Unraveling the Earl

by Lynne Barron

  Georgie lifted her cup and watched him pour a dram in to mix with her pale tea.

  “Now, you take his lordship,” Critchley said, settling into his seat and lifting the flask to his lips.

  “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind.”

  His eyes met hers over the shining silver. He swallowed and swallowed again before lowering the flask, capping it and tucking it back into his pocket.

  Georgie sipped her tea and glanced toward the window.

  “If Mrs. Porter is at home, she’ll keep his lordship there with her chatter long enough to hitch up the horses and make the journey to and from the village,” he said, watching her closely.

  “No need,” she assured him.

  “You’re certain?”

  “My carriage will be along shortly.”

  “I don’t know that your lumbering box will make it, what with the roads being a muddy mess,” he warned. “We got stuck twice.”

  “Hmm, good whiskey,” she said, ignoring his words entirely. Tag and Brain would come for her, should have been there as soon as the rain had ceased. “How is it you did not make the journey safely that first day, before the skies opened up?”

  “Broke an axel just after we separated from his lordship, took until dark to see it repaired. By morn the rain was coming down in sheets,” he replied, crossing his hands over his chest and pushing off with one foot, setting the chair gently rocking. “Why won’t you take Lord Hastings?”

  “No offense, but your master is a bumbling idiot,” she said.

  “None taken,” he assured her. “But he ain’t near as bumbling you might think.”

  “Bumbling enough,” she replied. “And quite blind to boot.”

  “There is that,” he agreed.

  Georgie lifted her cup and drained the contents as her carriage appeared in the distance, a small spot of black pulled by tiny horses, cresting one knoll and disappearing again.

  “You’d be the making of the man.”

  Her cup rattled as she lowered it to the fine china saucer and she hurriedly placed both on the table.

  “Already you’ve changed him,” he continued. “Set him on the straight and narrow path.”

  “I don’t know that I want to change him,” she began, waving one hand in the air in agitation.

  “Like him just the way he is do you?” he teased. “Bumbling and blind.”

  “Nor am I the sort of woman to set any man on the straight and narrow,” she replied with a laugh, refusing to give the kind old man a lie. “I’d be more likely to push him from the path and clap my hands in glee as he fell into a marshy bog.”

  “You’d no more take pleasure in another’s misfortune than would the young lord.” His voice was soft, his eyes softer.

  “I never…” she began, stopping to delicately clear the frog from her throat before forcing the words out, “I never meant for him to fall.”

  “Whether you meant it or not, he’s fallen.”

  “Damn and blast,” she muttered. “He took me by surprise, you see.”

  “That’s often the way of it,” Critchley agreed.

  “We made a bad bargain,” she whispered, feeling an unaccountable need to defend herself. “I should have spelled out my terms clearly from the beginning. Or he should have concisely explained what I would be receiving in return. But I did not and he did not. We did not.”

  “There’s still time,” he offered.

  “Time won’t change the fact that he cannot give me what I want.”

  “Marriage?” he asked.

  “Marriage?” she repeated, jumping to her feet.

  “A family?”

  Georgie spun about and walked to the window. Her carriage was just reaching the next hill, larger now, her mismatched horses discernable for the mighty beasts they were.

  “Children?” the old man persisted.

  Her vision blurred and she swayed, lightheaded and off balance. She felt the oddest sensation low in her belly, a tiny fluttering, as if she’d swallowed a spider with her tea and whiskey and the poor, tiny creature was dancing around inside her.

  “I’ll have marriage,” she whispered. “I’ll have a family and children. Someday.”

  “You’ll make a fine wife and a wonderful mother to a passel of carrot-topped little ones.”

  “My carriage is coming up the lane, Mr. Crotchety.” Georgie put starch in her words through sheer force of will as she straightened her shoulders and turned to face the kindly old philosopher. “Thank you for the tea but I really must be going now.”

  He lumbered to his feet with a sigh. “Will you leave some words of farewell for his lordship?”

  Georgie tapped one fingers against her chin as she debated the wisdom of sharing a message with the too wise butler.

  “I can fetch quill and parchment for you,” he offered.

  “Tell his lordship to beware fuzzy mold masquerading as sweet cream.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Oh, and remind him he must attend the assembly and dance a set with each of the Misses Brooks as promised.”

  “Are you quite certain you would not like to write him a lengthier and more private message?”

  “He would not be able to read it.”

  “He isn’t that blind, I don’t think,” the butler protested.

  “’Twas a pleasure taking tea with you again, Mr. Crotchety,” Georgie said, holding on to her composure by the fraying ends.

  “The pleasure was all mine, Miss Buchanan.” Critchley bowed as best he could and Georgie bussed the top of his bald head before fleeing from the parlor, traversing the hall in four long strides. She breezed past the footman just as her carriage coasted to a smooth stop in the circular drive.

  Brain smiled from the driver’s bench when he spied her while Tag shot her a frown from the open window. Beneath and old blanket on the boot, Silas’ beefy hand and hairy arm hung down, the neck of a jug clenched in his fingers.

  “Hullo, my lady,” Brain greeted cheerfully.

  “Don’t you my lady me,” Georgie called back, taking the steps from the porch at as close to a run as she could manage with her skirts tangling around her legs. “What took you so bloody long?”

  Chapter Twenty

  “You would do well to toss the ball higher and scoop from the side.”

  Sharp blue eyes lifted from the jacks spread out over the stone walkway as a small red ball bounced once, twice before springing off the path and rolling over the lawn to land beneath a row of pink pansies.

  “I’ve seen you in the park.” Lady Frances Gibbons’ gaze swept over Georgie from her rather simple straw bonnet to her white half-boots poking from beneath the hem of the demure pink muslin dress she’d donned for the occasion.

  “Aye, I’ve seen you as well,” Georgie agreed, making her own perusal of the young girl she’d often seen playing beside her brother at Hyde Park. She was a pretty little thing, all enormous eyes and dark hair pulled back from her face by a blue ribbon that perfectly matched both her eyes and the ruffled dress she wore beneath a grass-stained pinafore.

  “You’ve a yellow curricle,” the girl continued. “My mother has a curricle but hers hasn’t such big wheels or so high a perch. Do you ever get dizzy sitting so high?”

  “Only when I take a corner too fast.”

  “So nearly every time you take your curricle out.”

  “It’s true, I do like to whip around corners.” Georgie shrugged one shoulder as she fought not to grin at the little girl sprawled out on the walkway to her home.

  She knew instinctively that the little girl would not appreciate her amusement.

  For all that she was not yet eight years of age, Lady Francis was a fierce little creature, and already too pretty for her age and too intelligent for a lady of any age.

  Georgie sincerely hoped the girl learned to find humor in her own foibles. If not she was likely to find the life she’d been born into a difficult path to travel.

  “You enjoy feeling
dizzy, then?” the girl prodded, slowly rising to her feet.

  “It seems that lately I feel dizzy more often than not,” Georgie replied, pressing her hands to the persistent fluttering in her belly. There was little she could do about the accompanying sensation that her head was stuffed with wool, soft, fluffy lamb’s wool, so light it might float away on a stiff wind.

  “My brother likes to spin around and around until he’s dizzy.”

  “I believe I know precisely who Lord Palmerton inherited that trait from,” Georgie mused. “Along with his blond curls and lopsided smile.”

  “Charlie’s smile is rather lopsided,” Lady Francis agreed.

  As if they’d conjured him simply by talking of him, Charles Gibbons, the Earl of Palmerton, careened around the corner of the house, his booted feet slipping on the grass before he righted himself and tore across the lawn toward his sister.

  “Fanny!” he called out. “Fanny, look what I found in the garden!”

  The little lord spotted Georgie peering in through the fence and came to a sudden halt a dozen feet from his destination. From his right hand hung a small black snake, twisting and writhing.

  “Oh good,” his sister said. “Let’s cut him up.”

  “No!” Lord Palmerton whipped the snake behind his back.

  “How can we see what’s inside if we don’t cut him open?”

  “He’s my pet,” the boy protested, his lower lip trembling. “I’ve named him Blackie.”

  “Oh, very original. You might as well have named him Snake.”

  “Huh?” The boy tilted his head in an exhibition of yet another trait he’d inherited from his idiot uncle and Georgie’s breath hitched, tears rushing to her eyes.

  “Damn and blast,” she muttered, swiping at the moisture with the tips of her fingers.

  Lady Francis turned to gift Georgie with a look of astonishment, or perhaps wonder.

  “My apologies,” Georgie said, chagrined to have uttered the words before two children.

  “Mama says ladies do not swear but Aunt Alice swears like a sailor.”

  “Auntie says bloody this and bloody that,” the boy agreed with a decisive nod that set his curls to bouncing over his forehead.

  Damn it all, the boy was almost an exact replica of his uncle but for the gray eyes he’d inherited from his mother and grandmother.

  It pained her to look at him. One more ache to add to the others that sat heavy over the jagged stone that was her heart.

  “Ho, you’re the lady from the park.” The young lord circled around his sister, careful to keep his distance lest she snatch Blackie from his hand and commence dissecting him on the lawn.

  “We’ve already established that little tid-bit,” Lady Francis tossed out with a disdain too sharp for her years.

  Ignoring his sister’s snide words and superior attitude, he came right up to the fence and tilted his head way back, finding her eyes beneath the brim of her bonnet. “You’ve purple eyes.”

  “So I’ve been told,” Georgie replied.

  “And awfully orange hair.”

  “I rather like my orange hair.”

  “Me, too. It’s…Fanny what’s that word? The one that means nobody else gots it?”

  “Unique,” his sister supplied with a sniff.

  “What’s your name?” the boy asked.

  “Miss Georgiana Buchanan.”

  “I am Lady Francis Marie Gibbons,” the girl said, sweeping into a wobbly curtsy. “And this is Lord Palmerton. But you may call us Fanny and Charlie.

  “I would be honored.”

  “Georgiana Buchana. Your name rhymes,” Charlie said with a grin.

  “Buchanan,” his sister corrected.

  “I like Buchana.”

  “You cannot simply run around changing people’s names to suit yourself.”

  “I don’t see why not,” Georgie said. “I gift nearly everyone I meet with a new name.”

  “What’s my name?” Charlie asked, bouncing up and down.

  “Bumbling idiot,” Fanny said with a grin.

  “Sorry, that one is already taken,” Georgie replied, meeting her gap-toothed grin with a smile.

  “What’s my name?” the boy persisted.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know you well enough to gift you with a new name.”

  “If you came onto the lawn and played with us for a bit then you would know us and you could give us new names.” He smiled, and while it was certainly a charming, crooked smile, it belonged entirely to a four-year-old boy who hadn’t yet discovered the power he would one day wield over women.

  “You are going to be the very devil with the ladies one day,” she murmured, enchanted.

  “Just like Uncle Henry,” Fanny said. “Mama says he tears a swath through the ladies a mile wide and six miles deep.”

  Georgie snorted.

  “When I grow up I won’t be so foolish as to fall for a rake.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you will,” Georgie agreed.

  “Mama says we aren’t to open the gate to strangers,” Fanny said, even as she stepped toward said gate at the base of the path.

  “A very sound rule.”

  “But Aunt Bea says there is no such thing as a stranger in London, not to us,” the girl continued, obviously searching for a reason to allow the stranger inside. “We are related to most of the great families in one fashion or another.”

  “I am not, I’m afraid,” Georgie replied. “Related to the great families in England, that is. I am, however, related to one or two in Scotland.”

  Fanny pinched her lips tight and shook her head.

  “Won’t do?” Georgie asked. “Must we be related? Might we not share a friend or acquaintance?”

  “One true friend or three nodding acquaintances,” the girl decreed.

  “Would you consider Dr. Goldman a true friend?”

  “Dr. Sam is your friend, too?” Charlie asked, his eyes wide.

  “I am pleased to count him as one of my dearest friends,” Georgie assured the little lord.

  Without further ado, Fannie lifted the latch and pushed the gate open with a flourish. “Won’t you come in, Miss Georgiana Buchanan?”

  “Georgie Porgie pudding pie, kissed the girls and made them cry,” Lord Palmerton sang as he dropped to his knees and pulled Blackie from behind his back, depositing him on the grass at Georgie’s feet. “Don’t go trampling him.”

  “No, I won’t.” She held still until the little black snake slithered away into a bush on the safe side of the fence.

  “I’m going to call you Georgie Porgie,” the boy decided with a nod. “On account of you’re a skinny girl, do you see?”

  “Every time I glance in the mirror,” she replied, resisting the urge to reach between the fence rails to ruffle his curls.

  “Well, are you coming in or not?” Fanny demanded, one booted foot impatiently tapping the ground. “I’ll not stand about all day playing footman.”

  “Princess Prickly.” Georgie tossed the words at the girl she breezed by her in the narrow opening.

  “Oh, that’s perfect!” Fanny clapped her hands and beamed.

  “Fanny’s going to be a real princess when she grows up,” Charlie said as he rose to his feet and skipped up the path and if Georgie didn’t already know it she never would have guessed that the little lordling had been born with a mangled foot that had nearly left him lame.

  “It’s true, I am.” Fanny nodded to emphasize the point.

  “She’s going to live in a castle. And do you know what? She’s not going to have a bedtime.”

  “I’ll stay up all night if I so choose.”

  “And she won’t have to finish all her dinner.”

  “I’ll waste more than I eat.”

  “And all of her servants will be young and pretty like Mrs. Miles and Miss Amherst.”

  “And Bill the footman,” Fanny added, ducking her head to hide the blush that swept over her cheeks.

  Charlie spun around and wa
lked backward, surefooted and confident. “Fanny says Bill is too beautiful for words but my pet sister—”

  “Stepsister,” Fanny corrected.

  “Justine says he has beady eyes.”

  “He has no such thing,” the girl cried, stopping and thrusting her hands to her hips. “Bill has lovely eyes, limpid brown pools.”

  Georgie rolled her eyes, erupted into laughter when the young earl did the same.

  “What are you laughing at?” Fanny demanded. “Are you laughing at me?”

  “She’ll throw you in her dungeon if you laugh at her,” Charlie warned around a giggle.

  “Stop that at once,” the girl ordered.

  “Ha ha ha,” Charlie teased. “Ha ha ha. I’m laughing at Princess Prickly.”

  “You’d best have a care, Charles Gibbons.”

  “I’m laughing at Princess Prickly, laughing at Princess Prickly,” the boy continued in a singsong fashion designed to annoy his sister. “Laughing at Princess Pri-i-i-ickly!”

  Fanny jumped into motion, sprinting up the path toward her brother, her skirts and pinafore lifted above her knees.

  Charlie let loose of squeal of mingled delight and fright and took off across the lawn.

  Fanny pursued him around a gnarled old oak tree with a swing hanging from the lowest branch, past a small seating arrangement of spindly chairs and tables, over a wooden bridge traversing a small stream.

  Laughter and threats of dire consequences rang out, sending birds flying from the trees to soar across the cloudless sky.

  The children circled around the way they’d come, aiming straight for Georgie who stood on the path just before the porch watching the spectacle with unabashed amusement.

  “What on earth is going on out here?”

  Two little bodies halted in their tracks, two pink faces lifted to the woman who stood under the portico with her hands on her hips and a trembling scowl pulling at her lips.

  Mrs. Bentley, formerly the Countess of Palmerton, swept her gaze over her children, clearly assuring that neither was injured, before she turned to the stranger in the yard.

  Her eyes were as gray as her son’s and set in a face that was truly beautiful, with pale skin, arched brows, sculpted cheekbones, a plump mouth, and a delicate chin. Not to mention, a pretty little nose, straight and tilt-tipped.