Rules of Engagement (8 page)

"Yes, your grandmother never admitted it, but I think she arranged to have her father catch us. I'd scarcely stormed the portal when he—"

Kerrich flinched away. "Please, Grandpapa! I don't want to know."

Lord Reynard grinned at Kerrich's squeamishness. "How do you think your father got here, lad? He was not angel-borne, or found under a cabbage leaf."

"If I choose to believe so, I think you should let me have my illusions." Kerrich slumped in his chair.

Taking the glass, Lord Reynard lifted it high. "To your grandmama, the smartest woman ever born and the woman I loved."

"To Grandmama." Kerrich joined in the toast to the woman he remembered as stem and disciplined, although his grandfather seemed to have completely different recollections, none of which Kerrich wanted to acknowledge.

After Lord Reynard had drained the glass, he held it out to be refilled.

Kerrich complied, knowing full well the old man would sip this one through the afternoon and into the evening.

"A man of years has to survive on memories." Lord Reynard sounded sentimental.

Lord Reynard's sentimentality was always suspect and usually at Kerrich's expense, so he retorted, "As old as you are, you should have memories to last you a good long time."

"Ah, lad, you shouldn't grudge me my reminiscences, especially when you're the only one I can reminisce with. All my friends and my enemies are dead, my only child is dead, your mother's off somewhere with that gigolo of hers—"

"Italy, last I heard, and that gigolo is making her very happy."

"At your expense."

"Worth every penny." Kerrich lifted his glass to the dowager countess of Kerrich. She was his mother and he loved her, but resentfully. Every time he saw her, he remembered his father. His father was the wisest, kindest, best man he'd ever met, and his mother hadn't even waited a year after his death before she'd found herself another man. She said she suffered a broken heart. Kerrich thought she had chosen an odd way of healing it. No, Mother was the kind of complex, intelligent woman Kerrich had made a career of steering clear of. Give him the burbling, empty-headed ones who played for pleasure without a thought to the consequences; Kerrich's life was easier with his mother in Italy.

The glow of firelight danced on Lord Reynard's bald head and cast a golden gleam on the fringe of white hairs around his ears. "Speaking of old memories and getting caught with my pants down, do you recall that famous incident at the duchess of Kent's dinner party in Kensington Palace—"

"No!"

Lord Reynard's teeth gleamed in a grin. "You always were sulky that you were actually at the palace that evening and still missed out that fabulous display. Where was it you were? With the other lads skulking about in the gardens?"

Kerrich didn't want to talk about it, but better than anyone he knew how impossible it was to change the course of conversation once his grandfather had begun to reminisce, and especially about this. Over the years, his grandfather had recalled this incident repeatedly and enjoyed it every time. "Yes," Kerrich said. "We were in the garden, plotting to scare the girls."

"Ah, yes." Lord Reynard nodded wisely. "Every young man's desire, to scare the girls."

"At seventeen, anyway."

Another shriek traveled through the air and trailed off in a high, suffering note. Kerrich and his grandfather exchanged glances.

Raising his voice, Kerrich called, "Moulton, what
was
that?"

Moulton appeared at the doorway. "My lords, it would seem Miss Beth objects to the act of bathing."

"Is she fighting?" Kerrich asked.

"I understand from the upstairs maids that Miss Lockhart is drenched as well."

"Poor Miss Lockhart." Kerrich didn't bother to subdue his grin.

"Poor Beth," Lord Reynard said. "She's going to keep you hopping."

"Nonsense, a little water will do them both good."

While he spoke, Moulton made a gesture to Kerrich that indicated success. Then he bowed and retreated.

So the butler had sent someone to follow Lewis. Kerrich had done what he could to protect his cousin from arrest, but all the culprits needed to be found, and soon, for while the Mathewes Bank could temporarily bear the loss of revenue, the Bank of England took it ill that English pound notes had also been counterfeited, and more ill that it had been done on their special watermarked paper with their special, difficult-to-make ink. That meant someone had gone right into the bank and stolen the supplies. If the matter wasn't resolved soon, the business would be reported to the prime minister, Queen Victoria would undoubtedly find out, her money would be withdrawn and Kerrich still would have no guarantee Her Majesty wouldn't open him to ridicule before the whole of society.

"What a night that was," Lord Reynard said.

Recalled to the moment and confused, Kerrich asked, "What night?"

Then Lord Reynard chortled like an evil fairy.

"Oh. That night."

"Old King William was there, under protest, of course, since he detested Her Grace of Kent."

"Who doesn't?" Kerrich took a swallow of liquor. "Even Queen Victoria has little use for her mother these days."

"Yes, indeed. Quite a scandal, that. Yet one can't blame our young sovereign. Her Grace was—is, I would wager— bitter, and with little real care for her daughter except as princess royal."

"Mark my words, Prince Albert will bring about a reconciliation. Queen Victoria's consort is a very proper sort who expects certain behaviors from those about the royal family, and from Victoria herself." Kerrich tasted bitterness himself, and not just from the drink he sipped.

"Albert's right. Days are long past when a monarch can do what he likes. For a girl to be so estranged from her mother looks bad. And let's be frank. Victoria's gender works against her. Women are always subject to megrims and fits." Lord Reynard set down his glass and folded his hands over his belly. "You can't depend on a woman. I wish Victoria a long reign, but I scarcely depend on it."

Kerrich was more than willing to discuss Queen Victoria, her political situation, and any number of other fascinating topics, but not surprisingly Lord Reynard could not be distracted.

"Yet who would have believed, on that night twelve years ago, that she would be queen, married and with child so soon?" Lord Reynard threw his head back and closed his eyes as if he could see the scene even now. "Do you remember? King William at one end of that long table, the duchess of Kent at the other, and all the rest of us between them trying to keep them from coming to blows."

"I wasn't allowed to dine with the adults yet, Grandpapa." But Kerrich did remember, for he, as well as the rest of Victoria's youthful visitors, had been allowed to mingle in the second floor drawing room. When their parents went in to dine, these progeny of the noble guests had peeked at the table set with fine plate and sparkling dinnerware. Then they'd been sent away to a separate room to eat and entertain one another.

Kerrich had been seventeen, the oldest of the three adolescent boys and, in his own opinion, quite superior to the girls for all that one of those girls was the acknowledged heir to the English throne. Another of the girls had been fifteen, a beauty with bright blue eyes and a long swirl of hair the color of caramel. He had tried to be pleasant to her—hell, he had tried to charm her—but she acted as if he were a beast of which to be wary and retreated to another room. In disgust, he had rounded up the two other boys and taken them into the garden.

Where in a fit of pique, he paced and thought and, finally, conspired to be as contemptible as that girl seemed to believe. He plotted to give her a scare.

"Her Grace had arranged for fireworks, so the servants left open the drapes." Lord Reynard smiled fondly. "Thank God, or we might never have seen that magnificent sight."

"Thank God," Kerrich echoed insincerely.

Leaning across to him, Lord Reynard slapped him on the knee. "You're jealous that you didn't see it. And you were in the garden, too. You should have looked up, lad!"

"I got sick, took one of the horses and went home." Kerrich stuck by the tale he'd been telling for twelve years.

"No matter. The fog might have obstructed your view. It kept swirling past the windows like will-o'-the-wisps, catching the candlelight and then dancing away when it heard the king and the duchess quarreling."

"The dampness covered everything," Kerrich acknowledged. The trellis. The roof. And the windowsill looking into the chamber where one girl, the handsome girl and apparently a house guest, undressed for bed…

"That young man provided the kind of entertainment one can't pay for." Lord Reynard cackled in that reminiscent sort of way that made Kerrich want to writhe. "Hanging there from a broken trellis, in front of the dining chamber windows, upside down, his pants ripped off except where they were caught on that one boot…" Lord Reynard interrupted his speech to laugh.

Laugh long enough that Kerrich hoped he was done.

But no. "His arms hanging over his head. His free leg kicking. And in the light of the candles, that white arse shining like a full moon." More laughter.

Kerrich smiled with so much simulated mirth that it hurt.

"And when he twirled in a circle, we saw all the constellations, too." Lord Reynard slapped his thigh and roared at his own wit.

"How droll," Kerrich said.

"Yes. I tell you, boy, that comet had a long tail."

Kerrich wanted to cover his face.

Still chuckling, Lord Reynard shook his head. "The old boot of a duchess screamed in shock, but I noted, as did everyone, that she kept quiet until we'd seen the full exhibition. And the king quipped… the king quipped…' Tis the first time I've ever seen a full moon on a foggy night." "

"King William always did have a way with words," Kerrich said.

"Not really. He wasn't much of a king or a quipster, but the gazettes used that phrase and drew so many versions of that lad hanging upside down." Lord Reynard pointed his bent, arthritic finger at Kerrich. "Do you know I collected all those lampoons and kept them?"

Kerrich took a good, long swallow of whisky. "No, I didn't know that."

"We never did find out who that young man was."

Kerrich sat up a little straighter. "I thought you said it was obviously some lowborn prankster."

Lord Reynard put his finger beside his nose and nodded. "Her Grace said so, and the others took up the cry, but I tell you, lad, that beneath the shirt tails that hung over his face and made him impossible to identify—"

Kerrich felt ill.

"I caught a glimpse of jacket. More than that, before he fell I looked hard. That jacket was well made by a good tailor." Lord Reynard looked right into Kerrich's eyes. "If you hadn't already taken the horse and gone home, I would have thought it was you."

Closing his eyes, Kerrich leaned back and thought about the grim-faced gentlemen in the small office of the Bank of England. Kerrich had gone in to demand that someone find and arrest the villains counterfeiting and distributing his banknotes, and in turn the gentlemen—who had been called in from the government—threatened to arrest Kerrich for allowing counterfeiting of Bank of England currency on Kerrich's estate.

The gentlemen didn't care that Kerrich declared his innocence; they simply watched with hard eyes and told him he should be more mindful of what went on on his lands. They informed Kerrich that Lewis was part of the counterfeiting ring, and when Kerrich had not believed it, they brought forth the evidence in the form of Lewis's signatures on the purchases of ink and paper—the forgeries of Kerrich's banknotes had apparently been practice, and done with easily traced supplies—and most convincingly, on a printing press.

Kerrich couldn't understand; still didn't understand what had made his virtuous, dutiful cousin turn to crime. Lewis had been a brilliant scholar, finishing a degree in divinity.

Kerrich ground his teeth. Divinity, for God's sake. There was irony.

On graduation, Lewis had been offered several positions—as a clergyman, as a professor's assistant. He might soon have been offered a chair of his own, but he had chosen instead to prepare young noblemen to enter Oxford. Seeking his true vocation, Lord Reynard called it. Laying waste to his chances, Kerrich more rightly named it. But it didn't really matter. Lord Reynard had granted Lewis a yearly stipend so that his beloved sister's grandson would never be in need.

So what had Lewis done to need so much money? Had he been gambling? Was he keeping a lightskirt on the side? Was someone blackmailing him?

And what difference did it make? For counterfeiting, Lewis could dance at the end of a hangman's rope, and the gentlemen from the government had made it abundantly clear that unless Kerrich uncovered the entire counterfeiting ring, and that apparently included at least five men and their leader, Kerrich could dance with him. The Mathewes family could be wiped out because of Lewis's stupidity.

So, acting on those gentlemen's instructions, Kerrich had hired Lewis, given him information, given him access to a dummy account book for the bank, asked his advice—and watched him. The government had planted men in Kerrich's household, and Moulton was their leader. He didn't work for the government, but had his own sleuthing firm. He not only directed all operations, but made quite a passable butler. Under Moulton's direction, one of his men or one of the government men followed Lewis everywhere. To the theater. To the business district. To the docks.

It had all been for naught. Lewis had lost them every time.

Kerrich slid lower in his bed, a broad, massive affair with a mattress long enough that he could stretch out his legs all the way and wide enough that he could upholster it with three women, although he hadn't done that since his youth. His bedchamber shimmered with color, the rich blue-purple of iris, accents of scarlet, glints of gold. The fire was burning merrily in the grate, although it was a warm night. Now flames shot out, curling fantastically in puffs of orange dragon fire.

I've fallen asleep. I'm dreaming,
he realized, pleased with the acuity of his deduction.

A good dream, he recognized a moment later. A very good dream.

A woman stood before the hearth, her back to him, her hand resting on a chair. She was silhouetted against the flames and she was, of course, what made it a good dream, for she was stark naked.

But unlike all the other naked ladies who had lately invaded his bedchamber, this one was perfection.

This wasn't the senior upstairs maid. This was youth and a maiden's innocence and beauty incarnate. Her caramel-colored hair was piled atop her head in a swirl that defied gravity, and glinted with sparks of amber and chestnut. For a woman, her shoulders were broad, yet soft and golden, and the long indent of her spine led his gaze inevitably to the cleft of her bottom.

What a bottom it was. The globes were full, yet tight and high, the kind he would hold in his hands as this woman straddled him and rode him for hours, for days. She wouldn't tire, not this woman of abundant charms. Nor would he, for his erection throbbed as it had when he was a half-grown lad getting an eyeful of one girl's forbidden graces.

As always in a dream, he couldn't move, so he forced himself to call out, "Come on, then. Give me what you've always promised."

And she turned, providing a glimpse of full breasts, the indent of navel in the smooth flesh of her belly, the triangle of hair that hid the petals of nature's sweetest rose.

Just as in real life, he stared at her body until his eyes ached and it occurred to him that she wouldn't walk toward him or kiss his lips or place her naked form against his until he looked at her face. Women, even dream women, were funny that way.

So with painful effort he lifted his gaze from the smooth, rose-colored nipples to her face—and screamed.

That man was sure staring at Miss Lockhart funny.

Lord Kerrich hadn't stared at her like that yesterday, and Beth didn't understand why he would be all big-eyed and suspicious today. It wasn't as if Miss Lockhart had mucked up her looks or anything. She wore a gown that bunched around her shoulders, a brown one today. Her tinted spectacles slid down her nose, and when Lord Kerrich strolled into the classroom carrying his cane, wearing a monocle, and dressed as dapper as bedamned, she still got that sour expression like he gave her a bellyache.

"My lord." Miss Lockhart stopped smack in the middle of the spelling lesson and curtsied. "We didn't expect you so early. It's not yet gone eleven."

"Couldn't sleep," Lord Kerrich said, as grumpy as you please.

Beth had stood when he came into the room, and when he stopped before her, she curtsied, feeling almost jaunty in the pink dimity gown, which was only a little faded and was actually ironed, and the white pinafore with the ruffles on the shoulders.

He just looked her over and pronounced, "You're clean. Stay that way."

"Yes, my lord." An idea occurred to her, and she was so taken with it she dared say, "If I stay clean, I don't have to have any more baths, do I?"

"Oh, no." He shook his head. "You're not involving me in that battle. Miss Lockhart, teach something. I have things to think about." Marching to the rear of the classroom, he paced back and forth, and every time Beth glanced his way he was looking at Miss Lockhart like she scared him.

Beth fidgeted in her desk. She already knew all this corn about reading and writing, but Miss Lockhart called this a review, so Beth was free to examine Miss Lockhart and figure out why Lord Kerrich was gawking so.

Of a surety, this morning with the sun shining through the big windows, her face looked eerie, too pale with pink color on her cheeks, but all in all she had the demeanor of a lady, the lady who had taken Beth from the orphanage and given her a chance at a new life.

Beth knew how to be grateful. She would do anything for Miss Lockhart. She'd learn all that stuff Miss Lockhart said she needed like Latin and pianoforte and history and literature and sketching. She'd dress in these fine new clothes that one of the maids had found for her. And somehow, she wouldn't be ascared anymore. After all, Miss Lockhart had called her a lion. So Beth would be the foundling Lord Kerrich wanted. Tough. Brave. Better than a boy.

Luckily, being better than a boy wasn't difficult.

"So." Lord Kerrich came and stood over Beth's desk, and interrupted Miss Lockhart right in the middle of T-H-R-O-W and T-H-R-O-U-G-H. "You don't like to take baths."

The pen felt awkward in Beth's hand, so she put it in the stand and looked up, way up, to Lord Kerrich's face. "My mum used to make me take baths. She about scrubbed my skin off, and so did Miss Lockhart." She tried to look as disgruntled as any lad, which wasn't hard because she really didn't like washing. "Why do wenches like water so much?"

"We
ladies"
—Miss Lockhart emphasized the word so much Beth got the impression she didn't like to be called a wench—"like to see clean children."

"The sight must be better than the feel," Beth retorted.

Miss Lockhart rapped on the desk with her pointer. "Don't be saucy."

"No, ma'am." Beth arranged the folds of her skirt.

But Lord Kerrich stared down at Beth, then up at Miss Lockhart, then back at Beth. In a conspiratorial tone, he said, "Ladies do make a fuss about a little dirt, don't they?"

Beth wanted to leap to her feet and shout her jubilation. She'd said a boy thing and he'd agreed with her!

Grabbing one of the big chairs, he turned it backward and straddled it. Leaning his chin on the back, he asked, "What else makes you want to yell?"

He made her nervous, looking at her so hard, but over his shoulder Miss Lockhart was nodding encouragingly, so Beth gathered her courage and tried to think.
What made her yell?
"When Mrs. Fallowfield put me in the closet, I yelled and kicked the door."

Miss Lockhart began to clean the chalk off the slate-board.

"Who's Mrs. Fallowfield?" Lord Kerrich asked.

"The old bitch what directs the orphanage."

"Beth!" Miss Lockhart drew herself sternly erect. "Such expressions must never cross a lady's lips."

"That's right, Beth." Lord Kerrich looked like he was going to explode, his face twinkly with laughter. "The correct phrase is, "The old bitch
who
directs the orphanage." "

Miss Lockhart's eyes flashed so bright Beth could see the wrath right through the tinted lenses. "You know very well what expression, Beth."

Beth didn't dare play the dunce, and she nodded and whispered, "Yes, Miss Lockhart."

Miss Lockhart answered his earlier question. "Mrs. Fallowfield is the director of the orphanage, my lord."

"She sounds like a dreadful old… wench," Lord Kerrich observed. "Why did she lock you in a closet?"

"Because I cried at night and woke the others." Beth didn't want to talk about that, so she hastily added, "I yelled when I set my apron on fire."

"You set your apron on fire." Lord Kerrich repeated what she said as if he couldn't quite comprehend her.

"You know. An apron, like this one." She held up the white cotton pinafore. "I didn't do it on purpose. I was just little. Mum was cleaning the grate, and I thought the coals look pretty, so I scooped one up with the shovel and put it in my pocket."

"Good gracious." Miss Lockhart put her hand over her mouth.

"This can't be true," Lord Kerrich said.

"It is, too." Beth glared in indignation. "When the flames started busting out, my mum grabbed me and rolled me on the floor and pounded me with a rug. And look!" She rolled up her sleeve and held out her arm where a ripple of purple marred the skin. "I got burned."

Standing, Lord Kerrich kicked his chair away. "Miss Lockhart, I can't do this!"

Miss Lockhart lifted her dark brows. "My lord?"

"This is too hard. What if I get fond of that child and she sticks another coal in her pocket? What will happen to
me
then?"

Miss Lockhart looked like her belly was aching again, and she kept opening her mouth, then closing it, as if she didn't know what to say.

Beth knew what to say. "I was little when I did that. I don't play with fire anymore."

"You can't fool me," Lord Kerrich said with chilly precision. "Children get hurt all the time."

Miss Lockhart must have gotten her words back, because when she started talking it was a tirade to amaze. "You're right, my lord. She could get hurt. Somehow. She could need care. And should you, in your munificence, become attached to her, you might get hurt by her suffering. So I'll just go and tell Lord Reynard that you have no intention of following through on your commitment. Shall I?"

Lord Kerrich pointed his finger at Miss Lockhart. "You dare!"

Miss Lockhart sniffed. "And I believe there's some matter to be taken care of with Her Majesty, too."

"Miss Lockhart, you take too much upon yourself."

"I am just trying to remind you what you have at stake here."

"I know what I have at stake here."

"Then keep the course, my lord, and you will succeed. Waver now, and you are a craven."

"No one calls me a craven."

"Perhaps someone should call you illogical for thinking a boy orphan would be less likely to hurt himself and thus you."

They were acting like two of the lads at the orphanage, and just like at the orphanage Beth scrambled to distract them. Grasping the hem of Lord Kerrich's fine black coat, she tugged at it. "I yelled at the horse races when my papa took me."

Lord Kerrich stopped shouting and shaking his finger. He looked down at Beth with something like amazement. "Your father took you to the horse races?"

She nodded.