The Reluctant Earl (6 page)

She reached her hand toward him.

A noise came from within the trees to their right as a squirrel jumped from branch to branch.  Tim Tam’s head shot up and he danced around, eyes dilated and nose snorting.  He began to back into the woods.  Finbar decided he’d join in the fun, and the two riders were occupied for a while in rubbing their mounts’ necks, keeping them on the path, and murmuring reassuringly. When Finbar finally decided to stand quietly, Tim Tam followed suit; with some encouragement, both horses began to walk forward.

Claire picked up their conversation as if nothing had interrupted it.   “It isn’t as bad for me because I have my mother and father.  But…”  Her eyes were focused between Finbar’s ears, and a tiny line dented her forehead.  “It’s peculiar Simon, but sometimes I feel as if a part of me is standing aside, watching me as I go about my day.  It’s as if the person who’s talking to Charlotte, or helping Mama with the garden, isn’t really me.  It’s some other girl who looks like me.  The real me is just waiting for you to come home.”

They stopped their horses and crystal blue eyes looked deeply into brown.  Claire spoke first, a quiver in her voice.  “Do you think they’ll let us get married?”

He said calmly, “If they don’t, we’ll elope.”  He reached for her hand.  “Will you elope with me?”

Her face cleared like magic.  “Of course I will!”

He grinned, lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it hard.

She shivered.        

They walked along in silence for a while.  Then Claire asked, “Where does one elope to, Simon?”

“Scotland,” he replied.  “I looked it up in the library at school.  The bans don’t have to be called for a couple to be married in Scotland.  We just have to get there.”

“We can do that,” she said confidently.

“We can if we plan carefully.”

A bug buzzed around Tim Tam’s ears and he shook his head in annoyance.  Simon said, “Let’s trot and get away from these insects.”

Claire agreed and the two of them moved off, the horses, like the riders, in perfect harmony.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Liam had a promising filly running in the Oaks at Epsom, and Lord Welbourne was so confident of victory that he invited a party of friends to join him at the track.  The squire had planned to go to the race with Liam, but he canceled at the last minute.  The earl’s gamekeeper, John Evans, had caught three men poaching in the Welbourne woods, and the earl demanded they be brought up in front of the local magistrate (the squire) immediately.

“I’m getting fair sick of these poachers,” the squire complained to Liam.  “These three aren’t even local lads - they’re from Bury St. Edmund’s.  They shot at Evans when he and his men tried to arrest them.  Someone could have been killed.  This time these damn poachers are going to feel the full weight of the law.  I’ll have them transported, I will.  Perhaps that will keep the city bullies away from us.”

While the earl was away at the races, Richard Jarvis paid an unexpected visit to the abbey.  Lady Welbourne had gone up to London for a few days, and Carstairs, usually so protective of Simon, confidently directed Jarvis to the stables.  By now all the servants knew about Simon’s inheritance and who Richard Jarvis was.

As his carriage made its way toward the abbey’s lovely stone stable buildings, Jarvis wondered what to expect from this first meeting with his sister’s son. 

A boy with silver fair hair and a dark-haired girl were standing in front of the stable, both of them staring at a pony’s lifted hoof, when Jarvis’ carriage drew up.  The youngsters straightened up, and two young faces turned toward Jarvis as he descended and walked toward them.  For the first time ever Richard Jarvis beheld his nephew, and his eyes widened with shock.  Annabelle had been a lovely girl, but this boy…if an archangel ever came to earth he couldn’t be more beautiful than Simon.

Jarvis shook his head, as if to clear it, and said, “I am looking for Simon Radley, Lord Woodbridge.”

The boy replied in a pleasant voice, “You have found him, sir.  I am Simon Radley.”

Jarvis looked into his sister’s crystal blue eyes and felt a pain in his heart.  How proud Annabelle would have been of this boy, he thought.  He stopped a few feet from them and said, “How do you do, Simon.  I am your uncle, Richard Jarvis.”

All the color drained from Simon’s face.  The girl put her hand on his arm and closed it tightly, as if for support, and answered for him. “We have been looking forward to meeting you, sir.  I am Claire O’Rourke.  I believe you have met my father.”

“I have indeed,” he replied, looking down into a pair of enormous brown eyes.  “I am pleased to meet you, Claire O’Rourke.”

She had given the boy time to collect himself, and now Simon held out his hand.  “How do you do, sir.  Forgive my manners.  You surprised me.”

“I’m sure I did.  I learned at the house your father isn’t at home, which I think is extremely fortunate.  I was hoping for the chance of meeting you alone.  Is there somewhere we can talk?”

Simon shot Claire a quick look.  Jarvis made a shrewd guess the boy didn’t want to take him to the abbey and suggested, “Perhaps there is an office in the stables?”

Simon looked relieved.  “Yes, of course there is.”  He spoke to the groom who was holding the pony, “I think it’s an abscess, Toby.  Soak the foot in a bucket of hot water and I’ll look at it again later.”  Then, turning back to his uncle, “If you will follow us, sir, I’ll show you the way.”

Claire said, “Perhaps I should…”

Simon’s voice was uncompromising, “I want you to come with us.”

Jarvis noticed the way his nephew shortened his stride to accommodate the girl.  He fell into step on Simon’s other side and obligingly shortened his own steps as well.

The stable office was oak paneled and large.  A book lay on the desk open to an illustration of a horse’s skeleton.  Simon gestured Jarvis to the big chair behind the desk and brought over two plain oak chairs for himself and Claire.  They sat.
      Jarvis spoke first.  “May I ask you, Nephew, what has your father told you about my family?”

“My father has told me nothing,” Simon replied.  He had collected himself and his face was guarded. 

“Nothing?”

“I never even knew my mother’s family name.”

Jarvis narrowed his eyes in anger. “That bastard,” he said.  Then, noticing Claire, he added hastily, “Excuse me, Miss O’Rourke.”

“No excuse needed,” Claire said.  “I completely agree with your opinion.” 

Jarvis looked at her in amusement, then moved his eyes back to Simon. “You must have wondered about us, though.”

“I did rather.”

Jarvis said, “I’m afraid it is not a story that redounds to anyone’s credit, Nephew.”  He then repeated the events he had first recounted to Coke and Liam.  When he finished, Simon was looking stunned. 

Claire, on the other hand, was vibrating with fury.  “What is
wrong
with Lord Welbourne?” she demanded, brown eyes glittering in her flushed face.  “What kind of man behaves like that to his own son?  I wish one of those poachers Mr. Weston is so concerned about would put a bullet through the earl instead of a deer!  Then we’d be rid of him and could be happy!”

Simon looked at her and, very faintly, shook his head.  His young face was set and grim. He turned back to Jarvis and said,  “My father has never liked me.”

Guilt, an emotion he was not accustomed to, stirred in Jarvis’ conscience.  “I am sorry, Simon.  None of us had any idea of the situation here at Welbourne.  We always assumed your father wanted to keep his wife’s filthy merchant family away from his noble heir.  In the end we decided –
I
decided - it would not be to your advantage for us to disrupt your life.  I first learned of Welbourne’s behavior toward you when Mr. Coke contacted my solicitor and I met with him and with Mr. O’Rourke.”  His mouth set in a hard line.  “I have failed you, and I failed Annabelle as well.  She would have expected me to look after her son.”

Claire said fiercely, “My mother and father have been looking after Simon very well!”

A faint smile deepened the corners of Simon’s eyes as he turned to her.  “That they have, Claire.”

“I am glad to hear that,” Jarvis said sincerely.

Claire folded her hands in her lap and held Jarvis’ eyes with a fearless intensity.  She said, “Since you have deigned to visit Simon at last, Mr. Jarvis, perhaps you will be good enough to explain his inheritance to us.”

She said
us
with perfect naturalness.  Jarvis’ eyes moved to his nephew.  Those painfully familiar eyes were as steady and intense as Claire’s.  Annabelle’s son said, “I understand it is a large amount of money.  Can you explain to us how the money will come to me?  Are there any conditions I must meet?”

There was that ‘us’ again.  “Of course I will explain it, Simon,” he said, using his nephew’s name for the first time.  “It’s quite simple, really.  My father set aside one hundred thousand pounds of his fortune in a designated account to be invested for you until you turned eighteen.  I invested it in the five percents, so your inheritance has grown quite nicely over the years.” 

There was the sound of a sharply indrawn breath.  Jarvis didn’t know if it had come from Simon or Claire.  He paused a moment, then went on.  “To be perfectly frank, the reason for the trust was that my father had little confidence in your father’s financial sense.  I don’t know if you are aware of this, but when your parents married, your father was deeply in debt.  My father, your grandfather, bailed him out of the debt as part of the marriage settlement.  To be fair to Welbourne, part of the debt had been passed down to him from his ancestors, but my father had little use for the aristocratic class and the way they spend money.  He didn’t want to see his good money go to pay for gambling debts and bad investments.”

Two pairs of eyes, blue and brown, were fixed on his face with breathless attention.  He cleared his throat and went on.  “The trust was added to the marriage settlement to make certain that you, the future earl, would have money available to you when you came of age.  My father hoped the sound financial blood of the Jarvises would prevail in your nature and make you a more reliable investment than your father.”

A small silence fell as the youngsters digested what they had just heard.  Then Claire said, “What seems strange to me, Mr. Jarvis, is that if your father had so little faith in Lord Welbourne, why would he allow his daughter to marry him?”

As he looked into that lovely, innocent face, Jarvis felt suddenly very weary.  He said, “My father arranged the marriage because he wanted his daughter to be a countess.  It’s as simple, and as foolish, as that.”

Claire looked even more bewildered.  “But your father was tremendously rich.  Why should he care about a title?” 

“Money doesn’t buy entrance into the upper levels of society, Miss O’Rourke.  The doors that were firmly closed to Miss Jarvis would open wide for the Countess of Welbourne.  It was important to my father to have that kind of acceptance.”

Simon and Claire exchanged wondering looks. 

“I’d rather have the money,” Claire said.

“So would I,” Simon agreed.

“Ah,” Jarvis said, looking at the beautiful boy in front of him.  “You are so accustomed to being an earl’s son you don’t realize how differently you would be treated if you were simply Mr. Radley, a banker.”

Simon didn’t look convinced.  He leaned a little forward and asked, “Can you explain to me how this money will be transferred to me?  I know that the age of majority in England is twenty-one.  Does that mean I won’t have control of the money until I am of legal age?”

“My father named me as trustee, and until you reach the age of twenty-one I will administer the trust funds for you.”

“Administer them how?”  Simon’s expression was intent.

Jarvis smiled.  “I have no intention of being a pinch purse, lad.  I will give you a quarterly allowance and expect you to live within it.  If you encounter any unusual expenses, you may come to me.  But I tell you now, Nephew, I won’t pay any gambling debts.”

Simon’s quiet, “I don’t gamble,” clashed with Claire’s indignant, “Simon never gambles!”

“I am pleased to hear that,” Jarvis said. 

“What if … what if I should need money for something personal?”

“You may come to me.  I am a reasonable man, Simon, and I understand your father has kept you poor.  Well, it’s not a bad thing to be poor.  You appreciate money more when you do have it.”

“Yes, sir.” Simon said.

“Can you take away Simon’s allowance if he does something you don’t approve of?” Claire asked.

Jarvis had the distinct feeling that there was something behind all these questions, but he couldn’t quite see what it might be.  “I could,” he answered.  “But I’m certain the issue won’t arise.”

Silence from the two youngsters.  Their faces gave away nothing of what they might be thinking.

Jarvis said pleasantly, “I understand you have completed school.  Are you planning to go to university?”

“No,” Simon said.

Jarvis raised a surprised graying eyebrow.  “No?  What do you plan to do with yourself, then?”

The two youngsters looked at each other, then back to him.  More silence.

Jarvis decided to try another subject.  “What subject did you like most in school?”

“Maths.  I liked maths.  I did very well in them, sir.”

“Did you indeed?”  Jarvis added humorously, “Perhaps you would like to come and work in our bank.”

There was a startled silence and the two youngsters exchanged another unreadable look.  “Perhaps I could,” the boy said slowly.  “Would you pay me a salary?”

Jarvis was nonplused.  The future Earl of Welbourne could not possibly work in a bank.  He managed to say, “Please, Simon, won’t you call me
Uncle Richard
?”

“Uncle Richard,” Simon repeated obediently.

Jarvis decided this was not the time to list all the reasons why it would be impossible for Simon to work in a bank.  Instead he smiled and stood.  “We’ll see how this all works out, eh?”  His voice was genial.  “In just a few weeks’ time you will turn eighteen; we can discuss your future then.”