The Luck of the Devil (7 page)
O
ne was a hobbledehoy schoolgirl steeped in lending library romances; the other was a young woman so sheltered that she feared any male older than ten and younger than sixty. One was headstrong, the other meek. Neither wanted to stay in Dorset to wait for Carey's "other arrangements."
"I just have to go to London, Emmy. I can't bear to let Woody go without me."
"And I daren't stay here for your brother to demand I marry."
"I won't go back to school."
"And I won't be subjected to another insulting call from any of the muslin company. I had the
butler tell that woman she must speak to Carey, but what if she calls when the vicar is here? Whatever shall I do?"
Suzannah nibbled a gooseberry tart. "Do you really think the little boy is a Delverson? I saw him with his nanny at Mr. Stang's apothecary, when I went to fetch those camphor pastilles for you. I swear Mrs. Stang's eyes almost swiveled right out of her head, she was goggling back and forth between me and the boy so fast. He did look just like that portrait of Carey with his mother that hangs in the gold parlor at home, except that Carey has a smile in the picture, and this little chap seemed to be in a pout the whole time, even when I bought him a licorice stick."
"Suzannah, you didn't!"
"Well, yes, I did. He might be my nephew or at least my cousin, even if he was born on the wrong side of the blanket. None of it is his fault at any rate." She took another bite. "Did you know that his name is Gareth? Gary, Carey…"
"Harry. Or even that other cousin of yours who came that time, Lawrence Fieldstone."
"Yes, but don't even mention him in my brother's hearing. The Irish branch is not recognized, you know, and he and Larry have always hated each other."
"Oh dear, then Mr. Fieldstone is another, ah… ?"
"Like the little boy, yes."
Emonda's cup rattled in its saucer. "And the whole village knows that too, I suppose. Oh, why did that wretched man have to go away and leave me to face all of this? I daren't even show my face on the streets."
Suzannah chewed her sweet slowly, thinking. A dangerous gleam came to her eyes and her dimples showed. Emonda reached for her vinaigrette, recognizing the signs. "You know, Emmy, how we talked about your going back to London with the new Lord Clyme after he comes to view the property next month?"
"Yes, his sister particularly wanted me to visit," Emonda answered uncertainly. "But I hadn't decided."
"From what I heard at school, Miss Wimberly is a great gun, not at all high in the instep. You'll like her. And her brother's name has never been connected with the slightest scandal or hellraking." Gabriel Wimberly sounded dull as ditch-water to Suzannah, but she knew what her stepaunt would want to hear. "Perhaps they would not mind if you came for a visit a bit earlier."
"Rowanne did invite me for any time I chose, now that she is back from Bath. I suppose I could write."
"There's no time, Emmy. Woody leaves in two days and you would not want to travel without a gentleman to accompany you, would you?"
"Heavens no, but to just arrive… ?"
"It cannot signify. You are the Dowager Lady Clyme; they cannot turn you away at the door."
"No, but I should hate to be thought encroaching, dear."
Suzannah made herself swallow another morsel and her impatience before saying, "They want you to come, Emmy, and you cannot mean to wait for Carey's return. He might even have some cork-brained notion of moving us all to St. Dillon, you, me, Mrs. Reardon, the b—"
"I'll go. But what about you, Suzannah? I am sure Lord Gabriel will consider me rag-mannered enough, so my bringing them one more uninvited guest would not make much difference. But Carey would not stand for it, you know. You are his ward, in truth, and he would simply go to London to fetch you back."
"Not if he doesn't know where I am," Suzannah said, daintily wiping her mouth. "You'll need to take a maid along, won't you?"
Aunt Cora had come to Town with Rowanne after all, despite the lingering agitation of her nerves. No rustic widow was proper chaperone for a girl already bent on developing a hurly-burly reputation, nor could this untonnish Emonda Selcroft person, dowager countess or not, ensure that her niece made a proper marriage. Lady Silber also wanted to consult another physician concerning her condition, on the assumption that sooner or later she would find one whose diagnosis agreed with her own, and whose treatments would recommend the use of spirits to calm her palpitations.
Although Town was still somewhat thin of company, Rowanne was pleased to be home, even if Aunt Cora's demands kept the house at sixes and sevens. Rowanne welcomed her brother's companionship and intelligent conversation too, as much as she had of it, with him taking his meals at his club more often than not, to avoid Aunt Cora and prepare for his maiden speech.
It was with some trepidation, therefore, that Rowanne stepped into the front drawing room when Pitkin the butler unexpectedly brought in Lady Clyme's calling card, with the corner turned down to indicate a visit in person. Here was another old tartar, Rowanne thought, who believed she could ride roughshod over Miss Wimberly.
Rowanne was not one whit relieved to find a small, frail old woman swathed in black, with black hat and veil, sitting rigid in an armchair in front of the Adams fireplace. Her maid stood behind her chair, snuffling into a large handkerchief, her huge mobcap pulled down almost to her eyes and her shapeless gray uniform obscuring the rest of her. Country quizzes, Rowanne concluded, making her curtsy and holding her hand out to her aunt. "My dear aunt Emonda, welcome to Wimberly House."
Emonda had lost all of her courage in the carriage ride through the noisy, dirty, crowded streets of the city. By the time she found herself in the imposing mansion, in the elegant room, in the presence of this modish creature, she was speechless with terror. Her maid had to pinch her shoulder, hard. "Ouch! Ah, that is, Miss Wimberly, please, please forgive me for imposing on you this way. I know I should not have, and would not have, except St. Dillon arrived and that awful woman and I shan't wish to marry him at all, and the baby, oh dear."
Oh dear indeed. Rowanne could make no sense of the woman's ravings whatsoever, except to realize she had another high-strung female on her hands, and Carey Delverson to thank for it. "Please, ma'am, call me Rowanne. I'll just ring for tea. I am sure you will feel more the thing after, and by then your rooms shall be made ready. My housekeeper, Mrs. Ligett, can show your maid upstairs where she can—"
"She's sick!" Emonda hurried to say. The tall, sturdy-looking girl behind her coughed for good measure. "And she has to sleep in my room."
After giving instructions to the footman who answered her call, Rowanne reasoned, "But, my lady, if she is sick, surely she should have a room of her own in the servants' quarters where she can be looked after. You should not be further exposed to her infections."
The maid cleared her throat and Lady Clyme blushed. "No, she is not
contagious, and I really need to look after her myself. I, ah, promised her brother before we left." Now the maid's coughs sounded oddly like muffled laughs, as she followed Mrs. Ligett out of the room and up the stairs.
"There, my lady, here's tea. Wouldn't you like to take your bonnet off and be more comfort—Oh, my stars, you cannot be Aunt Emonda."
Stars or spider monkeys, this fragile young lady—her junior by at least three years—was indeed Rowanne's aunt. Rowanne had to bite her tongue to keep from laughing at her hopes of this Lady Clyme becoming her chaperone. Why, from the garbled account, the girl, for she was hardly a woman, had no more idea how to go on than a newborn kitten. It was a miracle she managed to get herself and that odd maidservant to London. It seemed Rowanne would have to put on her caps after all and play nursemaid to her aunt. She could hardly wait to see Gabe's reaction.
"Please inform my brother and my aunt that Lady Emonda Wimberly, Countess of Clyme, has joined us, Pitkin," she asked the butler. "And see if they cannot join us for tea."
Gabriel's spectacles fell off when he bowed to his aunt, then he ground them right under his foot in slack-jawed idiocy, causing Emonda to blush furiously and go tongue-tied again. Aunt and nephew stood mumchance while Rowanne went to the bell-pull and asked the long-suffering Pitkin for another pair of her brother's glasses. While she stood by the door, swallowing her laughter, Aunt Cora wandered into the room. For once even the old harridan had nothing to say beyond "That old dog, Donald," which brought color to Gabriel's cheeks.
Emonda did not seem to be offended at the comment, if she understood it, but was instead exclaiming over the last member of the family to enter the parlor. "Oh, what a beautiful dog," she cooed.
Toodles? The ill-tempered beast was even wagging his absurd tuft of a tail at the chit. Rowanne was convinced her new relation was a charming little widgeon, and tried to catch her brother's eye to share the silliness of the occasion. Even with his new pair of spectacles, however, Gabe was still in a daze, watching the little blonde curtsy to Aunt Cora and again beg everyone's pardon for her untimely arrival.
"No, no, my dear," Gabe told Emonda, patting her hand, "I don't know how we managed to get on without your charming presence."
Gabe?
Aunt Cora was soon charmed by Emonda's sweet solicitude in inquiring after her health, jumping up to fix pillows behind her back, offering to read to the older lady. "I was so sorry to hear about your accident, ma'am. I have the receipt for a tisane that Lord Clyme found most soothing. May I make some up for you, Lady Silber?"
"What a good child you are. Call me Aunt Cora."
"May I really?" Emonda asked, tears of gratitude and relief coming to her eyes. "You have all been so kind. You cannot know what it is like to have a family again after so long."
"But I thought you had a niece, Suzannah Delverson. You used to write about her, didn't you?" Rowanne asked, and was surprised at Emonda's blushes.
"Suzannah is, ah, back at school. That's why I had to leave, you see."
Rowanne didn't, quite, but she listened as avidly as the others to another, longer account of Emonda's woes and Lord St. Dillon's villainy. Wild youths, wicked cousins, lost reputations, and fallen women figured prominently, along with forced marriages. When Emonda finally reached the end, with Carey's second proposal, the illegitimate child, and her fears for the future, her blue eyes were again awash in tears.
Gabe awkwardly handed her his handkerchief. "Now, now, you are safe with us. There shall be no more talk of arranged marriages or wicked guardians. I am head of this household, and no one would dare make you a licentious proposal. You may stay here with us as long as you wish, or in Dorset, whichever you choose, and no one else can say you nay. I will deal with that blackguard Delverson, or St. Dillon as he now is, if he dares show his face."
Rowanne blinked. What would Gabe do, challenge the ex-officer to a chess match? Aristotle at twelve paces? Meanwhile her aunt was threatening to see
the dastard drawn and quartered for what he had done to dear little Emmy, and making plans to show the girl a good time in London as recompense. She was likely planning to find her a husband too, if Rowanne read aright that martial gleam in Aunt Cora's beady little eyes. Just as likely, from Gabe's besotted expression, the effort would be unnecessary. Rowanne studied the little dowager all the harder, trying to discover what made such a milk-and-water miss so appealing to men. A proud man like Major Delverson must truly love the pretty ninnyhammer, to offer for her twice. And there was Gabe, ready to jump on his white charger and ride to the damsel's rescue, even if dragon-breath would fog his spectacles. Men were fools, every last one of them. No wonder Miss Wimberly could not find one worthy to marry.
T
he pain grew worse with every mile Carey drew closer to the Abbey. Not his leg, although that ached, but his soul. While the major was in Spain, or even in Dorset, his loss was a disjointed fact, separate from his life. For all he knew then, Harry and Joss could still be raising hell at Newmarket, tupping the barmaids at some East End dive. Now that he was in Somerset, on St. Dillon lands, when his cousins should have come whooping out of the trees, racing his carriage to the front drive, he had to admit they were gone. God, to drive through the home woods—with its forts and treehouses, past the old water hole, over the fields where winter-born Thoroughbred colts raced the wind with no one to watch, no one to pick a likely comer—nearly wrenched the heart out of His Grace, the owner of all this. And he had not even faced the old retainers yet.
He cursed Harry fluently for doing this to him. "I hope you're laughing, you old makebait," he muttered. "And I wish you joy, riding to foxes with the hounds of Hell."
Anger got him through the damp-eyed embrace of Skuggs, the ex-pugilist the old duke, Harry's father, had hired on to keep the boys in line. The boys had adored the huge man with his cauliflower ear and flattened nose and endless tales of ringside valor. He taught them the Fancy and sportsmanship and respect, if not for their elders, at least for the elders big enough to box their ears. Skuggs married one of the housemaids and she became housekeeper when Harry made the giant his unlikely butler, after starchy old Naismith and his crotchety wife could be pensioned off. Carey remembered when they had all gone to Bristol to have Skuggs fitted for uniforms, his chest so swelled with pride the tailor had to take extra measurements.
Skuggs was older, balding, but still strong enough to crush Carey's ribs when he half-lifted him from the carriage and helped him through the vast bronzed front doors. "Whisht, lad, we'll have to fatten you up some, get you back to fighting weight. You'll be taking on all comers soon enough, Master Carey. Pardon, that's Your Grace." His gravelly voice caught on the words.
Carey patted the bruiser's back. "I know, old friend, it sits heavily on my shoulders too." Before he lost all composure and showed the gathered staff what a pudding heart the new duke was, Carey cleared his throat and pointed his cane to a large dusty pile of fur littering the black-and-white marble of the entry hall.
Skuggs waved his hand, dismissing the servants to their duties of seeing to rooms, baggage, dinner for the new master. "It's an Irish wolfhound, Your Grace, Master Joss's dog." Skuggs explained as he escorted Carey to the library where a fire was laid and decanters stood ready. The animal unfolded itself into an enormous, scraggly hound with bristly face and doleful expression. It followed Skuggs and Carey down the hall, then flopped in front of the hearth, sighing.
"Doesn't anybody feed the beast?" Carey asked, sinking into a chair. "I realize it could eat the kitchen cat and two scullery maids if it wished, but, zounds, man, the thing is a sack of bones." He wrinkled his nose. "And none too clean either."
Skuggs poured out a glass of cognac and shook his head. "I know, Your Grace, but the poor blighter's heart's broke and he won't eat more'n a bite here and there, and he won't let anyone handle him close enough. The kennelman wants to put him down, but I says he's not hurting anything, as long as you keep your distance."
Carey swallowed the portion in his glass and held it out for more. "You say he was Joss's?"
"Aye, they fair doted on each other, ever since that other cousin of yourn, Mr. Fieldstone, brought the hound down from Ireland when he come last time."
Carey's hand tightened on his glass. "I did not know that Mr. Fieldstone was back in this country."
"I suppose no one mentioned it 'cause they knew you wasn't on terms. I haven't seen him since the, ah, funerals."
"Have no fear, he'll show up." Lawrence Fieldstone was the old duke's eldest child, and would have been St. Dillon now, if his mother was not a round-heeled actress from an Irish traveling company. The old duke had provided well for his baseborn son, funding his education, seeing that he had a generous allowance, even bringing him to the Abbey to summer with his legitimate sons and nephew. Whatever Lawrence had was never enough. He was a bully, greedy and resentful of his station. In later years he battened on Harry, encouraging all his worst vices. And good-natured Harry always pulled Lawrence out of River Tick, paid his gambling debts, financed his extravagant lifestyle. Carey would not, and he was looking forward to telling the bastard so. Meantime, "Do you think he'll take the dog back if he comes?"
"Hell, no, the animal hates him. Bit his leg last time he come so Master Joss had to keep the animal locked in his bedroom. Mrs. Skuggs wasn't best pleased, I can tell you."
"How is your good lady, Skuggs? Forgive me for not asking sooner. Please send my compliments, and I shall visit with her tomorrow. Put off the steward and the secretary and everyone else too. I could not face all that today. For now I just want to sit in here a while without being disturbed. Just leave the bottle within reach."
"Right, Your Grace. I'll bring your supper in here, so you don't have to stir your stumps. Time enough to throw your hat in the ring tomorrow."
"Thank you, Skuggs, and see if you cannot bring something for the dog too. I like the mutt better already, if it bit Lawrence Fieldstone. Oh, and what's the cur's name?"
Skuggs shrugged his massive shoulders. "No one recalls it being anything but 'Dog.' Mrs. Skuggs calls it the Hound from Hell, but that's not rightly a name. It don't come when anyone calls it anyway, so one name's as good as t'other."
Carey settled back in his chair to stare into the flames of the fire, but the dog whimpered in its sleep. At least Carey had the Abbey and old friends like Skuggs and this fine aged brandy to dull his mind, if he drank enough of it. He was lucky; the poor dumb animal didn't even have a name.
"I have more names and titles than I can write on half a page, old son," Carey told the dog. "Do you want one of them? Would you like the baronetcy? Perhaps you'd accept the military rank now that I have to sell out." The dog perked one ragged ear, then rolled over with another sigh.
"No? Quite right, look how mangled Major got me. I would not burden you with a sobriquet like Lucky, for I do believe the Fates take their revenge on such arrogance. Shall you be Cerberus, then, sir, the real Hound of Hell, guarding the gates?" The dog's snores were his only answer. Carey poured another glass. "I'd like to name you after my cousins, you know. You'd like that. Put some fire back into you, to be named for those hell-babes. But I cannot." He swallowed another gulp of the cognac. "I have to save those names for my sons. My sons!" He tossed the crystal goblet into the fireplace. "Damn you, Harry!"
Skuggs brought dinner on a tray and a bowl of scraps for the dog. He said nothing about the fractured shards on the firebrick, just setting down his burden and frowning at the sinking level in the decanter. Carey waved him out.
The dog would not eat from the bowl on the ground, but he would deign to take food from Carey's hand. When the scraps were gone, Carey fed the mutt his own dinner, having no taste even for Mrs. Skuggs's game pie. He did nibble at some cheese, after wiping his hands as thoroughly as possible with the serviette and the water in his drinking glass. "I won't tell Mrs. Skuggs if you don't," he whispered to the dog, who was now folded up like a discarded bearskin rug at the side of Carey's chair. Soon the dog was snoring again, and every once in a while emitting vaguely sulfurous fumes, while Carey continued drinking and staring at the fire. "Whew," Carey said, turning his head away, "you even smell like fire and brimstone." The animal got up at the sound of his voice and frantically scratched behind his ear. Carey took over, rubbing just the right spot, and smiled. "That's it, Old Scratch. You'll be one of the Devils after all." Scratch laid his shaggy head in Carey's lap and gave a gusty sigh.
They stayed that way through the night, the duke and the dog, and if occasionally the hound felt a drop of moisture on his head, he sighed again.
The next morning, with a headache already making his eyeballs wish they resided elsewhere, the Duke of St. Dillon tried to absorb almost thirty years of information about crop rotations, lumber rights, corn prices, and sheep dips.
"Did Harry know all this?" he asked the steward, Canthorpe.
"Some of it, Your Grace. But I made sure you would want to be an informed landlord. His Grace, that is, his late lordship, always said you were the downiest one of the family."
"Thank you for the compliment, if that's what it is. I shall try to live up to your expectations and the late duke's also, but not all in one morning, if you please. You must carry on the way I am sure you have been managing on your own for years, Canthorpe, for if you try to tell me Harry cared which breed of milchcow did best on which graze, I'll know you've been pitching me gammon just to make a farmer out of me."
Canthorpe laughed and gave way to Harry's local man of business, with his lists of cotton mills and tin mines and sugar plantations. Here the new duke had more definitive ideas:
"I know the estate is vast and the profits well invested. Later I would like to see the books and the accountings so I might help in those decisions, but for now I should like to rest easy in my bed, knowing my new wardrobe will not be paid for with the earnings of slave labor or children's blood or war profiteering."
"But, Your Grace, we derive a great deal of income from such sources."
"We?" With one word and one raised eyebrow Carey took on the stature of St. Dillon the aristocrat, his uncle, not his scapegrace cousin. The man of business bowed deeply and left, tucking papers into his case.
Carey asked the secretary to lunch with him, to save time. Over Mrs. Skuggs's excellent offering of braised venison, most of which Carey fed to Scratch, he quizzed Johnston about the household accounts and the shambles his cousins' personal affairs had left.
"I believe most of the gaming debts were paid, and any of the tradesmen whose bills were presented. There was never a question of outrunning the bailiffs, only a certain untidiness. Your cousins were a tad careless about such things, but we're coming about."
Carey kept thinking how fortunate Harry was in his employees. They were honest, loyal, and far more forgiving of negligence than he would be. "Make sure you give yourself a raise, old chap," he told the secretary, "for I am going to saddle you with a great deal more work, now that you have shown me how competent you are. There is Delmere to be considered and my wards, and the War Office wants me to write up some reports, and all those stuffy letters of condolence to be answered." When the secretary rose to leave, Carey asked if he could prepare an accounting, when Johnston got the chance of course, no hurry, of how much Harry paid out in Lawrence Fieldstone's behalf, for when he came to call. Carey paused in peeling the skin off an apple to add, "One more thing, has there been any communication from a Mrs. Reardon?"
Johnston cleared his throat nervously. "There has been, Your Grace, and I have not been sure what course to pursue. Your cousin read the first letter and consigned it to the fire, directing me to dispose of any others likewise. Which I did, of course. The latest missive in that lady's script is addressed to you, Your Grace. Shall I fetch it?"
"She's no lady and no, I think it will hold. This day already has enough treats in store."
After luncheon, and a glass or two of port on a nearly empty stomach, Carey ordered a curricle brought round. While the ex-officer listened calmly as Rudd and Ned argued about his taking the ribbons himself, refusing a groom and not leaving his direction, Old Scratch lunged up to the seat alongside the driver's and growled. End of discussion.
Carey's destination was Four Oaks, the Abbey's nearest neighbor and home to Squire Allenturk and his daughter Phoebe. Another glass or three would not have come amiss.
"Devilish business, Harry and all." The squire mopped his brow. He'd brought Carey into the parlor, moving a stack of racing forms to clear a comfortable chair. The fire wasn't even lighted, nevertheless Allenturk's face was turning redder and damper with each moment he faced this somber young man in his ill-fitted clothes. "Settlements signed and all, you know. Excellent marriage for both parties, 'pon rep. Girl gets to stay practically to home near her papa, with a title and a London house to boot, and St. Dillon gets all this"—an expansive wave of his sweaty hand—"when I pop off."
Carey nodded. Squire Allenturk stuck a finger in his suddenly-tight collar, deciding then and there never to play cards with the stone-faced fellow. He hopped up. "I know I can count on you to do the right thing. Gentleman and all that. I'll send in m'girl."
Like a recurring bad dream, Carey found himself making his second marriage proposal in less than three days. And receiving his second refusal.
"Thank you, Carey, but there is no need," Phoebe told him. "I would never hold you to the agreements."
Carey thought she was looking her best in a military-cut riding habit. The feather curling on her cheek showed to advantage the healthy glow of an outdoors countrywoman. "It would not be a bad marriage, you know."
Phoebe turned away from him, her riding crop swinging against her leg. "Oh, it would be a fine match, the lands and titles and fortunes. And I expect you would make a more comfortable husband than Harry, now that you are done trying to get yourself scattered across the continent." She paused and fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. "But you see, I loved Harry."
"I'm sorry, Phoebe, I didn't know."
"Neither did he." Then she was crying into his shirt collar—Phoebe Allenturk was a big girl—and Carey was wondering if his bad leg would hold up both of them for much longer. He handed her his linen square and she apologized, saying "I am sure you don't need me playing Tragedy Jill, no more than you need a farm girl with a good riding seat as your duchess."