Once Upon an Earl_Heirs of High Society_A Regency Romance Book

by Eleanor Meyers

  Somehow, Lucas wasn't surprised to see Clarine's slender form, wrapped up in a voluminous gray cloak, slide inside, shutting the door after her.

  “I could have sworn I locked that door.”

  “Being the lady of the house has its privileges. When I came to Hartford Hall, I made sure that I had keys to the entire estate at my disposal.”

  Despite her calm words, Clarine looked unsure, standing in the middle of the room like some kind of strange and haunted specter.

  Finally, Lucas sighed.

  “Come over here and sit next to me. You're giving me the creeps just standing there and saying nothing.”

  He thought she might protest, being apparently a gently-bred young lady and not the maid he had thought, but with a tiny sigh, she crossed the floor to sit on the bed next to him.

  “I suppose you're wondering what all of that was all about.”

  “I'll admit that I am curious. I am not used to being hired as a groom by a woman who I thought was a maid of all work.”

  She smiled a little. “I was rather convincing for a little bit, wasn't I?”

  “You could be better with practice, but why in the world would you want to practice? Are you truly the lady of Hartford Hall?”

  “Lady Clarine Waters, Countess of Waverly and, I suppose now, the lady of Hartford Hall. Yes.”

  “The Countess of Waverly? That makes your father...”

  “Hugh Waters, yes. He died more than a year ago.”

  “I heard about it, I think, didn't I? The papers were all agog at the idea that there was no direct heir to his lands...”

  “Well, there wasn't known to be. But I am. I was hidden.”

  Lucas blinked. “That sounds like rather the stuff of fairy tales and Gothics. Your father hid you away?”

  Something else tugged at his mind but damned if he knew what that was. There was a kind of tension in Clarine's shoulders, as if at any moment she was expecting him to turn around and snap at her, or perhaps bite. It tugged at his heart in a way he couldn't quite explain.

  “He did. My father was a man of great solitude. Even the people who were closest to him did not know now what he was thinking, not precisely. He was a mystery even in death.”

  “I see. I am sorry for your loss.”

  “We were... well, that is not important. But it does lead me to speak with you about why you are here.”

  “I thought I was here to put your stables to rights.”

  She gave him an impatient look, which he liked rather better than her tense wariness from before.

  “You are a man who is used to fighting and violence, are you not?”

  With a start, Lucas realized that she thought he was a soldier. It would make sense. He was roughly dressed and on his own recognizance in the country. He might be a veteran from France spending his final pay packet or even a deserter.

  “I know something about it, yes.” It wasn't a lie. He had been in several duels and more than a few dust-ups in the street when he frequented the rougher London neighborhoods.

  “Good. And you seem to know something of horses, so at any rate, you will do better than those boys we have here now. I want to hire you on, as my groom, but as you may have guessed, that is not the full extent of why I need you. I need you to act as my bodyguard.”

  Lucas stared at her, but there was nothing in her face to show that she was merely laughing at him and having him on in some kind of grief-stricken joke.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I have reason to believe that someone is trying to kill me. I have no friends or allies in this house, not unless you count the housekeeper, Mrs. MacDougal. I need help.”

  She spoke calmly, but there was a tremor in her voice, and when he looked closer, he saw that she was shaking a little.

  “You really believe this.”

  She gave him a tart look. “If I were a man and went in fear of my life, would you doubt me?”

  Lucas frowned. “What in the world makes you think someone is trying to kill you? Have you spoken to the constables about this?”

  Clarine laughed hollowly. “The constables won't help until they have a body, which is to say, when I am dead. And, well, I believe there have been two attempts so far. One night, as I was returning to my bed, someone rose up from the top of the stairs and tried to push me down them. I stumbled but grabbed on to the banister. I stopped myself from falling, but whoever pushed me ran away. And a week ago, as I went riding, I realized that the girth strap of my saddle had been nearly cut through. I didn't fall off when the saddle inevitably slipped, but it was a close thing.”

  She took a deep breath. “I do not like to say it, but I need help and protection. I will be paying you for that, if you accept the job.”

  Lucas scowled. “So, I do my best to protect you, and what? You just... keep trying to dodge actual attempts to kill you until the killer gets tired or bored?”

  She looked faintly offended at his words. “No, of course not. While you are protecting me, I will be figuring out who is trying to harm me.”

  From the dark look on her face, Lucas thought she already had an idea of who that might be, and his mind flashed to her three cousins, so very different, and so very odd when they didn't know where she was.

  “Unacceptable.”

  Her face closed like a shutter, and she rose from her seat on the bed.

  “I assure you that I am willing to pay you quite well, but if you are not interested in the work—”

  “What I was going to say was that you will allow me to help you solve the mystery of why someone is trying to hurt you. I will not sit passively by and simply fend off assassins.”

  Clarine stared at him for a moment, and then almost against her will, a tiny smile crossed her face.

  “You want to help me?”

  Lucas hesitated and then nodded. “I have needed some work to keep me busy for a while. I can do this for you. You seem far too sweet a maid to have to deal with this kind of terror alone.”

  “I think no one should have to deal with this kind of fear at all, but thank you. Here.”

  She plucked a key out of her small reticule and handed it to him. “This will get you into the house if you want to come. There are quite a few servants, but less than there once were, and the only residents are Mason, Sarah, Quentin, and I.”

  “Ah, yes, I would like to hear about your relatives as well.”

  She smiled a little. “Well, I can certainly do that, but there is not much time left until dawn. I will need to get back to my bed before I am missed.”

  For a moment, Lucas wanted to make some kind of quip about needing another kiss as part of his payment for the job. It would be crude in the extreme, but some part of him whispered that Clarine might not be so adverse to a distraction from her troubles. Then he got a hold of himself and nodded as she turned away.

  He realized when he was alone in the room that Clarine awakened all sorts of very strange feelings in him, and if he were going to be of any use to her at all, he would have to make sure to stay focused.

  Of course, there are many different things I want to focus on... Try as he might, he couldn't get her slender form or her extraordinary violet eyes out of his mind, and cursing, he went to prepare himself for a long day in the stables.

  * * *

  7

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  .

  .

  .

  * * *

  * * *

  .

  It was another two days before Clarine could get away from her responsibilities as the lady of the manor to go riding. Taking over the responsibilities of the estate herself was no small task. Every time she turned around, there was Sarah, who kept pecking at her about comportment and what was decent, or a maid who wanted to tell her in no uncertain terms that Quentin's room had the most terrifying things in it, and she would not be going back in there, no matter if she lost her place. Mason, for the most part, was inoffensive, mostly content to
go riding or walking in the hills, saying that the airs at Hartford Hall were far more invigorating than what he was used to at Bainesforth, the Lister household in Leeds.

  More than once, Clarine had to tell herself that they were guests in her home and that they had lost an uncle they were far closer to than she had been to her strange and absent father. When she wanted to eject them from the hall in any way necessary, she counted to ten and reminded herself that they might be so enraged by their eviction that they would try to go to the papers about her inheritance. The lawyers assured her that there was no way to contest it, that it was iron-clad, but there was a storm of scandal she couldn't bear to bring down on herself.

  Early one morning, two days after her attempted kidnapping, she was finally able to send to the stables that she wanted to go riding, and she wished the head groom to accompany her. It was a common enough request, and she slipped out of the manor quickly without drawing any attention from her cousins at all. When she saw Lucas standing in the field in his livery, holding a chestnut mare and a dapple gelding, she smiled.

  “Oh, good, you got my message to saddle Lady.”

  “Of course, my lady.”

  Lucas made a step out of his clasped hands, giving her a place to put her foot so she could lever herself up on the sidesaddle. It was an entirely innocent and normal thing for a groom to do, but as he gave her a slight boost to help her into the saddle, she found herself remarkably aware of the strength of his arms and the clean scent of soap on his skin. The two together made her blush, and she had to tell herself to be sensible. The mare whickered when she was seated, and she nodded to Lucas.

  “Along the north road, I think. I would like to take her for a run.”

  Lucas nodded, and then he mounted the gray, taking his proper place behind her. She noticed that he had a good seat. Perhaps he had been part of the light cavalry. Plenty of men who had nothing more than a pair of horses to their name had joined up, and his skill was certainly as good as that of the gentlemen she had known.

  For a while, though, all that mattered was being away from the oppressive air of Hartford Hall, being out in the brightening spring sunshine and letting her entire body soak it all in with pleasure. A nudge sent Lady, her mother's favorite mare, off for a quick gallop down the lane, the wind blowing her hat back off her head. It was held to her only by a velvet ribbon under her chin, and she lifted her face to feel the sweet sunshine on her skin.

  It felt as if it had been so long since she was properly herself that it took her a few moments before she remembered she was not alone. Lucas had kept up admirably well, and when she reined Lady back, he was behind her, lounging in the gray's saddle and watching her with a curious look on his face.

  “You look beautiful like that.”

  Clarine looked down, biting her lip. Beautiful was her long-lost mother, not her with all her strange angles and her strange eyes. She shrugged, slightly awkward and without a ready answer for him.

  Lucas sensed her discomfort because he pulled the gray alongside Lady, and when he spoke, his voice was entirely business.

  “I checked all the tack last night. I found some disturbing things.”

  She tensed.

  “Another girth strap was sliced almost all the way through, and when I examined the barouche, there was a serious problem with one of the wheels. If you had gone at any speed at all, there was a good chance it would simply fall away from the vehicle entirely, sending you out of it.”

  Clarine shivered a little. The barouche was light enough on its own. It would only take a small amount of impact to smash it entirely.

  “You don't seem surprised.”

  “I'm not. I told you that someone was trying to harm me. You do seem surprised, however.”

  Lucas shrugged, but his eyes were troubled. “It is hard to believe in some ways. Who wants you dead so very much? I was hoping to talk about that today.”

  She nodded and nudged Lady into a walk. Lucas fell in beside her on the gray. It was a peaceable scenario, one that told her exactly how confined she had been over the last little while.

  For a long moment, Clarine simply wanted to keep riding. They could leave Hartford Hall behind them. She and Lucas would follow this road to wherever it led, and perhaps he would even kiss her the way that he had before.

  Finally, though, Lucas broke the silence, and from the gentleness of his voice, she thought that he regretted it as much as she did.

  "Clarine, if I'm going to protect you adequately, I am going to need to know more about what is happening."

  She smiled at him a little. "You know, I like it much better when you call me Clarine than when you call me 'my lady'. It feels as if no one ever calls me Clarine anymore."

  "You seem too lonely to be called 'my lady,' it is true. But please. Tell me about the people who are in your house, because they seem utterly mad."

  Clarine laughed, and it felt like the first time she had done so in a long time. She had been alone for so long, but now it felt as if there was someone in this mess with her. Perhaps she should have been a better person who wanted to spare Lucas all of this, but she found that she couldn't be sorry he was here next to her.

  "Well, the long and short of it is that they are my cousins. My... my father was Count Waverly, and his brother died several years ago. My uncle left his children a small fortune, but apparently, they do not feel it was enough. When my father died, I barely had a moment to breathe before they arrived on my doorstep."

  Lucas nodded grimly. "Following in the footsteps of poor relations everywhere, I see."

  "Oh, but they're not poor at all. Mason's been heading up the estate they were left quite ably, and they are fairly well off."

  Lucas shook his head, and it struck her that he seemed to know a great deal about great families. She wondered if he was a second son, sent off to war without a second glance.

  "It doesn't matter how much blunt they've actually got. It has a great deal more to do with what they think they deserve. I've noticed that the more a person thinks they deserve, the more unpleasant they are in the long run."

  Clarine felt an uncomfortable chill run down her spine when Lucas said the word 'deserve.' Whether she deserved the title of Countess Waverly was certainly something that could be debated, no matter what her father's will said.

  "No," he continued, "I want to hear more about each of them individually. Who are they? What are they like?"

  "You must know that I did not grow up with them. I knew of them, and I believe they knew of me, but we were not close."

  "Do your best. Just tell me what you definitely know without making any guesses. I am trying to protect you, so I will need to know as much as I can."

  Something in her warm at the thought. His tone was stern, but there was a kindness in his eyes.

  She took a deep breath.

  "Well, Mason's the eldest, and he's very proud of the family. I've wondered if he considered himself as much my father's son as his nephew, but if he does, I have never heard it. He was close to my father, as much as he could be when he still had his own estate to run. He can be very stern sometimes."

  "He didn't say much last night."

  "I do not think he is overly given to it, no. Sarah is the middle child, and I know very little of her. She seems... high-strung to me, perhaps. She's nervous, as if she does not quite know what to do with me. I know she keeps splendid gardens back home at their estate, and she has even had an article published in a botany journal."

  "Really?"

  "She had to publish it under someone else's name, but yes. I've seen her walking in the gardens, muttering to herself about fertilizer and all sorts of things. I know she came to Hartford Hall with some tools for measuring plants and even some sprouts of her own, though I've not seen them."

  "I see. She seemed very upset last night."

  "Whenever I see her, she seems upset or simply slightly confused as to why she is here at all."

  "All right. And the other gentlema
n?"

  "And that would be Quentin, the youngest brother. He... It's not fair to say, but he makes me a little nervous. Mrs. MacDougal tells me that all the servants from their home are afraid of him, that they find him somehow strange and off-putting. I think I know what they mean sometimes."

  She shook her head, slightly disgusted with herself. "I'm sorry. I know you said that you only wanted facts, and I have given you what I do know. However, at the end of the day, I know very little about any of them, only that we are a family now, whether we would be one or not."