Trenton: Lord Of Loss

by Grace Burrowes

  ***

  “Missed you at breakfast.” Trent greeted the Wilton Acres steward as they both dismounted at the end of an afternoon that for Trent had been long, hot, and frustrating. “My thanks for the tray last night and the bath.”

  Arthur groaned as Trent loosened his girth. As a groom led the beast away, Arthur flicked his tail so it whipped against Trent’s fundament.

  Cheeky blighter.

  “You like your comforts,” Benton said, “same as I do, but I’ll be ordering myself another bath tonight. How did your interview with Henly go?”

  “A complete waste of an hour. I’d have been better off clearing ditches with you all afternoon.” Manual exertion might also have exorcised a certain quiet, pretty widow from Trent’s imagination—or not.

  Benton patted his horse—who apparently did not offer his master unsolicited reprimands—and passed the reins to a groom. “As if we’d get anything done with my whole crew gawping at you, the first Wilton heir to dirty his hands on his own land.”

  “Is that our reputation hereabouts?”

  “A collective sigh of hope went up when word got around you had the reins of the earldom,” Benton said as they ambled in the direction of the house. “Now Wilton is stuck here, preying on Imogenie, and that hope is waning. He has, though, started to call on his neighbors, and while nobody particularly likes him, they all want him nibbling on their crumpets.”

  “But not their daughters. He might someday remarry, though God help the woman who’d take him on.”

  “Imogenie considers herself a countess-in-waiting. Pathetic, but she’s a very young woman in love.”

  “Surely not with Wilton. Maybe with the title and the wealth?”

  Benton looked thoughtful, and fortunately, no footmen lurked in the front hall to overhear this exchange.

  “Our Imogenie holds some genuine regard for the man, or who she thinks the man is. She’s innocent, and viewed from below, Wilton has a certain allure, if not charm.”

  If allure were another word for manipulative skill, deceit, and arrogance. “Pathetic, as you say.” Like the main foyer, which boasted not a single bouquet of roses, despite the estate’s army of gardeners. “He’ll devastate her, but we can’t stop it. Have your bath before the maids faint from the smell of you. I’ve business below-stairs, and I’ll see you at dinner.”

  “Until dinner.” Benton had his neckcloth loosened before he’d hit the third stair, but he paused. “What is this you wrote about sending your younger sister here for a visit?”

  “Emily. We can talk about that over dinner.” Trent left his steward yanking at a limp, dusty cravat and went in search of Nancy Brookes.

  “Master Trent.” Nancy’s smile was as quiet as it was rare, but she opened her arms to hug him, and Trent reciprocated.

  Nancy had been the one to sneak him a fresh biscuit when he’d been sent to bed without supper, to wink at him when he was on his way to a dreaded interview with his father, and to explain to him that boys at school were beaten only for cause. She’d also taken care of Trent’s mother in her final illness.

  But when had Nancy become so small and frail?

  Trent led her to the oak work table, into which footmen had carved their initials probably from the days of the Wilton barony. “How’s the prettiest lady in the shire?”

  “So old she can barely see,” Nancy retorted, creaking to the bench across from him. “I can tell you’re tired, Master Trent, and you’ve too much to do haring all around the realm and trying to keep up with his lordship’s mischief.”

  “Somebody has to do it. Bake me any biscuits?”

  “In the crockery jar. Kettle’s on the hob, and we’ve a store of gunpowder tea above the stove, in case you order a tray.”

  “I’ll share a cup with you. You smell much better than Mr. Benton.”

  “Don’t be criticizing young Aaron.” She let Trent fuss around in the kitchen, suggesting she might truly be troubled by her vision.

  Or her knees.

  Or her hips.

  Nobody’s lot was easy in service to Wilton.

  “You’re sweet on our steward?” Trent asked. Benton was likely a third Nancy’s age.

  “He works mighty hard, and never a word of thanks from Wilton.”

  “Because he doesn’t work for Wilton,” Trent reminded her. “He works for me, and for Wilton Acres. Where has the sugar got off to?”

  “Second drawer, left of the sink. Spoons are in the drawer above that.”

  He brought the tea tray to the table along with some cinnamon biscuits and sat beside her. “We shall spoil our dinner.”

  When she didn’t reach for the biscuits, he pushed the plate toward her, then poured their tea and patted her knuckles, but gently for they were swollen. “Mrs. Haines has something she puts on her joints for the aches.”

  Nancy sipped her tea. “She sends me along some now and then, and always includes a helping of gossip.”

  “I thought Imogenie Henly was keeping you supplied with gossip.” Trent added cream and sugar to his tea. “Have a biscuit. Cook hasn’t started dinner, and I’ll be less self-conscious if you join me in my gluttony.”

  “Cook has dinner done. Cold collations, because the heat is miserable and Mr. Benton doesn’t like her having to use the summer kitchen or heat up the house.”

  “Thoughtful of him.” Trent started on a biscuit, savoring the combination of fragrant tea and delicate spice, and glad for the cool of the kitchen.

  “Is Imogenie telling her ma she’s calling on me?”

  “She’s told her father, in any case. I gather that’s a Banbury tale?”

  “It’s a lie. Her parents ought to know I wouldn’t be passing the time of day with Wilton’s light-skirt.”

  “She’s a girl, Nancy. A foolish young girl who needs whatever kindly advice you can give her, and she isn’t the first to believe the earl’s blather.”

  “Nor the last, God help us. I’ll say something to her, does the chance arise. How is Master Darius?”

  Trent regaled her with nonsense about his siblings, until the tea and biscuits were nearly gone and Cook had poked her head out of the servants’ parlor, like a squirrel assessing the sky.

  “I’m about to be shooed off.” Trent filched a final cinnamon biscuit and wondered whether Ellie might like the recipe.

  But…no.

  “I have letters from my staff at Crossbridge to their confreres here. Shall I give them to Cook?”

  “Best do.” Nancy rose slowly. “I’ve work to do, and I’ve tarried long enough. You give my love to the children, Master Trent, and watch Wilton. That man is up to something, mark me.”

  “We are watching him.” Cook stood in the door, rolling her eyes at Nancy’s dire tone, and Trent recalled that Wilton had spies most everywhere. “But who’s watching you, Nancy Brookes?”

  “We all keep an eye on Miss Nancy,” Cook chimed in as she disappeared into the pantry.

  “Nancy?” Trent posed his question, knowing Cook might be overhearing. “Why didn’t Wilton ever send you packing? You kept his house for years, but he had to know your loyalties were with my mother.”

  “They were with you children. Your mother left me a competence should I ever leave Wilton’s employ.”

  “A sum?”

  “Interest income for life. Wilton has no doubt pilfered the principal, meaning it’s easier for him to keep me in the traces while he spends my money. Where would I go anyway?”

  “Crossbridge.” Trent battled a spike of weary loathing for his father. “Depend upon it, or to Darius’s estate, or Leah’s. I’m without a housekeeper at present, so say the word, and we’ll hitch up the traveling coach.”

  Nancy’s gnarled hand went to her throat. “And me never once leaving the shire in all my born years.”

  “Baggage.” Trent hugged her again, carefully, winked at Cook and tucked the last biscuit into his pocket. “I mean it, Nancy. You want to shake the dust of Wilton from your feet, you have Aa
ron Benton send a pigeon.”

  He was gone, leaving Nancy to exchange a smile with Cook.

  “That boy.” Nancy swept crumbs from the table. “As if I could ever write more than my name on a good day, much less see what I’d put on the page.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Louise isn’t working out very well?” Benton passed Trent a glass holding two fingers of brandy.

  “She cooks competently, but she wants me to be the kind of petty tyrant my father enjoys being and uses her position to push me in that direction. I am amenable to persuasion regarding many things, but not when it comes to following in my father’s footsteps.”

  Benton poured himself a more generous serving, which Trent did not begrudge him. “A cook has more power than one thinks. What will you do?”

  “She’s on her last chance, and then she’ll get what she wants. I’ll summarily turn her off.” Not as summarily as Wilton had.

  “High-handed, indeed.” Benton settled his long frame onto the library’s sofa. “Now what is this hare-brained scheme to bring your sister down here next month?”

  “I’m beginning to think it isn’t hare-brained,” Trent mused, peering at his drink. He would rather have had lemonade garnished with mint. “Emily hasn’t spent time here for years, and she’s soon to be fired off, so this will be her last opportunity to sashay around the shire as Lady Emily.”

  Benton’s expression was not cheerful, though he was himself a viscount’s nephew and looked utterly at home in the elegant comfort of the Wilton library. “She’s an earl’s daughter. She’ll always be Lady Emily.”

  “She’s not such an earl’s daughter as all that. She’s seventeen, but looks younger, because she has these great blue eyes and… What?”

  “I’ve met her.” From his tone, the occasion had not been happy. “When I first came to your town house in London with Bellefonte. Lady Leah and Lady Emily were outside in Bellefonte’s vis-à-vis on their way to the park. She blushed when I bowed over her hand.”

  Months later, Benton recalled this chance meeting?

  “She would blush at true gentlemanliness, though when Nick aims all his flummery at her, she knows it’s purest flummery.”

  Benton left the couch and went off on a progress around the library—a room he could visit twelve times a day if he so chose. “Would Lady Warne accompany her, or would you reside here with her for the nonce?”

  The idea of being far from Crossbridge, and Trent’s children—and Ellie—sat poorly. “Her own father is here. She hardly needs a chaperone beyond that.”

  Benton paused before the shelf that held a collection of earthy Scottish poets whose works Wilton kept on hand for vanity rather than verse.

  “I’d rather someone besides Lady Emily’s father see to her welfare. He cannot be trusted.”

  Which phrase should be the earl’s middle name.

  “The one exception to that rule is Emily. If Wilton loves anybody or anything besides his own consequence, it’s Emily.”

  Benton abandoned the poets for medical treatises, also on display for vanity. “If you say so. When shall I expect her?”

  “The middle of next month, assuming she’s willing. Wilton can claim he’s passing up the hunting this fall to prepare for Emily’s arrival, and Emily and Lady Warne can finish up with the house parties.”

  The steward’s expression went from not cheerful to resigned, and he gave up inventorying the shelves. “Where shall we put her?”

  Somebody had consumed Trent’s drink in its entirety. “She was a little girl the last time she was here. I’ll poke around in the family wing and let you know.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Such enthusiasm. “You yourself said Wilton is testing his boundaries, and nothing will bring him to heel like the threat of consequences to Emily.”

  Or so Trenton dearly hoped.

  Benton put his half-full glass on the sideboard. “I see two flaws in your reasoning: First, you love the girl and would never truly impose undeserved consequences on her. Wilton isn’t stupid, and he’ll sense you’re bluffing should you threaten to send your sister off to a convent.”

  Fair enough. Around Emily, Trent would simply have to act more like his father, and hope to survive the impersonation. “The second flaw?”

  “He can hurt you through her, as he was wont to hurt you through Lady Leah, and I suspect, through your wife, children and brother.”

  “That was a long time ago, Aaron.” And as close as Trent’s most recent nightmare. “Emily is too canny to be used that way, though I’ll be mindful of your warning.”

  “See that you are. By then, harvest will be upon us, and serving as nursemaid to your baby sister is not on my list of things to look forward to.”

  Trent appropriated the remains of Aaron’s drink, puzzled, because Aaron was seldom hard to read, and yet the steward hadn’t been entirely forthcoming.

  As Trent had not been forthcoming with Ellie, or with himself for that matter.

  If this visit to Wilton Acres had proved anything, it was that Trent was ashamed of his patrimony—too ashamed to expect a second wife to cope with it, for eventually the Wilton heir would be expected to dwell at Wilton Acres.

  Yes, he was concerned for Ellie’s safety, but the notion of Wilton’s snide comments, philandering, and cruelty in the same household with Ellie…not even for love, money and a title would Trent expect a woman to put up with Wilton.

  On that daunting realization, Trent set Aaron’s empty glass aside and took himself up to his quarters, not at all satisfied with the day’s accomplishments. He made short work of his bath, then belted on his dressing gown and headed back to the library in search of a book.

  As if a hard day must end on the worst possible note, Wilton was already in the library helping himself to a drink.

  “Wilton.” Trent offered the slightest sketch of a bow.

  “Amherst.” The earl didn’t even incline his head. “What has you skulking about past your bedtime?” The earl was flushed and smug, and his heavy-handed attempts at insult were tiresome.

  “I’ll find a book and leave you to your solitude, sir.”

  “Thought to stage a sneak attack this time, did you?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Trent perused the poetry simply for an excuse to turn his back on his father while he endured further aggravation from his father.

  “The quarterly bills aren’t due yet. You must be down here thinking to catch me out in some violation of the terms of my parole, but here I am. So, alas, your trip was for nothing.”

  Trent took down a copy William Blake’s The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. “In truth, I care less and less what you get up to, my lord, as long as you leave me and mine alone and keep your fingers out the family coffers.”

  “What would I find in those coffers to trifle with?”

  “Nancy Brookes’ pension, for one thing. You’ve doubtless pilfered the principal, just as you stole from my siblings. I’ll bid you good night, sir, and pleasant dreams.”

  Trent tucked the book under his arm and headed for the door, though sleep was likely a lost cause after this exchange.

  “Heard you’d stopped by to pester old Henly,” the earl said mildly. “A waste of time, Amherst, and beneath you. The peasantry will spread their thighs and be grateful for the attention shown them by their betters.”

  How could a man be a member of the Lords and not understand the difference between peasantry—of which England had none—and yeomanry?

  “Imogenie was a decent woman until you turned her into less than a camp follower, Wilton.” Trent knew, even as the words left his lips, that much of a retort was more than Wilton was owed.

  “A slut.” Wilton smiled slightly. “She’s entertaining for the nonce and not without her endearing qualities. I might make her my next countess.”

  “Do as you please on that score.” No time like the present to fire a few counter-volleys against the wall of Wilton’s arrogance. “I’m sending Emily do
wn here for part of the autumn. You will not entertain your doxy at Wilton Acres while my sister is under this roof.”

  “Emily?” Wilton set his drink down, his expression abruptly alert. “You’re sending her to me?”

  “Hardly.” Trent made a show of perusing his book as he mentally improvised. “Lady Warne felt Emily wasn’t ready for the Little Season and couldn’t think of another place to stash the girl where she wouldn’t further embarrass herself.”

  “Emily Lindsey couldn’t embarrass herself if she spilled punch on her own bodice.”

  And yet, for the first time in Trent’s memory, Wilton’s bluster held a gratifying hint of uncertainty.

  “Emily hardly knows how to dance. Her French is atrocious; she can’t sit a horse even to show off her riding habit; she can barely thump out a tune on the pianoforte; can’t draw to save herself; she has no address, no connections, and all because her dear papa couldn’t be bothered to spare her some decent tutors or a finishing governess. It’s no matter to me, except that if I’m to start looking for my next viscountess, I can’t have Emily a laughing stock because of your parsimony.”

  Trent snapped the book shut and prayed his sister would forgive him his mendacity.

  Wilton put his fists on his hips as he advanced on his son. “If my Emily can’t give a good account of herself, it’s because that worthless Leah was no kind of pattern card. You will not make Emily suffer for the education Leah begrudged her.”

  “Leah was, and is, her sister,” Trent said mildly. “Not her governess, not her tutor, not her father. You, and you alone, are responsible for the rough go Emily’s having in Society, so she can lick her wounds here and perhaps apply herself to dancing and French while there’s still time, but heed me, Wilton: If you don’t stop trying to find ways over, under, or through the fences set around you, Emily’s come out will be indefinitely delayed.”

  Which Emily would positively delight to hear, though Wilton mustn’t catch wind of the girl’s sentiments.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Wilton sputtered. “Emily dotes on those brats of yours and they on her. You wouldn’t use your own sister so unchivalrously.”