My Fair Lord

by Wilma Counts

  “Hmm? I—uh—”

  “If you are to introduce him at a ball, you had best be sure he will conduct himself properly in that milieu.”

  “You mean—?”

  “Dance, my dear. The man needs to know how to dance and how to manage the niceties of a ball. He may have some skill with country dances, but what about the waltz?”

  “The waltz?” Retta asked dumbly.

  “The waltz. And do stop speaking in monosyllables, Retta.”

  “Oh, my heavens. I suppose I shall have to teach him.”

  “We. We will teach him. A few sessions in the music room should suffice. I will play for you and you may teach him the steps.”

  “Thank you, Auntie Georgie. Once again you are coming to my rescue. I remember very well how you used to run interference for me with the countess.”

  The other source of frustration for Retta was one that she could not share with her aunt. It was the fact of her growing attraction to Mr. Bolton. She had fought it for some time, even refusing to acknowledge its existence, but to no avail. She simply could not control that frisson of awareness when their hands happened to touch, or when they brushed by each other, or sat close enough for her to feel the warmth that emanated from his body, or when she caught a whiff of his shaving soap or whatever it was. Most of all, there was that teasing twinkle in his eye when he glanced at her after a minor triumph during a meal or a drawing room discussion. Such exchanges never failed to make her catch her breath for the merest moment, or to feel that her whole body was responding to this man’s presence.

  She recognized the attraction she felt. But it simply would not do. Society still talked disparagingly of the daughter of a certain marquis who had run off with her father’s coachman. The whole family had been ostracized for years. It was true that two decades ago Aunt Georgiana had managed to marry the man of her choice despite his being a tradesman, but Uncle Mickelson had been educated in some fine schools and was immensely wealthy. Everyone knew that eventually enough money could override other objections to any person. But Jake Bolton was a dockworker and before that, a farmer’s son. She doubted he had more than a few coins in his pocket. That he was even literate was something of a surprise, though it was a boon she readily accepted since it made their training sessions far more interesting. More and more, she felt that Mr. Bolton just might pull this off for her.

  Meanwhile, to fend off her growing attachment to the man himself, she threw herself into social activities that often took her away from home during afternoons and evenings. Even with much of the ton in the country or cavorting on the continent, London offered a full social calendar of musicales, soirees, dinners, theater outings, and even a ball now and then. Not only was she accepting more invitations than was her wont, she also encouraged would-be suitors more than she might otherwise have done. Viscount Willitson was, of course, a steady caller, though she had persuaded him to put off any serious suit for the time being at least. She engaged in idle flirtations with the Earl of Beauchamp, the Baron Mathisson, and Sir Michael Hamilton.

  She credited herself with knowing precisely what she was doing: forestalling her attraction to Mr. Bolton. She enjoyed her relationships with these others with whom she had, in fact, developed sound, though light-hearted, friendships. So until Mr. Bolton could be presented to society in February and she was free of that overriding obligation, she would welcome these other engagements to keep her from even thinking the unthinkable.

  Chapter 8

  Jake’s particular work in the search for persons leaking information to foreign powers was proving fruitless. Having virtually ruled out members of the immediate family of Blakemoor House, he turned his attention to the servants and to regular visitors.

  Jeffries, the butler, seemed an unlikely candidate, for the man was uncommonly alert and protective of the family. Only in recent weeks had he reassigned the footmen alternately charged with the task of seeming to be busy in areas adjacent to Jake’s room. Jake had been aware of them immediately, but the naïve Baker had let slip that he was there for more than polishing brass sconces and moving pieces of heavy furniture. Either Jeffries or a footman or Mrs. Browning had, in those first weeks, always been nearby whenever Jake was alone with Lady Henrietta, but that watchfulness had gradually lessened.

  To keep to the guise of his being in the house to provide protection to the “threatened” Lady Henrietta, Jake, along with Annie, usually accompanied her ladyship on shopping excursions or when she called on friends in the afternoon. On shopping trips he dressed in ordinary attire to blend in with street traffic, but when she made calls or visited the Fairfax sisters, he wore the Blakemoor livery. Moreover, on those occasions he was armed; a pistol in a holster hung in the carriage, but Jake also had a lethal knife in his right boot. When she went to Spitalfields, Lady Henrietta herself also carried a small pistol in her reticule.

  “You know how to use that thing?” he had asked when he first noticed the unusual bulge in a lady’s handbag.

  “Of course I do.” She sounded defensive.

  “Just askin’. Not many ladies does.”

  “Well, I do. Uncle Alfred and my brothers taught me.”

  “I ’magine that means ye badgered ’em into teachin’ ye. Ain’t that right?”

  She lifted her chin. “Well—”

  “Mind. I ain’t criticizin’. ’Tis good for a female to be able to pertect herself.”

  “Oh, I am so glad you approve, Mr. Bolton.”

  Jake grinned at her tone, but he did not pursue the discussion. Later, over a cup of tea in the servants’ hall, Annie took him to task for being “cheeky” with her mistress.

  “I know that you bein’ a Bow Street Runner an’ all, you ain’t really a servant like the rest of us, but you hadn’t oughta talk to her ladyship like that.”

  “Those Fairfax ladies taught ye real good, didn’t they?” he said.

  “They done a lot more than just teach me how ta get on,” she said.

  “Oh?”

  But she refused to explain further and he thought she welcomed a summons just then to attend her ladyship.

  Jake was thankful that his bodyguard duties did not extend to accompanying Lady Henrietta when she went out driving with a gentleman friend. Those fellows were deemed sufficient to fend off any threats to her. He did occasionally accompany her and Lady Georgiana and Madame Laurent when they attended the theatre or an evening soiree, though he saw them only to the door and then reappeared with the coachman later.

  When he was free to do so, he often wandered into the library or the servants’ hall off the kitchen. Early on, Jake had been welcomed in the servants’ hall where staff members were allowed to take breaks during the day.

  “That is quite unusual, isn’t it?” he asked Mrs. Browning when she joined him and two others one afternoon.

  “Yes, ’tis. But so long as everyone does their work, no one complains. Mind you, Lady Blakemoor might want to have things more rigid like, but her husband and Lord Alfred leave matters of staff up to Mr. Jeffries an’ me. We all been in Blakemoor House longer than she has.”

  “So everyone just has the run of the whole house?” Jake asked.

  “Oh, no. By no means. People got particular assignments, and if they be found in other places, they better have a good reason.”

  “Like Baker and Wilson always outside my room, eh?”

  She looked a little sheepish. “Mr. Jeffries was just being cautious, you see.”

  “Yes, I do see,” Jake told her. And, indeed, he did. He knew that many a great house, both in town and in the country, ran smoothly largely through the efforts of retainers like Mr. Jeffries and Mrs. Browning. His father’s houses, both in Yorkshire and here in London, certainly did. He hoped that was true of his own property as well . . .

  Jake knew the staff mostly regarded him as “neither fish nor flesh.” He was not a m
ember of the family; he was not precisely a servant; nor was he a genuine guest, though servants had obviously been instructed to treat him as such. He welcomed his ambivalent status, for it allowed him freedoms he might not otherwise have.

  On another occasion when he joined staff members taking a break, he found himself having tea with two of his favorites, Annie and Baker along with another footman and maid. It was not the first time he had seen Annie and Baker together, and he wondered if there might a bit of romance in the air there.

  “Well,” he said, trying to sound very casual, “I imagine the absence of the earl and countess, and now these others, has made a big difference in the work load for the staff.”

  “Uh, not much,” Baker said. “Lord and Lady Blakemoor traveled with mostly their personal servants—his valet and her maid. John Coachman and a couple of footmen. ’Tis said they planned to hire temporary service in Paris and Vienna. They traveled with other folks too. The gentlemen hired some ex-soldiers for protection against brigands and such. It was quite a sight to see, I tell ye. Like one o’ them medieval processions of royalty! Same with the young ladies, though there’s not as much danger here in England, I’m thinkin’.”

  “That could be,” Jake agreed.

  “Still, the house needs taken proper care of. Mrs. Browning always sees absence of family as a time for what she calls ‘deep cleaning’ though it must not interfere with normal activities. There’s always some extras too, you know,” said the other maid, a woman in her late twenties named Bertha Morton. “Like Lady Georgiana and Madame Laurent, now.” Jake thought she might have wanted to add “and you,” but she did not.

  “And there are always callers too,” Baker added. “Almost as many as when the whole family is here. Lady Henrietta has many friends. So do the other ladies.”

  “An’ don’t forget those folks who come here regularly, but are not especially social callers,” said the other footman, the one named Wilson.

  “Oh, you mean that lawyer fellow. Brixton. He handles business affairs for both Lord Blakemoor and Lord Alfred,” Baker explained to Jake. “But he comes only two-three times a month.”

  “Don’t forget Mr. Morrow,” Annie said. “Or the doctor.”

  Jake had known Morrow, Lord Alfred’s secretary, but not the doctor. “Doctor?” he queried.

  “Sir Cecil Lindstrom,” Wilson said rolling his eyes. “God help you should you announce him as a mere mister.”

  “Touchy, eh?” Jake encouraged.

  “Oh, yeah,” Wilson said. “He attends some of the Prince’s crowd and doesn’t want you to forget it.”

  “So, who does he treat here?” Jake asked. “I’ve not seen him yet.”

  “You will,” Baker said. “He used to treat Lord Alfred real regular like, but now he just comes when he feels like it. Got to be a real good friend of Lord Alfred an’ I guess—to give credit where ’tis due—he really did help his lordship walk better.”

  “He’s treating Lord Trentham’s gout too,” Wilson said. “Poor Lord Trentham’s been laid up over a month now.”

  Jake wanted to ask about the missing Trentham footman, but hesitated to introduce the topic lest his curiosity be seen as extraordinary.

  But then the group broke up as they returned to their assigned tasks.

  * * * *

  One afternoon later in the week, as the ladies entertained callers in the drawing room, and Jake knew Lord Alfred and his secretary to be out, he thought it might be the opportune time to investigate those desks in the library. Armed with his small penknife that had two tiny blades, one of which resembled an icepick more than a knife blade, and carrying the book he had borrowed earlier, Jake entered the library and looked around to be certain that he did, indeed, have the place to himself. He left the door just slightly ajar so that he might hear any activity in the entrance hall.

  Using that odd blade of his knife, he quickly picked the lock of Lord Alfred’s desk. He found what he might have expected to find—some unfinished correspondence with an Oxford don interested in pre-Roman Britain, and a letter outlining expenditures to be made on Blakemoor country properties in the absence of the earl, and, of course, some paperwork from his position as an assistant to the Duke of York. These pages, so far as Jake could tell, dealt with procurements and named firms from which the army would be buying uniforms, weapons, foodstuffs and other necessities to keep an army adequately supplied. But he also noted that the document dealt with the distribution of goods—and such information would immediately signal the locations and numbers of troops at various postings.

  Jake studied these pages briefly, but hearing Lord Alfred greet the footman at the street door and the footman’s response to his lordship and to Mr. Morrow, he quickly put them back in place and relocked the desk drawer. He stood, pushed the chair to its original position, grabbed up his book, and started to saunter casually across the room.

  “Ah, Bolton. Were you wanting something of me?” Lord Alfred strolled toward his desk and Morrow took a seat at the other desk. Jake said a prayer of hope that he had disturbed nothing on the surface of Lord Alfred’s desk, for he was sure that this old man would miss nothing in his mental inventory of the desk top.

  “No, sir. I just came in to return this book I borrowed a few days ago. Mrs. Browning said as how you’d probably not mind.”

  “No, no. My brother and I always encourage folks to read. ’Tis the path to enlightenment, you know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Lord Alfred sat at his desk, pulled a small key from a pocket, and inserted it into the lock. He opened a drawer and removed a sheaf of papers and seemed about to settle into dealing with them. He looked up at Jake. “Well? Carry on, lad. Don’t let me trouble you. If you cannot find what you want, just let me know.”

  “Thank you, sir. But I just wanted to return this book for now.”

  As he returned the book to its original location, he heard the shuffling of papers and Lord Alfred saying to Morrow, “Here, Henry, make a copy of this and make sure it is on York’s desk by noon tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” the secretary responded, unlocking his own desk.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, Jake quietly made his escape and went up to his room, but he felt distinctly frustrated in not being able to try the lock on that other desk.

  Henry Morrow seemed, on the surface, to be something of a non-entity. He went about his business unobtrusively and did not linger when his work was finished of a day. In casual conversations with Lady Henrietta and Lord Alfred, but mostly with the servants, Jake had fleshed out the sketchy information he had had from Fenton. It was true that Henry Morrow had been born Henri Moreau and had himself barely escaped the not so loving touch of Madame Guillotine, for the family had had close ties to France’s royal family and, as Lord Alfred had put it when he and his niece and Jake were returning from one of those morning rides, “when they got around to lesser nobility, some of the family tried to escape. Not all of them succeeded.”

  “But Morrow did?” Jake had asked, hoping to learn more.

  “Yes. He and his sister and her small son arrived here virtually destitute. My brother provided for them and ensured both boys would be educated. They were, after all, family. Henri hated what had happened to his immediate family so much that he anglicized his name.”

  “They were family, you say?”

  Lady Henrietta had not contributed much to this conversation, but now added, “My grandmother was related to the Moreau family. Henry and his sister, Madame Laurent, are cousins to my father and Uncle Alfred and Aunt Georgiana.”

  “What happened to Monsieur Laurent?” Jake asked.

  “He was able to get his family out, but not himself,” she said. “It is a familiar—and sad—story of those days of terror.”

  Jake nodded sympathetically. “So the boy Henri becomes Henry and your uncle’s secretary.”

 
Without his prompting she answered his unspoken curiosity about the other two. “And when both her brother and her son had finished school, Madame became companion to my newly widowed aunt.”

  “She and her son did not adapt to England as well as Moreau did,” Lord Alfred said. “Charles, the son, is not truly happy in his position as a curate to a country vicar. I think they both long for some restoration of the Laurent family fortune now that the Bourbons have returned to the throne of France.”

  “I s’pose anything’s possible,” Jake said vaguely. But he had wondered about these French connections and he continued to do so. Morrow was in a perfect position to gather information from a too-trusting member of the Duke of York’s staff. Jake had grown fond of Lord Alfred and did not want to think the old gentleman was at all involved, but he simply refused to allow himself to rule out the possibility.

  * * * *

  Retta loved to dance, so she welcomed Aunt Georgiana’s suggestion that they ensure that Mr. Bolton be able to acquit himself well in a ballroom. She even permitted herself to fantasize about a ball and the romantic atmosphere of an attractive partner, one who stirred her senses as no one else ever had. To preserve his supposed position in the household, they arranged the first dance session in the music room one afternoon when both Madame Laurent and Uncle Alfred were away from home.

  It went far more smoothly than Retta had thought it might. Aunt Georgiana sat at the piano and played several tunes for them. Occasionally, she called a direction or encouragement. Practicing the steps was somewhat awkward as it was just the two of them performing dances that usually included at least three couples and often as many as twenty pairs of dancers. Nevertheless, Retta explained and demonstrated the steps of country dances such as the quadrille and the “Sir Roger de Coverly.” When, to make conversation, she informed her partner that the latter dance was known in North America as the “Virginia Reel,” he raised an eyebrow, but made no comment. Aunt Georgiana played the accompanying tunes for each dance, and Mr. Bolton executed his share of the steps perfectly.