The Earl Next Door: The Bachelor Lords of London

by Charis Michaels

  “I suppose, if it’s really what you wish, my lady,” Miss Breedlowe finally said.

  “Excellent. It is precisely what I wish. Since the day you first arrived, in fact. When we adjourn, you may proceed upstairs and begin to pack. Shouldn’t take long, considering you wear the same beige dress every day.”

  “As for you,” she went on, turning her gaze to Tiny.

  Good lord, what now? Piety grabbed Tiny’s hand and held on.

  “You,” the marchioness repeated, “I should like to invite to remain here. In my house. With me. As my guest.”

  “As what?” Tiny and Piety said in unison.

  The marchioness eyed Piety and then turned a softer expression to Tiny. “If Miss Baker is truly a free woman, then I would like to give her the opportunity to stay here, with me. In my comfortable home. With a suite of her own, and a servant to attend to her.”

  “You would?” Piety could not conceal her surprise. “Forgive me, your ladyship, but why?”

  “To be interviewed, that’s why. On behalf of my late husband, may God rest his sainted soul. He was a life scholar, devoted tirelessly to the plight of African slaves in the American colonies. For years, he studied the slaving ships, the auctions, the plantations, the inhumanity of the whole beastly business. It was his life’s work, really, outside of the duties of his title and estate, of course. Alas, he never had the opportunity to meet an actual American Negro. Not once. How absolutely thrilled he would be that you, Miss Baker, are standing right here in his library.

  “You will be without a lady’s maid, of course,” she said to Piety. “But surely this dear woman deserves a holiday after what she’s endured in service to you, being dragged across an ocean and God knows what else. I employ an abundance of maids. You may take one of mine until you hire your own.”

  For several long, heavy moments, no one said a word; then Piety cleared her throat and asked to speak with Tiny alone. Hands clasped, the two shuffled outside the library and shut the door behind them.

  “You should do this,” Piety whispered immediately.

  “What? Now I know you’ve gone crazy, Missy Pie! I won’t leave you.”

  “The house is unfit, and you know it. You said so yourself. You called it a death trap, among a million other names.”

  “It is a death trap! But it won’t get any safer with me staying over here, while you go back alone! What would your father say? I swear, this journey just gets more wrong-headed by the day.”

  “No, don’t you see, Tiny? This,” she said, peeking back through the door at the marchioness, “may be the only thing that has gone precisely right. We need this woman to like us. To support us. To lie for us if Idelle turns up.”

  Tiny looked away.

  “She likes you,” continued Piety. “She’s a little batty, perhaps overbearing. But she seems respectful to you, and she has promised you far more comforts than I can provide for quite some time.”

  “What about your hair?” Tiny asked. “I won’t have you taking up with another maid.”

  “If my hair needs tending, I will march across the street, and you shall tend it. There will never be anyone to look after me but you, and you know it. You also know I am wholly self-sufficient. You were never meant to serve as my maid when we reached England anyway. You were meant to be my chaperone.” She shrugged. “I suppose I hadn’t thought it through.”

  “And who is going to protect you from Sir High-and-Mighty, the sour gentleman who can’t be bothered to help you, but who won’t stop staring at you?”

  “Who? The earl? You sound worse than the marchioness. The last thing I need is protection from him. He’d do better to show me a little more generosity and less restraint. Besides, Miss Breedlowe will be with me.”

  “It is mighty nice here,” Tiny said, looking around. “Warm. Dry. But where will you sleep until that house gets fixed?”

  “I will sleep in the new house. I don’t mind the dust—truly! I’ve come too far and invested too much not to get in there and make it my own from the ground up.”

  “You’ll send for me if you need me? Even if it’s the middle of the night?”

  Piety grabbed her up and hugged her. “Even in the middle of the night.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  You wanted this, thought Jocelyn Breedlowe the next morning as she stepped heavily onto the marchioness’s front stoop.

  You wanted newness. You wanted purpose.

  You wanted if not precisely this, then something akin to this.

  Her thoughts were punctuated by the whack of Lady Frinfrock’s front door slamming behind her. She squared her shoulders, embarking upon a slow and steady march to the four-story townhome mansion across the street. In each hand, she clutched a carpet bag that contained every material possession she owned.

  Not an hour before, Miss Baker, the American girl’s African maid, had settled into the marchioness’s house.

  Marissa, the housemaid on loan from Lady Frinfrock had dashed to the American’s house at first light.

  Everyone who was meant to come or go had done so, except Jocelyn, who could put it off no longer. It was true, she had no great wish to remain in the employ of the marchioness, but still. Her heart beat triple-time, her legs felt wobbly, and she was perspiring. She was afraid.

  Chaperoning a young woman? She hadn’t the slightest idea how to serve as a proper chaperone. And this wasn’t just any young miss. Miss Grey was, for all practical purposes, a grown woman.

  Piety Grey did not require an internal review of what she did or did not want. She didn’t lose her voice in front of callous Lady Frinfrock or imposing Lord Falcondale. Her purpose seemed as much a part of her existence as her own two feet, which, in turn, had played their part by striding into the marchioness’s library to admit every manner of bizarre circumstance without flinching.

  And now, Jocelyn thought, her preference and purpose is me. There could be no mistaking it. When Lady Frinfrock had presented the opportunity, Miss Grey had all but begged her, however silently, to accept.

  Jocelyn would now live in the rubble of a once grand house and watch it be made grand again. She was to . . . Well, it was impossible to say, really, but considering all that had happened, she knew it would be . . .

  Precisely what I’ve wanted.

  “Ah, here she is!” said Miss Grey, swinging the front door wide and heaving the grimy contents of a mop bucket onto the stoop. “Look out. Mind the water.”

  “How do you do, Miss Grey?” Jocelyn managed to greet Piety, while dancing to keep her hem dry. “I do believe it is my appointed time to join your, well, to join you.”

  “How ready we are.” Piety nodded and handed the bucket to Marissa, who was hovering behind her. “Has Tiny settled in with the marchioness? I thought it best to see her over first thing. She is not comfortable in this house, and truly, at her age, I can hardly ask her to endure these early days of reconstruction. What an unexpected gift it was that the marchioness has taken her in. If she had not, I dare say I would have had to find other lodging for the old dear.” She eyed Jocelyn. “But you are not afraid, are you, Miss Breedlowe? You have the look of someone with pioneering spirit.”

  “I am at your service, miss,” said Jocelyn quietly, wondering what sort of woman provided for her maid’s comfort, but not her own. She moved again to avoid the wet, and Miss Grey wiped her hands on a crisp, white apron before gesturing her inside.

  The front hall of the American’s house could best be described as the scene of a great disaster. Tattered wall coverings drooped to the floor in ribbons; cracked plaster pocked the walls and speckled the floor. The marble itself was dulled with grime and tracked with mud. A stale, mildewed odor hung in the air, and odds and ends of broken furniture leaned in doorways or at a hasty angles against the walls. The ceiling sagged yellow and gray.

  Wishing to appear helpful—or “pioneering,” as Miss Grey had suggested—Jocelyn asked, “Are you . . . Might I . . . ? That is, shall I, er, mop?”


  “Oh, mop, sweep, drag, pile rubbish in heaps,” Piety said enthusiastically, shoving a table out of the nearest doorway. “So far, we have limited supplies to see the job done properly, but I could not wait another moment to, at the very least, cut a swathe through the worst of the mess. Marissa has been quite alarmed by my enthusiasm, I daresay.”

  No doubt, Jocelyn thought, nodding to the maid. Marissa, formerly the marchioness’s youngest, laziest housemaid, had been plucked from Lady Frinfrock’s staff as an afterthought. Miss Grey had refused a stand-in for her own maid, but then she saw Marissa and changed her mind. The marchioness was delighted to be rid of the girl.

  “We’ve actually made real progress on the ground floor, Marissa and I,” continued Miss Grey. “And now, on to the next! My goal is to clear a path through every room before the carpenters arrive and the real work begins.”

  Piety took a deep breath. “Now am I dreaming, or did anyone else see my ill-tempered neighbor, Lord Falcondale, bolt off down the street on a stallion not five minutes ago?”

  Jocelyn, caught off guard by the prospect of ascending the conspicuously absent stairwell in the rotunda, missed Piety’s meaning and said, “I believe I did see him, miss.” If nothing else, she could be helpful with details such as this.

  “Ah-ha! I knew I was not mistaken.” Miss Grey let her mop handle fall and walked into the first small sitting room off the main hall. The drapes were drawn tightly, shrouding the room in cool, murky dark. Miss Grey circumvented furniture and trunks and grabbed a fistful of curtain and began to drag. Bright morning light spilled across the dusty floor. “What a box seat the marchioness’s parlor window provides,” she said. “Certainly, she got an eyeful when I knocked on the earl’s front door.”

  “Would that I could save you the bother of having to deal with Lord Falcondale ever again,” said Jocelyn. “He was not what I would describe as cordial.” The room was sunny now, and Jocelyn tried not to stare at a mildew, gray water stain on an adjacent wall.

  “Hmmm,” mused Miss Grey, “likely he would say the same thing about me. For better or for worse, he will have to shoulder the bulk of our uncordial intrusiveness for some time. I understand his reticence—really, I do—but unless he is being pursued by a pack of lunatic relatives bent on destroying his life, then my situation supersedes his. He is too unwilling to compromise.”

  “Compromise, did you say?” asked Jocelyn. She felt the first unsettling lurch of confusion. “Miss Grey?”

  “Please,” Piety said, yanking the curtains wider still, “call me Piety.”

  “All right, if you insist, Piety, but about the earl?”

  “Of course I insist!” The drapes hit a snag and Piety Grey frowned. She found the curtain pull and jerked the string in short, frustrated yanks. “What is your given name, Miss Breedlowe?”

  You wanted this, thought Jocelyn. Never once had an employer referred to her by her given name.

  “I . . . ah. ’Tis Jocelyn, miss. I’m called Jocelyn.”

  “How pretty! Jocelyn. Do you mind?”

  “If it pleases you.”

  Behind them, Marissa coughed. “Should we leave the curtains, miss?” She wrinkled her nose at the heavy, unmoving folds. The cobweb-covered drapes danced and jerked under Miss Grey’s ministrations but refused to budge. Dust puffed forth with every yank.

  “Oh, I nearly have it,” Miss Grey said, pulling the cord with all her might. To Jocelyn, she added, “And of course it pleases me. Jocelyn.”

  She jerked again, and the entire rig—rod and rings and copious, heavy folds of dust-embedded curtains—popped from the wall and crashed to the floor. Miss Grey yelped and dove, barely escaping the falling mass. Jocelyn scuttled backward and Marissa disappeared from the room.

  “Well, that’s one way to do it!” Piety laughed, flapping a thick layer of dust from her skirts. “At least now we can see what we’re doing. Let’s have a look.”

  She bustled to the far wall, and Jocelyn noticed for the first time the line of shiny black trunks stacked in the far corner.

  “As I was saying,” Miss Grey went on, “Falcondale has only just left. But! I didn’t see his manservant, Joseph, accompany him. These are ideal conditions, although who can say how much time we have.

  “Marissa?” she called loudly. “Ah, there you are. Begin with the trunks on the end. Do not let the curtains alarm you. They are on the floor now; the danger has passed. We must make haste. Luckily, I have labeled each case according to its contents. If the men who unloaded my carriage followed my directive, they should be stacked in alphabetical order.”

  “The men who unloaded your carriage probably could not read,” said Jocelyn softly, intimidated by the younger woman’s confidence and enthusiasm. She could barely keep up. What, she wondered, had she meant by “not much time?”

  “For the moment,” said Piety, “we should require little more than old cloth to clean, buckets, soap, whatever hand tools have been left behind, brooms, and the mop. Look in the trunks for any of these. Marissa has already sent water up by the pulley in the kitchen. But take care as you gather; let us bring nothing too heavy, because we only have our three sets of hands.”

  “Miss Grey, er, Piety.” Jocelyn attempted to keep up. “Forgive me, but what was it that you said about the earl? And to the top of what, exactly? I must admit to some confusion.”

  Piety piled a bulging stack of cotton cloth in Jocelyn’s arms, nearly obscuring her face. “Oh, but you didn’t hear?” Piety Grey asked, picking up her own burden of supplies and leading the way.

  Jocelyn followed, given little choice but to trail behind Marissa. Piety led them out of the room, down the hall, and through the kitchens to the garden. It was only when Piety nudged the kitchen door open with her knee and broached the terrace that Jocelyn finally stopped.

  “Miss Grey?” she said to her rapidly progressing back. “Miss Grey?” And finally: “Piety!”

  The younger woman stopped, exhaled heavily, turned around.

  “Forgive me,” said Jocelyn with a shaky breath, “but where are we going?”

  Piety sighed. “Try, dear Jocelyn, to keep an open mind.” She shot her a hopeful glance.

  Jocelyn blinked. She felt suddenly as if her entire professional life—in fact her very survival—hinged on this alleged open mind. When she spoke, the words came out very slowly. “Forgive me, but about what am I meant to have an open mind?”

  “Well, about the stairs, of course.”

  “What about the stairs?”

  “Impassable.”

  “Oh.” Jocelyn said this only because she felt compelled to say something.

  “The seller promised us that the damage had been remedied by the presence of scaffolding. But when we arrived, we found the scaffolding to be tenuous at best. ‘Tenuous’ is a very generous description, in fact.

  “To that end,” she went on meaningfully, “I’m endeavoring to strike a deal with Lord Falcondale next door. There is a second-floor passage that connects our two houses, you see. If I could just come and go from the upper floors of my house by way of the earl’s stairwell, then my problem would be solved. It will be essential for making repairs before the new stairs are in.”

  “You’re what?” Jocelyn strained to see her behind the armful of cloth.

  “Well, originally,” Piety said, “Tiny and I were meant to lease the earl’s empty house and live next door, but then . . . ” She trailed off.

  “But then?” Jocelyn prompted.

  Piety turned to Marissa and asked her to fetch another broom from the house. When the girl drifted away, she took a deep breath and explained the lot: the previous earl, now dead, the cancelled lease and usurped accommodations.

  “And you cannot simply wait on the upper floors?” Jocelyn asked, feeling her own bright, new beginning slip away. She gripped the stack of rags so tightly, her fingers burned. “You could wait until your own stairs have been repaired.” The alternative was an impossible, impassable solution. Surely she could
see that.

  Piety shook her head. “No,” she said. She set down her basket and bucket. “No, I cannot.”

  “But why not?”

  Piety ambled a slow circle around her supplies, rubbing two fingers back and forth across her brow.

  Finally, she said, “My mother? These vile men, her stepsons? They could turn up here, in Henrietta Place, any day. They can and, mind you, they will. And when they come, sooner rather than later, I must look established. Settled. I must look entirely immovable. I need to be in and out of every level of this house immediately, but not just me, carpenters, painters, delivery men with furniture, too.”

  “Your mother will come here?” asked Jocelyn. “I hadn’t realized . . . ”

  “I have no doubt that they will chase me here. When they discover my precise location and rally their combined conniving spirit, they will come. It could be . . . Really, I suppose, it could be anytime, depending on how soon they managed to sail from New York behind me. That’s the entire reason for my haste. It must look as if—nay, it must be that—all the money is spent, sunk irrevocably into this house. The fortune must look no longer available, even to me, save as a property that I now occupy.”

  Jocelyn blinked, tabling for a moment the topic of a joint passage shared with a bachelor earl. “But what will your mother do if she arrives to discover the money has not been spent?”

  “If the money is not tied up, one way or the other, my mother will seize it for sure.”

  “But how? If the money is yours? If the house is yours?”

  “She would haul me back to America and force me to marry one of her horrid stepsons. There is no man in this equation, don’t you see? My father left his clear intentions in the will, but ultimately, I have very few rights. If my mother looks hard enough, she will discover a way to requisition the money.”

  “And you feel sure,” Jocelyn asked, “that your mother does not have your best interest at heart? To settle you in a marriage that keeps you close to her care, perhaps, despite your distaste for the prospective groom?”