Lady Mapleton's deep green eyes laughed at him. “I would prefer,” she sighed, “to have nothing but boys to bring out. They are so much easier to present into society.”
“Yes, especially since it is their fathers must do it,” grinned Northampton. “But Amy's dazzling. Ought not to have too hard a time with her.”
“No. of course you wouldn't think so, Robert. She is just your style. Heaven knows that you and David and Christopher have spent years making her so. Other young gentlemen, however, are not best pleased by a young woman who expresses her opinions freely on every subject, is equal to them in most of their activities, and will not be cowed into backing down from some very decided principles. I suppose I should be grateful that at least she does not engage in fisticuffs.”
Lord Northampton choked on a sip of coffee. “You will pardon me for asking, Aunt Catherine,” he managed between coughs, “but when did Amy's interest in fisticuffs cease? Recently?”
“Oh, Robert, be still. I do not wish to hear about anything I do not already know. Especially not at the moment.”
At that moment the young lady being discussed was peering up from beneath her ravishing black lashes into Mr. Talbot's slightly distracted face. “I do not think so,” she said, “but then, I have never attempted the thing.”
Bristol chuckled. “Well, you ought to try,” he said. “Talbot's an expert. He could teach you.”
“I could what?” Talbot hissed, trying not to notice Miss Mapleton's sparkling eyes and dimpling cheeks. “Bristol, don't be absurd. What on earth would tempt me to do such a thing?”
“I would,” offered Amelia teasingly. “What must I do, Mr. Talbot, to tempt you into it?”
“Miss Mapleton,” Talbot frowned down at her, “there is no earthly reason why a young lady need know anything about crossbows. And should you introduce the subject anywhere else but here upon this sofa between myself and Bristol, you would be thought a very queer sort of young lady indeed.”
“And you, Mr. Talbot, being an expert at it, are you thought a very queer sort of gentleman?”
The corners of Talbot's mouth began to twitch upward, but he schooled his features back into a frown and shook his head at her. “I, alas, am not an expert at it. Bristol mistakes the matter. It is Rutlidge who is past master of the crossbow.”
“Rutlidge?”
“My brother.”
“Oh, and would he be as opposed to teaching me as you are?”
Talbot's lips betrayed him and he smiled. Miss Mapleton stared in wonder as, for the first time in her experience, his smile travelled all the way up to them and lit them softly. “I have little doubt, Miss Mapleton, that should you ask him to do so, he would be most honoured. You would be dragged from the room on the instant and a bow placed into your hands.”
“I see,” nodded Miss Mapleton. “Lord Rutlidge is not nearly as stuffy as his younger brother.”
“Oh, not nearly,” Mr. Talbot agreed, his eyes still glistening. “But you are not like to meet him any time soon, so I would not set my heart upon it.”
“He does not come to London for the Season? Why not?”
“Amelia, you overstep the bounds,” Northampton announced, catching the question as he arrived to set his cup back down upon the tray. “Some things, m'dear, are none of your business. And you are old enough to know that, too.”
Talbot laughed at the mortified look on Miss Mapleton's face. His laughter made her flush even more becomingly. “Exactly how old are you, Miss Mapleton?” he asked with an arched brow.
“Twenty-two,” replied Northampton placidly, “and a hoyden.”
“Robert, really, you ought not,” Lord Bristol protested, his eyes brimming with mirth. “Now you overstep the bounds.”
“Oh, but Amy don't mind. It ain't her fault she shouldn't have a Season until now. There was her brother Chris injured at Arras, you know, and David almost dying of some fever contracted in Spain, and her father sent off with the Vienna delegation.”
“No one cares about our family history, Robert. Be still.”
“No, I will not be still. You have been nursing brothers and helping to run the estate for well onto three years now, m'dear. And I think you ought to be proud of it.”
“And now father has returned and the boys are well and I am no longer required to do any of it, so we will drop the subject.”
“Ah, but Robert forces me to apologize. Miss Mapleton,” murmured Talbot, studying her quite seriously, “for the way I treated you at Almack's last night. Obviously you are not a shatterbrain, and I am sorry I expected it of you.”
Lord Bristol's eyes met Northampton's with a shock of surprise in them. “By thunder, Miss Mapleton,” Bristol grinned, “I must run home and mark this date on my calendar. It is the first time I have ever heard Talbot apologize to anyone.”
“I expect then, that I ought to accompany you to see you spell the words right, Chet,” laughed Talbot, rising. “You will excuse us, I am sure, Miss Mapleton. We have monopolized you long enough. Robert? Coming?”
“Yes, I believe so,” Northampton agreed.
No sooner had the three gentlemen taken their leave than Amelia was once again surrounded by her other visitors. “You are so very lucky, you know,” sighed Miss Thackett, seating herself prettily on the couch. “My mama has invited Mr. Talbot hundreds of times to parties and routs and dinners and just everything, but he will not come. She says he is the most eligible bachelor in London and so very handsome besides.”
“He is a dream,” agreed Miss Sonnesby, smoothing her apricot silk walking dress neatly across her lap. “And he is not so very old, you know. He is much the same age as my sister, Clara.”
“He's over the hill,” declared a male voice roundly. “and not at all interested in marriage.”
“Is he not, Mr. Eversley?” asked Miss Mapleton, looking up at the gentleman who was more nearly her own age and whose very high and extremely stiff shirt collar made it impossible for him to meet her eyes without his bending at the waist. “What is it he is interested in then, if not marriage? I have already learned that he is neither a gamester nor a sportsman nor a scholar.”
“Ain't interested in anything but running Rutlidge's estates and piling up money,” supplied Viscount Yardley, pulling a straight-backed chair up to the sofa and settling his lean form into it. “Can't figure how ow Robert pried him out of that mouldy old house on Grosvenor Square. He rarely ever leaves it, you know, though he was often on the town before his father died.”
“I think,” proclaimed Miss Sonnesby in dramatic accents. “that he suffered a disappointment in love. One need only gaze into his eyes to see that Mr. Talbot is no stranger to tragedy.”
“Oh, well, he ain't,” interjected Viscount Darcy Eliot as he strolled into the room. “Why, may I ask, are you all discussing Talbot? Have I missed something? Good morning, Miss Mapleton,” he added with a bow, bringing her fingers to his lips and kissing them softly. “I have come to ask you to drive in the park with me at five o'clock, but I can see I am behind hand.”
“Not at all,” declared Miss Mapleton. “You are the first to request it, and I gladly accept. Do you drive your curricle?”
“No, the phaeton.”
“Oh, not that dreadful high perch affair. It is frightening.” squeaked Miss Sonnesby.
“Yes, I know you think so,” grinned the viscount, his eyes shining. “That is why I ask Miss Mapleton and not yourself. Now, tell me why you are all discussing Talbot.”
“He was here just now,” supplied Miss Thackett in rather breathy voice, “and at Almack's last night!”
“Was he?” asked Viscount Eliot, placing his hand upon his hips. “What brought him?”
“Northampton and Bristol brought him,” Miss Mapleton laughed. “I did not see the ropes, but I think they had him hog-tied. What do you mean that he is no stranger to tragedy?” she added. “Has he been crossed in love and gone into a decline?”
Viscount Eliot shook his blond curls at
her. “No, not that I know of. His tragedy is Rutlidge.”
“Do you know Lord Rutlidge, Eliot?” Eversley asked.
“No, but I know the story. My Uncle Miles was outside the Cornish Inn, in fact, when it happened.”
“Tell us,” five pairs of lips requested simultaneously.
“Well, let me see,” the viscount drawled, staring down at the toes of his brightly polished Hessians thoughtfully. “As I recall, Rutlidge wasn't but ten at the time. And Talbot, he was younger, maybe eight. Anyway, they were both of them waiting for their father by the gate when the mail coach came roaring into the inn yard, horses wild, no driver at the reins, and the passengers screaming. Horses took the turn through the entrance too sharp and the box started to overturn. Top of it smashed slap-on into one of the gate posts which panicked the horses even more. Plunging and kicking and rearing they were, and that coach top grinding into splinters against the stone pillar behind 'em. Talbot got caught up between the post and the side of the coach. M'Uncle Miles says Rutlidge had seen the disaster coming and ran clear, but when he turned around and saw Talbot hadn't followed him, he went back and crawled under the coach to rescue his brother. No one knows what Rutlidge did to free Talbot, but Talbot came spinning out into the street just as the coach went over. Rutlidge did not escape himself, however. He was pinned under the coach. They did not rescue him until over an hour later. Took 'em that long to untangle everything and right the vehicle. Two of the inside passengers were gravely injured, and one of the beaux on top got thrown off and broke his neck.”
“Oh,” gasped Miss Thackett. “How awful that must have been.”
“I should think so. They found the driver had been shot and gone plunging onto the cobbles. Who did it or why, no one could discover. Even the Bow Street Runners were put on to the case.”
“But what happened to Mr. Talbot's brother?” Miss Sonnesby asked urgently. “He was not killed?”
“No, of course not, or Talbot would be earl. But Uncle Miles said even the best surgeons in London could not repair all of the damage. His mother and father took him out to Westerley, and he has lived there ever since. He never went back to Eton or on to Oxford, though Talbot eventually did.”
Miss Mapleton's eyes held a horror-stricken look as she stared up at Viscount EIiot. “Do you mean to tell me that that poor boy has been kept hidden away in the country for...” she frowned, trying to compute the time, “for almost twenty years?”
“I doubt he's a boy anymore, Miss Mapleton,” the viscount said with a lifted eyebrow. “He'd be thirty-one now.”
“Why does he stay at Westerley, though?” Viscount Yardley mused, shifting his weight in his chair. “Has anyone seen him since then? I mean, anyone not connected with Westerley'?”
“I am sure I have no idea. I have never been invited to the place, so I have never met the man.”
“How about your Uncle Miles? He ever been out there?”
“No, Eversley. Why?”
“Well, suppose there is something wrong, Eliot? Suppose Rutlidge is being held out there against his will, for instance?''
“I hardly think go,” drawled Eliot with a slight smirk. “You are looking for a mystery, Eversley, and there ain't one.”
“Then why does Lord Rutlidge never come to London?” Miss Mapleton asked with a puzzled frown. “And why does Mr. Talbot look after Lord Rutlidge’s estates and all of his affairs? And why has no one seen Lord Rutlidge in almost twenty years?”
EVEN as the questions passed Miss Mapleton’s lips, Mr. Talbot was mounting a husky Welsh-bred chestnut with a wide white stripe down the middle of its nose and a golden mane and tail. As the animal danced beneath him, he reminded his butler that he would he back in a day or two and was expecting a message from his lawyer. “Be sure the papers do not get lost, won't you, Simpson? Best put them on my desk in the study, I expect. Set that little crystal ball of Geordie's atop them.”
“Yes, sir,” nodded the elderly butler condescendingly. He had been butler to both the fifth Earl of Rutlidge, who had departed the world at the early age of thirty-two in a struggle with a gang of London footpads, and the sixth earl, who had shuffled off this mortal coil on the edge of a highwayman's sword on the Great North Road in the midst of a thunderstorm. He had accustomed himself well to the habits and attitudes of the Talbot clan, and he did not need to be reminded of anything, nor was he likely to lose a watch fob much less a sheaf of papers. But he nodded as if in appreciation of Talbot's advice and wished only that the young gentleman would think less of his duty to the present earl and more about his own needs. He worried, though he never admitted it to anyone except Parsons, that Master Tony had become considerably more withdrawn from society since his father's death than was acceptable, and that he was like to suffer for it in later life. He watched Mr. Talbot ride from the courtyard, gave a little shake of his head, and sighed.
Westerley, the country residence long preferred by the Earls of Rutlidge, stood a mere two-hour ride to the southwest of the City of London. The convenience of its location did much to endear it to the family since it made keeping in touch uncomplicated and made the trek from city to country and back less irksome than it would have been had they chosen to reside on any of their other estates sprinkled about the provinces. The fact that it was rather small, wild, and ugly could be borne more easily when one remembered that London stood only two hours to the northeast.
By accepted standards Westerley resembled more a hunting box than a residence. Built of oak and fieldstone in a rather haphazard fashion which reflected no architectural style whatsoever, it squatted amidst a circle of hills covered by dense forest. It boasted no park, no flower gardens, no follies—only a comparatively short front lawn, a carriage drive to stables carved from a hill face, and a small stream that flowed languidly past the main edifice at less than a hundred yards from its western wall. To the east a portion of the forest had been cleared away in the fifth earl's time. It was not quite big enough for a pasture, but never well-kept enough to be anything else. At dusk small families of deer came down into it to graze and, once in a great while, a wild boar or two could be seen trampling through the tall grass.
What came flying from the forest into that clearing as Talbot trotted his chestnut peacefully up the drive, however, almost stopped Tony's heart and did, indeed, stop his progress. A midnight black stallion, near seventeen hands high and well over a hundred stone, charged at full tilt from the cover of the forest, shot up a good six feet into the air over an unseen obstacle, hurtled back to earth without altering its stride, and continued to race downhill across the clearing and through a small stand of beeches, slowing only as its rider appeared to register Tony's presence. The huge animal, head shaking, nostrils flaring, hooves dancing upon the hard ground, changed its direction and thundered toward the spot where Talbot had halted.
For a brief moment Mr. Talbot's eyes widened and the thought of being run completely over by the fierce animal flashed into his mind, but his brother brought the beast to a halt in a split second and sprang from the saddle, his scuffed boots running almost before he hit the ground. Tony dismounted immediately and in less than ten seconds the Earl of Rutlidge’s arms were around him. Talbot hugged him back as tightly as he could, then extricated himself from the earl’s enthusiastic embrace and held the gentleman by the shoulders away from him. He looked the earl up and down sceptically, shook his head sadly from side to side, and stared into the bright blue eyes. “You are a sight to make any Bond Street Beau nauseous, my lord. Do they never provide you with any decent clothes to wear at this place?”
The handsome, eager face before him crinkled into laughter, and the earl's gloved hands came up to grasp Mr. Talbot's arms. “N-No one said you were c-coming, T-Tony. C-Can you stay?”
Mr. Talbot pulled his brother's smaller, slimmer form back up against him and gave him another hug. His fingers played with the ragged, dark auburn curls that trailed down the back of the earl's neck. “Is there no one can provide yo
u with a decent haircut in this forsaken hole either, rapscallion?” he whispered in the earl's ear. “I knew you could not get on without me.”
CHAPTER THREE
THE Countess of Rutlidge rose from her writing desk as her youngest son entered her sitting room. “Tony!” she cried. “What a wonderful surprise!”
Mr. Talbot took both his mother's hands in his own, drew her to him, and kissed her cheek softly. “I hope it is not inconvenient for you, ma'am. I have not seen you or Geordie in the longest time and could stay away no longer “
“And what a terrible mother I should be if I told you it was inconvenient,” she laughed. “Come, sit down and tell me all you have been doing in London.” She drew him down beside her onto a silver lustre and blue brocade couch that stood before French doors meant to lead out onto a balcony. The balcony had never existed, nor was it likely to at any time soon. It had been a project of three earls so far, but none had quite gotten around to making the thing a fait accompli.
Mr. Talbot gazed into her sparkling blue eyes and shrugged. “Dull time in town, ma'am. Not much at all going on.”
“What?” asked Lady Rutlidge, her finely arched brows coming together above her nose in an expression meant to resemble a frown. “Nothing going on and the Season already begun? You are bamming me, Tony. It is you have been dull, not the town.”
Amelia's Intrigue (Regency Idyll Book 1) Page 2
