The Lonely Earl

by Vanessa Gray

  “I can imagine it,” said Egmont dryly, “and I don’t really like it much.”

  “Then,” resumed Faustina after a long time, “there was today. She ran away from Zelle, and young Jugg found her up in Miser’s Woods. Imagine what could have happened if no one had found her!”

  “But someone did,” said Egmont reasonably. “Jugg should have taken her back to Crale Hall.”

  Faustina shook her head. “I should imagine she would not go. And he wouldn’t want to force the child. But she would not go home from here if I hadn’t diverted her with a promise of a picnic.”

  Egmont lifted his head. “Was that what happened? I wondered how a picnic got into this.”

  “And she quieted down and said she would go home at once. If we had a picnic tomorrow.”

  Egmont watched his daughter with sympathetic eyes. He would have died before he admitted as much, but without Faustina his life would be over. It was as simple as that. And now she was in distress of mind, and he could do nothing. Wisely, he knew that her own solutions, eventually, would be the best for her, but he yearned over the slow working out of those answers, and the distress she must suffer in the meanwhile.

  “So,” Faustina resumed, “no picnic. And the child will think I lied to her. And…”

  “Does that mean such a lot?”

  Faustina looked quickly at him. “Well, Papa, a promise is a promise, and that child has little enough to hold on to.”

  “I meant, my dear, to you. The promise was given, of course, but it is not your fault that you can’t keep it.”

  “It’s not for me, Papa. The child is spoiled, of course, and she must be brought under some kind of control. Dear Bucky could do it.”

  Warningly, Egmont pointed out, “It is not for you to manage, my dear.”

  “But she is not incorrigible!”

  “I wonder.”

  “Mrs. Cotter made her happy in the kitchen. She came along willingly, I gather, with Jugg. It was only when she was forced to go home that she refused.”

  Egmont was pursuing a trail of his own. At length he came to the end of it. “I remember now,” he said. “Young Hugh ran away from home once — hid out in that sort of cave in the cliff near Teignmouth. Devil of a time to get him out of there and home again.” He chuckled reminiscently. “Hugh was wrong.”

  “You mean in running away?” she ventured at last.

  “No, no. When he said this child took after his wife.”

  “How do you know?”

  “She is the spitting image of Hugh — she’s more Crale than French, I’ll swear to that!”

  His conclusion was no consolation to Faustina. The fact was that Faustina was bitterly regretting her outburst, even though its motivation sprang from the highest principles. Incorrigible! she thought, but the object of her meditation was not the earl’s small and neglected daughter. Instead, her thoughts ran more on speculation about the earl’s peppery wife. He had made a disastrous marriage, so much she knew. Now she was beginning to catch a glimpse of the hell it had been — not that she would ever know all of it, she told herself, nor care.

  But for the first time, that last word rang false in her ears. That woman must have treated him to many such scenes, like the one just now in this very room, she thought — and somehow Faustina felt smirched at the thought of putting herself into the category of Renée Crale. She would not do it again, she vowed in silence. Never again!

  There would probably not be the opportunity, for one thing. And the conclusion wrung the words from her: “I’ve ruined it all!”

  Startled, Egmont raised his eyebrows at his daughter. She gave no further hint of her thoughts, though, and he lapsed into his own. What had she ruined? he wondered. And then, more specifically, what did all include?

  He devoutly hoped that Faustina wasn’t running into trouble, but what he meant by “trouble” was vague and ill-defined. It held a darkish color, but the baron was not one to brood for long, and he cleared his throat and stood up.

  “Time perhaps to join the others?” he ventured.

  As if waking from sleep, Faustina took a moment to return to the present. “Oh, yes. We’ve been gone hours!”

  Egmont consulted the timepiece on the mantel. “Only twenty minutes!” he marveled. It had seemed like the better part of a century.

  Emerging into the hall, Faustina thought that nothing had changed, that the time had been folded together and only a second had passed.

  For Aunt Louisa stood in the doorway of the drawing room, and Julia at the foot of the stairs, holding Althea’s hand. From the back of the hall came Mrs. Cotter, mouth a straight disapproving line, escorting… Zelle.

  Lady Waverly, amused, explained. “The earl was so unheeding — I would not wish to say ‘furious,’ for surely nothing you could say, Egmont, would enrage a man of such breeding — so careless, perhaps, that he simply went out the front door and forgot his daughter.”

  “He always doesn’t see me,” pointed out Althea.

  “Now…” began Lady Waverly.

  But Zelle had found her way to the center of attention, and with the dramatic flair that she never tried to control, burst out, “It is not true! Always he ask me how it is she is doing — does she like the new home, would she want a pet, does she need new clothes? All these things he ask.”

  Zelle was slight and dark of hair and eye. Her thin pointed face spoke of deprivation in her early years, and, if one were generous, it would explain perhaps many of the grasping thoughts she exhibited. Lady Waverly was not generous. “And you say to him?” she prompted silk-fly.

  Zelle’s dark eyes flitted momentarily toward this highborn lady, this one that thought she was better than anyone else. Well, Zelle would put her in her place. She inclined her head in a civil bow that was half courtesy and half instinct, and said, “I tell milord that all is well. That we do not want for anything. Is that not right, child?” She looked steadily at Althea.

  Althea returned her gaze for a few seconds before she answered in a voice barely audible, “Yes, M’zelle.”

  “Now we go,” announced Zelle. “Take my hand, so there is no running away again. This is something you must not do—”

  “My men,” said Althea quietly. “I do not leave without my men.”

  “Men?” echoed Zelle, caught by some vision of her own.

  “Oh! Her gingerbread men!” cried Mrs. Cotter, and she bustled to the kitchen to retrieve the parcel. “I took it out with me, not wishing to set it down anywhere,” she explained. “Now, mind, child — I mean, Lady Althea — only one of these for dessert tonight. Save the rest for tomorrow.”

  They stood silent in the hall after Zelle’s voluble leave-taking with Althea. Even in attendance upon the earl’s daughter, Zelle thought it best to leave through the service wing, under the escort of Mrs. Cotter.

  It was as though a spell had been cast upon them. Finally, Louisa Waverly moved, and at once the spell was broken. They followed her into the drawing room. Seating herself on an elegant little chair done in gold velvet, spreading her skirts about her feet with conscious grace, she spoke. “That woman! Totally unsuitable! I must think—”

  “No, Louisa!” said Egmont sharply. “You do so little that we don’t need to have you start thinking now. The earl is his own master, you know, and he won’t take kindly to interference. Believe me,” he added, darkly reminiscent, “he won’t. No matter how well meant.”

  Faustina broke in. “Don’t worry, Aunt Louisa. You will not have the opportunity to rearrange the earl’s affairs. He will not be coming to the ball. Nor, I should imagine,” she added in a somewhat strangled voice, “will he deign to honor Kennett Chase with his overbearing presence under any circumstances!”

  To her horrified surprise, Faustina burst into tears. She rushed from the room, past a surprised Bone, and hurried up the stairs toward the safe haven of her own room.

  Behind her, the reaction was not quite what she might have expected. Louisa Waverly looked long a
fter her niece with eyes narrowed to speculative slits. “James,” she said, using her brother-in-law’s Christian name to emphasize the seriousness of her remarks, “you must get the earl back to Kennett Chase. He must attend my ball. I am determined upon this.” She seemed about to explain further, but she changed her mind.

  “Dammit, Louisa,” exploded Egmont, more moved by his daughter’s unprecedented outburst than he wished to admit, even to himself, “I can’t move the man around like a pawn on a chessboard! If he wants to come, he will, and if he doesn’t, well, there’s nothing I can do about it!”

  He turned grumpily to the door.

  His sister-in-law’s sweet, artful voice floated after him. “I was just wondering, James, what interpretation the earl might put on Faustina’s bursting into tears at his defection.” She added outrageously, “I should think it would interest that dreadful nursemaid to the point that Faustina’s reaction might make a good mot — if they have such things — at the Green Man.”

  Egmont glared balefully at Lady Waverly. “You wouldn’t!”

  Louisa smiled sweetly at him. ‘Pray persuade Pendarvis to attend my ball, James?”

  James Kennett, Baron Egmont, no longer master in his own house, slammed the door with a resounding crash behind him.

  “The Kennetts,” said Louisa kindly to Julia, who sat round-eyed with shock, “have always had strong tempers. A vice I often pointed out to my sister. Julia, pray hand me my embroidery silks.”

  Chapter 9

  The day of the ball dawned promising fine weather — sunny, not too hot, a gentle breeze drifting in and out of the open windows, carrying the scent of early roses, aromas of spice and vanilla, the fragrance of beeswax, and the sound of many servants employed diligently and usefully.

  Faustina frowned at the sunshine splashing across the deep carpet of her bedroom. Meg brought her tea and, wisely, slipped away without a word. The talk belowstairs had centered for two days on the unaccountably touchy mood of their mistress. Speculation ranged from Lady Waverly’s incessant demands to a renewal of a quarrel between that lady and her niece over a man in London last year.

  And if Mrs. Cotter, having been privileged to observe part of the scene in the hall when Pendarvis left, had her own ideas about Miss Faustina’s sudden decline in spirits, no one would hear about it from her. The cook listened without comment to the conversation around her. At length, she had had enough.

  “If Miss Faustina wants to be in a mood, well, I’m sure it’s a privilege none of us will begrudge her, since none of us feels the sharp edge of her tongue, nor ever has. Besides, she’s probably upset because the work for the ball is going along so slow, while you all sit here drinking tea and observing the habits of your betters!” she finished pointedly. Without a word the servants’ dining room was emptied of its occupants, and Mrs. Cotter cleaned away the cups with a satisfied smile on her face.

  While the servants were scurrying back to their chores, Lord Egmont was riding to the far reaches of his estate. It was his determined intention to remain as far from Kennett Chase as possible until the very last minute that civility allowed. He would be in his own house to welcome guests, dressed in proper attire. He had calculated his absence very nicely, and the afternoon sun was casting long shadows before Lord Egmont, with Windhook, his factor, rode soberly back to the stables.

  Windhook, in the privacy of the stable, complained in a muttering voice to Yarnall, the head groom. “His lordship could have found out all he needed to know about the farms in an hour! But no, he has to spend the entire day looking into how many rabbits the poachers took last week as compared with the week before, and why didn’t we try the new strain of fescue on the slopes, and—”

  “Don’t tell me,” said the unsympathetic groom, “he’s the smart one. They even had me carrying chairs down from the box rooms — some party this is going to be!”

  Windhook regarded him sourly. “I suppose you’ll spend the evening looking in at the windows!”

  “I might, at that.” Yarnall grinned. “And I won’t be the only one, you can count on that!”

  If Lord Egmont had not been out supervising his vast acres that day, he would have been on hand to welcome the unexpected visitor. As it was, only Faustina received him.

  A smart little tilbury drove up the long sweep before the door. The black horses that drew it, and the rig itself, partook of the nature of their owner — the horses a bit plumpish, yet sound of wind and limb and strong stayers, and the rig neat and trim, of a sober conventional black, and spotless in spite of having been driven at speed from London.

  Faustina peered through the front door around Bone’s bulk, and cried out, “Ned! What a wonderful surprise!”

  She flew down the stairs and embraced her cousin. “Ned Waverly,” she said, “will wonders never cease! You came down for the ball! I didn’t think you would cross Berkeley Square to attend one, and here you are in Devon!”

  “Cousin, I’m glad to see you in such high gig!” Ned dropped a kiss somewhere in the vicinity of her left cheek. “I vow rustication does you no harm.” He turned to greet the butler with cordiality. “How do you do, Bone? Can you have Yarnall see to my horses? And here is Linden, who came with me. I am sure you remember him?”

  “Of a certainty, Sir Edward,” said Bone, smiling.

  Ned allowed Faustina to slip her hand through his arm and draw him into the house. Still talking gaily, she failed to notice Ned’s expression until they reached the library. “The only place we can sit down,” she said ruefully. “The floors are waxed and the chairs removed in the drawing room, and… Ned, what’s the matter?”

  She looked with anxious fondness at her cousin. She did not share Aunt Louisa’s laments over her son, Edward. Ned prosed on, his mother deplored, and never said anything with fun in it!

  And rightly, Ned responded frequently, with more than a touch of acerbity, “since your accounts are enough to send one jumping off a high wall!”

  Ned in turn was fond of Faustina, and now, seating himself in a big leather chair, he smiled affectionately at her. Ned partook of his mother’s coloring — light brown hair, blue eyes, cheeks pink and a little plumper than his mother’s — but Ned was his father’s son, full of good sense and, fortunately, surprised at very little. His position at the office of Inland Revenue he kept by sheer ability, coupled with an intense interest in his work.

  “I wish Papa were here!” Faustina exclaimed. “But he could not abide the hurly-burly, and I cannot blame him. I only wish it were possible for me to go and do likewise. But there! I should have missed your arrival!”

  “Can you put me up for a few days, Faustina?” said Ned. “I shall ask my uncle, of course…”

  “No need to,” said Faustina. “We already have a houseful of Waverlys. Now you’ve come, and—”

  Ned was mystified. “A houseful? Of Waverlys? Faustina, you’ve stayed too long in the country. Addled your wits.”

  “No, Ned, I’m not gone quite mad yet. Although,” she said reflectively, “I make no promises for the future. Although you are right, of course. Two — or even three — Waverlys do not make a houseful.”

  “Let me understand you,” said Ned, getting up from his chair and taking a quick turn across the room and back. “My mother?”

  “Of course. She’s upstairs lying down. She must be fresh for tonight. Though why, I don’t know, since Hugh won’t be here.”

  “My mother is here. In this house?”

  “Ned, I wonder at your hearing. Have you seen a physician?”

  He brushed that aside. “My mother. And Julia, of course.”

  “Naturally.” She watched him for a moment, as bewilderment crossed his ordinarily pleasant face and joined some other emotion. “Where did you think she was?” she added curiously.

  “Beaufort.”

  “Oh, I begin to understand.”

  “That stupid affair with Captain Abernethy, I suppose. You knew about that?”

  “Only that he offer
ed for someone else,” said Faustina. “Was it really dreadful? I’ve only heard Julia’s version.”

  “Dreadful enough,” said Ned, bleakly remembering certain scenes with great distaste. “So she left London. But why here? I shouldn’t have thought that you and she were such great friends.”

  “We’re not,” agreed Faustina, “nor are we likely to be. But she has stirred us up here. She’s giving a ball, or rather, we’re giving it for her, and all the countryside is coming — almost all — and it will be fun.”

  She rose and slipped her arm through his. “I’m so glad you’re here, Ned.” Then, suddenly alarmed, she added, “Your mother doesn’t know you’re here, either?” He shook his head. “Then how is it that you have come all the way from London?”

  He didn’t answer. With a wry smile he said only, “I must trust that my mother’s anticipation of the ball will overcome any resentment she might have at my presence.”

  “We will all trust in that,” said Faustina solemnly.

  *

  The first strains of the music had struck up before Louisa revived from the shock of coming down to dinner to find her only son in evening dress and obviously looking forward to a visit of some days at Kennett Chase.

  “Send him away,” whispered Louisa urgently to Egmont. “I don’t doubt he’s come to devil me about my accounts, and I don’t wish to hear about them.”

  “I can’t do that,” Egmont said dryly. “He’s the only Waverly I find it possible to like.”

  Louisa sent him a petrifying glance before she turned her attention to the rooms open for the party. She audibly approved the wealth of flowers from the greenhouses, the roses particularly scenting the air.

  Faustina thought her aunt looked particularly well, if a trifle overdressed for what she insisted on calling a simple country rout — yellow satin, a frothy zephyr gauze overskirt of the same color, trimmed with an intricate festooning of gold cord. Little topazes were set in the heels of her yellow satin slippers, giving her a sparkling look as she danced. Faustina admitted that her aunt had style.