The Convenient Arrangement (5 page)

Three

The rain threw itself against the windows like a child having a tantrum, incessant, loud, and keeping Valeria from sleeping. Not that she would have been able to find sleep even if thunder did not rumble beneath the clatter of the rain. The hour was too early and the house too unfamiliar.

Why had she come here? There had been other places she could go, for her friends were many in London. Her dearest bosom-bow Emily would have made her welcome to stay as long as she wished.

Pride. That was all she had left, and she was not willing to compromise it by begging to have doors opened for her that once had been swung wide with enthusiasm. Pride and pain, for she had not believed that her brother would satisfy his lust for the card table by squandering her inheritance before dying when his phaeton crashed on a slick bridge. Now she had left only pride and pain … and David.

Valeria glanced toward the connecting door between her rooms and David's, a smile uncurling gently across her lips. Lord Moorsea was proving to be kinder to her and her nephew than she had any reason to expect. These adjoining rooms were perfect, because she could keep a watchful eye on the boy who had too much curiosity for his own good.

She pushed the window open a finger's breadth and took a deep breath of the rain-freshened air. These rooms might be convenient and spacious with glorious furniture that recalled the best of the last three centuries, but they stank of a lack of use and too many years of being left to molder in silence.

She went back to where her trunk waited at the foot of the tester bed that was comfortably large, but yet far less grand than the bed in the library. Heat slapped her face. How could she have accused Lorenzo Wolfe of ulterior motives when he had been the epitome of kindness to her? She could blame fatigue, but the truth was that she no longer trusted anyone, either friend or family or stranger. She knew that was wrong, but she could not keep from expecting the worst from everyone around her.

Sitting by the trunk, she blinked back tired tears. She had spent the past few days of traveling down from London telling David how wondrous it would be once they reached Moorsea Manor. She had lied.

A knock was set upon her door, and Valeria dashed away any tears that might have been so brash as to try to escape her eyes. No one must see her distress. A lady always made those around her feel at ease. That had been one of her earliest lessons, and how often Albert had told her that her success as a hostess was a result of the welcome guests received at their home?

A round face, that was brightened with a smile that seemed more sincere than Valeria's, peeked around the door as it came slowly open. “Thought you might still be awake,” said the woman, whose hair was a lighter gray than her gown. “Can I come in?”

“Of course.” She wanted to add a name, because she knew she had been introduced to this woman just a short while ago. No name could be tugged out of her mind's mire. So many new faces, and the only familiar ones were David's and hers which she avoided catching a glance of in the cheval glass by the window.

The woman came in. “Guessed you would be thirsty after chasing the lad about the house. Thought I would bring it myself.” She set the tray with the bottle on a table. “When I saw your light still on, my lady, I thought you might want something to ease your disquiet.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—”

“Mrs. Ditwiller,” the gray-haired woman supplied with a smile. “His Lordship brought me here to be the housekeeper, so if you need anything, I'm here to help.”

Valeria was too tired to be diplomatic. “I need answers.”

“To what?”

“I am curious about Lord Moorsea. I have heard some poker-talk about him.”

“My lady, it is not my place to discuss the earl.”

She sighed. She could not mistake the sudden wariness in Mrs. Ditwiller's voice. Of course, the housekeeper was loyal first and foremost to Lorenzo Wolfe. Valeria knew that, and she would not think to ask anything that would put the housekeeper into an uncomfortable situation.

“I understand that, Mrs. Ditwiller. I would not ask you to do anything that makes you uncomfortable.”
Again the gracious hostess, but this time to get what you want instead of what your guest wants
, chided the voice within her, but she ignored it. “Will you sit down? You must be tired from your long trip here.”

“Thank you, my lady.”

Valeria silenced her sigh when Mrs. Ditwiller picked a chair close to the door and sat on its very edge. The housekeeper wanted to put an end to this as soon as politely possible.

“I simply wish,” Valeria said, “to make David's and my intrusion into Lord Moorsea's life as unobtrusive as possible.”

The housekeeper smiled. “My lady, do not misunderstand when I say that your good intentions are for naught. Lord Moorsea likes a very quiet life. He enjoys his books and his writing and his studies. When he inherited his uncle's title, he decided this place in Exmoor would be perfect for his pursuits.”

“And for entertaining.”

“Lord Moorsea prefers quiet.”

“A small group of—”

“The quiet of his own company.”

Valeria wrinkled her nose. “That is all well and good if he wishes to live in a morgue. This is a wondrous house that was built to include many guests. It would be a shame to shut its doors forever.”

“My lady—”

“I have an obligation to my nephew. He needs an education and a chance to explore his imagination. I shan't have him spend the rest of his childhood tiptoeing around this house, making no more noise than a mouse.”

Mrs. Ditwiller's smile grew wider. “I believe we all have seen how difficult that would be for the boy. I would suggest, my lady, that, once you and the boy feel more at home here, we arrange for rooms for Gil near young Mr. David's. The two of them should enjoy each other's company greatly, in my opinion.”

Letting her shoulders relax from their stiff stance, Valeria returned that smile. Mrs. Ditwiller understood what a trial a young boy could be. And, belatedly, Valeria was beginning to see what a trial her new “guardian” might prove to be.

Lorenzo spoke his prayers backwards as his foot struck something and sent it skittering along the hall. Picking it up, he frowned. A child's shoe. No doubt, it belonged to Valeria's nephew. Glancing both ways, he wondered where the boy was. With any luck, he was fast asleep in his bed where he would spend the rest of the night.

He heard voices from the other side of the hall. Hurrying a pair of steps farther along it, he reached the door that was his. He closed it behind him and sighed as silence surrounded him. By all that's blue, he needed to speak to Mrs. Ditwiller about how she had arranged this household. He had suggested that it would be simpler for the staff if Valeria's rooms and the boy's were not too distant from his, but he had not guessed she would put them directly across the hall. A rambunctious lad and a most exasperating woman would not be conducive to the quiet work he had intended to delve into here.

He frowned when he realized the antechamber was as dark as the night outside the windows. Kirby had assured him, not more than a hour past, that his rooms were being readied. So why had his valet left no lamp lit to welcome him? Stretching out a hand, he edged around a large table in the middle of the room. But which way now?

A light flashed to his right. Candlelight he guessed, for it had too warm a glow for moonlight sifting past an open drape. Realizing it was coming through an arched doorway, he turned in that direction.

In spite of himself and in spite of the grandeur that had filled every corner of Wolfe Abbey, he could not keep from gasping as he stared at the inner chamber. Not at the large bed that must be a twin of the one in the library below or at the floor-to-ceiling window that had been added centuries later to the old fortress or even at the writing table that was set in front of it with his small bag placed in the middle of it. He stared at what appeared to be a giant man leaning back against the wall, its arms folded over its chest, its piercing eyes catching blue fire from the candle's glow.

“Startling, isn't it?” asked a voice.

Lorenzo flinched, but realized the voice was not coming from the motionless giant. He glanced to his left and saw a bent man crouched by the hearth that was almost as broad as the giant was tall. A candle burned on the floor next to the man, washing him in its soft glow.

“What is it?” Lorenzo's words struggled past the shock clogging his throat.

“Mummy case.” The bent man chuckled. “Brought from some tomb along the Nile by one of Napoleon's soldiers. Somehow, it ended up in a shop in London, and then it came here.”

“Mummy?” Now this was interesting. Maybe this was why Mrs. Ditwiller had arranged for these rooms for him even though Valeria and her nephew were lodged directly across the hall. She would have known he would be fascinated by anything this old.

He edged around a stack of boxes that were not his and another stack that he had brought from Wolfe Abbey and stretched out to touch the smooth wood of the mummy case. Too many boxes were between him and the case, that was a foot taller than he was. On closer examination as he stepped around more wooden cases, he could see where some of the paint had vanished since a nameless artisan applied it to the surface. Only the eyes remained untouched by time. He put out a hand to examine them.

“You shouldn't do that,” chided the man by the hearth. “Old things like that don't need fingers poking at them.”

“But the eyes—”

“They are made of lapis lazuli.”

Lorenzo looked over his shoulder at the man who was still squatting by the hearth. “Is that so?”

“You'll find, my lord,” replied the man, a hint of amusement in his voice, “that most of us in this house are familiar with the best pieces of the collection. That way, no one would be careless around them.”

“An excellent idea.”

“Always thought so.” More humor filled the bent man's voice. “And there's no need to try to open the case, my lord. It's empty.”

Sorry to hear that, because it would have been interesting to examine the mummified body within, Lorenzo asked as he shrugged off his wrinkled coat and tossed it on the back of a chair, “Who are you?”

“Folks call me Earl.” The old man chuckled again as he stood and put his fingers to his forehead and dipped his head toward Lorenzo. “You are
the
earl now, my lord, but I'm just Earl.” He bent again and rearranged the logs on the hearth. “Here to help with whatever you need.”

Walking over to where Earl was tending the laying of the fire with as much attention and concern as if it were a child, he asked, “How long have you been working here?”

“Been with the last Lord Moorsea all his years on this earth.” Earl smiled and picked up the candle, spreading its glow completely around him. It outlined every wrinkle in his face. “Glad you are here now, my lord. This house needs a young man with some imagination to take care of it. Saw all the books you brought with you. Like reading, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Good for you.” He crossed the room where Kirby must have unpacked Lorenzo's small bag, because there were pages spread across the top of the writing table.

Lorenzo rushed to follow, but the old man was already picking up the sheet of paper. “That is private work,” Lorenzo said.

“Work?” Earl tilted the page toward his candle. “Your work, my lord?”

“Yes,” he said, even more reluctantly than he had before. He shivered and glanced toward the window. Odd. It was too chilly here, although the rest of the room had been warm. Mayhap one of the windows had been left open or a pane of glass was missing high in this window where it was hidden in the shadows.

“Most interesting. You write poetry.”

“Yes.”

He set the page back on the table. “It is good work, although I would have expected a man of your youthful years to be interested more in pursuits of the heart than of the vagaries of nature. Surely you must be familiar with the work of Byron and Scott and the Marquis de la Cour.”

“I have read them all.” Taking the sheet, he folded it carefully. “I admire their work, but what I write is my business alone.”

“Quite true. If I have said something to offend—”

“No, you haven't.” Lorenzo set the page back on the table. The staff at Wolfe Abbey had known not to disturb his writing desk, even if it was fuzzy with dust when his muse left him. He would speak to Mrs. Ditwiller about training the staff here as well. As they had respected his uncle's eccentricities, surely they would respect his as well.

“Glad to hear that. If—”

“My lord, are you within?” Kirby's anxious voice resonated off the high roof.

Lorenzo swallowed his groan. Kirby seldom lost his composure, so any time he did, it signaled a crisis. How many more would he suffer before his stay at Moorsea Manor was even a day old? “In here, Kirby.”

The valet had changed from his dusty clothes to a simple frock coat that suited him better, for it made him look taller and more dignified. Tonight there was no need for sober livery to counteract his smile, for it had fled from his lips. Lorenzo suspected he had never seen his valet so grim. Not at all a good sign.

“Forgive me for disturbing you when you're alone with your work, my lord.” He was almost panting, and Lorenzo wondered if he had been running down the hall.

“No need to apologize. I wasn't working. I was speaking with Earl.”

“Earl? You are the earl, my lord.”

“No,
Earl
. This chap over here by the …” He turned and discovered the bedroom was empty, save for him and his valet. The old man must have left the candle on the table and taken his leave just as Kirby was rushing in. At least, one of the servants in this household had been trained well to be polite and hushed-footed. “Never mind. What has you all agog?”