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Authors: C.J. Chase

Tags: #Romance

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BOOK: The Reluctant Earl
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“Or someone else’s.”

“I fail to see why that should concern me.”

Tension tightened along the square jaw and in the sharp, chiseled angles of the man’s cheeks. “My dear sister, surely even your hard heart feels a twinge of sorrow at the passing of a man who’d provided so generously during your first years of life.”

“His faults were more memorable than his generosity.”

“Fortunately, so was his willingness to forgive.”

“If you’ve come to judge me because I refuse to feign feelings I don’t possess, you’ve misjudged my scruples.”

“Actually I’m not here to see you at all, Lizzie.” Scorn darkened his eyes and broadened his derisive grin. “I came to meet with Sotherton. Your husband.”

Awareness prickled along Leah’s spine, like the ache that radiated from her warming fingers. Was it important the new Earl of Chambelston—for such he must be—should call on Lord Sotherton at a time like this?

Lady Sotherton’s jaw dropped, her gaping mouth reminiscent of a dead codfish. And with the same degree of comment.

Beside Leah, Teresa stifled a giggle with her palm. But not well enough. Lady Sotherton’s head jerked toward them, her hard eyes farther narrowing with even greater displeasure as she peered at the salon doorway.

“Teresa? Are you eavesdropping?”

Teresa swallowed and stepped into the entrance hall. “Good afternoon, Mama. I only now returned from my walk. I heard voices and waited so as not to interrupt.”

Leah hesitated, wanting to flee but refusing to leave her charge alone to face the coming reprimand. Her prospects for receiving a good referral from Lady Sotherton dimmed as she slipped into the entrance hall and paused beside Teresa.

Lady Sotherton folded her arms across her chest, her perpetually present frown amplifying the wrinkles around her mouth. “Now that you have indeed interrupted, you may continue to the schoolroom. No doubt you have studies to complete.”

“Yes, Mama.” Teresa scurried to the stairs, mortification coloring her face a deeper red than the cold.

Leah offered her employer a hasty curtsey and hurried after her student.

“And Miss Vance.” Lady Sotherton’s frosty tones cut short Leah’s retreat.

She froze, then turned—slowly, deliberately—gripping the remains of her composure as tightly as her fingers wrapped around the bannister. “My lady?”

“How do you expect my daughter to comport herself with proper conduct when you participate in her wayward behavior?”

“My apologies, my lady.” Despite Leah’s best attempts to control her response, the blistering words of public censure—in front of her charge, the servants and a stranger—scorched her cheeks. A stranger whose brilliant blue gaze softened for the first time with an expression akin to...sympathy. Her embarrassment melded with rebellious anger, and her spine stiffened at the added indignity of a stranger’s pity.

* * *

Julian’s jaw ached with the effort to keep silent. Only twenty years of naval service—of remaining aloof whenever a fellow officer disciplined his subordinate—prevented him from intervening. He cared nothing about Elizabeth’s probable reaction, not when his uncivil sister hadn’t even bothered to introduce him to the niece he’d never seen until this moment. But the other woman—whose wide, hazel eyes flickered to him one last time as she turned her scarlet face away—deserved no further humiliation.

“Return to the schoolroom, Miss Vance.” Elizabeth’s toe tapped against the floor. “And see you don’t permit my daughter to run rampant about the house without shoes like the veriest hoyden. I insist she comport herself in a manner that will secure her future.”

“Yes, my lady.” Miss Vance dropped into another, more subservient curtsey like the most menial scullery maid. The chandelier flames gleamed on her hair—straight, severely styled and commonplace brown. It complemented her other features—unremarkable except for the spark of defiance glinting in her eyes.

Certainly not beautiful. Not even striking. But...interesting.

She followed her charge up the grand staircase, the skirt of her dark, humble gown swaying with her steps.

The governess, obviously—a woman trapped by circumstances in a nebulous world between classes, never quite belonging anywhere. Rather like his own feeling of entrapment at finding himself thrust into a position for which he’d had little preparation and no inclination. Compassion, even connection, stirred within him.

“Why do you want to see Benedict?” Elizabeth’s strident voice pierced Julian’s musings and drew him back to the matter at hand.

“Business.”

Her frown tightened. “How...coincidental. So your father claimed when he called last month.”

A frisson of excitement ricocheted along Julian’s spine as he let her disdain pass without comment. “Father was here? Last month?” Such news lent credence to the letter writer’s claims. His father had been involved in the recent unrest—but in what fashion? Had he worked with the government to stem the rising tide of riots?

“Not here, of course. We were in London. He called at our town house to see Benedict—on business, he maintained.” His sister lifted her chin. If she hoisted her nose any higher, she would be staring at the friezes on the ceiling. “Rightly, I suppose, since he didn’t expend any effort to visit with me.”

“How strange he would rebuff his own daughter after all his attempts at reconciliation. Or was it you who discouraged any familial discourse?”

Elizabeth tilted her head toward the hovering butler. “Hawkesworth, find out if Lord Sotherton is receiving visitors.”

“Tell him Lord Chambelston wishes to know.” Julian added when it was obvious Elizabeth refused to offer him even that courtesy. The butler nodded and withdrew, his steps muffled by the plush rugs that swathed the parquet floors. Julian shifted inside his heavy cloak. How like his sister to scorn even the offer of a warm drink before she tossed him out into the cold afternoon. “I understand your animosity toward our parents, but why do you spurn the rest of your family?”

“And see that constant, simpleminded reminder of our parents’ debauchery?” Twenty years of rancor had not been kind to this, his eldest sister. Silver streaked her once golden hair, and discontent now congealed in the same eyes where once delight had danced. Lines of complaint aged her countenance beyond her forty years, making her appear a bit like the swags of yuletide greenery that still decorated the entrance hall—old, dry, tired. And ready to be torn down. “I don’t know why Maman didn’t put our youngest sister in an asylum where she belongs.”

“Perhaps Maman thought committing another wrong to save herself the embarrassment of a previous wrong was...wrong?”

“So instead she chose to humiliate us all.”

He glanced at the stairs where his niece and her beleaguered governess had so recently fled. “Poor Lizzie, who believes humiliation is permitted to flow in only one direction.”

The butler’s reemergence saved Elizabeth from delivering yet another cutting response. “His lordship will see you now, my lord.”

Julian passed Hawkesworth his hat and gloves, then swung his cloak off his shoulders. “With your permission, Lizzie?” He bowed to his sister. Then without awaiting her response, followed the butler.

The pine-scented hallway whispered to him of happier times, when six eager children anticipated the holidays. His mother had left Chambelston Manor unadorned this season, except for the black the servants put up after his father succumbed to his injuries. At least Caro’s future holidays wouldn’t be tainted with reminders of this year’s tragedy.

The butler paused in a doorway and announced, “The Earl of Chambelston, my lord.” Then he moved aside to let Julian sweep past.

Sotherton laid aside his quill and rose from behind a mahogany desk. His heavy brows and sagging jowls gave him a squirely appearance—as if he were a man given only to his horses and hounds—but the keen edge of his gaze warned Julian not to discount this man’s observations. “Chambelston.” His gaze slid over Julian, as if his brother-in-law were too small for the title he bore.

Julian understood. Would he ever grow accustomed to the name? The loss? “Sotherton.”

His brother-in-law gestured to the chairs that flanked either side of a marble fireplace. Flames blazed on the hearth and threw cheery light onto the paneled walls of the masculine study. “A nasty time of year to be traveling. I heard about Chamb—your father’s accident. He was a good man. I’m sorry for your loss.”

Not sorry enough to persuade his wife to attend Father’s funeral, or at the very least, be man enough to bring his children in the face of his wife’s refusal. “He will be missed.”

“How is your mother?” Sotherton waited until Julian dropped onto a chair before settling on the adjoining seat.

“Weary. The last few weeks have been demanding. Maman was nursing Father while I was overseeing the estate.” Thank goodness Felicity had arrived to tend to Caro. But now Felicity had returned to her home—and Julian was here. How would Maman fare so far from her support and so close to her grief? “I’ve been trying to settle the estate affairs. I understand Father called upon you in London a month ago.” A very long month ago.

“I own I was rather surprised to see him as we haven’t been particularly close. And imagine my astonishment when he confided that several leaders of the radicals had requested his assistance in petitioning the Regent.”

Julian’s fingers tightened around the chair arms. “Do you mean my father was working with those who instigated the Spa Fields riots?” Not the government? But...the letter in Julian’s pocket had suggested the rioters had caused his father’s injury and subsequent death.

“Not those who fomented the disturbance so much as those who believe the people have legitimate grievances. Chamb—your father functioned as a mediator between them and the government. He was uniquely respected by both the aristocracy and the common people.”

So Julian had once also believed. And yet, the author of his mysterious letter averred otherwise. “Did Father tell you what he expected to accomplish?”

“Beyond trying to prevent the unrest from spreading to every corner of the country? The looting and destruction only increase the overall suffering. Your father wanted to use his leverage to convince the people that the government is not insensitive toward their needs.”

“Only impotent?”

“What can we do?” Sotherton tapped templed fingers against his chin. “There is simply no more food to be had. The famine is even worse on the continent.”

“But a man with starving children isn’t oft given to reason.”

“Worse, many are willing to follow anyone who promises them relief. Unfortunately while some of your father’s, er, friends have good intentions, others are dedicated radicals who seek the destruction of the monarchy. The current hardships have provided them an opportunity to advance their cause.”

At the cost of his father’s life, it seemed.

* * *

Leah finished her note with a flourish and sprinkled sand over the wet ink. As she shook off the excess, the crackling parchment echoed the blast of winter that shivered against the schoolroom window. A draft pushed through the frame, causing the curtains to stir and the candle to flicker. Teresa had gone to dinner with the family—including her newly met uncle—leaving Leah alone with her thoughts and schemes.

Business, Lord Chambelston had claimed in his mesmerizing baritone. What business brought a man so far from home in the depths of winter to visit an estranged relative whose primary interest was politics, not commerce? A pity she couldn’t have lingered longer on the stairs to find out. Once she finished informing her cousin of her discovery, she’d set out to learn more.

She folded the note, leaving the seemingly blank side exposed, and she poured a dollop of hot wax onto the parchment seam. Once she had the innocuous words sealed, she tucked a candle stub into her pocket and marched to the hallway, message in hand. Despite the dangerous nature of her errand, she smiled as she made her way to the narrow staircase that threaded through the back of Rowan Abbey. Approaching footsteps clattered against the treads, then a chambermaid’s face materialized in the dark.

“Posting another letter, Miss Vance?” Molly offered a deferential nod and a shy smile that glowed despite the windowless, airless stairway. Even her hair—a bright, carroty red—defied the gloom. A tiny wooden cross hung around her neck on a thin leather cord. “You should have rung for me. I’ll take it for you.”

“Oh, no. You work hard enough already. Besides, I, ah, also have another message to deliver,” Leah improvised. “But thank you, Molly.”

Where did the loyalty of the other servants and staff lie? With the powerful who paid their meager salaries? Or with the common folk who couldn’t find food in this winter of famine and despair? Leah reached the ground floor and a door that led out the back of the manor. Cold slammed into her as she crossed the snow-covered grounds to the stables, but grabbing her coat would have raised suspicions. At least the deepening darkness—and her governess-plain brown gown—hid her from curious eyes.

The wind tossed snow against her face. Just when her fingers began to numb, she reached the stable. As she pushed open the door, a blast of warmth swept over her cheek. The strong odor of animals filled her nostrils, carrying her back to long ago memories of happier times. She seized her skirts and hiked them above her ankles so as not to return with any telltale bits of straw—or worse—stuck to her hem. “Wetherel?”

The groom appeared from a stall. “Miss Vance, you shouldn’t have come out in the cold.”

Or at all, his narrowed eyes and drawn brows warned as she passed him her note. But who else could she could trust with such an errand? “If you could see to the matter as soon as possible?”

Once she’d returned to the house, she pointed her feet toward Lord Sotherton’s study. The chink of silver and drone of desultory conversation drifted from the dining room. Hopefully Lady Sotherton’s vanity had overcome her animosity, and she would keep her guest—and the servants—busy with an extensive repast.

Once by the dark paneled study door, Leah lit her candle stub on a sconce and let herself into the room. A quick examination of his lordship’s desk revealed nothing new since her foray here yesterday. She blew out her candle and leaned back on her heels, surrounded by darkness. If the new Lord Chambelston had brought anything useful—any information that might advance the cause—he wouldn’t have carried those documents to dinner.

BOOK: The Reluctant Earl
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