in disbelief. “When?”

“Eight years ago, he did. And she died in the birthing. Dear girl, she were a beauty, too. Could’ve had a good man. Better man. But Ranford took her, ‘e did. Met her in the Rookery when she were new to whoring. Took her to rooms and had his way with her. Promised her fancy clothes and money. Had ‘er in his ways. With ropes and knives and things up her arse. She were an idiot. I told her to stop. She got big with his seed and then in the birthing, she bled out. The chick was dead when she come out, too. Poor bit of fluff.”

“And yet you came to work here for him?” Alicia asked with incredulity.

Sweeting preened. “I did. I took me time. Waited. Then saw how ‘e never stopped his whoring. And he married you. He were a devil.”

Alicia swallowed hard.

“When I saw how we had nightshade in the garden, I used it. Why not? But when I saw that Preston had her opium, I took a bit. Now and then, you know. She never missed it. Until now. Old cow.”

Preston lunged forward, her hands going round Sweeting’s throat. “Goat.”

“Stop!” Finnley ordered as he and Connor got her off the cook.

It took some doing, but the two women separated and were calmed.

Grimes came in the kitchen door, stamping snow from his shoes, trailing behind him a Runner from Bow Street.

Finnley knew the man. “Gaylord, good to see you.”

“I understand you learned who killed Lord Ranford,” the tall, blonde man said, smiling wryly at Finnley.

“I do. We have two for you to take to the magistrate.”

“Happy to, my lord.”

At his use of the courtesy title, Alicia sat straighter in her chair.

The others considered Finnley with quiet admiration.

Minutes later, both the cook and the scullery maid were escorted out the back door by Grimes and Gaylord.

An air of unease hung in the kitchen as the remaining staff murmured of their need to depart for their duties.

And Alicia and Finnley were left to stare at each other.

With her hands folded in her lap, she appeared limp, unable to do anything but stare at him.

He exhaled and searched for ways to soften the blow of his revelation. “I know this is a shock to learn that I am—“

“A lord? No. With the Home Office? I suppose not.”

“I am hired on occasions. In this case, many people had more questions than answers. When your butler Norden died, the surgeon who came in attendance that day thought something was amiss here. The way Norden landed on the stairs on his back rather than on his face meant he’d fallen backwards. His death on top of your husband’s was odd. Especially since your husband had no maladies and the apothecary in Oxford Street claimed your husband acted oddly when he came to ask for headache powder. He thought he was deranged.”

“Lord Ranford was a healthy man, it’s true. And he was a cruel man in word and, to some, in deed as well. I am sorry he died the way he did.” Alicia was not a vindictive woman and so her statement endeared her more to him. “So tell me, sir, are you packed to leave me?”

That brought him up short. His two bags were stuffed with his meager belongings. Loathe to leave her as he was, he still had one more thing to do. “I am ready, yes. However, I would like to return as the man I truly am.”

“You had that opportunity and failed to take it.”

“I am free of my responsibilities now that these murders are solved. This afternoon, I will resign in service to the Home Office.”

“How wonderful for you,” she said and stood. Her gaze lifted to the top of his head and drifted slowly down over his forehead, eyes, nose and mouth, to his chest and arms, fingers, legs and feet. “Do leave the keys to the house on the kitchen table. Thank you for your help with my staff.”

Despair had him grinding his teeth. “Alicia, I would like to tell you who I am and begin anew.”

“I do not wish it. I had a man who hid much of his activities. I wish for no other.” She stared at him as if he were a stranger. “Goodbye to you. Do excuse me. I have much to do to leave here and prepare myself and my staff for a new house and a new life.”

That was now his rival. Her new house, her greater wealth and her independent life.

The questions before him were could he offer her anything more appealing, and would she ever forgive him?

Six weeks later, Wallace Finnley Demerest walked into the shop of Lock’s hatters at Number Six St. James’s Street, with the intention to buy anything they might have in stock that fit him. For his assault on the
ton
, he needed a gentleman’s wardrobe from socks to hats. He’d spent a fortune earlier this morning ordering new breeches, satin waistcoats, wool coats and two black greatcoats, Hessian boots and French silk socks. Christ, dressing like a dandy was not only time-consuming but damned expensive. After two hours, he told himself he’d bring a flask of good red wine should he ever again have to endure endless fittings.

He had business to be done, not the least of which was to choose an architect, plasterers and bricklayers. He had to hurry too if he was to have any improvements to his country house by June. The weather continued to be so stormy and chilly that workmen could not agree on doing any construction. On the spur of the moment, he’d visited his man of business this morning and been shocked to learn that the fellow had taken to his bed, so said his wife, with a case of apoplexy. The cause was that he’d seen the recent bills and gasped.

“The Viscount Beaumont does not spend a guinea on his house let alone this many thousands,” he’d told his wife and she’d repeated it to Finn.

But Mr. Jermyn would recover. He had to. The man had not yet seen the biggest set of bills for new flooring and mahogany panels for his own new library and study. Then after that there would be brocades and silks, velvets and whatever else a woman chose to make a hulk a home.

“Finn! Good to see you!” A tall blond gentleman with a scar along his left cheek approached him with a smile. “Wait, wait. I should call you Beaumont. Pardon me.”

“No matter. I am barely used to the new title myself. Cartwell, my god, is it you?” Finn clasped the man’s hand in greeting. He had always enjoyed the earl’s company though his taste for gambling and women did not please Finn. Still, he and Cartwell had served at Waterloo together, though Cartwell had been on Wellington’s staff while Finn had taken his old post in the field with his regiment. After the wars, Cartwell had remained in Paris and later had gone to Vienna to work on the peace treaty. “I wondered how you were. Heard you had retired to the country after the Congress.”

“Working with Castlereagh and the French Bourbons can take the starch out of you,” the man admitted with feigned horror. “I did retire to my home in Cornwall, but boredom descended. I returned, took up my usual pastimes. I understand you have opened your house here.”

“I have though I doubt I’ll remain in London. I am renovating the family pile in Kent.” And ‘pile’ was the appropriate word for the skeleton of the manse that had become his major interest.

“Had a fire, didn’t you tell me once when we were in Belgium?”

“You have a good memory,” Finn said. “Yes, my father lit a taper one evening during an argument with my mother and the place crackled like Chinese fireworks.”

“I thought you said you’d never return.”

No clerk or other patrons were in the showroom to overhear so Finn could reply easily. “I did say that. I have a new reason to try to resurrect the beauty of it.”

“A woman?”

Finn grinned. “Astute of you. Might I ask if you have similar challenges?”

“Yes. But not what you might think.”

“Oh?” Finn remembered that Cartwell was quite a few years older than he and before Waterloo, the man’s father had encouraged him to marry. “How so?”

“Mine is eight years old.”

“Your daughter?”

“A ward. My cousin’s child. A girl. A hellion to be exact. And I must find a governess soon or jump from my roof.”

Finn chuckled. “I wish I had a reference for you. Alas, none.”

“You have not married?” Cartwell asked with the arch of a blond brow.

“No.”

“The same for me. Although I will tell you, before this child came to me, I thought it time. My father passed away more than two years ago and I must do my duty.”

“Many mothers this Season will meet that prospect with joy.”

“I daresay at thirty-six years of age I dislike the prospect of taking a chit half my age to my bed.”

Finn nodded. “I would not want a child either.”

“Ah, but I understand there is a comely widow on the market.” Cartwell inched closer.

If he names—

“Lady Ranford who is now proclaimed the new Baroness Bentham is said to be a beauty.”

Hell.
“So I hear.”

Cartwell tipped his chin. “Do I detect that you know her?”

“I do.”

Cartwell got a twinkle in his eye. “And you like her.”

Finn inhaled.
Why not admit it?
“I do.”

His friend lifted a hand in a sign of surrender. “I will not crowd the field. March on, my man. Call on me if I may aid you.”

Finn snorted. “You’d only give me a contest.”

“Competition spices the game.”

Finn feigned a scowl. “I’ll tell you if I need your help.”

“Good. In the meantime, let’s examine the felt, shall we? My favorite hat was crushed yesterday by two tiny stomping feet.”

“You need that governess today.”

* * *

Alicia fingered the roll of pearl pink chiffon silk and recalled how once she might have worn such a delicate fabric to a ball. Now if she donned such a virginal color, the
ton
would laugh at her silliness. She was not a girl. Not a wife. Not so much a widow, either, since it was May and she was officially out of her mourning for Robert.

She stared out the front window of Miss Pierpont’s shop. Envy consumed her as she watched a stylish young woman and her mother cross the street, laughing with each other. That kind of enjoyment with her own mother Alicia had missed. The woman had died so young leaving Alicia at age twelve at the mercy of her father who had spent as little time as possible with her. Her aunt Hortense had filled the void as best she could. But somewhere in her life Alicia hoped for deep regard. The pang of remembering Finnley and their moments together was bitter sweet.

She blinked back hot tears and gazed once more at the silk between her fingers.

This Season would be a less hectic one for many young ladies entering society. Though the first rush of mourning for the old King George had passed at the end of April, many of the
ton
still observed a token of grief. Men, the higher their rank, still wore black armbands. Women of similar echelons took off their black attire and donned mauves. Alicia had sequestered herself in her country home these past few months, wearing her old mauves, and living for the first day of June when she could have Preston burn them all.

“I would buy that, if I were you,” Aunt Hortense said to her as she came to stand beside her at the tables.

“Don’t you think it might be an attempt at reliving my wasted youth?”

At her bright sarcasm, her aunt pulled in her chin and scoffed. “I thought you were going to be bold?”

Alicia chuckled. “I’ll have the seamstress make an entire wardrobe of it in pure white. I’ll wear it in my boudoir. My bath. In my own ballroom.”
To dance alone.

“You can afford it.”

“With ease,” Alicia said, smiling at the smooth drape of the fabric that felt like a waterfall beneath her fingertips.

“And you have no husband to naysay you.”

Alicia gazed overly long into her aunt’s eyes. “Nor any suitor.”

“But you can and should acquire one or better, two.”

“For the fun of it,” she said and recalled for the hundredth time the glimmer in Finnley’s blue eyes when he looked at her
sans
any clothing at all.

“The earl of Newport’s country party is the perfect place to re-enter the world.”

“I’ll take Miss Pierpont’s new wardrobe with me,” Alicia said in the spirit to socialize. “I’ll need the confidence of new clothes. You know I hate large gatherings.”

“Newport promises to keep this event intimate to accord with our mourning for old George.”

“How many is that? Ten? Twenty?”

“His wife has told me we total twelve.”

Alicia tipped her head to and fro. “I hope to remember all their names. And the right way to address them!”

Aunt Hortense snorted. “Don’t denigrate your abilities, dearest. You will charm them with one flash of your violet eyes and marvelous figure.”

“I am eager only to see Newport’s gardens and sample his cook’s creations. Aside from that, I will most likely read in my rooms.”

“I will drag you out, dear girl. The world anticipates the new Baroness Bentham.”

“The new baroness.” Alicia held up to her face a swatch of purple sateen and admired her reflection in the full-length cheval mirror. “In all her finery.”

* * *

Two weeks later, Alicia and her aunt rode up the circular drive to the Newport country estate outside the town of Dover. Alicia had sent Preston on ahead along with her aunt’s maid. Connor, her coachman, was up in the box of Alicia’s carriage that she’d brought down from London. She hadn’t ordered a newer conveyance. That would have been a frivolous expense, considering she’d decided to save her funds for other more important improvements to the Bentham country house. Still, she had added her new crest to the sides of the coach and had new livery of blue and gold tailored for Connor, as well as Grimes.

But in her Ranford country house, she had made no improvements, knowing it would go soon to the entailed heir. In Maidstone, she’d visited her new estate of Bentham and found it sadly wanting in comforts. She would have to spend quite a bit of money to improve the walls and floors, to paint and furnish the house that dated from the reign of Charles the Second.