“All on your own.”
“As you told me earlier, I am the head of the Mallam household.”
“Whose mother wielded enough power to grab hold of the guardianship of Agatha. Do you even know who to speak with to try and regain that power? Will they even speak to you? I am certain that, when your mother got their agreement to give her full sway over Agatha’s life and future, she made very certain that they understood, and possibly believed, every nasty thing she said about you.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. What he really wanted to do was hit something, hit something hard enough to make his knuckles bleed. Everything Olympia said was true. He was an earl, but Brant knew his mother had been undermining his power for years, from the very minute his father had died in fact. The woman had always done her best to undermine his father’s power as well. Letitia Mallam had always resented the fact that men she did not consider worthy, starting with her own father, held all the power in the world. It had taken her years but she had finally gathered some formidable power of her own and it would not be easy to take any of it away from her.
Brant had no difficulty in accepting powerful women. He knew he was looking at one right now and he found her not only acceptable but alluring. Olympia was strong because of her intelligence, confidence, and that big heart he knew she fought very hard to hide. His mother was powerful because of guile, because she knew secrets and used them to get what she wanted, and because she had a cold-blooded ruthlessness that would give anyone the chills. The fact that he had known that about his mother yet had never seen the danger she presented to Faith left him suffering the constant gnawing of a guilt he could not banish no matter how much he drowned himself in drink and the pleasures of the flesh.
Shaking aside the unsettling emotions any thoughts of his mother always stirred within him, Brant fixed his attention back on Olympia. She was a stunningly beautiful woman; all the more so because she showed no real awareness of the fact. Her hair was a glorious black, a deep, rich color and shining with health. It was a dark frame for the fairness of her skin, which was a soft cream with hints of rose and invited a man to stroke it. Her face was faintly heart-shaped, the bones finely cut in a way any sculptor would envy. Eyes so blue he suspected you could see the color of them from a goodly distance were wide, heavily lashed, and set beneath eyebrows naturally thin and arched. There was the faintest hint of a point to her chin, her neck was long and slender, her body strong yet intensely feminine with curves that made a man think of long nights spent savoring each rise and hollow. Even her hands were beautiful with the graceful way she moved them and long, slender fingers.
He was not at all surprised by the pinch of a growing desire for her. It was a bad time for such a thing, however. It was not simply that it was a complication he did not need, but Lady Olympia was far too aware of the sort of life he had been living of late.
“My lady,” he began, groping in his mind for the correct words.
“Oh, please, let us end this weighty formality, at least when we are not performing before society. I am Olympia. Call me Olympia.”
“I am not sure that is wise. I have not known you for very long.”
“Longer than most. Only in private, m’lord. I know better than most how petty-minded society can be and neither of us needs the trouble gossip can bring.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded and held out his hand for her to shake. “Then you must please call me Brant.”
Olympia shook his hand and immediately wished she had not. Warmth spread up her arm from the point where their hands met, something that had never happened to her before. She could believe it more readily if she had removed her gloves. Touching anyone bare skin to bare skin was so rare even in the most innocent of circumstances that some response to such a touch was to be expected. But this was no more than a short impersonal shaking of hands while she wore gloves.
Perhaps, she mused, it would be wise to step back from the difficulty young Agatha was mired in. Olympia barely allowed that thought to pass through her mind before she shook it away. She was the one who had told Agatha that she would get help; the promises made to the girl had come from her heart and her lips. There would be no turning back on this now, even if it would be wise to keep her distance from the Earl of Fieldgate.
She cautiously withdrew her hand from his, needing to escape that warmth yet not wishing to yank her hand free of his light grasp as if she feared he would give her the plague. It all made Olympia experience an awkwardness she detested. She was pleased when young Thomas strode into the room and interrupted the tense silence that had developed between her and Brant.
“I think you may have a problem, m’lord,” said Thomas, studying Olympia and Brant with narrowed eyes.
“What problem do I have now?” asked Brant, taking a subtle step away from Olympia only to see by the way Thomas’s gaze followed his move that it had not been done subtly enough.
“No one left to tend your needs save for me, Merry, and near everyone in the stables.”
“All my servants have left?”
Thomas nodded. “Ran like rats deserting a sinking ship, if you will pardon me saying so. Merry is making a meal for you and her ladyship with her ladyship’s maid’s help. It will be a cold one. Merry was only just learning her way about the kitchens and the other lady said there was not enough time for much else. I think Missus Hodges will be back in a few days and I swear she is your servant and none other’s. She never much liked the countess. Half the stable be the old earl’s by-blows and the rest just never liked the countess.”
Brant dragged his hands through his hair as he struggled to understand what was happening. “So I have lost all of my household servants?”
“Save me and Merry.”
“And Merry is?”
“My aunt. She be but a few years older than me but has had most of the raising of me. Me mother died when I was born. The countess let Merry join the household when I was but five or six.” Thomas shrugged. “I think the countess wanted Merry to help her keep a watch on you.”
“Why did Merry not do so? It appears that near everyone else within my household did so readily enough.”
“Merry is my aunt as I said. That makes her on my side. Ye and me are kin of a sort so that makes her on your side.”
“And she does not much like the countess either, I would wager,” said Olympia.
Thomas grinned. “Fair hates her.” He glanced at Brant. “Beggin’ your pardon for saying so, m’lord.”
“Pardon granted.”
Olympia stood beside Thomas and they both watched Brant walk over to the window that overlooked the garden. It was difficult to know what to say to the man. Her family had long suffered within the confines of shattered families but she did not think they had suffered anything akin to what Brant was suffering now. The ones who had turned their backs on her and others of her clan were the family members not of their blood. They were the ones born with no gift and no true understanding of the gifts even their own children were born with. Usually the rejection was brutal, but swift and clean. Olympia had no idea how to help a man whose own mother continually rejected him, undermined him, and disliked him. Since she suspected the woman did so mostly because she deeply resented Brant being the earl, perhaps even being his father’s son, there had to be the added frustration of knowing he could do nothing about it.
“I believe I shall go and see if young Merry needs help,” Olympia said after several moments of heavy silence and was not surprised when both Thomas and Brant turned to stare at her in shock.
“I thought you were a baroness,” said Thomas, ignoring Brant’s murmured disapproval of his outburst. “A baroness got no place in the kitchens.”
“She does if she wants to eat. Not everyone who carries about a title always has a full purse as well. Some have to learn to do the things others hire servants for. I will leave you two to see what else needs doing to sort this mess out or can be discovered about Lady Mallam’s many little i
ntrusive machinations.”
Brant watched her stride out of the room and frowned when he heard her call for Pawl to come and help her and Enid. He had seen her large handsome footman Pawl but had no idea who Enid was. Just how many servants had she brought with her, he wondered. A not so gentle nudge of a small sharp elbow in his side pulled his attention back to young Thomas.
And there, standing at his side, was yet another problem Brant had to think about, although he hated to consider the boy in that way. Now that he took the time to closely study the boy he could see the familial resemblance. Their mutual father had clearly been a careless rogue who had left a strong mark on his offspring from both sides of the blanket.
“I have other relations to greet, do I?” he finally asked the boy.
“Aye, m’lord, you most certainly do,” Thomas replied. “Stables were their choice to work in.”
“How many are there?”
“Four. Used to be six up until a fortnight past.”
“What happened a fortnight ago?”
“Ted and Peter went away and the rest of us are fair certain they did not do so willingly.” Thomas started out of the room, waving for Brant to follow him. “It happens now and then, folk disappearing from the Mallam properties, but we never thought it would happen to any of us since we share Mallam blood.”
Brant grabbed the boy by one thin arm and yanked him to a halt. The brief look of fear on Thomas’s face stung him to the heart, but he ignored that pain. He also beat down the flare of angry insult that look stirred within him. Thomas would soon know that Brant was not the type to abuse a child in any way.
“What do you mean by folk disappearing?” he demanded and found that just asking the question was enough to make his stomach roll with dread.
“That they be here and then they be gone. Like Ted and Peter. Right here and hard at work one day with nary a word said about leaving, and then gone. Been a few gone missing from the village too, like my other aunt. S’truth, some thought it was your fault, m’lord. Thought you had taken the lads and lasses, but no more.”
His mother was selling people again. For all Brant knew, she had never stopped doing so. Fresh young men and women, girls and boys, from the country would bring a nice price in the flesh markets of the city. She had been using his estates to pick and choose her victims. While he had been so obsessed with drowning his anger and guilt in drink and women, he had not noticed how his own people were suffering. The guilt that assailed him over that nearly brought him to his knees.
“Are ye feeling ill, m’lord?” asked Thomas. “We can go to see the lads in the stables later if ye like. May be that her ladyship has a cure you can take for what ails you.”
“No. We shall go and meet the lads now.”
“If ye be sure . . .”
“I am very sure. It is something I should have done a long time ago.”
Within moments after entering the stables, Brant decided he may have overestimated his strength. There were four young men in the stables who claimed Mallam blood ranging from a year older than Thomas’s eight years to six and twenty. It was not hard to see once they let him know that his father had also been their sire. Eyes or hair, the shape of the nose, even height and build were all clues to their parentage that he should have noticed time and time again as he came and went from the stables. Knowing there were two more out there only added to his shock.
Brant was not sure how he got back to the drawing room, but he roused from his distress and self-castigation when a worried Thomas pushed him into a chair and asked if he wanted something to drink. He did but he knew it would be the first step on a road to complete obliteration if he had a drink now. The urge to drink away all knowledge of the secrets that had been kept from him for so long, of how he had failed to know his own half brothers worked for him, served him, was too strong.
He briefly wished his father was still alive so that he could beat the man for his callous treatment of his own blood. There had been no mention of the men and boys in his father’s will and Brant had no idea how to settle them all as he should have done years ago. He wondered if that was what had made his mother what she was, and immediately doubted it. It may have helped, may have stirred to life something inside of her, but Letitia Mallam had a deep streak of cruelty and a large dose of pure, hard selfishness that could not have come to life within her without the seeds having been already there. His father’s faithlessness and roguish life had simply watered those seeds until they grew into full life.
“That was the dinner bell, m’lord,” said Thomas.
“Then we had best go and eat after all the trouble Lady Wherlocke has taken to feed us properly.”
“Mayhap I should just go and eat with the others,” Thomas said even as he followed Brant toward the dining room.
“Is that what you wish? To continue as a servant?”
“No, m’lord, but it is a better life than many another bastard gets. I at least have food and a roof o’er my head. Most of the time. Lady Mallam fair hates us, and that is one thing I do not blame her for, but at least we eat and have shelter. Get enough coin that we can e’en put a little aside.”
“And that is all you want? All the others want?”
“Aye, more or less. Merry got the vicar to give us all lessons so we can all read and write, even cipher some.” He grinned. “Merry is young and little but she has a lot of spine, she does.”
“It sounds so.” Brant paused outside the doors to the dining room. “But you should all have more. You are the sons of an earl. All of you should be more than servants. You can never be heirs to anything but you could be most anything else you wanted to be. There is no need for any of you to spend your lives mucking out the stables.”
“Not certain there is much else for us to do.”
“There is a lot. You could become teachers, tutors, secretaries or men of business, solicitors . . .”
“A solicitor? I saw one of them once. Might be a good thing to be.”
“Well, we can discuss it whenever you wish. Now,” he opened the door to the dining room, “we go and eat. It would be very ungentlemanly of us to leave a woman to eat alone, especially one who has helped in the fixing of our meal.”
Olympia silently waved Enid and Merry away when Brant and Thomas walked in. She waited until the pair reached the table before taking her seat. Brant looked less shocked than he had, as if he was beginning to accept the harsh truths he had had to face in such a short time. The fact that he was treating young Thomas as the brother he was made her believe he could accept the ones his parents had so obviously tried to forget and wanted to deny.
“We shall have to leave for London soon if we are to make it before dark,” she said after several moments of silent eating had passed.
Brant sighed. “I know. I just am not sure where I shall stay while I am in the city. All my friends are away at the moment or I would impose myself upon them.”
“You have no house in the city?”
“I do but Mother holds it. It was in Father’s will that she would be able to use it as her own until she died. I cannot stay with her even though it might be best to do so, for Agatha’s sake if naught else.”
“No little house for the mistresses?”
“You are far too knowledgeable concerning the ways of men,” he drawled. “A small house but I cannot stay there as I have let it to someone else. I had planned on staying in the country for a while and saw no need to leave it empty when it could bring me some profit. Still, there are others I could stay with although I could find myself being pushed to wed a daughter, niece, cousin, or the like.”
“You could stay at the Warren. It is empty save for me at the moment and is quite large enough, plus you have no servants so it would save you the time and expense of getting some.”
“You know I cannot do that, Olympia. It would destroy your reputation.”
“I am a Wherlocke, Brant. My reputation, if I even have one, is shaky at best.”
“It would be far more than shaky if I took up residence with you.”
Olympia could tell by the hard tone of his voice that there would be no arguing with him on the matter. She would continue to work on some solution to where he could stay, however, as she had the feeling that he would find many a door closed to him. It was going to be another blow for him but there was nothing she could do to shield him from it. He had been sunk in debauchery for so long he had obviously not kept an ear to the gossip about him. She did not believe he had done any more than many another unwed man of the aristocracy, certainly not the things she had occasionally heard whispered about him, but others believed it all.
He left to pack as soon as he finished his meal and she found herself alone with young Thomas. “Do you not have anything to pack?” she asked.
“Wearing near all I own and Merry is packing for both of us. His lordship said he will have need of a maid and me in the city. He is thinking he will be able to find his own lodgings after a few days.”
“Merry may stay with me until he does then.”
“Thank you, m’lady. He be right, you know.”
“About what?” she asked as she helped herself to the last of the tea.
“That it would be bad for your good name if he stayed with you. Not good for a single lady to have a man what’s not her kin staying in her home.”
“This is true but I am six and twenty—quite past the age of worrying about my dainty reputation. I am also a widow and such women are allowed more freedom. It is also why I need not suffer that foolish nonsense about being on the shelf and all.”
Thomas frowned. “Was your man sickly? You are a bit young to be a widow.”
“Married very, very young. My husband did not live long after the wedding. Not many recall but I remind them when they begin to act as if I am some poor, on the shelf lass who needs guidance.” She winked at the boy. “Not that many try such a thing with me.”
Thomas laughed but then grew serious. “You should still have some man to make sure no rogue takes advantage of you.”
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