A Notorious Ruin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “Tis, milord.”

  The Crown & Pig stood as the transition between the older, Tudor-era section of the town and more recent structures, which, it happened, included Johnson’s Academy. With luck, he would soon be seated in the tavern with a warm beer in hand, the fire at his back, and a firm engagement with Johnson himself.

  Johnson was a former pugilist who, since his retirement from the ring, had trained more than a dozen prizefighters of some repute. He organized regular exhibitions and provided a respectable place for gentlemen to learn or hone their skills in the art. He was eager to see the place first hand, note who was in training, and meet the proprietor himself.

  They passed the Crown & Pig without a word spoken between them. Not five minutes later they stood before a nondescript building with the words Johnson’s Academy painted above the door in bright yellow letters. Thrale gazed through the window at the wall with its display of ropes and unframed prints of fighters. Anticipation snaked through him. “Well,” Thrale said. “Here we are.”

  “I should think, my lord, that you ought to ask after Mr. Johnson.” Flint opened the door and made a come in gesture.

  “I ought to leave a card at the very least.”

  “Right you are.”

  They returned to The Cooperage three hours past when he’d thought to be back. Flint was barely visible behind a mass of pale pink roses. At one point while they were climbing the stairs to the front door, the wag pretended to stagger under the weight. His servants, all of them hired in the last year—it having been necessary to let go the majority of his London staff, had come to him recommended by the Duke of Cynssyr. Flint had been the first to be sent with the duke’s personal character, and the first Thrale had hired.

  From behind him, Flint said, “Not too late to save yourself, milord.”

  He didn’t regret the decision in the least. Flint was an excellent valet, but the man had a sense of the absurd Thrale could do nothing to eradicate. He ignored the theatrics. The door, he noted, was a cheerful blue. This was one of the delights of a woman’s touch on one’s home. A brightly painted door and window-boxes of blossoms.

  “Abandon the roses and decamp before the ladies of the house see you, milord.”

  He stared at the snarling lion knocker then opened the front door since Flint had his arms full. “No.”

  “I could pitch them into the hedge.”

  Thrale turned. “Captain Niall brought them a box of pralines. Each.”

  “And?”

  “While I do not wish to appear extravagant, neither do I wish to be a thoughtless guest.”

  “Roses, milord. Roses.” He adjusted the flowers. “And young ladies in the house. Beautiful young ladies.”

  “Roses are an appropriate token of my esteem. They delight the senses. Brighten a room.” He touched one of just-opening buds. “They are impermanent. Like pralines, they pronounce a man’s regard for a lady, and yet, some days later, there is nothing left but fond memories of the delight taken.”

  “Unless the lady dries them or presses them, or one of those things ladies do to amuse themselves.”

  “Such as saving the box the pralines came in?”

  “Aye, sir.” Flint had been in the recent hostilities with the French. Infantry, and his personal habits reflected the discipline of his time in that rough trade. “Their father will be wanting another noble son-in-law, one deep in the pockets, if you take my meaning. I advise you to retreat. Now. No shame in that.”

  He stepped into the entryway. “Roses are not an offer of marriage. Or do you believe Sinclair will think I’m offering for both his daughters?”

  “He’ll wonder which of them you’ll take.”

  He turned again. “It’s not as though there’s any disgrace in marrying one of the man’s daughters. He’s a gentleman. They are ladies. Their sisters are Lady Aldreth and the Duchess of Cynssyr. If I were to marry, not that I intend to do any such thing, I could do worse than one of them.”

  Though he said either would do, if he were to decide it was past time he was married, which in point of fact it was, only the youngest Sinclair daughter was of interest to him. Her elder sister, the widowed Mrs. Wilcott, was more to his physical preferences, but Miss Sinclair had the intellectual spark that mattered most to him. Alas, Niall had his matrimonial hopes pinned on Miss Emily Sinclair. If anyone could captivate her, it must surely be Niall. The captain, with his perpetual good mood and elegant looks might well succeed where all others had failed.

  “He paid last quarter’s wages only a week ago.”

  He stepped further into the entryway. “What the devil do you mean by that?”

  “I mean, Mr. Sinclair might well be looking for another son-in-law to pay his debts. And here he’s got two pretty daughters in the honey pot.”

  Thrale frowned. Six weeks in arrears? It was not well done of Sinclair to leave his staff so long unpaid. He was himself punctilious to a fault about paying his servants. His father, God rest his be-damned soul, had let wages go months past due. Thrale, having lived under the consequences of that neglect, had dedicated himself to being as different from his father as possible in that regard and every other. “Sinclair’s debts, if he has them, have nothing to do with me giving roses to his daughters.”

  From behind the flowers, his valet made a faint tick-tock sound. The closing seconds of his doom, one supposed. As if he could be compelled to marry where he did not wish to.

  Footsteps echoed inside the house, coming nearer. He took off his hat and hung it from one of the pegs above the doorway to the pantry. The Sinclair’s home, while modest, as befit its name, was a charming place. More charming than Blackfern, his country seat. From the flowers outside, to the arrangement of daisies on a side table, he felt a woman’s gentle influence. Miss Sinclair’s most likely. So he fancied.

  The Sinclairs did not have a butler so it was the housekeeper who came in, a cap on her iron-colored hair, and with a steely gaze to match. She dropped into a curtsy. Flint made that tick-tock sound again.

  “Milord.” Her gaze flicked to Flint and then back. Thrale dropped his umbrella in the stand by the door then slipped out of his coat.

  “Roses,” he said to Mrs. Elliot after he’d pressed a coin into her hand. He did not stint on vails. Then, because it was obvious there were, indeed, roses, he added, “Two dozen each for Miss Sinclair and Mrs. Wilcott.”

  Mrs. Elliot remained solemn. Or was that disapproval? Servants gossiped as much as anyone. “They will be delighted by such thoughtfulness, my lord.”

  “Are they home?”

  “Miss Sinclair is out, my lord.”

  “Is she?” Now there was a pity. He’d hoped to have the luck to be found arriving with the roses.

  His valet eased into the foyer with a sideways slide and just the top of his head visible above the flowers in his arms. This close, the scent of roses was at the very edge of overpowering. Some indefinable signal passed between Flint and Mrs. Elliot, for his valet, arms full, headed toward a back staircase.

  “Captain Niall and Mr. Sinclair are out as well.” She smoothed her apron and smiled. He liked the woman for that smile. “We expect them back before tea.”

  “Such are the perils of stepping out to obtain roses.”

  “Indeed, milord.” She was a rail, wrapped tight, precise in her words and movements. Easy to imagine her running the house with ruthless efficiency.

  “While you wait for the others, my lord, you might find the second parlor a pleasant place to explore. The duchess, when she lived here, always enjoyed that parlor best. The view there is much admired.”

  “Thank you.” He remembered the room from his previous tour of the house, and she was right. The view was striking.

  “Shall I bring refreshment?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Mrs. Elliot retreated, and he proceeded to his quarters. Here, one saw the back of the property; fields sloped away to dense trees to the east, to the west, sunlight glinted off the wate
r in a distant canal. Flint came in when he was washing up. “This is a nice bit of property.”

  “Aye.”

  He allowed Flint to retie his neckcloth and brush every possible speck of lint from his jacket.

  With his clothes arranged to his satisfaction and Flint’s, he made his way to the second parlor. Like the rest of the house, this room was inviting and comfortable. He pondered what made The Cooperage so pleasing to the eye and spirit. He suspected the duchess, the former Miss Anne Sinclair, had had a hand in that. Not until Thrale was well into his majority had he understood his father had abominable taste. What, he wondered, as he studied the parlor, might he do at Blackfern to further eradicate the ponderous imprint of his predecessor to his title?

  Here, shelves of books lined two walls. No doubt the room served as library and parlor. Along another wall was a long table, and there he found Mrs. Elliot had arranged the roses. They looked exceedingly well here, placed as they were against the backdrop of a lilac wall. There were no lilac rooms at Blackfern. His father had handed over the last round of renovations to a man with an excessive love of gilt and an unending supply of oxblood paint.

  He sat by the fire and imagined himself at Blackfern and that the credit for his surroundings belonged to him, or perhaps to a wife of refined taste. He would write to the duke and ask for the name of his architect. Damn the expense if the recommendation was that he should pull Blackfern down to its foundations. He would, by God, now that he had the money.

  Thrale shifted his chair to face the tall windows and picked up a well-thumbed copy of Paradise Lost that Sinclair must have been reading. One could imagine him here with the two daughters left at home, entertaining family and select friends, perhaps reading from this very book. Most every volume in the library at Blackfern had uncut pages. Every book but the ones he’d cut himself.

  He opened the Milton. Not only had Sinclair read the work, he’d made an Oxford don’s study of it. Whole passages were underlined in pencil. He and his host, it seemed, shared a similar opinion of the work. This was more erudition than he’d have credited Sinclair with possessing. Book in hand, he walked to the window and gazed down on the lawns.

  The prospect invited the eye. One wanted to walk the grounds and explore what lay over the hill to the right. He ought to have the grounds at Blackfern redone as well. His father had preferred the formal, geometrical lines of the previous century. What was needed was a modern touch, a more natural one.

  While he gazed out the window, a woman appeared on the path that emerged from the trees to his left. A maid walked behind her, a paper-wrapped parcel in her arms. The wolfhound mongrel with the improbable name of Roger paced at her side. Mrs. Wilcott, then. A parasol hid most of her face from him, but even if the hound did not announce her, he’d seen that languorous stride too often not to know her. There was a softness to her, a gentleness. A lack of spirit, he thought, that instantly identified her.

  And yet. She was physically nothing less than his ideal. A face to make a man weep for her beauty. A figure no less admirable or stirring.

  Watching her walk was a sensual delight. Her gown caressed her limbs as she strolled. She moved slowly because the dog was old. Roger, Thrale suspected, was the sort of hound who would keep pace with his owner if it meant he dropped dead of it. It spoke well of her that she was aware.

  He stayed at the window until she was out of sight. Notwithstanding his high opinions of the other Sinclair women—the duchess, Lady Aldreth, and Miss Sinclair— Mrs. Wilcott was, in his opinion, the loveliest of them. She’d been married young and widowed early and wasn’t much more than twenty-three herself. Left destitute, one heard, or near to it, by a husband of whom no one in the family would speak. One heard vague accounts; very little that was specific.

  He did not hear the front door open, but he remained unconcerned by that. If she’d come in a private entrance, the housekeeper would see she was told he was here. He went to the table and inspected the roses for imperfections. He found none. While he waited, he took out two calling cards. With pen and ink from the writing desk, he wrote Miss Emily Sinclair on one and Mrs. Wilcott on the other. What had her husband’s Christian name been? He did not recall that he’d ever heard. He set a card in each of the bouquets.

  Not long after, rapid footsteps descending stairs had him turning from the window. Not Mrs. Wilcott, he thought. No, this was someone spirited. Her younger sister, or one of the maids, perhaps. He adjusted his coat. Perhaps he’d give Niall some competition for Miss Sinclair’s affections.

  “I left it in the second parlor,” a woman said to someone, breathless and not loud enough for him to identify the speaker.

  “Ma’am, Lord—”

  The parlor door, left ajar, flew open.

  The third of the Sinclair sisters swept in, and this was a surprise, to see her full of life and energy. Roger trotted behind her. She did not see him yet, and he stood, book in hand, bereft of coherent thought.

  Her air of abstraction was gone and in its place was focus and deliberation. A stranger to him. This creature was another woman entirely. Vivid. Intense. Aware. He stood, dumbfounded, wordless.

  “Where the devil is it?” She headed for the chair by the fire.

  Her language took him aback.

  She was halfway across the room before she became aware of his presence. Her eyes widened, and a woman he did not know looked straight into his soul, took his measure, and found him lacking.

  What a fancy, to think a woman like Mrs. Wilcott had that spark in her. “Ma’am.”

  All the life in her vanished, and she was the Mrs. Wilcott he knew too well. His brain filled with thoughts that were no credit to him. Her gown was dark blue, and ribbons in her hair pulled her curls away from her temples and the nape of her neck. He returned to her face, ethereal, angelic, devastating. He drew in air but nothing helped, and over her shoulder he had a disconcerting view of himself in the chimney glass; a man stunned into imbecility by a woman who was so beautiful it hardly mattered that he did not care for her.

  “Oh,” she said, looking at the roses. She curtsied. So young to be a widow. Roger left her side for him, and without thinking, he rubbed the dog’s head. “Lord Thrale. Good afternoon.”

  “Madam.” He decided he was mistaken that she sounded sorry to see him.

  “My sister is not here. She’ll be back in time for tea, though.”

  Mrs. Wilcott was no intellect, he was certain of it. He would have discovered it before now if she were. He was not often fooled by the people he admitted into his acquaintance, and that eased his mind enough that he smiled during his bow to her. He was still smiling when he straightened, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her focus was on the book he still held. In the instant before she met his gaze, something behind her eyes flickered with awareness, and then it, too, died. Killed? Nothing but vapid beauty remained.

  Her sisters were intelligent women. All three of them women of wit and discernment. The possibility that Mrs. Wilcott might be their equal stupefied him. Surely, no. No woman played so deep a game. Not her.

  She waved with no sign that any thought of substance had ever entered her head. “Captain Niall has gone for a walk with my father. Their destination was the river. Something about fishing.” Her eyes flicked again to the book he held. “Your errand in town was successful I gather. It must have been, since you have returned.”

  Thrale lifted the book. Mrs. Wilcott blinked. “Yes, madam. It was.”

  She tipped her head to one side, and his impression of her as vital and formidable slipped away like mist. There was nothing in her eyes. No spark of understanding, no sense that she’d seen through him and was disappointed. She smoothed her skirts, an unconscious gesture, and that part of him that remained aroused took in the way her gown settled around her body, the perfection of her bare arms between her sleeves and the tops of her gloves, the curve of her bosom. That disgraceful, lusty part of him whispered he could as easily fuck a stupid woman as an intellig
ent one.

  He swept an arm in the direction of his roses. “For you, Mrs. Wilcott.”

  She turned her head in that direction. “So many. How generous and thoughtful you’ve been.” She walked to the vases with his two cards propped against the petals in each arrangement. “Thank you, Lord Thrale. They’re lovely. Wherever shall I put so many flowers?”

  “For you and your sister.”

  She looked over her shoulder at him with the distracted expression that was so familiar to him. There wasn’t a complicated thought in her head. He was certain of it. “Shall I order tea, my lord? A bite to eat?”

  What he ought to have said was no. His apology for not obliging her would take him half a minute, and then he could be back in his room with Milton, or walking to the trees and a shady spot in which to read. What came out of his mouth was, “Yes, thank you.”

  He watched her walk to the door and call for a servant. Instructions for tea were conveyed to the maid who appeared. When she turned back, an empty smile curved her perfect mouth. A thousand miles away.

  “Do sit, my lord.” She returned to the fireplace, lowering herself to a chair with exquisite grace.

  He sat, legs crossed, the Milton balanced on his thigh. “I am delighted you are here, Mrs. Wilcott, though I could not help but overhear that you came here not to entertain me but to search for something.” He scanned the room and then picked up the book and fanned the pages. No reaction but disinterest and then—his heart sped up because of that flash of something through her eyes again. “Perhaps I might help you find it.”

  “I think not.”

  “No?”

  “No.” She lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. The back of her knuckles hit the candelabra on the table. “Goodness!” She steadied the candles, but not successfully, for she knocked it over entirely. It was a mercy for the household that no one had lit the candles.

  A footman tapped at the door, and Mrs. Wilcott waved him in. “Tea is here. How lovely.” She rose, and when Thrale came to his feet, she said, “Please don’t stand on my account.” He remained on his feet while the footman arranged the tea and set out plates. At the sideboard, she rearranged the roses meant for her.