Realm 03 - A Touch of Cashemere (3 page)

And although Cashé had found Lord Lexford exceedingly handsome, she had never once pictured the viscount as anything more than what she had Charters. She had missed the viscount’s company when her family suddenly departed from London, but, in reality, Cashé realized she’d missed the excitement of the London Season more than she had the viscount–a fact she could not share with anyone. The viscount’s coffee brown eyes did not have the smoldering passion she observed in the earl’s slate gray ones.

The small carriage rolled into the hard-earthen drive before The Square Bow Inn on the British side of the border. Because the storm had moved from north to south, the yard was well on its way to being full, probably. The earl had dismounted and had come to open the carriage door to assist her and her maid to the ground. “It might be best,” the earl whispered close to her ear, “if we register as brother and sister. Even with your maid in tow, it would be unseemly of us to travel together.”

Cashé’s eyes grew in size. “I am not of the habit of offering an untruth, Your Lordship,” she hissed.

He casually adjusted the angle of her bonnet, and Cashé felt the air rush from her lungs. He murmured, “I understand, Miss Cashémere; yet, I only make the suggestion to protect you.”

Cashé searched his countenance for the truth of what he said. Finally, she reached to straighten his cravat. Although she told herself it was all for show, it was an intimate moment. “I shall agree to being your cousin, Your Lordship.”

The earl smiled deviously. “Yardley.”

“I beg your pardon?” Cashé glanced to where Edana waited for her.

Assuring their privacy, he leaned closer. “My cousin would know my name. I am Marcus Wellston, Lord Yardley.”

Cashé ducked her head in embarrassment. “Of course.” She bit her bottom lip. “Thank you, Lord Yardley.”

He placed her hand on his arm and led her into the inn. Recognizing quality, the innkeeper rushed forward. “Yes, Sir.”

“My cousin and I require rooms for the evening.” She observed how Lord Yardley’s eyes surveyed the common room. She supposed that he searched for acquaintances.

“I have only two small rooms available, Your Lordship. I will be happy to serve you, but I must warn you one is off the kitchen and is a bit noisy.” The innkeeper smiled a toothless grin.

“Yardley, this is unacceptable,” Cashé began, but he recognized the difference in her tone from when she chastised him. “I cannot sleep off the kitchen, and I certainly cannot condone the Earl of Berwick doing so.”

The innkeeper dropped his smile. “The Earl of Berwick? My Lord, I will personally see to your accommodations. We will make the necessary adjustments. Might you and your cousin step into the private room? I will send in some of my wife’s best while I have my man bring in your trunks. There are two other gentlemen in the parlor, but I am certain they would welcome your company.”

“Thank you. My cousin and I appreciate your solicitous service.”

He returned her hand to his sleeve, and her heart skipped several beats. “I thought you refused to twist the truth,” he mocked.

“I did not offer a prevarication,” she declared. “I said I could not condone my sleeping in such a room nor would I see you do so. If the innkeeper read something into my words, then that is not my fault.”

The earl laughed. “I suppose it is not.” He held the door for her, and they stepped into the shadows. Before her eyes could adjust to the darkened room, someone called out, “Wellston!”

Marcus’s head snapped around, searching for the source of the sound when his eyes fell on Lucas Sampson, a former colleague. Leaving Cashé by the door, Marcus strode toward the man. “Sampson!” he slapped his former friend on the back and shook his hand rather than to offer a proper bow. “My God, Man, it must have been nearly eight years!”

Sampson gave Marcus a shy grin. “More than that. One day we were riding Northumberland’s back roads, wreaking havoc, and the next you were gone, with no word to anyone.”

Marcus ignored the probe into his past. “It was time to do something besides carouse with you,” he mocked, trying to divert the man’s attention.

Sampson took on a serious mien. “I was sorry to hear of your father’s passing.”

Marcus glanced away as if seeing something the others did not. “His Lordship expected as much. The earl planned for all contingencies.”

“And you have assumed the title?” Sampson joined Marcus where Cashé waited a bit impatiently.

“I serve as Trevor’s regent.” Again, Marcus declined making additional comments.

Sampson now stood before Cashémere. “Would you care to introduce me, Wellston?” Marcus did not appreciate Sampson’s close assessment of Miss Cashé’s ample bust line. His fists tightened in response.

Marcus quickly noted his former friend’s interest and easily interpreted Sampson’s assumption that Marcus planned an assignation. “Lucas Sampson, may I present my cousin, Miss Aldridge.” He possessively returned Cashé to his arm, conveying his protection of the girl.

Sampson smiled cheekily. “I never knew you possessed such attractive relatives, Wellston.” The bounder bowed properly to Cashé before giving Marcus a knowing look.

Marcus realized the man still thought Cashé might be his mistress or a local girl upon whom he practiced an affair. To allay Sampson saying something inappropriate, Marcus shared, “My cousin’s family has been summoned to Linton Park. Unfortunately, her uncle with whom she resides was unable to accompany her; therefore, I have taken on the task.” Marcus liked the way he had worded the remark; except for the cousin part, he had told the truth. It was very much as it had been earlier with Miss Cashémere.

Assuming Marcus spoke the whole truth Sampson stammered. “Linton...Linton Park? You are related to Linworth, Miss Aldridge?” His lecherous gaze switched to respectability.

Cashé had carefully observed the spoken and the unspoken interplay between Berwick and his friend. The earl had not approved of Mr. Sampson’s tone any more than did she. She easily recognized Yardley’s reproach; Cashé had heard it directed toward her several times earlier today. “Yes, Mr. Sampson. Lady Worthing’s mother and mine were first cousins. My older sister resided with Thornhill after our parents’ untimely deaths.” She raised her chin defiantly, daring the man to question her further.

It was one of the few times that day that Marcus had admired the girl. She had effectively placed Sampson in his social strata by mentioning both the earldom and the dukedom in her explanation. Cashé Aldridge had announced quite clearly that she held powerful connections. Marcus took pleasure in seeing Sampson take a step backwards, literally, increasing his distance between himself and the girl.

“Then I did hear correctly,” Sampson spoke again to Marcus, “that Lord Worthing took the Thornhill daughter for his wife?”

“You did.”

“Did you not serve with both men?” Sampson kept probing. “I had heard you served together in the East.”

The continual questioning began to wear thin on Marcus. “It appears, Sampson, that you have an excellent source of information. If only the British government had had such connections during the war, we could have shortened the struggle by several years.” Before the man could respond, Marcus brought the conversation to an end. “You will excuse us, Sampson. My cousin and I are quite famished, and the innkeeper has brought our meal.”

“Of course, Wellston.” Former friends were no longer equals.

The lady accepted the seat to which Marcus guided her. “I apologize, Lord Yardley, if my presence keeps you from your friends,” she whispered as he bent to adjust her chair.

“Believe me, Miss Cashémere, it is of no significance.” He glanced to where Sampson rejoined his companion. “I chose to leave behind what Mr. Sampson regards as important. I have no regrets.”

She nodded her agreement. “At least, we did not tell the innkeeper that we were siblings. I assume Mr. Sampson knows your family. I heard him mention your father. I was unaware of your loss.”

Marcus stiffened. A very private man, he swallowed his comment. “My father was ill for some time.”

“But it was only a few months since his passing. Surely you must still be grieving,” she declared.

Marcus bit back his instant anger. The girl had no idea of what his life consisted before the earl died. “How I honor the earl’s passing is my own accord.”

She helped herself to some of the shepherd’s pie. “Yet, you do not wear a black armband.”

“The earl is aware of my breaking with propriety.” Marcus took a piece of bread and some cheese.

She characteristically put down her spoon with a huff. “You are the earl, Lord Yardley,” she insisted.

“I am a minor son, Miss Cashémere, and I am a fake.”

She began to protest, but one of his deadly stares stopped her cold. Cashé did not understand, but it really made little difference. After they reached Linton Park, she would never see him again so trying to solve this irascible man’s mystery seemed an effort in futility. Instead, she concentrated on the meal and on making plans to find her Uncle Samuel. She would not end the evening the way the day had started with an argument with Lord Yardley.

Within an hour, Edana helped her to undress in the larger of the two rooms assigned to them for the evening. Earlier, she had looked on as Lord Yardley had hired a man to ride to his estate and to bring back a small trunk. His Lordship had brought little with him and would need a change of clothes if they were to travel far. She noted that he paid the man very well to ride through the night. From what she could surmise, if they had hugged the eastern coastline, they would have come across his estate shortly after entering into England, but to save time, they had traveled west across the central border counties toward Harwick.

Observing him carefully, it had amazed her how efficient Yardley appeared when he had organized things, but how impersonal he became in his social interactions. The man did not even openly grieve for his own father. Cashé could not comprehend such a thing. She would give anything to have had her parents until she had reached Yardley’s age–an additional five and twenty years with her family. She would grieve for them, not as she did at age three when all she did was cleave to her grandmother’s skirt tail and cry. Not only had she lost her parents, Cashé had also lost her sisters in one fell swoop. Satiné had gone to Uncle Charles in Cheshire and Velvet to the Fowlers. They had both thrived in their respective households. They had left her all alone to learn to survive in a home where love had taken a permanent holiday.

Although Cashé always assumed Lady Averette had loved her, if for no other reason but the fact that she was Edward Aldridge’s daughter, her paternal grandmother had not believed in showing affection. Cashé’s grandmother had loved her eldest son to distraction. Kentigerna Aldridge lived up to her name. Kentigerna means “ruler” or “great lord,” and Cashé had experienced how the woman had ruled her household with an iron hand. Even Uncle Samuel had suffered under Kentigerna’s reign; in fact, he had not married Aunt Alice until after his mother’s passing. Cashé always assumed her uncle had not wished to subject anyone else to Lady Averette’s bitterness. Yet, however hard the woman, Cashé had spent a year wearing black in remembrance. She had grieved for a woman who never once showed her love, while Yardley had offered no such honor for a man he obviously respected. She could not conceive of such stubbornness!

Marcus attended to his own ablutions, but that was not what had upset him this evening. Being reminded by both Sampson and the girl of how he had stumbled into the earldom did not set well with him. Every day, Tweed Hall reminded him of how he had come into the position–how he had not deserved one “Your Lordship” or one point of deference. Like Sampson, he should simply be a “Mister,” not “Master of the Estate,” the highest-ranking aristocrat in the area. He smiled from the irony of how God had dealt him a hand he had never expected–a hand where the youngest of four children became an earl.”

*

“It appears, Miss Cashémere, that your uncle has taken the main roads across Northumberland, meaning Lord Averette will cross Nottingham and maybe even part of Lincolnshire.” Marcus escorted her to the coach. They had not broken their fast together; he had purposely sent a tray to her room, assuring that she did not lie abed half the day. He wanted an early start to their journey.

“And how can you be so assured, Lord Yardley?” Cashé asked sarcastically, a bit perturbed by his underhanded maneuver with the breakfast tray.

Marcus taunted, “It is my business to know such details, Miss Cashémere.”

“I thought your business was the earldom, Sir,” she hissed, stressing her words.

“Berwick is my title, but I have other interests.” He glanced over his shoulder to where the driver assisted the maid to the coach. “Do you suppose I might make a comment,” he whispered, “without your correcting or censuring it?”

“I do not...” she began, but quickly clamped her mouth shut. Through gritted teeth, she whispered, “Explain, Lord Yardley.”

Marcus’s hold on her arm tightened. “I will protect you and see you safely to Linton Park, but I will do so without an argument centering around every interaction between us.” He paused and waited for the girl’s response, but when none came, he continued, “I questioned your uncle’s staff before we departed, and I have done the same at each stop we have made. No one has seen Viscount Averette or the livery, which means His Lordship travels by a different route.”

She nodded before grudgingly saying, “Thank you, Your Lordship.” Marcus assumed that was the closest he would receive in apology. “Should we be able to overtake my uncle?”

“I doubt it,” he leaned closer where he might speak only to her. “Yet, by taking a more direct route, although a bit slower, we should arrive in Derbyshire within a few hours of your family.”

“Shall we reach Linton Park today?”

“Tomorrow.” He braced her entrance into the coach.

Cashé looked deeply into the earl’s noncommittal eyes. “Then we remain cousins a bit longer, Lord Yardley.”

“A bit, Miss Cashémere.” He closed the carriage door and walked purposely away.