Earl of Wainthorpe

by Cameron, Collette

  It mattered naught.

  She couldn’t—wouldn’t—reside with Bertram any longer.

  He’d shown the corrupt depths he was capable of sinking to, and if the Earl of Wainthorpe failed to win the hand after all, Bertram might very well try to barter her again.

  Now what for all of England’s love of tea was she to do?

  Bianca would sprout a tail and wings before submitting to Bertram’s whims anymore. Yet, she wasn’t of age for another eleven months, and because she’d lived an isolated life at Elmswood Parke, she claimed no close female acquaintances she might live with.

  At the upper landing, she paused to gather her bearings.

  Women’s muffled laughter carried to her from farther along the passageway. As she made her way down the corridor, solemn-faced nobility stared down upon her from their gilded frames. These past weeks, she had made a few casual friends, but certainly no one she could impose upon to take her in.

  Drawing another bolstering breath, she pushed the latch to the lady’s retiring room. Four ladies occupied the chamber, none of whom she was acquainted with.

  A striking brunette, perhaps in her fifth decade sat before a mirror and applied rice powder. Another woman greatly resembling her, perched in a chair mending a tear in her hem. A third woman, slightly younger with fairer hair and the same unusual pale green eyes, lounged on a settee, while a fourth applied rouge to her already ruby-tinted lips.

  Each glanced at the entrance when Bianca opened the door, and she managed a small smile.

  “Oh, you poor, dear woman,” the lip rouge miss gushed, her mouth tipped into a sympathetic smile.

  Perfectly grand.

  The girl must’ve been in or near the card room. Else the gossip made the rounds in spectacular time.

  Bianca’s smile slipped, but she entered the chamber regardless.

  Better the foursome than the crowd of clucking hens and posturing roosters below. And this quartet would eventually leave, so she might have a few moments to contemplate what to do.

  Unless more guests paraded in.

  Perhaps she ought to have sought refuge in the library or study. Or even a garden arbor.

  Too late now.

  “What makes you say such a provocative thing, Miss Walcott?” asked the woman tending to her hem. She paused in stitching the loose lace on her spring green and ivory gown to give Miss Walcott an acute stare.

  “Indeed?” the brunette asked, her tone somewhat starchier.

  It appeared they didn’t hold Miss Walcott in the highest regard.

  “You haven’t heard yet?” Her big brown, pansy eyes wide and blameless, Miss Walcott faced Bianca. “Silly me. Of course you haven’t. How could you possibly have? Why, I only know because I was there. And it’s only been but fifteen minutes at most,” she blathered.

  If ten minutes had passed yet, Bianca would dance a one-legged jig.

  Miss Walcott dimpled again, and Bianca was hard pressed to determine if the girl was perpetually cheery, truly concerned, or just eager to share the tattle.

  Might as well grab the goose by its tail feathers as Uncle Sylvester used to say.

  “I assume you’re referring to my cousin offering me as a stake in his card game?” Bianca looked at each lady in turn.

  The three ladies’ eyes rounded in astonishment, and they exchanged incredulous glances. Something about the planes of the older two women’s faces, something with their cheeks and jaw lines, reminded her of Wainthorpe. Must be their striking coloring.

  Wariness tinged the elder’s face, and the edges of her mouth grew hard. “That’s utterly barbaric and far beyond the pale,” she said, snapping her compact shut. “I’d better not be acquainted with any of the participants to that farce, I’ll tell you. They’ll get a piece of my mind that will have their ears ringing until next Season! Just see if I’m home to them after this.”

  “What kind of blackguard would agree to such a despicable thing?” The woman attired in shades of soft pink and relaxing on the settee fidgeted with a curl near her ear. “No one of our acquaintance, surely, would have a heart that evil.”

  As she twisted the cap back on the rouge jar, Miss Walcott’s smile became even more syrupy, and she peaked her brows in a superior fashion. “I was indeed referring to that wager.”

  A chinwag then, and so young too. A pity, really.

  “I must say, I was beyond appalled.” Miss Walcott appeared nothing of the sort. Gleeful was more apt a description.

  Apparently she was the type of gossip who liked to draw out a tale, reveling in the false sense of self-importance that being privy to on dit afforded her. She chose to ignore the other ladies’ questions, too. That decision said much of her, and Bianca found it oddly disappointing.

  Miss Walcott tsked her sympathy as disingenuous as the paste diamonds circling her milky-white throat. “You’re a most unfortunate woman.”

  Bianca hid her wince at Miss Walcott’s innuendo. Even she knew an unfortunate woman referred to a prostitute. The inference stung acutely.

  “Miss Walcott! That’s outside of enough and beneath you.” Again the eldest woman jumped to Bianca’s defense.

  “Oh, do stop stirring up a dust, Lady Timberly,” Miss Walcott said while donning her gloves. Impudent bit of fluff, isn’t she? “I only meant her circumstance is quite intolerable. Is it not? Why if it were me, I’m quite sure I’d be weeping hysterically or having a fit of the vapors.”

  “Well, she’s not you. She has the good sense to keep her wits about her in a vexing situation. Well done you, miss,” the lady attired in pink declared as she levered herself upright and gave an approving nod.

  Acutely aware Miss Walcott and the others observed her progress, Bianca made her way to a table with glasses and pitchers of lemonade and ratafia, and a decanter of sherry. She would like a nip of Uncle Sylvester’s Drambuie, but if the Scottish liquor graced any haute ton drinking cabinets, she would quack like a duck. She poured herself a half glass of too-sweet lemonade, and after taking a long drink, faced the women once more.

  Curiosity fairly oozed from them, yet only Miss Walcott dared to pursue the topic.

  “Whatever will you do?” she asked.

  Bianca lifted a shoulder as she tucked a plaguy strand behind her ear. She was not about to disclose her fears to strangers. Besides, she didn’t yet know what she would do. No brilliant plan had sprung to mind in the past two minutes.

  “You needn’t fret on my account.” She set the glass aside. “I’m remarkably resourceful.” Something impish gripped her, and she swept her hand down the front of her gown. “Would you believe I made this myself? From a cast-off, too.”

  Clamping her teeth together, she checked her giggle at the comical expressions flitting across the women’s faces as they tried to summon an appropriate, polite reply.

  Perhaps a bit dense, Miss Walcott frowned, her forehead furrowed into three even rows. “You made your… erm… gown?”

  “I did.” Bianca smiled wider, mischief prodding her on. “I have the most unusual riding habit too. A dark brown affair made from my dead grand uncle’s bed curtains. I used the tie- backs to adorn the collar and sleeves.”

  Agog, the four women stared.

  It really was too bad of her. Still, Bianca couldn’t resist.

  “Want to know what I made my undergarments from?” Mouth curved, all guileless innocence, she gave them an inquisitive glance. “Bed linens.”

  Miss Walcott blinked faster. “Wh—”

  “Most resourceful of you.” The lady wearing green beamed before spearing the blonde beauty a glare guaranteed to strike her mute.

  The striking brunette stood and offered a genuine smile. “Allow me to introduce myself. I know ’tis not de rigueur, but since there are only the four of us…”

  Probably desperate to change the topic away from Bianca’s horror of a gown. Or what she sewed her underthings from.

  “I am Viscountess Lenora Timberly.” She arced her hand at the other tw
o ladies. “These are my sisters, Mrs. Rebecca Garside.” The lady in green. “And Amanda, the Countess of Mulbrury.” The one in pink. “And she,” Lady Timberly barely wiggled her forefinger toward the animated Miss Walcott, “is Miss Daisy Walcott.”

  Daisy?

  Oh, dear no. No.

  The name didn’t suit at all.

  In fact, it was a disservice to Aunt Florencia’s long-dead, sweet-tempered Pomeranian that bore the same moniker.

  Rose better befitted Miss Walcott. Beautiful, but also given to unexpectedly pricking. Perhaps even scratching and drawing blood.

  The quartet regarded Bianca with acute interest, and she collected her wayward musings.

  “A pleasure.” She dipped into an agile curtsy. “I am Bianca Salisbury.”

  She’d heard of Lady Timberly and her sisters, though she had not met them. Well-regarded and influential, and if tattle were true, kind. But also proper down to the last curl on their perfectly coiffed heads.

  If only they would take their leave. Precious little time remained for Bianca to contrive a plan. With a short, dismissive nod—hopefully they would take the hint—she skirted the couch and after taking a seat at one of the tables, set about re-pinning her hair. The mass possessed a mind of its own and wayward curls frequently crept loose of their confines.

  She inherited her Scottish father’s hair, Aunt Florencia often declared. A shade somewhere between auburn and coffee. Too bad Bianca didn’t know any of her Salisbury relatives, or traipsing to Scotland to escape her current humiliation would’ve been an option.

  Even after Mum died of some sort of internal affliction and Bianca came to live with her aunt and uncle, no one mentioned Papa. Except on the rare occasions when Aunt Florencia was in her cups. Uncle Sylvester usually shushed her straightaway and hustled her to bed to sleep off her over-indulgence.

  On one such occasion she revealed that Papa hailed from a prominent Scots family in Aberdeen and that Bianca’s mum fell madly in love with him. A mere three weeks after meeting at a house party—Mum just sixteen and Papa one and twenty—they’d eloped to Italy, of all places.

  Which explained Bianca’s Italian name, for she’d been conceived there.

  Done primping, Miss Walcott sat on the settee’s arm. She dangled one leg, revealing the exquisitely embroidered satin slipper encasing her dainty foot.

  Fighting the urge to glance at her own rather large feet attired in practical, unadorned black shoes, Bianca caught sight of Lady Timberly regarding her in the mirror.

  “Miss Salisbury—”

  “Don’t you want to know who accepted Lord Fairfax’s wager?” Miss Walcott all but chirped, revealing those two adorable dimples again and practically bouncing with the news she couldn’t wait to share.

  Must she be so dashed bubbly? Bianca found she couldn’t quite dislike the merry girl, despite her propensity for rumormongering.

  Three pairs of perplexed gazes traveled to Miss Walcott.

  “Who? Or is it whom?” Mrs. Garside snipped off the thread, and once she set the needle aside, stood and shook out her skirt. She looked to her sisters. “Are we acquainted with a Lord Fairfax?”

  Shaking her head, Lady Timberly leveled Miss Walcott a stern look. “I don’t believe so. And Miss Walcott, I shall remind you since you seem to have forgotten your manners. ’Tis impolite to interrupt and even poorer form to spread tales.”

  Crossing her arms, Miss Walcott formed a moue with her rosebud mouth.

  “Well, I can understand why you would want to keep everything hush hush, since it was your brother who won her.”

  Several insistent raps upon his bedchamber door dragged Pierce from his exhaustion-induced slumber. The half bottle of brandy he imbibed after searching for Miss Salisbury—unsuccessfully—until three this morning might be a contributing factor to the unpleasant burnt peat taste in his mouth and the thunder resonating inside his skull.

  With a groan, he turned his head and forced a weighty eyelid open to peek at the bedside clock.

  He squinted and blinked three times to focus his blurry vision.

  Seven of the clock.

  Blister and damn. Seven?

  No wonder he felt like a coach and four had plowed him over. Twice. He’d only slept two hours. With another groan, caused more by the hammer cracking the inside of his skull than the beating upon his door, he pulled a pillow over his head.

  “Go ’way.”

  Deuce it all.

  What could Popplewell be thinking?

  Pierce rose at eight. Eight. Not Seven.

  And his man never entered the chamber a minute prior unless explicitly requested to do so. When Poppelwell did arrive, he bore strong, steaming Turkish coffee and was followed by footmen bearing hot water for Pierce’s morning soak.

  He did not bang upon the blasted door like oxen learning the tabla drums.

  Sighing, Pierce tossed the pillow aside. He was awake now.

  The same thought he’d drifted asleep to crowded into the forefront of his tortured head.

  Where is Miss Bianca Salisbury?

  He’d lost his new ward. Within hours of being appointed her guardian, too.

  Something very near to shame engulfed Pierce for a moment, and he pressed two fingers to his closed eyes.

  Not a trace could he find of her. He’d intended to explain himself to her immediately after winning, but she vanished. With over a hundred people milling about, she simply disappeared as if spirited away by an apsaras. A fairy.

  A couple more knocks shook the door, earning the carved walnut a fuming glare.

  What the devil was Popplewell about?

  Or…?

  Had someone dared to impose themselves on Pierce’s household at this wholly unacceptable hour? Which justified his disregarding the scratching and bumping about in the corridor just now. He was never at home before the clock struck twelve.

  His thoughts circled back to the critical matter at hand, and he smacked a pillow with his fist.

  Miss Salisbury’s, Bianca’s, humiliation must be beyond bearable. He desperately wanted to reassure her, squelch any fears she might have.

  Was the transaction … the appointment—whatever the blazes it was called—making her his ward legal? Probably not, and that worried as much as her disappearance. Because Fairfax could demand her return, and the possibility remained that he would prevail in court.

  Not without a deuced ugly fight, he wouldn’t.

  Sucking in a cleansing breath, Pierce uncurled his fingers. The baron would need funds for a solicitor, and according to Pierce’s man Churchgrove, Fairfax couldn’t cough up a pence at the moment.

  What was it about Bianca that brought out Pierce’s full-on protective instincts?

  Last night, or rather at half past one in the morning, he rode to the rooms the baron was reported to have rented. In a less than reputable, let alone fashionable, part of London at that. Of his lordship, Pierce found nary a trace. But a tiny room with an even tinier cot bore evidence of Bianca. Actually, the half dozen gowns draped upon the bed, each impossibly uglier than the last, convinced him he’d located her lodgings.

  He swore one atrocious brown rag looked to have been stitched from faded draperies.

  But Bianca hadn’t returned there.

  He pounded the pillow with his fist again.

  By Hades, where had she gotten to?

  Part of him wanted to breathe a sigh of relief and say good riddance.

  A very trifling part.

  He neither wanted nor needed such an encumbrance or responsibility. But the other part, the irrational, annoyingly decent part that insisted he was not quite the uncaring libertine he projected to the world, wouldn’t stop worrying about her.

  The image of her face, that last wounded glance she’d thrown him, wouldn’t leave his memory.

  Her eyes.

  Those spectacular orbs haunted him.

  When he closed his own, he could see the dark amber shards glittering and stricken. So many
emotions warring within their unusual depths.

  She’d clearly hoped he would save her by denying the wager, and instead she believed he’d collaborated with her miscreant of a cousin.

  Pierce had rescued her.

  In a manner of speaking. At least temporarily, until he could have his solicitor poke around the guardianship situation. Only she’d vanished. How was Pierce to protect her from the baron and other riffraff if he didn’t know where she was?

  Still, it appeared Fairfax had scuttled away, for the time being at least. God only knew where he’d gone or when he would slither ’round again.

  Pierce intended to be ready if he did. Which meant, he probably ought to pry himself off his mattress and send a missive to his solicitor. Only opening his eyes and stirring seemed a Herculean task, most especially without his favored morning brew.

  Whispering commenced in the corridor—rather loud feminine whispering—a trice before his door flew open.

  “Pierce Baxter Maximillian Chamberlain,” Lenora chided. “I’d never have thought you capable of such shenanery. I’m truly appalled, Wainthorpe.”

  Wainthorpe? Nora never addressed him by his title. She was in a proper dither. And for her to invade his bedchamber, appeared to have taken leave of her senses as well.

  “Good morning to you too, Lenora.” Pierce cracked an eyelid open, then flopped onto his back and yawned without bothering to cover his mouth. “I must say, I’ve never known you to depart your chamber before ten. What’s the special occasion?”

  Resplendent in a dark blue redingote and matching silk bonnet, she frowned her disapproval as she marched to the window, and then yanked open the draperies.

  Sunbeams, much too cheerful and bright for a May morning in London, spilled into the room.

  He squinted against the lancing pain behind his eyes.

  No more brandy for him. Ever.

  “We,” she motioned to the doorway where his other sisters stood, hesitant half-smiles curving their mouths, “surmised our intervention was required when we met dear Miss Salisbury last evening.”