by Carmen Caine
William studied the coals in the grate, contemplating remembered glimpses of the black-haired beauty. His gaze caught on a scrap of paper in the ash, and he suppressed a start of surprise. The handwriting, so familiar, couldn’t be mistaken. Darington’s. William knew Darington was a client, referred by the marquess. What could warrant burning?
Surely not the list. Darington wouldn’t have anything to do with such high-handedness. Besides, the man wrote so often of his daughter, William had long since realized Darington hoped for the connection. Reading of her kind heart and generous nature, William often did as well, but Darington’s daughter wasn’t the sort of woman who would make Lethbridge’s list. Too low, and far too kind.
William took the page back to the desk and dropped it onto the dark wood. “None of these women will have me.”
“Perhaps if you mend your behavior.” Lethbridge’s tone was tentative.
William snorted. “The marquess requested a life bereft of sentiment or compassion, lived only for pleasure. Now, he wishes me to appeal to these?” He tapped the page.
“Some would agree for your wealth. Some for your title.”
“What if I refuse?” William sat on the edge of Lethbridge’s desk, carefree demeanor employed with practiced ease. “The old bastard asks much, after all. This isn’t like demanding I flaunt my circumstance among the ton. This is marriage. Misery for all my days.” At least, it would be with any of the women listed. His eyes drifted to the fireplace and the words among the ashes.
Lethbridge frowned, craning his head at an uncomfortable angle to look up at him. “Then the marquess requested I inform you he had me draw up a second will. He hasn’t signed it, but he shall, if you do not concede to his demand.”
“Oh?” William drawled. “And what does this dreadful second will do that the first did not?”
“Leaves your half-sister everything but the entailed ancestral lands, which will be bankrupted without the rest.”
“Madelina? She’s sixteen. Who would run the estate?”
“I would.”
Did William imagine the avaricious glint in Lethbridge’s mud-colored gaze? “You,” he repeated, tone flat.
“I will be her guardian until she’s of age, or until I give her permission to wed.” Lethbridge squared his thin shoulders, snapped the stack of papers nearest him straight and set them back in place.
“So, my choices are to thaw the heart of one of these diamonds, or end up a pauper on a bankrupt estate?” William had plans for the marquess’s money. It didn’t surprise him the old man had conjured up a final hurtle.
“That is one way to see it, yes.”
“It is the only way to see it.” William pushed a hand through his hair. “Fine, I’ll marry a debutant off your list. How difficult can it be to find one willing to become a marchioness?”
“Excellent.” Lethbridge opened a drawer and pulled out a neatly trimmed pen. “You made the right choice.” He reached for the inkwell and slid it across the desk to a spot on William’s left. He set the pen beside it.
William wondered if Lethbridge was being thorough or intended to needle him by remembering he was left handed. The marquess considered it a defect in character. He’d paid many tutors to break the habit. Only, William’s writing instructors had failed. In all other matters, William could appear, as the marquess put it, respectable.
His eyes sought the mantel clock. He wasn’t actually one for drinking early, but it was drifting toward midday. Somewhere, outside of Lethbridge’s gloom-filled office, there was daylight to walk through, his club, and a bottle waiting. William felt a greater than usual need for a drink.
His gaze drifted to the grate. He tried not to feel the loss of Darington’s daughter. She was a dream. He’d never met the girl. Besides, he could always hope the marquess died before he managed to win one of the diamonds. William took up the pen, and signed.
“The marquess has given you a score of days. After that, he will sign the new will.” Lethbridge had read William’s mind.
William tossed the pen on the desk. He took delight in the ink blot, and how Lethbridge scrambled for his kerchief to wipe it up. “I surely hope that’s enough business for today,” William said.
Lethbridge didn’t look up as he scrubbed at the ink. “There’s still the matter of Miss Chastity.”
William frowned, on guard. “My mistress? What of her?”
“If you’re to marry, will you be keeping her? Another payment for her townhouse is due.” Lethbridge’s eyes darted toward him, then away.
A test, William thought. The old man put the words in Lethbridge’s mouth. William contained a smile. He knew the correct answer. “Gads, man, what sort of question is that? I don’t see what marrying has to do with my mistress.”
“You don’t mean to, that is, love your wife?” Lethbridge grimaced as the words came out.
“I haven’t spent the past twelve years learning to be fashionable to ruin it all by falling in love. You can tell the marquess I said as much.” Besides which, William took his responsibilities seriously. Chastity would be maintained as she was until the marquess was cold and buried. William would not give her up. No wife would change that.
Chapter Two
Lady Lanora Hadler, daughter of the Duke of Solworth, sat at the kitchen table in her father’s London home, shucking peas. Her best friend and maid, Grace, was opposite her, similarly engaged. Lanora’s hands flew as she stripped the ripe green pods, but Grace was still winning. Her pile was nearly gone.
“Victory,” Grace cried, eyes bright, dropping a final pod onto the heap of shells before her.
Lanora smiled. “I don’t know how you do it, or how you can be so nimble with peas and not able to stich a straight seam.” She kept working. The peas were needed for dinner.
“Practice.” Grace reached across the table and snatched some of Lanora’s.
Lanora pushed a dark lock from her eyes. “You could practice sewing.”
“But then you’d want me to do it. I prefer kitchen work. Someday, when you wed, you’ll set up your own home, and I’ll be your cook.”
“I will never wed, but you are welcome to cook all you like once I convince Father I need my own home.”
“Or that.” Some of the cheer left Grace’s face.
“I will convince him.” Lanora snapped a pod open with such vigor, some of the peas jumped out. “He must acknowledge I’m perfectly well on my own.” She made a vague gesture around the kitchen.
It was a warm room, the plaster walls yellow in the morning light. The sunshine that spilled through the windows gave way to a view of the garden, hothouse and grounds beyond. Lanora knew the grounds were large for London, but had never fully taken to them. The ordered patch of earth was worlds away from the rolling hills and forest around her country home.
She sighed, and slowed. She didn’t hate London. She simply wished her father hadn’t decided she must have a season. She missed the people left behind, though many of the staff had made the journey with her and she’d come to know the London staff well. She missed the countryside, the tenants and freedom. Not freedom from oversight, for she was ordered about no more in London than the countryside, but of space and from the scrutiny of the ton.
Lanora’s chaperone, her Aunt Edith, was even more opposed to London living than she was. The frumpy middle-aged sister to Lanora’s father, Aunt Edith was likely riding in the park even then. Riding or not, she wore mostly riding habits, and those about two decades out of fashion. To make London more tolerable, Aunt Edith had brought many of her terriers to town with her, the little monsters her one true love. Lanora found them enjoyable in the countryside, but they chafed at the small grounds, too little work making them ill mannered.
Still, their London cook said the larder had never been so vermin free. She plead endlessly with Aunt Edith to leave a few of the little mongrels behind. Likewise, the groundskeeper was impressed with the lack of small creatures ravaging his work. For her part, Lanora m
issed the songbirds. If a pair was foolish enough to remain on the grounds, the terriers would wait for the fledglings to leave the nest and snap them up before they learned to fly properly.
“You’re wearing your dead-baby-songbird face,” Grace said. She took up the last of Lanora’s peapods.
“I do wish new ones wouldn’t keep coming.”
Grace shrugged. “It’s nature.” She finished the peas and stood, gathering the shells for the bin. “I was thinking. I should win a prize for shucking more peas than you.”
Lanora narrowed her eyes. “Such as?”
“Such as, for today, you forget about Mrs. Smith.”
A broad smile turned up Lanora’s lips. Mrs. Smith, the only wonderful thing about London. Not that the reason for her was good. Poverty was never a happy circumstance, and poverty was what Mrs. Smith sought to alleviate. Rather, Lanora sought to alleviate it, in the guise of the widowed Mrs. Smith.
Lanora was quite enamored with being unknown enough to wander the streets. At home, her midnight locks and deep green eyes were too easily recognized, even with a cap and spectacles. There were so many people in London, and the wealthy kept themselves so far above the rest, no one Lanora helped as Mrs. Smith had any notion who she really was.
Mrs. Smith was much preferable to her evening role, duke’s daughter. Maintaining that frigid façade was an endless strain. Lanora had little choice, though, if she wanted to survive the season unattached and go on to have a home of her own. All she wished was to keep living the unfettered life she’d enjoyed since her father began his work a dozen years ago.
Besides, the smiling faces and pleasant conversation offered by her so-called peers were as much a pretense as her coolness. No one in London knew her, so how could they like her? Their warmth sprang from regard for her father’s title, or his wealth, or both. Perhaps even from his notoriety as a scholar, but never from caring for Lanora. She’d learned well enough from her charitable works at home the lengths to which his assets would drive people. For most, Lanora was a chance for money, renown or power, nothing more.
“Now you’re wearing your, no-one-loves-me-for-who-I-really-am look.” Grace reseated herself.
“You know me too well.” Lanora sought her earlier light mood.
“I know you very well. You’re like a sister to me, and I assure you there are many people who love you.”
“Here, in this house, and in Father’s country manor, yes.” Lanora waved a hand toward the windows. “Out there? No. They will never come to know me. All they see is Lady Lanora, only child to Lord Robert, Duke of Solworth.”
“You give them no chance to know you.” Grace’s voice took on an imploring note, “If you would, you may find you come to enjoy the company of some of them. Perhaps even a gentleman. You’re too young to have decided never to marry.”
Lanora let out a sigh. “Not this lecture. Not again.”
Grace’s mouth flattened in a mutinous line, but she shrugged. “Well then, about Mrs. Smith--”
“I don’t have all that bread sent to let it be distributed improperly. You know if Mrs. Smith isn’t there to hand out what she paid for, the first people will take more than their share and sell it to those I mean to have it free. The rector of the church is too kind. He’s taken in by any story.”
“You go too often. Too many of them know the Widow Smith now. What if one sees you elsewhere? Word will get back to the rest. The poor feed on gossip.”
Only because they have no real food much of the time. “No one will recognize me.”
“That’s not my true worry, as well you know.” Grace’s features tensed. “Walking the streets of London alone is foolish for any woman, but you, a duke’s daughter, are in even more danger.”
“Again, I assure you, no one will recognize me.”
“Black hair is not common, and yours has been mentioned in the paper.” Grace looked triumphant, as if that point couldn’t be overcome.
“The people I help are hardly literate.” Something that should be remedied. “Even if they are, I doubt they’re reading gossip about debutants. They have better uses for their time.” Like trying not to let their children starve.
“They may not read about you, but they hear things, and repeat them.”
“I powder my hair, tie it up and wear a bonnet when I’m Mrs. Smith.” The powder trick had only worked a short while at home, what with country gossip, but in London, Lanora felt it would last.
“I know. I’m the one who has to clean up after it.”
“I help,” Lanora said, stung.
Grace shook her head. “You’re as good at tidying as I am at sewing.” She pursed her lips. “I’m serious, Lanora. Gentlewomen get kidnapped in London. If you’re lucky, you’d be recognized and ransomed. If not, they’ll sell you into a house of ill repute. I’ve heard the stories.”
Lanora laughed. “And stories are all they are. You’re being dramatic.” Mischief brightened her mood. “Besides, if I’m kidnapped, maybe your Lord Lefthook will come to my rescue.”
Grace’s expression shifted from worry to a silly, moon-eyed look. She let out a sigh. “If only he really was my Lord Lefthook.”
Lanora rolled her eyes. “How you can be so enamored with a man you don’t even know is beyond me.”
“Don’t pretend you aren’t there each morning, right beside me, scouring the paper for his name.”
“And such a silly name,” Lanora said, ignoring that truth. “Lord Lefthook. Couldn’t the editor come up with something better?”
“They say it’s on account of his tremendous left hook.” Grace mimed a punch, eyes wide in an equally round face.
“And the lord part?” Lanora’s voice was thick with derision.
“On account of his noble deeds.”
Lanora had to admit they did sound noble, if one believed the paper. “They’re likely made up. He’s likely made up, to sell more copies. Every parlor in London has the paper in it now, right by the tea tray. Ladies send out for their own, not wanting to wait for their male relations to finish with their copies.”
“His deeds are not made up.” Grace’s jaw jutted out. “I have it from the butcher’s wife that the baker cross town, on Southway, has a client who was set upon one night past sundown and saved by Lord Lefthook. He’s telling true, too. It was in the paper.”
“And did the baker relate this tale to the butcher’s wife before or after he read it in the paper?”
Grace frowned. “And they had that quote, last week, from that woman Lord Lefthook saved. The one coming home through the park alone.”
“I suppose you think that woman is real, as well?” Lanora gave a sad shake of her head. “As if any woman would come home through the park alone, at night. You’re the one who’s too naive for London, Grace, not me.”
“They wouldn’t print it if it wasn’t true,” Grace said with conviction.
“Even if the deeds are real, do you mean to believe there’s but one Samaritan in all of London?” Lanora smiled. “He’s awfully busy, doing good deeds nearly every night.” Lanora loved to tease Grace, but she was interested in the figure of Lord Lefthook. Real or imagined, his work brought needed attention to poor parts of London, for that’s where he roamed.
Since arriving, she’d been horrified by the conditions that existed in the city. No one under her father’s care was permitted to live in such poverty. She would take the forgotten of London back to the country with her if she could, but there were simply too many. Something must be done where they were, in London, to rectify the problem. Especially for the women and children, many of whom bore no fault for their circumstance.
Reminded of the other reason she especially wished to go out, Lanora stood. “I am going, and that’s the last of it.”
“I won’t help you ready. I disapprove.”
Lanora shrugged. “That’s your right, of course.” She headed upstairs to don her disguise. Grace would follow soon.
Today, once she finished handing ou
t bread, Lanora intended to track down Mr. Finch and have words with him. Mr. Finch was the foreman in charge of building a newly begun home for displaced women, including those with children but no father for them. Last time she spoke with him, he’d assured her that work was about to resume, but it still had not. Lanora was particularly invested in the structure, for she’d begged her father to fund it. Her time in London told her a home for women was the area of greatest need, the way to help the most people.
Her father hadn’t put up the money. He’d given some nonsensical excuse about being a peer, and the politics of the land being resistant to change. Instead, to appease her, he talked his fellow archaeologist, Mr. Darington, into funding the project.
Lanora had never met Mr. Darington, something of a mythical figure to the ton. Every month came word of daring deeds, exotic queens and foreign dangers. On top of that, precious, rare and beautiful artifacts. He was the reverse of her father, who kept quarters in Cairo, while directing excavations, analyzing finds and writing scholarly works.
Not that her father didn’t make excellent contributions to the study of Egypt. He’d located several key sites. It was inevitably Mr. Darington, who’d been working in obscurity for years before her father arrived in Egypt, who excavated them. Her father waited in the relative safety of Cairo for the artifacts to reach him. He was the intelligence behind their years of success, Mr. Darington the dashing figurehead.
One of the reasons Lanora consented to a season was the chance to meet Mr. Darington’s protégé, Lord William Greydrake, only son of the Marquess of Westlock. Lord William had spent his formative years living in the desert with Mr. Darington, before her father arrived. Though he was eight years her senior, Lanora had expected to find a kindred spirit in Lord William.
Lanora’s mother passed away when she was six. Her father, unable to cope with the loss of his wife, ran off to Egypt. Lanora spent a few years with her grandfather, before he too passed. When Lord William’s family suffered their tragedy in his youth, his father sent him to Egypt, to Mr. Darington. Though opposite, Lanora’s and Lord William’s lives were strangely parallel.
