Mischief by Moonlight (29 page)

From
To Charm a Naughty Countess

June 14, 1816

Lancashire seat of the Duke of Wyverne

“The money is gone, Your Grace.”

Finally
. After eleven years in Michael's service, his steward had abandoned the vague diplomacy favored by the previous Duke of Wyverne. Michael's father had been offended by bitter truths, preferring them sweetened into a palatable pap.

Michael was never offended by the truth, especially not a truth so obvious.

He wiped his pen and placed it next to the inkwell, almost hidden between ledgers and stacks of correspondence. “Of course the money's gone, Sanders. I have more titles to my name than guineas this year. I must simply borrow more.”

He sanded his just-completed letter to the engineer Richard Trevithick. Only a few years before, the man had overcome financial ruin to introduce steam-powered threshing in Cornwall. A brilliant innovator. Michael requested his opinion on whether steam power could be made useful in irrigation.

This year, of all years, his dukedom needed as many brilliant opinions as Michael could lay hands on.

Sanders cleared his throat, then hesitated. The familiar headache began to prod at Michael's temples.

“Yes?” His voice came out more sharply than he intended.

Another cough from Sanders. “The usual sources of credit have dried up, Your Grace.”

Michael's head jerked up. “Impossible. Has every bank in England run out of money?”

As pallid as sand itself, Sanders's only color came from gold bridgework he wore in place of three teeth lost during a youthful altercation. Now his face drained paler than usual, and he looked as pained as if he'd had another tooth knocked out.

“England remains solvent, Your Grace, but… I regret that your financial overextension is now common knowledge. I have been unable to secure further credit on your behalf. In fact, it is likely that demands may be made for a repayment of your existing loans—ah, rather soon.”

The headache clamped tight on his temples. Michael sat up straighter. “Dun me for payment, as if I'm a common cit? With whom do they think they are dealing?”

Sanders drew a deep breath. “I believe they have lost trust in your judgment, if you'll forgive the frank speech.”

Michael stared. “Yes, do continue.”

“As long as the prosperity of the dukedom appeared inevitable, securing credit for your estate improvements was not a problem. But with the unusual climatic circumstances…ah…” Sanders trailed off in a defensive flurry of careful language, his old habit of roundaboutation returning.

“My improvement plans remain unchanged, despite the persistence of winter,” Michael said.

The damned winter. Until this year, Michael trusted two things in the world: his own judgment and his land. But this year, spring had never come, and it seemed summer would also fail to make an appearance. For months, the world had lain under a chilly frost. And now Michael couldn't trust the land, and no one else trusted his judgment.

“Exactly, Your Grace. This is what they find worrisome. During an unusual year, there is less tolerance for…” Sanders shifted his feet on the threadbare carpet of Michael's study. “Unusual behavior.”

“This is an utterly unreasonable response,” Michael muttered. “When infinite credit is extended to fribbles with silk waistcoats and clocked stockings.”

“Waistcoats and stockings require a smaller outlay on the part of a creditor than do speculative mechanical constructions, Your Grace.”

Michael's mouth twitched. “My speculative mechanical constructions, as you call them, will be the making of Lancashire.” Or
would
have been.

He had planned so carefully: plowing moorland into canals; researching steam power. And finally, finally, he had a chance of reclaiming land no one had ever thought would be useful.

If his creditors were reasonable. Or if the world hadn't frozen solid. Now there was nothing to irrigate; all the crops were dead. There was nothing with which to water them; the canals were troughs of icy mud.

His signet ring weighed heavy on his finger; he rubbed at the worn gold band. “Well. Even if I am short of funds, Sanders, I will find a way to fix the situation.”

“I can think of one possible way, Your Grace.” The steward hesitated.

“Judging from your overlong pause, I'm not going to like it. Do tell me at once.”

“You could marry an heiress.” Sanders shaped the words as delicately as if he held glass beads between his precious gold teeth. “An alliance with a wealthy family would restore your creditors' confidence, and provide an infusion of cash to restart work on the canals.” He paused. “Or even build those steam-powered pumps you are interested in, Your Grace.”

“Bribery, Sanders?”

The steward's mouth turned up at the corners. “Good sense, Your Grace.”

Michael leaned back in his chair and allowed his eyes to fall closed. Mentally, he pressed the headache into a ball and threw it to the side of his awareness. What was left?

The facts. The money was gone, and if Sanders were right, no more would be coming. Crops were scarce this year. There was barely anything to feed the tenants, much less their livestock or his own sprawling herds of sheep. The duchy was dying.

Sanders made a fair point; credit depended on appearances. If a man could maintain the appearance of wealth and power, it didn't matter if he had two sous to rub together.

Michael had little use for false appearances, but the polite world had little use for this eccentricity—so they had avoided one another for the past eleven years.

But if Michael's goal was to save the dukedom, he must get more money. And one day, he must get an heir. The steward's suggestion was perfectly logical: a wife would be simply the latest of Wyverne's improvements.

“Very well. I shall marry.” Michael opened his eyes, and the headache roared back into his consciousness. Over its pounding, he said, “Shall we convene a house party, then?”

Now Sanders looked as if the glass beads had been shoved up his posterior. “I regret that that is impossible, Your Grace. I have, as you know, kept in contact with your London household over the years, and I hesitate to inform you that they have come into the possession of certain articles of interest regarding—”

Michael held up a hand. “Speak plainly, if you please.”

The steward's gaze darted away. “The
ton
thinks you're mad, Your Grace. It's a frequent source of amusement in the scandal rags.”

“Is it? After all the time I've been away, they still talk about me. How fascinating I am.”

His words sounded carefree, belying the headache that now clanged with brutal force, or the queasy pitch of his stomach. Michael could ignore these distractions, but that word,
mad
—he had heard it so often that he had come to hate it.

He had never known he was
mad
as a boy—never, until he was sent off to school. If there had been nothing to do but study, he would have excelled, but the close quarters, the games, the initiations others handled so easily had turned Michael ill and shaking. He was eventually sent home. A sin for which his father had never forgiven him. But hard-won solitude had been Michael's, save for a brief interlude in London more than a decade before.

A wholly unsuccessful interlude that revived whispers about the old duke's mad son. Michael had hoped these whispers were silenced after so many years. But no: if the polite world was again questioning his sanity, that was undoubtedly why no more credit was forthcoming. Anyone would loan to a genius, but no one would risk a farthing on the schemes of a madman.

Unfortunate that the line between the two was slim and easily crossed.

“If I might make a suggestion,” Sanders ventured.

“Go on.”

“If you travel to London at once, Your Grace, you may take part in the final weeks of the season. You will find many potential brides.” Sanders's thin, sun-browned face softened under its thatch of grayish hair. “Once they meet you in person, Your Grace, they will surely be charmed, and all scurrilous gossip will be refuted.”

“Charmed, Sanders? I haven't charmed anyone since I learned to walk and talk.” Except for that brief, bright flash of time in London.

Years ago. Unnecessary even to recall it. At this stage of life, he was as likely to charm a wife as he was to plop a turban on his head and charm a cobra.

“I would be delighted to travel to London in your stead, Your Grace,” Sanders said, “but I doubt I should answer the purpose to the young ladies of town.”

“Shall I, though?” Michael rubbed a hand over his eyes. “A madman. The mad duke. ‘The mad duke's bride hunt.' Why, the scandal-rag headlines almost write themselves.”

From
Once Upon a Kiss

August 29th, 1815 A.D.

Today I splashed Mrs. Dockley from head to toe, broke a china plate, and failed to heed Mama. Thrice. All these things, but for the last, were quite accidental. I was quarrelsome on four occasions and fibbed regarding the china plate, pieces of which will one day be found buried in the herb garden and not in the possession of a wild-eyed, knife-wielding gypsy with a wart and a wooden foot. Although I think my version of events is better.

Sometimes real life is very dull, or simply inconvenient, and things never turn out quite the way one expects or hopes. I have heard it said that challenges are sent to try us. I would like to know who is sending so many to me, for I believe they have been misaddressed. I am quite tried enough, and I suspect that someone, somewhere, is completely light since I have all their calamities as well as my own.

Speaking of which, today I thought of the Wrong Man again.

I know not why he continues to plague me, unless it is a developing, chronic case of Maiden's Palsy. It has been over a year.

All I can say is, the blasted town of Bath has a great deal to answer for and I would not go there again for ten thousand pounds and a life supply of hot chocolate.

Anyone coming upon Justina Penny's diary would be shocked, not only by the fullness of its pages, but by the fastidious attention to detail.

Her sister, Catherine, kept awake every evening in the bed beside her while she recorded these “trivial happenings and idle thoughts,” proclaimed it to be a wicked form of self-indulgence.

“Your time would be better spent in somber internal reflection and prayer, Jussy,” she said primly. “Why you bother committing all your terrible shortcomings to paper, I'll never know.”

To which Justina replied, “Really, Cathy! How can I be sure of making proper recompense to those I wronged if I do not keep track of my daily malefactions?”

I cursed inventively when I caught my skirt in the kitchen door and again when I found a splinter in my finger.

At approximately ten o'clock, when I saw Lucy in her new scarlet cloak, I was wracked with envy. But it lasted only until a quarter past, at which time she shared a jam tart with me and lamented the fact that her hair will never hold a curl so well as mine. Ah, vanity—one is hounded by it relentlessly when one has so little to be vain about.

Yesterday we sat in the hayloft and watched Major Sherringham's hired harvest hands at work.

Briefly I lusted.

That is when I thought of the Wrong Man again. But even I do not suffer the Maiden's Palsy as often as Lucy, who will confess—when pressed—that she is seized by wicked desires at least twice daily, even with no militia encamped nearby. I suspect this may be due to the fact that she was once a sickly child. I shall advise her to eat nettle soup. And a quantity of it.

Catherine peered over the edge of the coverlet. “If you feel the need to write your sins down, would it not be less time-consuming to behave properly in the first place?”

Ah, it was easy for
her
to say, thought Justina. Her sister was never tempted by the perfect target of a backside bent over, or a man needing his opinion adjusted. Catherine was angelic goodness itself, never lured into trouble by an unbound curiosity. Even laid flat in bed she managed to be upright.

“No other young lady in this village feels the need to leap over puddles, Jussy.”

“That's their fault. It is a tremendous thrill to be flying through the air.”

“Sadly one must always come down again, and in your case the landing has a propensity to be sudden, heavy, and lacking in ladylike elegance.”

While Justina allowed this to be true, she still maintained it was not her fault that anyone else's petticoats were splashed in the descent. “How was I to know that Mrs. Dockley would come out of her gate at the exact moment I landed in the flooded lane?”

“Perhaps by considering the possible consequences before you indulge yourself in another of your
thrills
? No, I suppose that would be too much to ask. I wouldn't want to spoil the joyous spontaneity for you.” Cathy burrowed again, mole-like, under the covers.

“Sarcasm is unbecoming, sister dear. It will give you wrinkles and dyspepsia. Possibly also gum boils.”

The next words were muffled. “For which I shall blame you.”

The sky remains calm, although according to the rusted weathercock on Dockley's barn, North is now South. Some say it is a bad omen. I, for one, am glad. It's time things around here were turned on their head. Perhaps something interesting will happen.

“Honestly,” Justina muttered, pen scratching furiously across the page, “it's no surprise to me that Nellie Pickles ran away with some lusty sailors. There is no fun to be had in this village.”

The sheets churned beside her again and Cathy reemerged. “Nellie didn't run away with any sailors. Who told you such a terrible thing?”

“No one tells me anything,” Justina replied gloomily. “I have to imagine it for myself most of the time.”

“Well, I wish you would not. You spend too much time dwelling on these…unsavory ponderings.”

“With entertainment so thin upon the ground, is it any wonder?”

“But—”

“If people answered my questions, I wouldn't have to make things up, would I? No one tells me what I want to know.”

“Because the things you want to know about usually aren't suitable subjects for young, unmarried ladies. Lusty sailors, indeed!”

Justina sighed in disgust as a large ink blot dripped from her pen. “Do you not want to know either, Cathy? Have you no curiosity about your wedding night, for instance?” She didn't have to look at her sister to know she blushed. “I'm sure you have questions about that, just as I do.”

“I do not think of it,” Cathy replied. “It is not for me to know anything about.”

“Why? Is the man supposed to do it all? What if he doesn't know either?”

“Of course he'll know. He's a man.”