Tempting the Earl

by Rachael Miles

  “We expected that his lordship would send an agent to examine the estate.” Olivia sipped her tea.

  “His lordship’s obligation is to come back to the estate himself.”

  “Perhaps he will after I am gone.” Olivia gave a half shrug in agreement. “But until MacHus declares himself, we are under no obligation to make his investigations any easier. I will pay no attention to him at our meeting today, and I will neither meet nor engage with him. However I will ask Mr. Southbridge to take his measure.”

  “That’s best.” Mrs. Pier looked out the front window. “The parson’s horse is on his way to the stables. I’ll bring more tea and whatever biscuits Mr. Stanley has created for the day.” Mrs. Pier slipped from Olivia’s study. A few moments later, Pier’s butler-husband led in the parson.

  “Olivia, you look well.” The parson crossed the room to kiss her hand.

  “As do you, Noah.” She gestured him to a seat before the desk.

  “What business do we have today?” He rubbed his palms together in mock glee.

  “Three petitions for supplies.” She pointed to a stack of papers to his left.

  As Noah read silently, Olivia returned to her list of unpleasant tasks. The next one: determining which books she would add to Sir Roderick’s library.

  “The three petitions are reasonable, though I have qualms about Professor Lark’s proposal to reproduce one of the experiments in Joseph Priestley’s Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air.” Noah scratched his temple. “Are you certain that’s wise?”

  “To use one of Sir Roderick’s favorite words, I feel cantankerous. Lord Walgrave should understand to the fullest extent what managing the estate requires. Lark’s experiment should provide that opportunity.”

  The parson shook his head slowly, trying not to laugh. His eyes, when they met hers, were a brilliant blue. “Instead of offering you sound advice, I find myself cantankerous as well.”

  “Then the estate will order the appropriate supplies.” Olivia made a notation in her ledger, smiling.

  “In fact, take whatever amount Lark asks for and double it.” Noah leaned forward conspiratorially. His blond hair was thick, like Walgrave’s, but already lined with gray. “I’ll even post the order myself at the village.”

  “I’ve made you devious, Noah. You will have to say an extra prayer tonight to set yourself back on the right way.” She dipped her pen in the ink and wrote out the order.

  “If we have concluded our only business, we have time for a walk in the garden. It’s a cool day, but clear.”

  She sanded her paper, then set the ledger to the side to dry, giving herself time to consider his offer. Noah was an easy companion, good-natured and kind. He’d lost his wife in childbed poisoning and the child with her. He hadn’t remarried, but occasionally she wondered if she were the reason why.

  “I would like a walk. But I would value your advice on one other problem.” She paused as the tea service arrived. A footman set it on the desk beside them, then disappeared.

  “Of course. Explain while I pour.” He prepared her tea perfectly, just the right combination of milk, sugar, and tea, added in the appropriate order.

  “As you know, Sir Roderick left detailed notes on which books to acquire for the library, and he established a small annual endowment to cover the expense. When he died, his list included more than six hundred titles, along with instructions to keep current on new books in specific areas.”

  Noah bit into one of the biscuits and groaned in pleasure. “I must say, Olivia, your company is delightful, but I would visit merely to eat Stanley’s biscuits. As for the books, no one could have overseen that account better than you have.”

  “Yet one hundred books remain to be purchased. I recently contacted Constance Equiano, the bookseller at the African’s Daughter, to see if she would take on the task of locating those that remain.” She blinked away unexpected tears. “But I don’t see any way to fulfill my promise to Sir Roderick, and it makes me inexpressibly sad.”

  “You have more than repaid Sir Roderick’s kindnesses, and, if Walgrave fails to honor his father’s wishes, that is not your fault.” Noah looked into her face and read it well. “Why can’t you finish?”

  “I’d need at least another hundred pounds beyond what’s left in this year’s endowment.”

  “Answer three questions then. Can this bookseller even find all the books? Is there sufficient money in next year’s funds to pay for the purchases? And, do you have sufficient reserves in the estate accounts to cover the difference until the beginning of the year?”

  “I don’t know. Yes. And yes.”

  “Then engage Equiano to find the books, and if she does, buy them. Do what you must to avoid regrets.” His voice, as usual, was kind, and it gave her strength.

  “Then I shall do it. Roderick’s list will take some time to copy out, if you wish to walk without me.”

  A look of disappointment flashed across his face, then disappeared. “Give me paper and pen, and I’ll take half the list. But I must be repaid, my lady.”

  “What payment will you require? You must choose something cheap as I’ve just committed to spend estate funds on books,” she teased, her heart already lighter. One fewer item on her list of unpleasant tasks.

  “It will cost the estate little: a walk on another day . . . and more biscuits.” His smile was easy, allowing all that was unspoken between them to remain so.

  * * *

  Harrison stood at the head of the long library table, calculating which chair would offer him the most obscurity. Under his father’s supervision, the library had expanded up and out, adding another room along its length and opening up the center to double-height. Around the open second story, a wrought iron walkway provided access to books on the upper level. Along the innermost wall stood the long table where the scholars met. Harrison settled on a chair partially veiled in shadow and next to the seat designated for Mr. Quinn, the astronomer. A broad man, Quinn would help block Harrison from Olivia’s view. From that seat, he could also observe Olivia in the long pier glass near the table’s head. He felt his heart quicken in anticipation, the way it did before an important debate in Parliament.

  He took his place at the table and began to work. The presentations, he anticipated, would be gruelingly dull, so he’d brought several sets of newspaper correspondence to review, including those signed by An Honest Gentleman. In the background, the scholars rehearsed their speeches, each one stopping periodically to tighten his sentences. He found their revisions obsessive, but chalked it up to competitiveness. As for his own report, he spent no time preparing. Why should he? He’d given dozens of reports before heads of state and parliamentary committees. How hard could it be to justify a pretend project?

  He tried to focus on the articles, but his thoughts kept turning to the moment he would see his wife once more. Sparring with her in the dark music room had proved unexpectedly satisfying. But she had not known who he was. How would she respond when she saw him today? Would she blush red, embarrassed to be caught off guard, or would she respond coldly, even angrily, to the knowledge he’d been stealing into the house? Her letter on their marriage had startled him; it was only fair to startle her as well. It would give him the upper hand in their negotiations.

  Soon the table filled around him, the seven scholars in their established seats nearest the head, the four visitors below them. He sat between Lord Montmorency, an addled man obsessed with antiquities, and Quinn.

  He knew the moment Olivia entered the room. The scholars rose as she approached the head of the table, and Harrison stepped slightly behind Quinn. He had no wish for her to recognize him just yet. A thin man in a blue waistcoat stood by her side, between her and the mirror, interfering with Harrison’s line of sight.

  “Be seated, sirs, be seated. We will begin momentarily.”

  The group sat as the thin man pulled out Olivia’s chair.

  His first look at his wife for more than six ye
ars hit him like a blow to the gut. She looked nothing like he remembered. He had the details right: thick brown hair, wide dark eyes, full lips, high cheekbones and firm chin. But remembering her constituent parts had not prepared him to see the whole woman. The whole, breathtaking woman.

  Over the years, his frustration and anger had transformed her into a dowd, demure and compliant. He’d painted her as the sort of woman who would accept the insanity of an arranged marriage to a man she’d never met, in exchange for a comfortable life in the country and a title. But he should have listened more closely to Palmersfield’s and Capersby’s descriptions. This woman needed no title to make her fascinating. She was temptation personified.

  The man in blue leaned close to whisper in her ear, and her eyes responded with delight. Though he had no right to be, Harrison felt suddenly possessive. For the first time, he realized how much he had lost in letting Olivia go.

  “Quinn,” he whispered. “Who’s that man in blue?”

  The portly astronomer chewed on an empty pipe. “The parson. Noah Southbridge. He helps her ladyship decide who to admit and for how long.”

  The parson laughed at something Olivia said. Their heads were bowed together over a set of papers, and when they looked up from their work, the parson patted her hand. Harrison wanted to yell at the man to stop touching his wife, but he held himself back. His response, he knew, was irrational.

  Harrison watched Olivia’s face grow serious. She hit a bell with a small mallet. “Gentlemen.” She waited until the room fell silent. “Please observe our time limits: Our sand glass gives you three minutes to outline your purpose, your most recent findings, and your plan for next week, then we have three minutes for questions.”

  “Is it true, my lady, that if one goes over time, he is expelled from the library?” Jerome, a new scholar with a voice like a frog, wiped sweat from his brow.

  Olivia smiled comfortingly. “We expel no one on their first Wednesday.”

  “No, she waits until the second for that.” Quinn chortled, and the other originals laughed heartily.

  “Gentlemen.” Olivia’s voice, mellow and smooth, offered a firm caution, and the laughter stopped. “We begin as usual with the Seven, and with Mr. Otley moderating.” Olivia turned her attention to a document she was copying.

  The reports of the Seven sped by, all sharp, concise, and entertaining. Each man spoke convincingly until the last grain of sand fell. The questions were pointed, and sometimes difficult, but each man defended his research admirably. Harrison shifted in his seat, regretting having been so flippant about preparation. It would take all his skill not to embarrass himself before Olivia.

  “And last, our unexpected scholar, sent to us by Lord Walgrave himself.” Mr. Otley smiled at him. “Mr. MacHus, share with us your research.”

  He stood, expecting her eyes to widen with surprise and shock when she recognized him, but she was paying no attention at all. She did not even look up when he stood. Instead, she was whispering some confidence in the parson’s ear, and the parson was nodding. His anger flashed hot, but he tamped it down, an experienced orator faced with unexpected opposition. But watching the pair in the mirror, he waited for her reaction to his voice. She had heard it in the music room already, but now she would realize he was her husband.

  “In my excitement to begin my research into a history of famous sea voyages, from Odysseus to Admiral Nelson, I spent my morning in the library, marveling at its wonders. As a result, I have little to report, though I now have the fine model of my fellow scholars to follow in preparing my report next week.”

  The scholars puffed up with his praise.

  “However, I was wondering if you all could advise me in how to approach a second project.” He watched Olivia from the corner of his eye. The housekeeper had drawn her attention away to some other business. It was almost as if she were deliberately ignoring him.

  “Well, it depends on the area. We all claim authority in our fields, but outside of that, we sometimes know little or nothing at all.” Martinbrook examined the tips of his fingers.

  “Yes, it depends on whether your question intersects with our interests.” Nathan nodded rhythmically.

  “I wish to examine articles published in several different newspapers under a variety of pseudonyms to determine who the authors might be. It’s an intellectual game a dear friend who is an invalid proposed to me.” It wasn’t a complete lie, Walgrave thought. In fact, given Mr. James’s health, it was perilously close to the truth.

  “What are the pseudonyms?” Otley deftly managed the conversation.

  “An Honest Gentleman, A Pursuer of Peace, Hannibal, and Prosperity Once More.”

  Olivia’s hands stilled and her face blanched, but she did not look up. The parson placed his hand on hers. She sat, unmoving, head bowed, as if she were afraid to meet Harrison’s eyes. Her reaction made it clear that she’d finally linked the voice of MacHus to that of her long-lost husband. But her posture told Harrison far more: The parson was her reason for leaving him.

  “Are you wondering if one person writes all the letters, regardless of pseudonym?” Partlet, the rhetorician, asked. “The challenge will be to identify the origins of the person from only the words he uses.”

  “Why, yes, I suppose I mean that as well.” What Harrison actually wanted was to beat the parson into the ground, but he forced himself to sound calm.

  “Or she,” Lark added.

  “She?” Walgrave raised an eyebrow. Olivia leaned into the parson’s ear once more, the parson nodded, then she rose and slipped out of the room, never once looking in Harrison’s direction. He wanted to follow, to force the conversation she was so obviously avoiding. But his duty stopped him. He could confront Olivia at any time. When would he again find a group of scholars so willing to help?

  “Yes, many educated women write in the newspapers using their own or assumed names. Mrs. Barbauld wrote a lovely series on natural history some years ago, or was it Mrs. Wakefield?” Lark’s voice trailed off as he caught sight of something out the window.

  “Ah, yes, I remember a long debate in the Gentleman’s Magazine between Anna Seward and a bombastic man . . .” Smithson rubbed his mustache between his fingers.

  “Joseph Weston,” Nathan supplied confidently. “I used to set people’s names to music to remember them. His had two long initial syllables. JO-seph WES-ton. But that was over twenty years ago.”

  Harrison felt his head start to spin. The conversation of the scholars was filled with so many rabbit holes, and one could never tell which would lead to important information or to nonsense. The scholars made an afternoon arguing in Parliament seem like child’s play.

  “Ah, yes. Weston harangued Seward for almost two years—but in the end, I must say, Seward won. She told me she regularly used pen names: A. S., A Constant Reader, Benvolio. Brilliant woman and quite lovely.” Partlet blushed slightly around his ears. “We once had tea, in my younger years.”

  “Is there evidence that any of these writers are women?” Otley attempted to lead his colleagues back to Harrison’s question, but no one followed.

  “One can tell a great deal about a writer from the words on the page. For example, have you ever noticed the tool laborers use to beat down a hedge?” Partlet shifted his monocle by squeezing his cheek.

  “The one that looks like a cross between a mattock and axe?” Smithson drew a quick sketch and held it up.

  “Yes, exactly! If you were in Cornwall or Devon, you would call it a visgy, but in Somerset it’s a bisgay. Small difference to be sure—but if a man uses one term and not the other, you have some hint to his background.” Partlet removed his monocle, puffed a breath of air on it, then rubbed the glass clean with the edge of his shirt.

  “Yet by itself one word isn’t sufficient to place a writer from a particular region,” Nathan said. “I face this problem in tracing the roots of a ballad.”

  The scholars began speaking over one another in their excitement to be useful.


  “It might mean the writer grew up in a place, or lived there for a time, but no longer,” Martinbrook opined.

  “Or that he was close to someone from the region and picked up the word that way,” Lark interjected.

  “Or he has adopted the words used by his neighbors,” Smithson countered.

  Harrison raised his hands to quiet them. “If I were to look at each set of articles separately by magazine and pseudonym, could I tell if the writer was the same in every article?” He divided his papers into piles by author and passed them to the scholars on either side of him. The stacks slowly made their way down the table. The scholars quietly passed each other the sheets, careful, Harrison noted, to keep each set together and in the original order.

  Finally Otley spoke. “You must add two other factors: The writer may have intentionally tried to hide his identity, or the editor may have revised essays to make individual authors sound alike.”

  “That seems like a lot of effort.” Another rabbit hole. Harrison began to wonder if the scholars would be any help at all.

  “When I was at the court of Catherine the Great, such efforts were routine.” Otley rubbed his chin. “Since Peterloo, publishers must be wary of printing anything that draws accusations of sedition or treason.”

  “Let me ask this: If we assumed that all the articles were published before Peterloo and that each one appeared in essentially the same form as the original writer wrote them, could we make any generalizations about the authors?” Harrison sighed inwardly, berating himself for having framed his initial questions so broadly.

  “Well, if you want only generalizations, then, certainly.” Quinn straightened the pile of papers before him.

  “Yes.” “Yes.” “Yes.” Each scholar pronounced his agreement and buried his attention in the papers.

  “Look here.” Lark pointed at three sentences. “A Pursuer of Peace uses a periodic sentence each time he disagrees with his opponent’s position.”

  “He also frames his own positions as questions,” Otley observed.