The Misguided Matchmaker
by
Nadine Miller
Chapter One
Like a magnet, the massive black funeral wreath spanning the door of Winterhaven Manor drew Tristan Thibault’s eyes. “So, the old reprobate who fathered me really is dead,” he said aloud, reining in the tired nag that had carried him up from Dover through a bitterly cold rain.
He shook his head in amazement. The lecherous Fourth Earl of Rand had finally cocked up his toes, and his passing evoked no feeling whatsoever in this particular by-blow except a firm conviction that the fires of hell must be burning ever hotter with Dickie Ramsden as the netherworld’s newest resident.
The fading light of the winter afternoon lent a grim ambiance to the graceful, porticoed entrance of the three-storied stone manor house he’d called home until the day he’d turned two and twenty. Even the rows of narrow, mullioned windows looked dark and uninviting—almost as if the family had given up expecting him.
Mentally, he reviewed the cryptic note he’d received from his half-sister apprising him that the earl had quit this earthly vale. “Please come home,” Carolyn’s nearly illegible scrawl had begged. “Father was killed in a gambling hell brawl and we are in desperate trouble.” A contradiction if ever he’d heard one. The old man’s demise could be nothing but a blessing to his long-suffering wife and progeny. Every problem that had ever plagued the Ramsdens, including Tristan’s own illegitimacy, had stemmed from the Fourth Earl’s excesses. With his shy, sober-minded son, Garth, as the Fifth Earl, life at Winterhaven had to improve.
Tristan frowned thoughtfully. He half suspected Caro’s frantic plea for help would turn out to be much ado about nothing; she had always had a tendency to fly into the boughs at the slightest provocation. Still, he hadn’t dared ignore her note—hadn’t even wanted to. It was the first word he’d received from home in the six years he’d lived on the Continent, and he’d devoured every word with an eagerness that was embarrassing to a man of his age and temperament. A British secret agent posing as a Citizen of Napoleon’s France had no choice but to sever all personal contacts. But the war was over at last and the Corsican safely on Elba—and once again Tristan could turn his thoughts to Winterhaven and the people he had come to think of as his family.
He looked around for a groom to lead his horse to the stable, but strangely, none was in sight. Stranger yet was the absence of the usual footman hurrying down the shallow stone steps to take his saddlebags. Feeling his first twinge of genuine uneasiness, he secured his horse by looping the reins around a winter-bare shrub, left his bags, and made his way up the steps to the massive oak door.
Before he could lift the heavy brass knocker, the door burst open and a small, golden-haired whirlwind launched herself at him. “Tristan!” she shrieked. “I knew you’d come. I just knew it.”
Tristan dropped his saddlebags and crushed his slender young sister in a fierce hug. “Of course I came.” He chuckled. “Though I’ve a strong suspicion I’ve been well and truly diddled by your dramatic missive, you little scamp. Not that I care. If the truth be known, I was ready to come home and settle down on that small holding Garth promised me years ago.”
Carolyn wound her arm about his waist and pressed her cheek to his chest. “Oh Tris, how I wish I had exaggerated our troubles—but I haven’t. Her voice broke. “It’s like a dreadful nightmare from which one prays to wake and never can.”
Tristan put her from him and stared into her face, shocked by what he saw. Gone was the rosy-cheeked mischievous child he’d left six years earlier and in her place a pale young woman whose solemn blue eyes were underlaid with dark smudges. Gently, he drew her down onto the night footman’s bench which stood against one wall of the entry way. “Tell me all about it, including how in holy heaven you managed to insert your note into an official Whitehall packet addressed to Lord Castlereagh at the Congress of Vienna.
“I have friend who is a clerk at Whitehall,” she said simply. “He’d heard rumors you were with Lord Castlereagh, so we thought it worth a try, though it would surely be the end of his career if anyone learned he helped me contact you, so never ask his name.” A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I didn’t know what else to do. Neither Garth nor Mama know I sent for you.
Carolyn slipped her hand into Tristan’s and rising, drew him up beside her. “Mama is in her sitting room. We should go to her; she’ll take such comfort in your presence, and it’s best you hear the story from both of us at once. It’s not one you’ll want to hear again.”
So saying, she led the way up the stairs to the countess’s private suite. Tristan followed, his anxiety increasing by the minute. They opened the chamber door to find Lady Ursula reclining on the chaise lounge, covered by a feather quilt.
A gloomy pall hung over the usually cheerful room. The small pile of glowing coals in the fireplace added little warmth, and the only light came from a single-candle sputtering on the Chippendale writing desk beneath the window.
Carolyn advanced into the room, a determined smile on her face. “You’ll never guess who’s here, Mama. It’s our own dear Tristan, come to help Garth sort out our problems.”
Lady Ursula Ramsden turned her head and surveyed them from red-rimmed eyes. “Tristan? Thank heavens you’re home at last.” She sat upright. “Well, that’s that then. I absolutely refuse to worry one more minute. Between the two of you you’re bound to come up with a solution to this dreadful bumblebroth.”
She brushed a lock of faded golden hair out of her eyes. In all the years he’d known her, Tristan had never seen a single strand of hair out of place. Today she looked strangely unkempt, as if she’d somehow escaped her faithful dresser’s careful vigil.
Her pale blue eyes surveyed him from head to toe. “Good heavens, I’d almost forgotten how exceedingly tall you’d grown and how stern of countenance. I’d scarcely recognize you as the dear little fellow I used to tuck into bed each night.”
Carolyn nodded. “Mama is right. With your long black hair and sun-bronzed skin, you look more like a pirate than our own Tris.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Tristan chuckled. “One old flower lady at the Marché de Paris went so far as to cross herself each time I looked at her with my ‘devil’s eyes’.”
“What trials you’ve suffered—what trials we’ve all suffered since last we were together.” Tears welled in Lady Ursula’s own expressive blue eyes as she opened her arms to Tristan—a gesture evoking bittersweet memories that made his heart twist painfully in his chest. In just such a way had this generous-hearted woman greeted a frightened six-year-old who’d arrived on her doorstep with a note claiming he was the bastard son of her profligate husband. “Lord Tristan,” she’d directed the servants to call him, and “Lord Tristan” he’d been ever since, though he had no more claim to the title than the lowliest denizen of the Rookeries, from whence he’d come.
Tenderly, he knelt, clasped the slender, middle-aged countess in his arms, and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. She clung to him, as Carolyn had, with the fervor of a drowning person who’d just been thrown a lifeline.
“Now what is this about problems Garth must sort out?” he asked. “Where is the new earl? And why have the servants let the fires go out? This chamber is colder than my cabin on the channel packet ship.”
“The new earl is here, my brother,” a familiar voice declared from the doorway, “as is the wood for Mama’s fire, but the servants are all gone except our loyal housekeeper, Mrs. Peterman, and the old head gardener, who stayed on without pay.
Tristan’s mouth dropped open in shock at the sight of his brother, the Fifth Earl of Rand—his face haggard, his clothes dirty and disheveled, and his arms laden with
firewood like the lowliest tenant on the estate. “What the devil is going on here,” he demanded.
Garth deposited the wood on the hearth, then turned to face Tristan. “It’s a long, sordid story and I won’t burden you with the details. Suffice to say I sold out my commission once Boney was defeated and returned home to find our father, may he rot in hell, had managed to gamble away everything he owned before he was sent to his just reward by some Captain Sharp he’d tried to cheat at Hazard.”
“Everything?” Tristan choked.
“Everything. The hunting box in the Midlands, the London townhouse, the farms in Suffolk, even Winterhaven and all its furnishings.” Garth ran his fingers absentmindedly through his thick blond hair. “His sole legacy to his heirs is the collection of vowels he owes various London gambling hells, which add up to nearly twenty thousand pounds.
Tristan stared at his brother in disbelief. The old earl had always been a wastrel, but it would take most men two lifetimes to gamble away such impressive assets as the Ramsdens had once owned. An icy rage gripped him and he swore softly in the gutter French he’d picked up in the Paris slums. He had learned to fend for himself during his years in France, but these three gentle people he loved had no concept of how to survive without the wealth they’d always taken for granted.
Still reeling from shock, he tucked the quilt around Lady Ursula, then moved to the fireplace to build up the fire with the wood Garth had delivered.
Garth watched him with listless eyes. “There’s more,” he said in the same dull monotone with which he’d recited the first part of his incredible tale. “The mortgages on the properties, as well as Father’s vowels, have all been bought up by one-man—Caleb Harcourt.”
Tristan looked up from his task. “The wealthy cit who owns Harcourt Shipping?”
Garth nodded. “And the Harcourt woolen mills and two of London’s finest hotels and God only knows what else. I wonder if the fool thinks that by owning the properties of the Earl of Rand he may somehow acquire the title. Rumor is he’d been negotiating with Prinny for a baronetcy in exchange for the blunt to pay of his most pressing debts.”
“I think it is safe to assume Caleb Harcourt is no fool.” Deep in thought, Tristan stirred the coals with the poker until they ignited the dry wood. “He must have a reason for going to the trouble of searching out the earl’s creditors and paying them off—though God knows I cannot think what it might be.”
“Nor can I, but it is something I intend to ask him when, at his request, I call on him tomorrow morning at his place of business on the London docks.”
“When we call on him. We will beard the lion in his den together,” Tristan said, his heart aching for Garth. He could imagine how bewildering it must be to go from a position of undisputed wealth and respectability to abject poverty and disgrace in the blink of an eye.
“Is that wise, my dears?” Lady Ursula’s small heart-shaped face lacked its usual mask of calm serenity. “The man is a common cit, for heaven’s sake, regardless of his enormous wealth. How can a gentleman hope to reason with someone so far below his social level?”
Garth moved away from the fireplace, pulled the chair out from under the desk, and sank onto it, obviously exhausted. “What choice to I have, Mama?” he asked with a touch of impatience. “Thanks to Father’s penchant for gambling, this common cit currently owns everything that should be mine. I am at the fellow’s mercy.” He raised agonized eyes to Tristan. “I cannot even deed you that unentailed estate in Suffolk, I promised you. It went the same way as the rest of my holdings.”
Tristan hid his bitter disappointment behind an indifferent shrug. “Not to worry. I’m not certain I was cut out to be a sheep farmer anyway.” He forced his lips to form a semblance of a smile. “As for dealing with cits, I have dealt with nothing else during my six years in France—including the infamous Fouché, Napoleon’s Minister of Police. By and large they are no better or worse than their counterparts in the titled gentry. We will simply take this English interloper as he comes and proceed accordingly.
It was a foolish speech which said nothing and promised even less, but he could see from the two pairs of hopeful feminine eyes turned his way that it had the desired effect on the countess and Carolyn.
The bleak expression on Garth’s face said he wasn’t fooled by such blithe sentiments, but after a telling look from Tristan, he seconded them. No use cutting up the ladies’ peace of mind any more than they had to. Moments later the two brothers took their leave, claiming they needed to plan their strategy for the coming meeting.
“Does Lady Sarah know of your problems?” Tristan asked as they made their way to the book room. The daughter of their neighbor, Viscount Tinsdale, had dogged Garth’s footsteps since they were children growing up together. Both families had always taken it for granted the two would someday marry.
“I have not yet steeled myself to terminate our ‘understanding’,” Garth’s pain-filled voice trembled noticeably. “Everything else in this miserable bumblebroth pales beside the anguish of knowing I must hurt the woman I love—and in the worst possible way. Sarah has waited so long for me to officially declare myself that she is almost past the marrying age, and now I must tell her all the plans we made are for naught.”
Tristan scowled. “I know Sarah too well to believe she will stop loving you simply because you’re no longer rich.”
“Of course she won’t, any more than I will ever stop loving her. But think you Viscount Tinsdale will give his only daughter to a pauper, even if that pauper carries the title of earl? Or that I love Sarah so little I would ask her to share my life when I have nothing to offer her but shame and deprivation.” Garth shook his head vehemently. “No, once I know the very worst of my situation, I will find the strength to cut my ties with her.”
Garth straightened his narrow shoulders in a proud gesture that made Tristan ache all the more for his unfortunate brother. He found himself grateful that his was a heart inured to such longings. From what he had seen of love, the pain of it far outweighed the joy.
“What you need right now is a stiff drink to dull the pain,” he declared decisively. “And I am not the least bit averse to helping you drown your sorrows. What say you we raid the cellar in the hope there may still be a stray bottle of French brandy lying about? I’ve acquired a taste for the stuff in the past six years.”
Garth’s smile looked a bit ragged at the edges. “A splendid idea,” he said somewhat too heartily. “But first, I have something I want to give you.” He pulled a gold pocket watch from the drawer of the library desk and handed it to Tristan. “It is one of only two personal items our father hadn’t disposed of at his death.”
Tristan viewed the ornate timepiece with distaste. “Thank you, but I have no desire to keep a memento of the old libertine who never even acknowledged me as his son.”
“Keep it in the same spirit I keep his jeweled snuffbox,” Garth said grimly. “As a reminder of everything that is evil and depraved—everything I am determined I shall never become.”
The offices of Harcourt Shipping Ltd. were housed in a nondescript two-story warehouse overlooking the sprawling Billingsgate fish market. Tristan and Garth had driven in from Winterhaven in the old earl’s sporty phaeton—not the easiest of vehicles in which to wend one’s way through the milling crowds of lower-class housewives and upper-class servants haggling with the stall owners over turbot, salmon, lobsters, and eels, as well as the various other fruits of the sea served on London dinner tables.
The pungent aroma of fish was everywhere. It overrode the stench of the ancient, refuse-covered desks and the masses of unwashed humanity crowding the busy market, and it set Tristan’s already queasy stomach to rolling dangerously. The nocturnal search Garth and he had made of the Winterhaven cellar had yielded not one, but two bottles of vintage brandy, and they’d managed to consume them both before the cold gray light of dawn reminded them they had an appointment with Caleb Harcourt in but a few brief hours.
Now, with a wintery sun torturing his bloodshot eyes and the voices of the fish hawkers thrusting javelins into his aching head, Tristan gritted his teeth and prayed as much for a settled stomach as a clear mind when he and Garth faced the powerful cit who held the fate of the Ramsden family in his hands. With shaky hands, he pulled the phaeton to a stop before a door with a discreet brass plate bearing the name Harcourt Shipping Ltd., tossed a coin to the urchin who acted as carriage tender, and helped his exhausted brother alight from the passenger’s seat.
A moment later, they entered the building and to their surprise found the inside to be as elegantly austere as the outside was shabby. The massive waiting room into which they’d stepped was complete with colorful Axminster carpets, Hepplewhite chairs, and a collection of paintings as impressive as those in the gallery at Winterhaven before the Fourth Earl denuded it to finance his addiction to the ivory turners.
Blessing of all blessings, the aroma of fish had not permeated the walls of Caleb Harcourt’s tasteful sanctum sanctorum. Instead, a spicy fragrance teased Tristan’s grateful nostrils—the source of which was explained by a sign, “Harcourt Fine Spices and Exotic Herbs,” at the foot of an open staircase leading to the floor above. He pointed it out to Garth. “You were right. Shipping is only one of Harcourt’s enterprises.”
At least two dozen men, in identical dark coats and breeches, stood in small groups about the room conversing in the hushed and nervous tones one might expect of men awaiting an audience with the Regent at Carlton House. All conversation instantly ceased when Tristan and Garth entered the room and removed their high-crowned beavers. The reason was patently obvious. Though their coats of fine marcella were drab and outdated by ton standards, next to these somberly clad men of the merchant class they looked like two peacocks in a flock of barnyard geese.
The door had barely closed behind them when a wizened little man, dressed all in black with a bagwig on his thinning gray hair and what looked suspiciously like house slippers on his feet, shuffled over to them. “My Lord Rand?” he inquired, peering from Tristan to Garth over his wire-rimmed spectacles.
The Misguided Matchmaker Page 1
