“The next heiress?”
“Why not?”
* * *
Why not? Because he already disliked the woman, sight unseen. Her manner was brusque and authoritative, as though she were used to having her every command obeyed on the instant. Arrogance, that was what Stony deduced from Miss Kane’s short note, and arrogance was his least favorite trait in a female. Why, the very brevity of the message was somehow condescending, as if she were too busy with matters of more serious concern to be bothered with a mere paid companion.
Lord Wellstone, it began, without a courtesy salutation. That lack alone spoke more than any words could have.
I wish to engage your services to escort my aunt and myself about London. Well, that was to the point. Trust a banker’s daughter to get to the bottom line in a hurry. The woman obviously did not believe in subtlety, veiling her request in pretenses of prior friendship or mutual acquaintanceship or some such to preserve his pride. Obviously his dignity held no place in her reckoning.
Worse, she had included a handsome fee, as if he’d already accepted. Or would not think of refusing. Or could not. The research she must have done to discover his name and the nature of his services might also have uncovered his financial difficulties. Lud, for all Stony knew, Miss Kane had a complete accounting of his bank statements, as a favor from one banking establishment to another. Then again, the servants’ grapevine might have been enough to reveal his so-called profession and his so-real insolvency. Damn.
Please call at Number Ten Sloane Street as soon as possible. At least she had written please, so the female was not entirely without manners. She had not, however, mentioned his earliest convenience, an invitation to tea, or the possibility of his declining. She was hiring a blasted servant, by God, and saw no reason to be polite.
Unless she spoke to all men that way, Stony speculated. Perhaps the heiress was so accustomed to toadeaters and fortune-hunters that she despised the entire male species. That was it, he decided. Miss Kane had to be one of those starched up females who thought all men were swine, good only to serve as obedient butlers and strong-backed blacksmiths. The only reason she was not content to have a footman shadow her on her sightseeing and shopping excursions was that no footman, no mere servant, no matter how bent on catering to her every wish, could get her access to the exclusive entertainments of the London social Season.
With the aunt dead, the banker’s daughter had no one to make her known to the important hostesses, no one to seek vouchers to Almack’s exclusive Wednesday assemblies for her. With the stink of trade fumigated by her father’s knighthood, masked by the marquessate connection, and perfumed by a fortune, Miss Kane could be accepted by all but the highest sticklers—with the proper introductions. Without them, she could never get to look over the latest crop of highborn bachelors, if she was indeed husband hunting.
The aunt had never married, and this female, if Gwen’s information was correct, had even more brass at her fingertips, therefore less need to put herself under some gentleman’s thumb. Stony could not picture the author of this note taking her place as the demure bride of some overbearing boor.
Yet why else would the woman come to London? If her reasons were legal or financial, to do with her aunt’s estate, say, her man of business would be ample attendant. Fashions? She could have the finest dressmaker in the kingdom come to her. The opera? The theater? Possibly, and both of those venues truly were more comfortable with a gentleman escort. But a countrywoman craving culture? Stony doubted it. No, Miss Coin must be shopping the marriage mart, likely looking for the highest title, connected to the weakest backbone.
He went back to the letter.
Yrs., she signed the note.
His?
Hah!
Chapter Four
All of Stony’s theories about Miss Kane, he acknowledged, were no more than idle speculation. And a way to avoid actually calling on the woman.
He even convinced himself that he had to do more research before accepting this prospective employer, that his antipathy toward her was merely a product of his resentment at his own situation. He hated being dependent on the whims of anyone, man or woman. A woman at the reins was worse, he admitted to himself, but he should not hold that against Miss Kane.
He could not convince himself to look forward to meeting her, no matter how he tried. No, what he actually, honestly felt was that the woman was too deuced sure of herself. She could dashed well wait another day before he dutifully presented himself in her drawing room. Unless she expected him to use the trade entrance. He would use the time to gather information, as she seemed to have done about him.
The lending library might have stacks of reference books, but the best, most reliable knowledge, he knew, was to be found at pubs patronized by servants, smoking rooms frequented by gentlemen, and anywhere three or more females congregated. Stony sent his valet off to the taverns, and accompanied Gwen to the latest ball honoring Sir Charles and his newly affianced bride, Lady Valentina Pattendale.
Before getting down to the serious business of playing at detective, Stony had to dance with the guest of honor. Gwen insisted he had to partner Lady Valentina, and look like he was enjoying himself, to boot, to put an end to any gossip about her betrothal. His own reputation could be polished up a bit too, she claimed, by showing no hard feelings or ill will.
Stony did not have to feign his pleasure as Charlie’s rosy-cheeked intended giggled and gurgled her way through the contra dance they shared. The chit was a lively, bouncy, cheery sort, one who would make Charlie a merry partner as they danced through life together.
Lady Val, as she asked Stony to call her, danced quickly, talked quickly, and was quick to hasten her marriage.
“I would not wish to move the date so far earlier that anyone will question the hurry, you understand, but as soon as can decently be.”
Stony understood perfectly. Odd, but he had never thought of weak-chinned Lord Charles as one to inspire burning, yearning need in a young girl’s breast. Charlie did not, or at least Lady Valentina did not confide such intimate itches to Stony, thank goodness. No, the conniving wench was trying to persuade her parents to an earlier wedding date for another reason altogether.
“Then I can put off these insipid whites and pastels considered de rigueur for maidens. Charlie is going to help pick out my trousseau.” She grinned over at Lord Charles, who was beaming at them from the sidelines.
Charlie was wearing yellow pantaloons with red heeled slippers. He had on a green waistcoat embroidered with at least a flock of hummingbirds, and a wasp-waisted green coat the color of spinach. Ah, a match made in haberdasher’s heaven!
Stony left the ballroom with the famous Wellstone smile on his handsome face. One young miss swooned to think the smile was for her. One older woman almost ripped her gown, tugging the bodice lower in case it might be. The viscount did not notice either of them. He was smiling simply out of happiness. He was happy that he had not consigned his friend to a lifetime of misery with a designing minx. He was happier even that he was not the one wedding the artful bit of…aristocracy. What made him really smile, though, was that he could now take himself off to pursue his own pleasures. With no obligation of employment, no commitments to partner the unpopular, and his duty dance finished, he was free to leave the ballroom.
When—if—he accepted Miss Kane’s offer, he would be at her beck and call. Tonight he was off duty. Free. No more suffering the stifling heat, the overpowering perfumes, the jostling, or the jigs and reels. He could spend the rest of the evening, until Gwen was ready to leave, propping up a pillar, watching the other capering fellows make fools of themselves. Or he could stand by the refreshments table eating all the lobster patties and drinking himself insensible. He could blow a cloud or bet on the sex of Charlie’s first child, or lose his pocket money at cards. He could even wait for a waltz and a willing widow.
By George, he could leave the carriage for Gwen and go visit that new house of accomm
odation, or the Green Room, or a gaming hell with dainty, available dealers. Instead of having a woman, he could go to his club and listen to gentlemen talk of politics, the military, and having a woman.
Somehow, none of those pastimes appealed to Stony. A good book and his own fireside sounded far more inviting. Perhaps he was getting old, as Gwen had hinted. Maybe he should settle down, before he settled into his dotage, too ancient to dance at his own wedding. He’d think about it, Stony resolved, as soon as he was through thinking about the Kane affair.
He wandered to the room set aside for gaming, but did not take a seat at any of the card tables. Once he had given up wagering for a living, games of chance did not interest him at all. Instead he walked around, a drink in his hand, chatting with various friends and acquaintances, laughing over Charlie’s plunge into parson’s mousetrap, the way bachelors were wont to do, as if their own time would never come.
Every once in a while, he asked one or another gentleman if he knew anything about the Chansford residence on Sloane Street. With Lady Augusta gone, he said, he was wondering if the place was for sale or to let, for those cousins of Gwen’s.
He found out about three other houses recently come on the market, the names of two reputable land agents, one shabster to avoid, and the address of Lady Augusta’s man of affairs. Other than that, not much information was to be had.
One of the cardplayers, Godfrey Blanchard, did guess that the niece must have inherited the place.
Stony sipped at his drink. “Oh? I never met any of Lady Augusta’s nieces. I thought I knew most of the young females in Town.”
Blanchard laughed as he waited for the next hand to be dealt. “I don’t know about any others, but you sure as Hades wouldn’t have known this one. Lady Augusta kept the chit as close as bark on a tree. Afraid of the likes of you and me, I suppose.”
Blanchard’s pockets were emptier than Stony’s. The only reason he managed to remain in Town was that his family would rather pay to keep him there than have him at home. He tossed some chips across the table and said, “I think the chit’s hand was already promised to someone, anyway. At least that’s what the old cheeseparer’s housekeeper told my landlady, explaining why she wasn’t giving the girl a proper presentation. Too cheap, more likely, to foot the expense.”
“Any idea who the lucky chap might be?”
Blanchard shrugged. “Never heard. At any rate, the old lady grew too sickly to take the gal around much. Then she stuck her spoon in the wall.”
“I heard there was some question about that, too.” One of the other men at the table answered as he shuffled the deck. “The magistrate looked into it, as I recall. But he decided that since Lady Augusta was ailing, it did not matter if she hit her head and her heart stopped, or if she hit her head because her heart gave out. No one cared much either way, I suppose.”
“The niece must have cared.”
The dealer did not answer, and Blanchard shrugged again and turned his attention to his new cards. If an heiress was out of bounds or out of reach, she was of no interest to him. A good hand was.
Stony waited through the deal to see if anyone remembered anything further. When the play paused again, he started to leave, but Blanchard called him back. “Hold a minute, Wellstone. All this interest in the house and the heiress… You haven’t heard anything I should know, have you?”
Stony was not about to toss Miss Kane to the wolves, no matter what he felt about the woman. Blanchard and his oily ilk were too hungry, too quick to slaver over a tender morsel. They were just the kind of scoundrels Stony steered away from the young misses in his care, when he had young lambs—ladies—to shepherd about. He waved a casual farewell. “No, nothing you should know, I am sure, Blanchard. It was just something I recently read.”
*
Gwen learned nothing Stony did not already know, to her chagrin. Stony’s valet was nearly as unhelpful. A closemouthed household was the Sloane Street residence, he reported, with mostly female servants, as befitted a single gentlewoman’s establishment. Most had found new employment since the mistress’s demise. There was no valet for Stony’s man to chat with, naturally, and the old butler was said to be an odd chap who kept to himself since Lady Augusta’s passing. He should have been pensioned off, the neighboring servants all agreed, resentful on his—and their futures’—behalf. But old Lady Lickpenny must have died the way she lived, hoarding every shilling.
Stony’s valet had also found out that Miss Isabelle Kane had left the Sloane Street dwelling on the very night her aunt’s body was discovered, which fact led to a lot of conjecture on the servants’ part. Time, not the coroner’s jury’s ruling of death by natural causes, slowed the flood of gossip to a trickle. Oh, and Blanchard’s man admitted that Lady Augusta’s door had been slammed in the gambler’s face when he tried to call there.
Neither Gwen’s coterie of gabble-grinders nor the servants’ grapevine had heard so much as a whisper of Miss Ellianne Kane’s arrival in the metropolis.
Well, she was here now, and waiting for Stony to call. He had used all the delaying tactics he could think of by the next afternoon: exercising his gelding, then needing a bath; leaving his card of thanks at last night’s hostess’s door, and a posy at Lady Valentina’s; sending a letter to his bailiff at Wellstone Park, and another to a schoolmate he had not seen in ten years; shaving again, closer, which meant tying a fresh neckcloth; selecting a bouquet of flowers to bring so he did not arrive like an applicant for a position, then putting back half the blooms so he did not look like a suitor; deciding which one of the extras he should wear in his buttonhole.
Oh, he could have wasted another whole day deliberating if he should send a note around first, if he should ride, drive, or walk, or if he should take Gwen along. He would gladly have sent Gwen alone, if he could have, which would have been everything proper, one gentlewoman welcoming another to the city. Unfortunately, Miss Kane was not precisely a lady born—and Gwen was too liable to have him in leg shackles before he could say Jack Rabbit.
Stony had to go. He had to accept the heiress’s offer. That one hundred pounds had one hundred good uses.
He hated the necessity, all hundred of them, and was growing to hate Miss Kane, too, knowing that she knew that he had to accept her terms.
Stony swallowed his pride and, hat in hand along with the bouquet, he set off to see how he might serve Miss Ellianne Kane. His only consolation was that his hat was a fine curly-brimmed beaver, not a little red cap with bells on it like the organ-grinder’s monkey wore. He was dancing to her tune, but doing it as a gentleman, by Jupiter.
*
The stooped butler who opened the door at Number Ten Sloane Street was so frail that Stony feared the weight of his beaver hat would topple the old relic. The ancient retainer certainly should have been retired, and Stony’s contempt for Miss Kane grew at the omission. The aunt might have been a miser, or she might have gone on to her reward before she could reward her loyal servitors, but Miss Kane ought to know better. She ought to act better. A true gentlewoman, titled or otherwise, would have.
The old fellow seemed to know his business, however, carefully placing Stony’s hat and gloves on a well-polished table and holding out his trembling hand for Stony’s card. His powdered wig and black suit and white gloves were as proper as any majordomo’s in Mayfair. He bowed over the coin Stony proffered with as much punctilio as any of the prince’s staff, if one ignored the slight wheeze and groan as he straightened.
Then he drew a pair of thick-lensed spectacles from his coat pocket. Even with the glasses he had a hard time reading the small calling card.
“Aubrey, Viscount Wellstone,” Stony said to save the man the effort and the embarrassment, “to see Miss Ellianne Kane. She is expecting me to call.”
Timms, as the butler introduced himself, placed his spectacles on the hall table, missing by mere inches. He smiled when Stony bent to pick them up, showing a perfect pair of gleaming dentures. Then he stiffened his
spine, which took years off his age, making him seem a mere ninety, instead of one hundred. He stared over Stony’s left shoulder and started praising the Lord. Not Lord Wellstone, but the Lord.
“Ah, our prayers are answered. Thank you, thank you on high. Your blessing has arrived.”
Stony looked around. High or low, he and Timms were the only ones in the marble-tiled hallway.
Timms noticed. “Ah, but He is everywhere. His grace knows no boundaries. His mysteries and goodness are equal.”
“He?”
“The Almighty, of course, who saw fit to bring you into our lives at our time of need and despair.”
Almighty gods, were they so religious here? No wonder the woman had not been seen at the opera or at card parties, if such were the case. Hell, she would never find a husband if she were Bible-bound. Sunday morning sobriety was about all the lip service the ton paid to piety.
“May He shine His light down on your shoulders. May His infinite wisdom guide you on the path to righteousness. May—”
“May I see Miss Kane?” Stony asked in a hurry, praying—well, not literally, as Timms seemed to be doing—that the woman was no zealot. He’d rather waltz a wallflower around Almack’s than ferry a fanatic to every church in London. He’d be damned if he got down on his… That is, he’d be darned if his trousers’ knees needed darning again.
The butler placed his card on a small silver salver. “If you would be so good as to wait here, my lord, I shall see if Miss Kane is receiving.” Timms turned, but could not resist a parting “God bless you” on his way.
Stony had not sneezed, but his breathing was definitely obstructed.
He took the opportunity to look about him. Lady Augusta had not stinted on her own comfort, it appeared. The entry was elegant, with expensive furnishings gleaming with polish. One table held a priceless Oriental urn filled with so many exotic blooms that his own floral offering looked like a handful of wayside wildflowers. Two small portraits that Stony would love to have examined closer hung beside an exquisite—and undoubtedly expensive—marble statue of Apollo, a naked Apollo. No puritanism here, then, Stony was relieved to see.
A Perfect Gentleman Page 4
