The Earl's Mortal Enemy

by Issy Brooke

  “I have a townhouse rather centrally but I agree with you. I can hardly get a peaceful night’s sleep these days with parties and noise carrying on under my window or from the houses around the square. Ah, do you remember how peaceful the Thames could look at night?”

  Theodore coughed, and inserted himself into the conversation, for which Adelia was actually rather grateful. She did not want to revisit the feelings of her younger days. Theodore said, “I suppose it might be a little easier for you to plan the details of this business if you are here.”

  Mr Froude almost sneered. “With Pegsworth?” Then he looked at Adelia with apology in his eyes. “Mr Pegsworth, of course,” he said, correcting himself. “Yes, I suppose that you are right.” He didn’t look as if he agreed with Theodore at all. “His involvement is somewhat on the periphery if I am honest. Montgomery and I are quite concerned to keep this business small, at least in the early stages.”

  What about Mr. Halifax, Adelia thought. But before she could say anything, her husband spoke.

  “What are the next stages in your venture? You will be going out to the caves to find good places to dig, I expect?” Theodore asked.

  “Caves?”

  “Forgive me. My knowledge is somewhat lacking. Where does one find fossils?”

  “Oh – yes, caves, cliffs, rocks, depending on the local geography.”

  “And this area is particularly rich, is it?”

  “Hmm? Yes, I suppose that it is.” But Froude was barely looking at Theodore as he replied. He kept his attention, most unsettlingly, on Adelia. She didn’t like it. “It was suggested that you, my lady, might assist us with the planning of these expeditions. If you could accompany me on a little excursion, I should very much welcome your ideas and opinions.”

  She noted that he had switched from “us” to “I”. He might have been in partnership with some other men, but from what she already knew of Froude, it was unlikely that he worked well with the others. He was not a man used to sharing whether that came down to money, power or fame. She said mildly, “I am sure both me and my husband would be delighted to help.”

  “I am particularly interested in the feminine experience,” he said.

  She didn’t like the sound of that. She changed her tone and said curtly, “Well, in that case, my daughter Edith has expressed a great deal of interest and I should be grateful therefore if she can accompany me. Now, if you will excuse me, gentlemen, I need to check on the rooms. I shall send a man to attend to you, Mr Froude, and if you have need of anything at all, please send word to me through him. Good day.”

  She walked very briskly out of the room, and started to regret having allowed Mr Froude to speak to her at all.

  ADELIA SPENT THE REST of the afternoon supervising the changes that needed to be made in the running of the household and ensuring that the kitchen staff were up to the task of feeding the extra mouths in a manner that reflected well on the house of Calaway. When Adelia and Theodore were alone at Thringley, an evening meal could be a poached egg on toast, and Theodore would eat it balanced on a tray on his knees by the fire if he could get away with it. With guests, however, things were different.

  She went to speak to her brother Alf to ask him, directly, exactly how he had come to be involved with Froude, Montgomery and Halifax. The weather was unseasonably warm that afternoon and she found him walking the gardens.

  “Alf!”

  He jumped and spun around, breaking into a smile when he saw her. “What ho, dear sis! I say, are you alone?” He looked past her.

  “Yes, I am. I really need to speak to you,” she said.

  “Me too. Speak to you, I mean. Not the other way around. You are still doing so very well for yourself,” he added, wistfully, gazing up at the house behind them.

  “Come this way – let us slip behind the bushes.”

  “You don’t want people to see us together?”

  “No, not really.”

  “You have a serpent’s tongue,” he said mulishly. “Ashamed of me, are you?”

  “No. Yes. I don’t care.” And then she realised, all of a sudden, exactly where Edith got her abrasive manner from.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” She felt her face flush hotly. “Nothing. Look, just tell me how you ended up part of this fossil business. It’s taken me quite by surprise.”

  He pulled at his frayed cuffs. She let him pout and waste time for a minute until he eventually began to tell her. “It was through Bablock, you know. Bablock Halifax. We know each other from knocking around in some of the same places in London. Years ago, it was. Back when I had a better life, better prospects.” He shot her a meaningful glance.

  She tossed her head. He had always had prospects but he’d squandered every single one, and then seemed surprised to find himself penniless while his own sister climbed the ranks of society to end up living comfortably as a countess. But she stayed silent, not rising to his bait.

  So he went on. “About five years ago, I lent him some money. Halifax, I mean. He came and asked me.”

  She spluttered with laughter, an involuntary impulse. “Sorry!” she said. “But you are always borrowing money, not lending it. Why would he ask you?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I had come into some cash just at that very moment and he knew it, and he needed some, and so a deal was done. He was to pay some decent interest on it; I wasn’t being charitable. But he was never able to pay me back all of it. I gave up asking in the end.” He thrust out his hands. “Look at me now. Penniless. And so was he, most of the time. But then he said he had got himself a business opportunity. Two chaps had set up and needed help, he said, and that was him. But he told me he could get me involved too.” He half-shrugged. “So here I am.”

  That fitted, she thought. Montgomery and Froude started it, though she was still unsure why they’d take on a very different sort of man like Halifax. As for her brother... she said, “But you’re not involved, are you? You’re not an investor nor a partner, which is what you led us to believe when you turned up the other week. We thought you were a business partner not a mere daily servant.”

  He flashed a frown at her. “I can’t help what you choose to believe just to make yourself feel better about the penury I find myself in. It’s something, though, isn’t it? It was good of Halifax to find me this opportunity.”

  “Hang on,” she said. “This fellow owes you money, and rather than paying you back, he’s given you work?”

  “He still owes me. He admits that. He will pay me back when he has something coming in, he said so. And this way I can keep an eye on him. When the company has paying guests, I’ll know he has some money then, and can get it from him. Until then, I can work and pay my way. You ought to be proud of me,” he added.

  “Very well,” she said reluctantly. “So let me get this straight, this business. Humour me. Froude is the main financier and he had the idea in the first place. He’s always been a businessman in one way or another. He will organise things with the bank and all of that, and put up the initial investment.”

  “That’s right.” Something crossed Alf’s face and he said in a wily voice, “You and him know each other, don’t you?”

  “We met in London, many decades ago. We have had no contact since then.”

  “Really? He speaks about you often.”

  “In what way? What does he say?”

  “Not much, to me. He took against me at the start though that changed when he...”

  “When he what?”

  “Oh, he just got to know me better. Maybe he saw my potential.”

  Adelia didn’t believe it and she didn’t think Froude had softened in his opinion of Alf at all. Maybe his manner to Alf’s face had changed, though why that might be, she wasn’t sure. Perhaps when Froude had learned of Alf’s connection to her, he had changed, on her behalf? That showed some honour, at least, she thought.

  She wanted to get back to talking about the business. She said, “So anyway, that’
s Mr Froude. As for Mr Montgomery, he knows about fossils so he is the specialist, the expert. Halifax seems to know people, the right sort of people, to bring in even more investment and so on. He can do the everyday stuff like arranging events. He’s a charmer and can do the lower level business things that Froude won’t stoop to. And you ... you carry bags.”

  Alf was furious with her. “Yes, at the moment, but you don’t know my true expertise! You just assume I know nothing, don’t you? I’ll learn, and maybe I’ll go into business myself! I have plans, you know! You’ll see!”

  “What will I see? I am happy to listen. Tell me.”

  “Just wait – and see!”

  She stared at him. He glared back, his cheeks puffed out, his watery eyes bulging.

  “Very well,” she said, deciding that she would lose nothing by choosing to be nice, and the pointless argument wearied her. “I look forward to seeing your success.”

  “Good. Thank you.” He spoke as stiffly as she did.

  “Good.”

  She turned and was about to head back into the house when he said, “Oh, sister dear, one more thing. I can’t help feeling that my current state of appearance doesn’t make the best impression. If I could possibly trouble you for a small loan...”

  “No.”

  “But I am here in your house, reflecting badly on you...”

  “Very well,” she snapped. He did have a point. The others would take him more seriously if he were properly dressed. Perhaps if he could make a success of this, he would finally stop plaguing her. “Come to my day room in half an hour. I’ll see what I can do.”

  Four

  The assorted guests assembled in the antechamber next to the dining room as eight o’clock approached. It was fashionably late, which did not suit either Adelia’s digestion nor Theodore’s temper, but she had requested the servants serve it at that hour to give everyone in the kitchen more time to prepare a suitably sumptuous feast, at least for the first night. Alf was there, still looking shabby, but he’d made an effort to comb down his hair and was wearing his least-shiny suit. Theodore was standing by the fire talking to Mr Froude, and they both turned to greet Adelia with dazzling smiles as she entered. She nodded at Mr Froude and made sure to give more attention to Theodore. She wasn’t sure why she felt it was important. She wondered what they had been discussing.

  She was followed closely by George Montgomery and Bablock Halifax.

  Theodore continued to smile in greeting.

  Samuel Froude’s face tightened into a scowl. “What are they doing here?”

  “You told us about the fleas in the inn, dear chap,” Theodore told him lightly.

  “Yes. I appeared to be particularly susceptible but...”

  “Well,” Theodore went on, cheerfully ignoring Froude’s darkening expression. “We thought it best to have you all here, didn’t we, Adelia?”

  “Yes, indeed,” she said, joining them by the fire. “As my brother Alf was already staying here, and we had invited you, Mr Froude, it made perfect sense to open up a few more rooms so that Mr Halifax and Mr Montgomery could stay too as principle players in your business. Now you are all together for your business talk, and it’s not as if we lack the space. You are no further from your fossil-hunting ground, either. Welcome!”

  Halifax clapped Froude on the back with glee and the older man nearly choked. Froude slid away from him. Halifax laughed, and Montgomery tutted as if he were a schoolmaster. Alf fiddled with his jacket. There was a palpable tension and Adelia was relieved when the doors were opened and they filed into the dining room at last.

  The seating plan was a higgledy-piggledy one, with the dinner being halfway between a private informal party and a more formal event. She had not wanted to seat herself next to Alf but realised that she had erred in putting him opposite her instead, and she spent the whole evening trying not to make eye contact with him. To either side of Alf were Theodore and Froude, who both talked to one another across the front of poor silent Alf who looked hopelessly out of place. Their conversation seemed to be about chisels and whether they should be pointed or flat. On either side of Adelia were Halifax and Montgomery.

  She made polite conversation with Montgomery about fossils but soon found her knowledge drying up, and he seemed to be in no mood to help to educate her on matters. If she asked an open question he would give her a brief and technical answer but otherwise he seemed quite content to concentrate on his food in a near-silence. So she was quite at the mercy of Bablock Halifax on her other side who was, she had to admit, rather fun company. More fun than anyone else at the table, at any rate. He told her tall tales of parties and balls, and she only believed a fraction of it, but he was good fun nonetheless. Sometimes as he told a particularly humorous story she laughed perhaps a little too loudly and felt Mr Froude’s eyes upon her. That riled her so much she laughed even harder. It was not his place to judge her and Theodore didn’t seem to notice at all; her husband’s opinion was the only male opinion she cared about.

  Afterwards, she felt a certain awkwardness as the only woman present at the table. Rather than withdrawing to sit alone for a while as the men remained in the dining room for their cigars, she simply excused herself and took herself early to bed with a book.

  To her surprise but also her delight, Theodore was not long in joining her.

  THEODORE WAS INVIGORATED by the presence of new people in the house. He enjoyed speaking to Montgomery about fossils although he had to admit he knew next to nothing about the matter and had barely even considered what it might mean for the traditional teaching by the churches. He avoided Sunday worship as much as he was able to, and had let Adelia shoulder the burden of raising their daughters in the usual way – that was, regular light Bible readings and a general emphasis on being kind. They were adherents to a middle of the road Church of England way of things, but it was a social convention for Theodore and nothing more. He took to the idea of dinosaurs existing thousands if not millions of years ago with delight. Montgomery told him at one point that there need not be a conflict between the religious doctrine of the Anglican Church and the progress of science, but it didn’t bother Theodore one way or the other, if he were honest.

  He found Froude a little more difficult to engage with. The man was sophisticated and educated but always seemed to be a little distant in his manner with Theodore, though perfectly pleasant and never rude. Alfred Pegsworth was just as he usually was – bumbling, awkward, and unwilling to talk to Theodore. He had always seemed strangely in awe of Theodore. Theodore knew that Pegsworth had not exactly welcomed his sister’s marriage to him, but he never did work out why that was. After all, Theodore had raised Adelia up in the world. Pegsworth ought to celebrate that, he thought.

  Halifax was lively enough, in small doses, though Theodore wavered in his opinion between finding the man entertaining and sometimes just a little tiresome. He seemed to be keeping Adelia amused, though, so that was all to the good. Altogether, though, the presence of the four men and their big plans to run excursions had fired Theodore’s imagination. When he came up to bed, he spent a good hour telling Adelia all about the way the trips would work: they would focus on offering bespoke personal services, hand-picked hotels, evening lectures, and the very guarantee of finding fossils that people could take home as mementoes.

  Theodore did wonder how many fossils there were in the world. But Montgomery had assured him that they were in no danger of running out of them.

  THEODORE WOKE IN THE early hours. It was still dark. He was finding that his natural habits were changing as he aged. He thought back to his own youth; before he had met Adelia, he had been a dissolute young widower with a son and a growing tendency to spend all night in low dives, drinking and gambling and behaving as badly as he was able to. Back then, if he went to bed at all, it would be as the sun rose.

  Thinking back to that time was always painful. He’d made a great many mistakes and some of them still haunted him. Bamfylde, his son, his only son
... no. He stopped that train of thought. Bamfylde was not a mistake though as a now-grown man he was certainly making many of his own mistakes. Theodore’s heart throbbed and he forced himself to breathe deeply.

  Perhaps he ought to get in touch with him. Bring about a reconciliation. One day.

  But the heir to the Calaway fortunes was busy bringing shame to the family name as he roamed London – behaving just as Theodore had behaved, decades before. Perhaps it was a family curse. Perhaps the only thing that would save Bamfylde was the same thing that had saved Theodore: love.

  He wondered how Adelia would react if he asked her to find a suitable wife for Bamfylde. It was some feat of imagination to conjure up what form a “suitable” woman for his wayward son would take.

  It was altogether a prospect too awkward to pursue. In an effort to escape from his own thoughts, he swung out of bed as silently and carefully as he could, and wrapped up in a thick housecoat. November was biting down hard, now, and the rambling house was merely a chain of warm rooms linked by terribly cold corridors. And not all the rooms were warm, either; one had to accept that while one could sit close in front of a fire, still one’s back would be chilled to the bone most of the time, until late spring came around.

  He sighed. He was getting too old for this. Perhaps spending one’s winters in a warmer climate was a good idea. His own mother, the dowager countess, had surprised them all in the past week by sending them a letter from Greece. He was shocked as he had thought she was in Hastings with a friend, but he could hardly criticise her; he was now a little jealous. He pushed his feet into his sheepskin slippers and padded out into the corridor.

  Everything was quiet and he found it pleasantly calming. He decided he’d head down to the kitchens. It would be warm there and at least one maid would already be up and about. He might even be able to charm them into making him a hot cup of tea. Perhaps he’d ask them to prepare a pot to take back to Adelia. If he were lucky, the first of the breakfast rolls would be coming out of the oven. Already his mouth was watering at the thought.