by Danice Allen
“Now, Dudley, don’t get peevish,” Alex taunted. “If all you’re going to do is fret and complain, I might as well have brought Aunt Saphrona.”
This time it was Dudley’s turn to raise a brow. Alex understood his meaning and retorted, “Yes, you’re quite right. You have much the better way with polishing my Hessians and pressing my breeches than Aunt Saphrona does. But I do hope you’ll try to get along with the staff as long as we’re compelled to stay here at Pencarrow.”
Despite himself, Alex couldn’t help the tired edge that crept into his voice. Blessed with dynamic stores of physical energy, he knew the tiredness he felt had more to do with his flagging spirits than with his body.
As perceptive as a woman, Dudley immediately detected and analyzed the weariness in his master’s tone and turned to closely observe him. “And how long, might I ask, my lord, are we to stay at Pencarrow?”
Alex avoided Dudley’s questioning look and said simply, “I don’t know.”
Dudley seemed about to say more, but stopped himself and continued his task. Alex was grateful for his valet’s restraint in this instance. He couldn’t always count on Dudley to hold back when he had something to say.
Alex moved to the dressing table and poured the warm water Dudley had ordered for him into a pewter basin. He threw a washcloth into the water, wrung it out, and lathered it with a bar of spice-scented soap. He thoroughly bathed his upper torso, relishing the cool air as it hit his damp chest and arms. Then he bent over the basin, cupped some water, and rinsed his face several times. He picked up a towel lying nearby and dried his face. As he emerged from the fragrant towel, he caught Dudley staring worriedly at him by the reflection in the mirror. Perceiving that he had been observed, Dudley quickly looked away.
Alex sighed, inwardly chastising himself for letting his frustration over Zachary show. His valet was a worry-worm. And he especially worried about Alex.
Dudley had joined the staff at Ockley Hall five-and-twenty years ago when Alex was still in short pants. His father, Lord Roth, had found Dudley through a domestics registry office in London and employed him as a foot boy. Dudley was only thirteen then, and having reached his adult height already despite weeks of near starvation, he looked more like a lamppost with a red bird’s nest perched atop it than the youthful orphan he was.
His mother was a widow who earned her living as a midwife. When she died during a sudden fit of the ague, she left Dudley and his several siblings to make their way in the world as best they could.
Through the years, Dudley had worked his way up the ranks of the household staff from footboy to postilion to under-coachman to footman and finally to valet. His eye for detail and his uncompromising standards, which demanded perfection in everything he touched, had recommended him for each new job. They were womanly qualities, unusual in a man but highly useful in his various tasks.
Along with the benefits of Dudley’s decidedly feminine nature came the drawbacks, however. He often reminded Alex of a maiden aunt—fussing, fretting, moralizing, nagging, and showing a most troubling and sometimes meddlesome interest in his master’s personal welfare. But since Alex had a fondness for the fellow and found his talents indispensable, he put up with the personality quirks that came with him.
“Are you ready to dress, my lord?” Dudley asked him now, hanging the last of Alex’s waistcoats in the wardrobe.
“Yes, Dudley,” growled Alex, tossing the towel down. “But I shan’t let you assist me if you continue to eye me pityingly as if I were the sacrificial lamb. Never fear. I shall weather this storm just as I have weathered every other storm that has blown my way.”
“Of course you will, my lord,” Dudley replied soothingly, easing the sleeves of the fine lawn shirt over the viscount’s powerful arms. “I daresay Master Zachary will come about.”
“Who said anything about Zachary?” snapped Alex, turning away as he buttoned up his shirt.
“Why, I’d be an absolute simpleton if I didn’t know why you were in such a twitty mood, wouldn’t I?” Dudley calmly observed, reaching for one of several neckcloths he’d laid out on the broad back of a wing chair. “If you please, my lord,” he said, pulling a chair out in front of the dressing table and motioning with an elegant wave of his hand that his lordship should be seated.
Alex scowled at his valet and sat down, facing the large oval mirror. Dudley handed him the neckcloth. “Might I suggest the Mail Coach, sir? ’Tis a fitting style for so sober an event as a funeral. Now where was I?” He ruminated briefly while he tenderly draped two more neckcloths over his left arm. “Ah, yes. Zachary. Being taciturn, is he?”
Alex grunted noncommittally, his long fingers impatiently flinging and twisting the ends of the starched muslin neckcloth. With his brows lifted and his lips slightly pursed, Dudley watched his master, usually so deft, pull the neckcloth into a hopeless knot.
“Damnation!” Alex snarled, jerking the knot loose none too gently and throwing the sadly wrinkled neckcloth onto the floor.
Dudley calmly handed him another. “Zachary was ever stubborn, you know,” he continued, as if Alex welcomed his chatter and didn’t look as cross as a bear with a sore ear. “But indeed, my lord, you always knew how to handle Master Zachary. As I recall, you teased him out of his sullens many a time. Nurse’s mild scoldings were quite ineffectual, and Lord Roth paid the boy no mind at all. But you used to vex him till he was all on end! And then, when he was ready to pop your cork, as they say, you’d get him to talking. Out it would all come in a tumble! In no time at all you had reached a solution!”
“If you’re suggesting that I can treat Zachary just as I used to do when he was five years old, Dudley,” grumbled Alex, “you are quite out! Drat, hand me another neckcloth!”
Dudley handed him the requested item, saying, with servile deference, “Well, I’m sure you know best, my lord. Just thought I’d put a little flea in your ear. Can’t fault me for that, can you?”
Alex glowered into the mirror at his valet’s blandly innocent expression. “I can certainly fault you for a great many things, Dudley, if I choose.” Dudley stiffened. “But I won’t,” he ended with a grudging grin. “Frankly, except for your damned meddling, you are a jewel and quite indispensable to my comfort.”
Dudley unbent and preened himself at Alex’s lavish praise. Then, thinking himself bound to keep his tongue in return for such kind words, Dudley helped his lordship complete his toilette in utter silence.
Despite his valet’s impertinence, Alex had to admit that Dudley’s words had set him to thinking. Mayhap Zach did need to be pricked and needled till he spoke his mind. Mayhap all that was needed to restore their friendship was an honest discussion between brothers, an airing of feelings, a sharing of thoughts. Alex’s black eyes glimmered and narrowed, and he clenched his jaw as he planned out his strategies.
Dudley saw the determined expressions flit across his master’s handsome face, dispelling the grimness, and was satisfied.
The cabinet clock’s heavy pendulum swung through the humid air, the great “tock” at the end of each swing reverberating through the otherwise silent library as they waited for the solicitor. Alex sat at one end of a long, well-stuffed sofa with Shadow lounging at his feet, the dog’s massive head resting on outstretched paws.
Zachary was at the other end of the sofa, and his charming fiancée leaned over the back, absently smoothing the sleek straight hair at the nape of Zach’s neck. Alex now and then snatched a look at those slim white fingers threading through his brother’s hair and tried to suppress the envy that expanded alarmingly in his chest. Damn, she was a distracting wench! But he had plans to put into motion. Plans that involved his brother. He needed an opening, and Zach was being mulish.
“It lacks only twenty minutes before the vicar will be here,” said Zachary all of a sudden, his tone irritable. “Where can Mr. Hook be?”
Ah, here was an opening. “Are you speaking to me?” Alex feigned surprise.
“I wasn’t
speaking to any person in particular,” growled Zachary.
One of Alex’s brows lifted a jot higher than the other. “No person in particular, eh? Then perhaps you were speaking to Shadow?” The dog raised his head from off his paws, fixed his adoring gaze on Alex, and waited.
“Why would I wish to talk to that blasted animal of yours?” spat Zachary. “Haven’t taken leave of my senses, you know.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be the least bit alarmed if you talked to Shadow,” Alex assured him, reaching down to pull one of Shadow’s long ears through his curled fingers in a gentle caress. The dog’s eyes drifted shut, and his face reflected canine ecstasy. “You see, I talk to him all the time.”
Alex heard a muffled giggle and turned his eyes toward Beth, who had hiked one shapely thigh over the broad sofa arm and was leaning an elbow on Zach’s shoulder. The giggle dissolved into a cough when Zach turned to eye her suspiciously. Seemingly satisfied, Zachary turned back, but Alex wasn’t deceived. Beth’s face was a picture of demure mischief. She seemed to be waiting expectantly, eager for more thrusts and parries in this verbal fencing. Suddenly Alex knew that Beth understood exactly what he was trying to do, and approved. He was surprised to discover himself immeasurably encouraged by her approval.
“If I wanted to talk to somebody, I’d talk to Beth,” Zachary returned at last, challenging Alex with a smoldering glare.
“Why, Zach, I’m flattered,” Beth said brightly. “But you haven’t even talked to me since we sat down near an hour ago. You’ve been as silent as Sunday.”
“I’ve had nothing to say.”
“Civilized people certainly don’t let that sort of thing stand in the way of conversation,” observed Alex.
Zachary stiffened. “Are you implying that I’m not civilized, Alex … Lord Roth?”
Alex noted the slip and inwardly rejoiced. He couldn’t help darting an exultant look toward Beth. Her wide smile expressed how he felt. His plan to irritate and annoy his brother as a means of chipping away at the ice fortress he’d surrounded himself with seemed to be working.
Withstanding with seeming insouciance the darkling gaze Zach was hurling at him, Alex stated pleasantly, “Dash it, you Cornish are a sensitive lot! But never mind. At any rate, I would be deuced surprised to discover your conversation directed toward me. If I had something to say and was confronted with the decision of whom I should say it to, and if the room held a brother, a dog, and a beautiful woman, there would be no question as to whom I would choose to converse with.”
Alex was quite sure Zachary meant to make a pithy retort, probably saying something about Lord Roth being most likely to talk to the dog. But Zach seemed suddenly to realize that he was being baited. He clamped his mouth shut and folded his arms across his chest in a gesture of pure stubbornness.
Alex’s heart jerked. Zach was ever a stubborn child! He could remember him sitting just so many times when Nurse tried to feed him vegetables. Thrusting away the memories, he persisted with his strategy.
“Ah, but I can understand your annoyance, little brother,” he said on a ponderous sigh. “It doesn’t seem quite reasonable that it would take Mr. Hook this long to travel from Exeter, even considering the storm.”
He paused for a moment or two, just long enough for Zachary to think he intended to retreat once more into silence. But as soon as he observed his brother unfolding his arms and sitting back in a more relaxed attitude against the sofa cushions, he said conversationally, “Ah, yes. Cursed annoying waiting for someone. Why, just today …” He interrupted himself to buff the nails of his right hand on the taut fabric covering his thigh, then lifted them close to his face for inspection. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Zachary sitting up again, as rigid as ever.
“Today,” he continued airily, “I had to wait a full hour for Dudley—he’s my valet, you know—to catch up with me here at Pencarrow. We left Ockley Hall at precisely the same hour yesterday. But Dudley’s such an old fusspot. Makes the coachman drive like a schoolroom miss.” He leaned confidingly toward Zachary. “Worries about everything. As squeamish as a maiden aunt. I daresay he’s got as many quirks and niceties as he has freckles. Dudley’s freckled, you know.”
“I really couldn’t care less about your manservant’s freckles or any other detail, however fascinating, of his person, Lord Roth,” snapped Zachary. “And why you should suppose I’d have the least interest in any of this prittle-prattle, Alex … Lord Roth, is beyond my understanding.”
At Zach’s second slip, Beth clapped her hand over her mouth, her eyes peeking merrily over her fingers, slanted in a smile. Barely able to contain himself, Alex was constructing a fitting rebuttal when the door opened and a short, stocky man in a black coat and baggy black trousers bustled into the room.
“So terribly sorry to keep you waiting, sir,” he murmured apologetically, bowing deeply to Zachary. “Your servant. Miss Tavistock,” he said with another, deeper bow. Then, spying Alex, he hurriedly added, bowing lowest of all, “And you, too, my lord. You are Lord Roth?”
“Yes,” said Alex. “And you, of course, are Mr. Hook. Don’t bother to explain your lateness,” he advised the harried solicitor. “It will only take time, a commodity we have little of at present. The how-do-you-do’s have already taken a goodly amount of time, what with all the bowing. The funeral begins in a quarter of an hour, and you have a legal document to read, which we in turn must decipher. I hope it isn’t long?”
Mr. Hook, a swarthy fellow with a nose so large and curved it made one think his name all too accurate, seemed relieved to be spared the necessity of making excuses. He pulled a chair across the carpet and sat down in it directly in front of the sofa the two brothers occupied, with Beth still perched on the arm. Then he rummaged in a large scuffed-leather portmanteau and came up with several sheets of paper.
“Indeed, it is long, Lord Roth, but it really isn’t necessary to read it just now. The intentions of Mr. Hayle in the distribution of his property can be quite easily summed up.”
“What do you mean?” inquired Zachary, sitting forward.
“I mean just this. He left everything to you, Mr. Wickham—his money, his properties, all his personal belongings—”
“I’m not surprised, Mr. Hook,” Alex interrupted. “That is as it should be. But why, then, did our grandfather require me to be present at the reading of his will?”
“He left everything to Mr. Wickham—except this.” Mr. Hook then dived again into the vast portmanteau. He extracted a large, bulging envelope and handed it to Alex. “Now, if you will excuse me, I will go to the kitchen and avail myself of the hot tea I was offered as I was coming in.” Mr. Hook, barely noticed by the others, bowed and left the room.
Alex stared at the package. “Good God, dare I open it?” he exclaimed. He glanced at Zachary and noticed him eyeing the package curiously. “You haven’t a clue as to the contents of this package, either, do you?”
“No, I haven’t,” Zach answered, then said impatiently, “Aren’t you going to open it?”
“Perhaps I should wait till after the funeral,” Alex suggested warily.
Beth moved around to the front of the sofa and squeezed herself between the arm and Zachary. Her eyes were wide aqua pools of blatant curiosity. “Oh, do open it now, my lord,” she implored him, fully expecting to be included.
Who could resist such a plea? In answer Alex immediately pulled loose the seal holding the flap closed at the top of the envelope, then dumped its contents onto the sofa between himself and Zachary. There were two bundles of letters and a sheet of parchment, folded once. After staring confusedly for a moment at the two heaps of letters, he realized that one string-tied bundle contained the letters he’d sent to Zachary over the years, ever hoping for an answer, and the other bundle held letters Zachary had sent to him. Or, more correctly, they were letters Zach had written to him which were never posted!
“Good God, the old man deceived us,” he muttered, more to himself than to Zachary. Alex lift
ed his eyes to his brother, who was sitting as still as death, staring at the bundles with the same horrified look. “You never saw my letters at all?”
“No, never!” Zachary choked out. “And you never saw mine?”
“No. That is, only the one.” Alex winced at the memory of that hated letter. “The one you wrote to me after Father died.”
“I never wrote you after Father died!” Zachary exclaimed, standing up, mobilized by the torrent of emotions surging through him. “I was waiting for some word from you. I thought that if he’d forbidden you to write to me before, there was nothing to stop you after his death.”
Alex stood up, too. “But I got a letter. In it you said you didn’t want anything to do with me!”
Zachary reached down and extracted one of his letters from the pile on the sofa, fumbling and jerking at the string with shaking hands, and thrust it toward Alex. “Did the handwriting look like this?” he demanded to know.
Alex snatched the letter and examined the writing. “No. But why—”
“Because I didn’t write the letter you received. Grandfather must have written it. By God, what’s been done here? It must all have been Grandfather’s doing. Our father at least posted your letters to me.”
“Good heavens, quit speculating,” urged Beth, bouncing with excitement. “Read the letter!” When the two gentle-men stared at her, then down at the dozens of letters on the sofa, she grabbed the folded parchment sheet lying unattended on the sofa and waved it in front of Alex’s nose. “This letter, you loobies! It must be from your grandfather explaining everything. Do read it and end this wretched suspense.”
Alex did as he was bidden. The letter from his grandfather was indeed an explanation. In a low voice, with only the cabinet clock’s ponderous tocking and the patter of rain in the background, he read it aloud:
Lord Roth,
You’re probably damned mad at me right now, and rightfully so, I suppose. But I’d do it again if I had to. In exchange for allowing me to raise Zachary, your father made me promise on my honor as a gentleman to intercept the letters you wrote to Zachary and the letters he wrote to you. I don’t regret it; Zachary would have had a hellish life with your father. There have been times, however, when I have deeply regretted the necessity of enforcing a separation between two brothers. It seemed unnatural. Especially after your father died, I was tempted to bring about a reunion, but I’d given my word. Most of all I beg pardon for the letter I wrote to you then. But now that your father and I are both dead, there’s no point in perpetuating the lies. It gives me great pleasure to disoblige your father. I hope he’s spinning in his grave.
