Seduction Regency Style

by Louisa Cornell

  Three other large buildings stood on their own extensive grounds. One, he knew, was occupied by the Pelmans, brother and sister. He’d called there this afternoon to collect the keys to the cottage from Pelman. A second building, beside the church, would almost certainly be the Rectory. The third large house stood slightly uphill from the village and faced the road he walked. Miss Neatham’s directions led him past its gates and on past the first row of cottages. Fair enough. Her evident poverty made a large house unlikely. One of the cottages, then. At the crossroads with the inn, his instructions said to turn into the second road past that building. Ah. The road to the Pelmans’ house. But no, she said to take a turn behind the church.

  This lane was narrow and rutted. It wound down a hill too steep for carriages, lined by nothing much beyond rocks, goat shelters and pocket-handkerchief gardens, the last two drooping in the rain.

  Soon, he arrived level with the roofs he had seen from the top of the road, and a miserable lot they were—more patch than roof and more hole than either. What idiot had thought it a good idea to build in a hollow? In this weather, the alley between the two-up two-down double row of dwellings was close to a lake, and the disgraceful condition of the cottages suggested they were either deserted or occupied by those who had no resources to do repairs.

  Bear shook his head. He’d seen many such warts on the landscape; some landowner’s idea of workers’ housing, tucked into any corner—however unsuitable—that placed them out of sight of the local landowners and those visitors they wished to impress.

  Miss Neatham could not possibly live here. Bear looked for a street name but found none. He tried the key she had given him in the door of the third house on the left. What the hell had Pelman been thinking, putting a lady of Miss Neatham’s refinement in a slum like this?

  Bear pushed the door open and let himself into a narrow hall, where he removed his coat and hat, and looked around a little helplessly for a hook or a rack or even a chair to lay them over. In the end, he draped the coat over the newel post of the staircase, and put the hat on the floor by the door. Puddles began to spread across the bare board beneath both. At least he wasn’t destroying Miss Neatham’s carpet.

  Where would he find the father? He called out, “Mr. Neatham?”

  All he heard was the rain driving viciously against the outside of the house and his coat dripping on the floor.

  Bedridden, she had said. Upstairs then. “Mr. Neatham?” He repeated the call at the turn of the stairs, and again when he reached the landing.

  “Who’s there?” the voice from the room at the end of the short passage above the stairwell shook with fear or age, or perhaps both. “Who’s there? Go away! I am armed. Rosie? Rosie, someone is in the house. Run, Rosie. Get the constable.”

  Bear pushed open the door to find an elderly man, not much larger than the rose thief herself, propped up on pillows in his bed, clutching a sheet to his chest, his eyes wide. He flourished a candlestick, his gaunt, wrinkled face showing more terror than aggression.

  Bear stopped in the doorway. “Mr. Neatham, your Rosie sent me.”

  Mr. Neatham lifted his chin and sniffed. “I do not know you, sir.” The voice, thready with age, bore the same hallmarks of birth and education that distinguished his daughter’s.

  Bear bowed. “Allow me to introduce myself. Hugh Gavenor, at your service.”

  The room contained little beside the man and the bed. The corner of the bedside table rested on a stack of broken brick in lieu of a leg. A battered trunk and a few garments hung on hooks along one wall completed the room’s furnishings. The room was clean, almost painfully so, except the strong smell of fresh urine hinted that another clean—of the frail body before him—was overdue.

  Neatham seemed to have forgotten his alarm in his puzzlement. “Gavenor? I know no Gavenors.”

  “I purchased Thorne Hall.” Bear stepped toward the bed, stopped, and waited for Neatham to react to his approach.

  The man curled his lip. “Rubbish. If you mean to tell me stories, Gavenor, or whatever your name is, you will have to do better than that. Lord Hurley would never sell. He would certainly never sell without telling me. I am his librarian, you know.” He shook his finger at Bear. “Go off with you. My Rosie will be here soon with the constable.”

  Bear kept his countenance calm while he rehearsed a rebuke for Miss Neatham. Your father is senile, woman. Why did you not tell me?

  “I came from your Rosie,” he explained. How much could the old man understand? “She is at Rose Cottage. I am sorry to inform you she has injured her ankle and will not be able to return tonight. I came on her behalf, to check that you have all you need, Mr. Neatham.”

  Neatham flapped his hands in agitation, almost hitting himself with the forgotten candlestick. “I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you. My wife Rosie would never stay at the gardener’s cottage. Why should she? Lord Hurley will send some footmen to bring my wife home. I will…”

  His wife? Bear shook his head to clear it. Miss Neatham’s mother, presumably.

  Mr. Neatham stopped in mid flow and looked around the pathetic room. “But why am I here? Where am I? This isn’t my room.”

  He lurched upright, his shoulders shifting toward the edge of the bed, his hips staying put, and wailed as Bear crossed the space between them in two strides, to catch him before he fell from the bed.

  Bear settled Neatham back against the pillows, and the invalid looked up at him, bewildered. “My legs. What is wrong with my legs?”

  No wonder Miss Neatham was worried. You should never have left the poor, deluded man alone, Miss Neatham. If my roses were so important to you, surely you could have instructed a neighbor to sit with him? Though there had been no lights in the other cottages.

  He searched for something soothing to say. “An injury, I am told, sir. Just rest. Do not let your legs concern you.”

  Neatham frowned, but did not again attempt to move.

  Perhaps Pelman’s sister would come in for the night, or—if not—Pelman might know someone. Someone who could change the bedding and dress the man in clean clothes.

  Clearly, Neatham couldn’t be left alone for the night. Especially not in a house that leaked. A spattering of drops entered around the window each time a gust of wind hit it. A continuous runnel of water down the wall in the corner fell to a pool that grew no bigger, so must be draining away between the floorboards to the room beneath.

  “I will fetch help,” he told Mr. Neatham.

  “Fetch the constable,” Mr. Neatham instructed. “There has been an intruder. I sent Rosie some time ago, but something must have happened to delay her. What did you say your name was?”

  “Gavenor,” Bear repeated.

  “Get the constable, Gavenor,” Mr. Neatham said. “The man seems to have gone now, but he may come back, and I don’t want my wife frightened.”

  “I will be back as soon as I can, Mr. Neatham,” Bear said, with little hope that the man would remember.

  First, he opened the door at the top of the stairs. A smaller bedroom, clearly Miss Neatham’s, even more spartan than the father’s. He took down the two gowns hanging on the wall, and manage to fit them into the trunk, which he carried downstairs and left by the door before checking the rooms on that floor. A kitchen with no fire, the few pans old and battered, looking as if they had been salvaged from someone’s junk heap. A front room with a single chair at a table by the leaking window, and a woman’s work basket, full of folded fabric and sewing paraphernalia. He put that by the trunk. Miss Neatham was clearly used to being occupied.

  His coat was still drenched, but he put it on against the worst of the rain. He’d need an oilskin to protect Miss Neatham’s possessions while he carried them home. Perhaps Pelman would be able to loan him one.

  Climbing back up the hill, dodging the worst of the torrents, he teased at the picture he’d formed, but it didn’t make sense. Why on earth was a lady of Miss Neatham’s quality living in such a hovel?
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br />   Pelman would know. Bear had an uneasy feeling that Pelman knew her story all too well.

  Chapter Four

  A few minutes’ walk along the better maintained road at the top of Miss Neatham’s alley brought him to Pelman’s gate. He soon knocked on the door, which was opened by a maid. She took his coat and hat to hang over a drip tray, and carried off his card to present to her master.

  This was more the sort of house where Miss Neatham belonged; a substantial dwelling with several reception rooms and probably a dozen or more bedrooms. The hall in which he waited was wider than the Neatham’s entire house, with a handsome staircase at one side broad enough for two people to ascend abreast. Opposite the staircase, portraits and landscapes adorned the wall, with room for half a dozen chairs and several side tables.

  Pelman followed the maid back into the hall before Bear had time to do more than glance around.

  “Gavenor. What on earth are you doing out in weather like this?”

  On the spur of the moment, Bear decided to go fishing. “I’m on a mission for a lady, Pelman. Miss Neatham called on me this afternoon.”

  Bear didn’t miss the worried crease between Pelman’s brows, hastily smoothed and replaced with a sneer. “Hah! I might have known she would complain to you. Don’t believe her, Gavenor. She has no right to that cottage. None at all.”

  Pelman gestured. “Come on through to the parlor. You’ll want to dry beside the fire. The bi— female must have been convincing to drive you out in this weather.” Almost a question, the way his voice rose at the end of the sentence. One Bear had no intention of answering when Pelman spilled so much information without further effort on Bear’s part.

  Sure enough, the silence prompted him to continue. “Mind you, I don’t deny that the baron may have promised the cottage to her—quite likely, under the circumstance—but he put nothing in writing.”

  Interesting. The ill feeling obviously went both ways. What circumstances made it likely that the baron lied about giving Miss Neatham the cottage? Some men did not consider it dishonorable to lie to their paramours about future benefits, and a wise mistress took her promises in the form of a contract. Gavenor had trouble associating such sordid affairs with his indignant fairy. Let it sit. Undoubtedly, all will become clear.

  “His will left everything to his nephew, including the cottage and—as I told the lovely Rosabel myself—all its contents. You purchased everything. So, there you are.”

  Bear resisted the urge to push Miss Neatham’s personal name down Pelman’s throat, but remained silent, watching Pelman out of the corner of one eye while seemingly intent upon the fire.

  “I told her she could take only what she could prove she owned. I was looking out for your interests, Gavenor.”

  Very interesting. Bear tucked the information away to consider later.

  “I am not here about Miss Neatham’s housing,” he said, as peaceably as he could manage, “though she must find her new accommodations very poor after Rose Cottage. Could you not find her anything more suitable?”

  Pelman’s tense shoulders relaxed fractionally. “In an instant, if she can afford to pay.” His smirk invited Bear to make common cause with him. “You are a businessman, Gavenor. You know how it is. She has no income, and will not be able to afford the place she is in for long. She will need to meet my price then.”

  Bear, guessing that price, stood speechless for a moment, fighting to keep from wrapping his hands around Pelman’s throat. Over his dead body would his fairy be forced into accepting whatever degrading offer this scum had made.

  “Pride is cold comfort when the roof leaks.” The new voice was redolent with satisfaction. This would be Pelman’s sister. No fairy this one—rather, a hearty country woman with the resemblance to a well-bred horse that seemed characteristic of the type.

  Pelman returned his sister’s smirk, oblivious to the danger in which he stood. “Livia, allow me to present Mr. Gavenor, the gentleman who purchased the Hurley estate. Gavenor, my sister.”

  Bear bowed. “Charmed, Miss Pelman.” A lie, but a social lie.

  She simpered. “Mr. Gavenor, how delighted we are you have joined our little community.” She prattled on about the paucity of social equals and the joys of a visit to Liverpool, not far distant across the Mersey.

  The proximity to Liverpool was a prime attraction of the estate. Many of those making their fortunes in Liverpool’s shipping and woolen industries wanted a country estate. A second house where they could retreat from the city marked their arrival in the netherworld between their middle-class origins and the upper classes who would never accept them. Thorne Hall was ideally suited, particularly if the planned steam ferry service was more successful than the one that failed a couple of years earlier.

  Bear had spoken to the people behind the project, which was why he had set his agents looking for properties in the Wirral Peninsula. The current Baron Hurley, a London man to the bone, had been glad to get rid of the place he had inherited from his uncle six years ago and visited once. Bear had paid a price that would make him money even if he had to raze the ruin to the ground and start again.

  Miss Pelman was attempting to discover his plans. He ignored her hints. Time enough to address her disapproval after his plans were accomplished.

  “You may be able to help me, Miss Pelman,” he said.

  She simpered again. “Pelman told me you have need of a housekeeper, Mr. Gavenor, and I would be willing to fill the position. On a temporary basis, as a favor. You understand that I would need maids to do the actual work, of course.” She ran her hands over her gown as if to draw attention to its quality.

  Bear shook his head. “I do not need a housekeeper, Miss Pelman. Though it is kind of you to offer.”

  She frowned. “Oh? Then you have someone?”

  “I have my manservant. No, Miss Pelman, that was not the favor. I…” He stopped to consider his words. “I happened to chance upon a Miss Neatham, who has twisted her ankle and is unable to return to her home tonight. I offered to check on her elderly father and found him in some distress. Can you recommend a neighbor who might look after him for the night, until Miss Neatham is able to make appropriate arrangements?” There. That was all true enough without giving this witch some scandal to hold on to.

  Miss Pelman’s voice became shrill, “Miss Neatham? Rosabel Neatham? Where is she staying? Who is she staying with?”

  “A cottager has taken her in,” Bear prevaricated. “Terrible weather to be out in, too. The lady is fortunate she was close to somewhere dry.”

  Miss Pelman snorted like a horse; one that had found something in its feedbag not to its liking. “Lady! Well some might call her a lady, I suppose.”

  Bear would not allow himself to be distracted. “Mr. Neatham, Miss Pelman?”

  “I suppose Mrs. Able might oblige,” Miss Pelman allowed, reluctantly. “She does sick-bed nursing and laying out and the like. I shall give you a note.” Suddenly, her frown smoothed and she smiled. “No. Better. Wait for me to get my cape and I shall take you.”

  Uh oh. Harpy alert. “Thank you. I won’t ask you to come out in this rain. A note and directions, and I shall manage.”

  “Not at all, my dear Mr. Gavenor. Why, we are neighbors now, and one must help one’s neighbors. I insist. I will be right back.”

  She fixed him in place with a bright smile. He imagined a crocodile might smile so, all teeth and welcoming joy as its supper approached. Beckoning to her brother, she left the room and Pelman followed, closing the door firmly behind him.

  Bear crossed to the door and eased it open. They had not gone farther than the hall, and their voices carried clearly.

  “Old Able, Livia?” Pelman sounded both amused and unbelieving.

  “It doesn’t matter. It is just for a night. But Lawrence, Rose Neatham! If she has got her claws into the first eligible bachelor to arrive in this village in years, I shall scream. Now, where did the rain hood go?”

  “Gavenor’s no
t a man for your tricks, Livia,” Pelman warned. “Or Rosabel’s, either. They call him Bear for his sour disposition. Doesn’t have any use for the ladies, by all accounts, except to bed them.”

  “Nonsense, Lawrence.” Miss Pelman sounded farther away this time. Still looking for the rain hood, perhaps. “He was looking over the Marriage Mart this past Season. My friend Lady Partridge wrote about him. A war hero, she said, and wealthy, and ready to settle down.”

  Bear remembered Lady Partridge. A sour prune of a woman, disapproving of everything. He pressed his ear to the gap he had created, straining to hear what else she said.

  “But whatever he was looking for, he did not find it.”

  That was true. Bear had promised his great aunt that he’d look for a wife, but the debutantes made him feel old, and the fashionable widows were either avoiding a second marriage or rapaciously keen hunters who repelled him. He’d become adept at evading traps, but had achieved little else, and had shelved the marriage project for another time.

  “He is picky, then,” Pelman warned. “Don’t pin any hopes on him, Livia.”

  “He needs a sensible wife, Lady Partridge said,” Miss Pelman responded. “One who is accustomed to living in the country but who will show to advantage in social situations, for he is a businessman, Lawrence, and must entertain his clients.”

  Lady Partridge was more perceptive than Bear had thought, then. That summed his requirements nicely.

  Miss Pelman’s voice became louder and clearer as she approached the door. “A woman past the silliness of first youth, and a lady born, but not too proud, for the Gavenors are a very obscure family. Gentry, of course, or I would not consider it.”

  Pelman trailed close behind his sister. “You will do as you wish. You always do.”