How Not to Marry an Earl

by Christine Merrill

‘I was thinking more of finding a ladder,’ she said.

  ‘Have you brought one with you?’

  ‘Do not ask me facetious questions,’ she snapped.

  He patted his knee again. ‘Come along, Miss Strickland. Let us settle the mystery in the chimney and then you will have time to berate me on my character.’

  She sighed. She did not need her sisters to tell her that what he had suggested was improper. It would take only a minute or two to find something else to stand on. But she wanted an answer to the mystery, not in two minutes, but now.

  Everyone said that impatience was a major flaw in her character. And she would address it later.

  She stepped forward, crouched to move past him in the fireplace opening, braced herself on the walls of the chimney and raised a foot.

  Before she could fumble, he had grabbed her boot and guided it to a place on his thigh. Then he reached beneath her skirts and tapped the back of her other knee as one might do to a horse to make him raise a hoof.

  She lifted the foot that was still on the ground and he made a stirrup with his hands, boosting it to join the other one so she could stand on his leg.

  He was right. She was several inches higher than she had been when standing on the grate. She felt the bricks surrounding her for the expected niche.

  ‘Anything?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she admitted through gritted teeth. She stretched her fingers upwards and brushed a ridge and empty air where there should be brick, but nothing else. ‘I can feel it above me, but I am still too short.’

  ‘Step on to my shoulders, then.’ Before she could argue, his fingers were around one of her calves, firmly guiding her leg upwards.

  For a moment, her normally agile mind went blank. His head and shoulders were under her skirt. This was the first, and possibly the last, time that a man would see her legs, much less touch them. She must pray that it was dark under there. If he looked up, he would see far more than her legs. He would be inches from everything she had to offer.

  It was...

  She shepherded her thoughts, trying to analyse the sensations running through her. The feel of his hand on her ankle was different to any touch she’d felt before, though it was not even skin to skin. The flesh under her wool stocking felt cold, but the blood beneath was racing hot, back towards her heart. And above it all, she was sure she felt the gentle stirring of his breath.

  The world seemed to spin and waver around her, unsteady, as if she’d had too much wine. Then she realised that the feeling was not imagination. Her body trembled, trying to find balance as he guided it to stand on his shoulders like a Vauxhall Gardens acrobat. She could stop it by bracing herself against the brick walls around her.

  She did so. But she didn’t like being steady. She wanted to feel strange and unsure, laughing as the whole world dropped from under her and she fell to land breathless in his lap.

  ‘Miss Strickland?’ The voice coming from under her skirts was muffled, but unemotional.

  ‘Uhh, yes,’ she said, hurriedly feeling for the niche in the wall that was now on a level with her face. Her heart gave another sudden swoop as her fingers encountered a box. ‘I have found something.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Both hands transferred to her left ankle as he began the delicate process of helping her down. By the time her feet were back on the hearthstones, she had regained control of her senses and could emerge, sooty but fully rational, from the fireplace. Then she held out the thing she had found: a wooden box about eight inches square.

  ‘It is not very large,’ he said, staring down at it.

  ‘It does not need to be,’ she said, fumbling with the catch. But she had thought it would be bigger than this. She had imagined a rectangular, leather case similar to the one that held the duplicates, with an easily found latch and hinges. But the wood under her fingers was completely smooth. Nor did there seem to be a separate top that could be lifted off. If she had not felt the lightness and heard a faint rattle from within, she’d have assumed that it was a solid block and not a box at all.

  ‘Hand it here for a moment,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Once he had hold of it, he buffed enthusiastically to remove the accumulated ash and grime. Then he handed it back to her to admire.

  She adjusted her spectacles, wiping the grime from them to get a clear look. What had seemed to be plain mahogany was at least three colours of wood, inlaid in elaborate marquetry, no two sides alike. But though it was lovely to look at, the way into it was not more apparent now that it was clean than it had been fresh from the chimney. She stared back at him. ‘Do you have a penknife I might borrow?’

  ‘And spoil the fun?’

  ‘I am supposed to enjoy this?’ she asked, giving it a frustrated shake.

  ‘You are holding a Chinese puzzle box,’ he said patiently. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with them, but I have seen them brought from the Orient by sailors.’ He held a hand out for the box.

  She hesitated. She had spent half a day up a chimney, rooting around in the dirt. She had run back and forth from the house, twice. All she wanted was a cup of tea and a wash and some sign that this quest was nearing its end. Instead, this clean and poised stranger stood ready to take it away and finish it for her.

  She pulled it back. ‘Thank you, Potts, but that will not be necessary.’

  ‘I thought we agreed to share,’ he said, giving her a smile that could melt the snow off a roof.

  She shook the box again, hearing only the faint rattle of the trick marquetry that hid the latches. ‘As you can hear, there is nothing inside. And, even if the box is rare enough to be valuable, it will no longer be so if you try to take half.’

  ‘Are you sure it is empty?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Perhaps something you do not wish me to see?’

  She shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. ‘Even full to the brim, a box this size could not hold very much. If you wish the money to return to America, I am afraid you will have to get it by doing what the Earl expected: an inventory of the entail.’

  ‘Well, I must say, Miss Strickland, what got off to a promising start has been a most disappointing afternoon.’

  ‘That could be said of most afternoons at Comstock Manor,’ she said. ‘But there is no point in spending any more time here. Let us return to the main house. Dinner at eight, Potts. And tomorrow, we will begin the inventory.’

  Chapter Four

  If her sisters had been here, they would have known how to handle this.

  Charity had never needed their advice before. It might seem immodest to think so, but wisdom usually flowed from her in their direction and not from them to her. Though she was youngest, she was better read and better educated than either of them. In matters that truly mattered, she was better at observing and understanding the world and the people in it. It was how she had known, before either of them, which men they were likely to marry. One had simply to watch dispassionately and draw conclusions from the data collected.

  But that was not required at the moment. Tonight, she needed to be a polite and gracious hostess to a male stranger. She had never before had to deal single-handedly with a man in a social setting. On the rare times she had been forced from the house to go through the motions of the London Season, Faith and Hope had been there to chaperon and guide her, preventing a merely uncomfortable situation from turning into a fiasco.

  But they were not here tonight and she had never felt so alone in her life.

  Her first instinct had been to announce that Mr Potts could have dinner served on a tray in the location of his choosing. She would eat in the library, as she usually did, and go to bed after she had managed to solve the puzzle they had found in the chimney.

  Now that she was in her room, she had taken the time to examine it. She’d run her hands over the inlaid wood panels, giving it a shake and weighing it with
her hands. There was nothing about the sounds it made to indicate that they came from shifting contents and not the puzzle mechanisms themselves. Perhaps the things she’d hoped to find were packed tight in cotton wool, but she would have expected there to be more weight.

  The problem deserved several hours’ study in the privacy of the library. But she had announced earlier that dinner was a formal arrangement and that he was expected to attend it. To cancel it and devote herself to solving the puzzle would announce to this interloper just how important a matter it was. When she had thought success was imminent, she’d felt that there was no choice but to accept his help. Instead, she had been given a locked box and a small reprieve. If she could make it through supper, she could plead exhaustion and retire to her room to open the box. There was a chance she might still complete her task without his even knowing.

  But it was a slim chance, at best. The auditor was not like the rest of her family, who had long ago given up trying to understand her. When she had tried to outwit Potts, he had not just been able to keep pace with her, he had got one step ahead.

  Perhaps it had been mere luck on his part. She prayed that when she came down to dinner she would find him as easy to gull as the rest of her acquaintance. But the little voice at the back of her mind whispered that her true wish was just the opposite. She wanted him to be just as clever at supper as he had seemed this afternoon. She wanted to spend more time with him, not less.

  That alone was reason enough to avoid him. She was not thinking sensibly and it was all his fault. If she was not sure that she could best him in a battle of wits, what other weapons did she have?

  At times like these, her sisters could fall back on their looks and flirt their way out of trouble. A flutter of eyelashes, a few shy smiles, and even the smartest of men around them tended to forget whatever it was that had been troubling them.

  Charity sighed. Flirting required that she pretend to be someone she was not: sweet, biddable and somewhat in awe of the men around her. Even if she could manage those things, she was not pretty enough to dazzle a gentleman, especially not one that could dazzle in his own right.

  Potts was astoundingly good looking for an auditor. The men in her family were handsome enough, in a refined sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. But looking at Potts was a study in the contrast of light and shadow. His eyes were so dark that it was a challenge to see where irises ended and pupils began, but they seemed almost black against his pale skin. And though he had smiled often, she’d got only glimpses of his teeth, which were very white and very straight.

  Perhaps it was not that he was smarter than she. Perhaps her wits were slowed by the sight of him. The thought was cheering, but highly unlikely. She had yet to meet a man so handsome that she was rendered stupid in his presence. If anything, her mind had been working even faster than usual, now that he had arrived, gathering all the information it could about the man before deciding on a course of action concerning him. Dinner would be an excellent time to learn more, pretending that her interrogation was nothing more than polite chatter over the meal.

  Charity went to the bell pull in the corner of her room and gave the single sharp yank that would summon her maid. Then she sat on the bed to wait, idly scratching the ears of Pepper, who was already sleeping there. No other female in her family had to go the bother of waiting for a servant. Her sister’s maids seemed to be always under foot, often one step ahead of their mistresses when it came to choosing the perfect gown for every occasion. But since Charity rarely bothered with her appearance, she had no right to be surprised that the maid was not pressing ribbons and starching petticoats.

  * * *

  After nearly twenty minutes, the door opened a crack and Dill appeared, staring at her mistress in silence.

  Charity stared back at the maid, raising an eyebrow expectantly.

  ‘You rang, miss?’

  ‘Yes, Dill. I wish to dress for dinner.’

  ‘You do?’

  Surely the request was not so very odd. ‘Yes, Dill. That is why I summoned you.’

  ‘You never dress for dinner, miss. Especially not when we are alone.’

  ‘We are not alone,’ Charity reminded her. ‘The auditor has arrived.’

  ‘And he will be dining with you?’

  ‘Yes, Dill.’

  ‘In the dining room?’

  ‘That is where we dine, Dill.’

  ‘You usually dine in the library,’ the maid said, still confused.

  ‘Not tonight, Dill.’

  ‘And servants dine below stairs,’ the maid said, stubbornly. ‘An auditor is a sort of a servant, isn’t it?’

  ‘He, Dill.’ The maid had a point. But employees occupied a place between servants and family. The way they were to be treated was likely situational and better decided by Grandmama, who was absent, just like her sisters.

  In the end, Charity decided to lie. ‘Mr Potts is a friend of the Earl as well as his auditor. He will be eating in the dining room, like a member of the family.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dill stared at her for a moment. ‘You don’t dress for family, either.’

  ‘But I am dressing tonight.’

  ‘Oh.’ Dill gave a nod and a grin that announced she had seen Mr Potts and had a theory about Miss Charity’s sudden interest in looking her best.

  ‘Grandmama would expect me to treat a representative of the new Earl with proper respect,’ Charity added. When the maid did not move from the doorway, Charity cocked her head in the direction of the wardrobe. ‘That is why I have summoned you to help me dress.’

  ‘Ah.’ The girl ambled towards the gowns and pulled two from their pegs. Both of them were brand new and with décolletage that Charity found slightly intimidating. Dill grinned again. ‘How much respect do you want to show ’im?’

  Charity took a deep breath, then pointed to the more modest of the two. ‘That one. And a shawl, I think.’

  Dill shook her head. ‘A shawl defeats the purpose. I will have the footmen build up the fire in the dining room. That and some pepper in the soup and you’ll be nice and warm.’

  ‘I suppose you are right,’ she said with a sigh. Though the dress would make her feel uncomfortably exposed, it was no worse than what the other girls in London were wearing.

  Of course, Mr Potts was not from London. America had been settled by Puritans. Perhaps he would be shocked by her. Or perhaps he would see through her ridiculous attempt to behave as other, normal girls did. Then he would laugh and dismiss her entirely. It would be a disaster, just as it had been in London, on those times she had followed her sisters’ advice and tried to mix in society.

  She sat quietly as Dill worked over her, afraid to look in the mirror, not wanting proof that she looked as awkward as she felt. It was not as if she needed to impress him. He worked for her family and would have to be polite, no matter how she acted. But whether he voiced it or not, he would have an opinion.

  She had escaped to the country because she could not abide the critical gazes and snide comments of the marriage mart, where men treated girls and horseflesh much the same. In both cases, they wanted an animal that was attractive, high-spirited. Then they put a bit in the mouth or a ring on the finger so that it could never think for itself again.

  ‘There, miss. All done.’ Dill stepped away, her hands falling to her sides, and added without a trace of irony, ‘And do not worry so. You will be the prettiest woman in the room.’

  ‘I will be the only woman in the room, Dill,’ she said, putting on her glasses and staring at her reflection. The results were...

  Passable. She looked as well as she ever did. She was displaying an unusual amount of skin, which men generally liked. But there seemed to be too much. A gown like this required jewels and she had none.

  Then a thought hit her and she smiled. ‘Dill, go to Grandmama’s room and bring back the case with the Comstock dia
monds.’

  A decent maid might have questioned her right to wear the things, since they were reserved for the use of the Countess. But Dill was merely adequate and did not bat an eye. She simply returned with the box and placed them on the vanity. Then she pulled a set of ear-bobs from their place and hooked them into the ears that had been exposed by Charity’s carefully styled hair.

  ‘The necklace, as well, I think,’ Charity said, feeling oddly like she was a little girl again, playing dress up with Grandmama’s jewellery.

  ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ Dill answered, draping the heavy chain over her head until the teardrop-shaped lavalier fell in the hollow between her breasts.

  It was an excellent choice. But not for the reason her maid thought. It would give Potts something to look at, other than her. With a three-carat stone in front of him, he would have no reason to care whether the woman wearing it was pretty or not.

  And there could be no better way to assure the auditor that the entail was intact than to bring the Comstock diamonds out at the first opportunity. Once he had seen it, she could assure him that the rest of the parure was safe and accounted for. This, the most important item to be inventoried, could be checked off his list. And if he noticed that the stones she was wearing were paste?

  She would claim to be just as surprised as he was. Either way, she would be able to draw conclusions about his intelligence and observational abilities. It was information she could use against him later.

  She felt somewhat more confident about herself now that she had a plan. But it would not make the dinner any easier. Her stomach filled with nervous butterflies as she walked towards the stairs, only to see him coming down the hall on the opposite side of them.

  ‘Miss Strickland,’ he called. ‘Ahoy! Or perhaps, avast. I am not sure which is more appropriate in this case.’ He walked towards her with a cockeyed grin on his face, looking more appealing than she cared to notice.

  She smiled back at him. ‘Ahoy is meant to call my attention. Avast is a request that I stop. Which did you want?’