He was about to reach for his looking glass to identify which Old Master had painted the portraits, when he heard Timms’s slow, stately tread coming back down the hall. Actually, the tread was slower than it was stately, with a shuffle here and there, and a pause to rest against the carved newel post at the foot of the stairs.
Stony heard another noise coming from that direction, too. At first he could not make out the words; then he could not believe the words.
“Numb-nuts nobility, I say. Numb-nuts nobility.”
The butler’s hearing must have been better than his eyesight, for spots of color appeared on his gaunt cheeks. “Pardon, my lord. It is the, ah, parrot. Yes, the parrot. No telling what they will say, eh? All God’s creatures, you know.”
Timms looked like he would cheerfully strangle that particular evidence of the Creator’s sense of humor, but he did say, “Do follow me, my lord, this way.”
Stony did not shuffle, but he walked as slowly as Timms, like a tired old man, or like a condemned convict walking toward the gibbet.
Chapter Five
“Aubrey, Viscount Wellstone.”
Stony could not recall when he had been announced with such solemn, heartfelt fervor.
“Oh, botheration, Timms. I told you to wait. I still have glue on my fingers.”
Stony could not recall when he had been greeted so rudely. He would have backed out of the small, sunny parlor, to wait on the lady’s convenience, but Timms had shut the door at his back. He took a few steps into the room, waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the light. “Miss Kane?” he asked, addressing the woman who was scrubbing at her hands with a handkerchief.
She was tall and thin, of indeterminate age. Hell, he thought, she would have been of indeterminate gender under all the yards of black that shrouded her from her bony neck to her narrow feet. What looked like a black lace sack covered her head and her hair, and was tied under a pointed chin. He’d forgotten she was in mourning, but this was beyond proper grieving for a mere aunt. How the devil did Miss Kane expect to attract a gentleman while she looked like a crow—or a corpse? She bobbed a slight curtsy without looking up from her scrubbing. “I am sorry I cannot offer my hand.” She raised her right one. The handkerchief was stuck to it. Despite that, she gestured toward a spindly ladies’ desk in the corner. “I am trying to make some order out of things here.”
He looked toward the desk and saw that she had been affixing small pieces of paper to a larger one. From where Stony stood, her project made no sense. He doubted it made sense at any distance.
As he looked, he noticed another woman sitting in the other far corner. This one was definitely old, also black-clad, with a black scowl on her face. She had an embroidery frame in front of her and kept right on jabbing her needle into the fabric, pulling it out, jabbing it in. This must be the aunt who accompanied the heiress to Town.
Stony looked back at Miss Kane, one blond eyebrow raised as he waited to be made known to the older woman.
“Oh, of course. Please forgive my manners.”
Stony was relieved to discover she had any.
Miss Kane fluttered her hand, free now of the clinging linen. She rushed through the introduction. “My aunt Lally, that is, Mrs. Lavinia Goudge. Lord Wellstone.”
Stony bowed and stepped closer, expecting the aunt to offer her fingers for him to salute. The needle went in. The needle came out.
“My aunt, um, does not speak,” said Miss Kane, pouring water from a pitcher on the desk onto the handkerchief.
“She is mute?”
“Drat.” Now the handle of the pitcher seemed stuck to Miss Kane’s hand. “What’s that? Mute? Oh, no. She has, um, taken a vow of silence.”
Good grief, they were Papists after all. That enveloping black must be some sort of habit, then. Miss Kane was taking herself, her fortune, and her sticky fingers to a nunnery. The fortune would be missed. “Which, ah, religious order does she follow?” Stony asked out of politeness.
“Religion? That is Timmy’s new hobby. Aunt does needlework. She just, um, took her vow in memory of her beloved husband. She spoke unkindly to the dear captain before his ship sailed. He never returned.”
Stony nodded in the widow’s direction. She appeared to be choking back tears. “My condolences, ma’am. But a sea captain. That would explain the parrot.”
“The parrot?”
Miss Kane was looking at Stony as if he were queer in the attic. Hah! That was the kettle calling the pot black if he ever heard it. “Your butler said the distasteful language I heard was from—”
“You heard…? Oh, that parrot. We, um, put it away when guests call. In a closet. With a blanket over the cage. Polly is not fit for company, you see.”
Mrs. Goudge was choking again, most likely at the reminder of her lost sailor. Stony wondered if he should offer his handkerchief to her, or to the heiress, whose own cloth was now hanging off the front of her skirt like a flag of surrender. No one had offered him a seat or refreshments, and he still held the bouquet. No one seemed liable to take charge, either, with the aunt not speaking and the niece’s fingers stuck together. “Won’t you sit down?” he asked finally, when Miss Kane stopped staring at her hand like Lady Macbeth.
“Of course.” She did, on a comfortable-looking armchair, immediately tucking her offending fingers in her skirts, out of sight. That left him to choose between a low, pillow-strewn sofa and a hard-backed chair with claw-foot legs. He chose the sofa.
Mrs. Goudge made gagging sounds and Miss Kane leaped to her feet. “Oh, no, not there!”
Before Stony could react, a brown-and-white pillow detached itself from the sofa, yawned, stretched, and unfolded into the fattest, ugliest, smelliest bulldog Stony had ever encountered. He held out his fingers, in hope that at least someone in this household knew what to do with a gentleman’s hand. The dog sniffed, snarled, then lunged, trying to launch a drooping, drooling jaw toward Stony’s throat. It fell short, on its short, bowed legs.
“Yi!” Stony yelled.
“Don’t worry. He has no teeth.”
“He has my blasted hand!”
“I’ll ring for tea.”
Was the woman totally insane? The cur had a death grip—toothless or not—on Stony’s wrist and refused to let go, and now she was serving refreshments?
She ran toward the desk and a small silver bell there, which of course immediately stuck to her hand. It rang anyway.
Timms must have been anticipating her call, for he wheeled in a tea cart before the last chime. Actually, the old butler leaned on the cart as it rolled. He took one look at the situation and fell to his knees.
“Now is not the time to pray, man!” Stony shouted.
But Timms wasn’t praying. He was tossing tiny cucumber sandwiches at Stony. That is, he was trying to get them near enough for the lockjawed dog to notice, but without his spectacles…
Then Miss Kane reached into her pocket and pulled out a small…boiled potato. Stony’s mouth would have hung open, except he was too busy yelling and trying to shake the barnacle bulldog off.
“Here, Atlas. Your favorite.”
The dog’s name was Atlas? It should have been Attila. But those steel-trap jaws did open, and the beady, bloodshot eyes did follow the path of the falling potato, which, luckily, did not stick to Miss Kane’s hand.
Stony did not know whether to wipe his wet, aching hand on his handkerchief, or use the linen square as a bandage. Should he ask for hot water to get rid of the slime, or a piece of ice to hold against the swelling? One thing he was not going to do was put his fingers in his mouth to ease the pain, not after where they’d been.
No one was hurrying to his assistance, anyway. The aunt was making henlike cackling sounds in her corner. Stony could not be certain if she was trying to smother her advice or her laughter.
Miss Kane was on the floor beside the butler, patting his back, then helping him to stand. Why, Stony could not help wondering, did she not pension the old man off, if
she was so solicitous of his well-being? He did not understand, and he decided that he did not wish to understand anything about this odd household that kept a four-legged piranha as a throw pillow.
Miss Kane must have noticed his uneasy glance toward Atlas, on the floor. “Oh, he will not bother you anymore. You were just in his place, you see.”
“The sofa is his?”
The heiress fussed over Timms instead of answering, straightening his neckcloth and likely leaving it permanently glued together. “He is content on the floor for now.”
Of course he was. Having gobbled up all the fallen sandwiches, the brute was now devouring Stony’s bouquet that had landed on the floor. Stony chose not to argue with him over it.
Timms was standing on his own now. “I’ll just go fetch more refreshments, Miss Kane,” he said.
She looked at the empty plate on the tea cart. “Thank you, Timmy, that would be lovely. And some wine?”
“Thank you, miss. Don’t mind if I do. The good Lord always blessed the fruit of the vine, didn’t he?”
When the butler left, Stony could not stop himself from asking, “Why do you keep him?”
“Timmy? He has been with the family for generations. What would you have me do, toss him out on the street just because he is old?”
And slow, decrepit, half-blind, and a psalmist? “No, I meant the dog. Why would you keep an animal like that in the house?”
“It’s his house.” She sat down in her armchair again. Stony sat in the hard wooden chair, just to be safe.
“Oh, I doubt the inheritance would stand in a court of law,” Miss Kane went on when Stony offered no comment. “But Aunt Augusta left her home to Atlas. I could not neglect my aunt’s wishes, could I, especially when she left five copies of her will? Besides, the house will come to my sister and me eventually.”
Not soon enough by half, in Stony’s estimation. “Does he bite you?” he wanted to know.
“Not since I started carrying treats for him.”
“You know, I don’t think I have ever seen a dog eat a potato before, or a cucumber sandwich.”
“Aunt Augusta was a vegetarian, you see. She did not permit any flesh in her kitchen. At least she did not write that into her will.”
Timms brought in another tray of refreshments and a fresh pot of hot water. Miss Kane was busy brewing the tea and rearranging the food and serving her aunt. Timms offered Stony a delicate cut-crystal goblet and a half-filled bottle of wine. The Madeira was so fine, and the bottle so bare of excise labels, that Stony could not help wondering if the sea captain was other than a naval officer, as he had assumed. He savored his glass and some excellent biscuits, finally relaxing.
Miss Kane nibbled on a narrow slice of watercress sandwich. No wonder the woman was so thin, he considered. She ate like a bird. “The macaroons are delicious,” he mentioned between bites. “Have you tried them?”
She did, at his urging. He felt better for that, for some reason.
The dog was snoring, or was that the aunt? Either way, it was a peaceful, normal scene, one Stony was reluctant to disturb with mention of business matters.
To delay, he asked for a cup of tea, since Timms had taken himself and the bottle away.
“Sugar? Milk? Lemon?” Miss Kane was everything polite. She’d do, he decided, watching her graceful moves. He would not be embarrassed to take her out in public. Not too public, of course, for she still looked like a pallbearer. A bit of sightseeing, a few shops where he was unknown…
Miss Kane was finished with her repast. The macaroon lay half-eaten on her plate. As soon as she handed Stony his cup, she cleared her throat. “About my request for your escort,” she began, straightening the spoons on the serving tray.
Stony let go his plans for tomorrow. “Yes?”
“I do not think we will suit.”
For the second time in as many days, Stony’s trousers were tea spattered. Not suit? How could a worldly, fashionable gentleman like himself not suit this dowdy, eccentric female? Hell, he was not going to marry her—at which Gwen would be delighted instead of disappointed, once she met the woman—just take her touring! How arrogant, how presumptuous. How could he change her mind?
Stony was thinking of that check in his pocket. The devil alone knew what Miss Kane was thinking as she stuttered and sputtered through an apology for taking his time, for letting Atlas savagely gum his hand, for letting the dog eat his lovely flowers.
“For heaven’s sake, madam, just say what is wrong and I shall try to fix it.”
“Oh, there is nothing to fix. Nothing at all, to be sure.” She refolded the extra napkins, her head down so that black abomination on her head hid her features and her expression. Then she cleared her throat, as if to gather her resolve. “You are simply not what I had in mind.”
Before Stony could ask for an explanation, she continued: “You see, Timmy thought I should do better with a gentleman’s escort, but I find you…”
“Yes?”
“Too…too…
“Young?” He gave his best Wellstone smile, wondering again at the female’s age. Her skin appeared good, from what he could see of it, clear and unlined. “I assure you, my stepmama thinks I am nearing my dotage.”
“Too pretty.”
“You think I am too…pretty?”
“Well, polished then, if the other offends. I would feel like a lump of coal next to a faceted diamond. Worse, at your side I would feel that every eye was upon me, which is far from my intention. I much prefer my anonymity.”
Stony could understand that a shy girl might shun the notoriety of public scrutiny, but Miss Kane did not appear bashful. Buffleheaded, perhaps, but not bashful. He could even recognize that an heiress might cherish her privacy, away from fortune-hunters and hangers-on but, even coming from the country, she had to know that a nabob’s daughter was news, no matter how she looked, or with whom she danced. “I do not see how—” he began, but she interrupted him.
“Furthermore, I have two other gentlemen in mind to assist me during my stay in London.”
“I am glad to hear that,” he lied, wondering what young buck or enterprising pauper was trying to take over his escort business. “You and your aunt should not be going about unprotected here in town. It is different from what you are accustomed to in the country, where you know everyone.”
“Yes, that is what Timmy said.”
“If you are also unfamiliar with the other gentlemen you are considering, at least I might be of assistance in your choice.” Or he might have words with the dastards, for hunting on his preserves.
“Well, I doubt that you would know Mr. Edward Lattimer. He is a Bow Street Runner.”
“What, you think he can take you to balls?”
She blinked and said, “I have no intention of attending balls.” Stony noticed, now, that she had fine green eyes.
Then the parrot—it had to have been the parrot, for the auntie was asleep and sworn to silence—squawked, “No balls at Bow Street. No balls, a’tall, I say.”
Stony looked around but did not see the creature. Miss Kane’s cheeks were awash with color, but she managed to say, “Thin walls, don’t you know,” before hurrying on. “The other with whom I thought to consult is Lord Strickland. Perhaps you do know him.” Stony did, but not out of choice. Strickland was a hard-drinking, heavy-gambling widower of middle years and middling intelligence. He was a known frequenter of some of the less discriminating brothels, which were not the London landmarks Miss Kane would be desirous of seeing. “If the baron is an acquaintance of yours or a friend of your family’s, I must apologize, but I do not consider Lord Strickland the best of company for a young female.”
“As if I didn’t know that,” Stony thought he heard her mutter. He also thought the parrot in the next room said “Prickland,” but perhaps Mrs. Goudge was mumbling in her sleep about jabbing her hand with the needle.
Miss Kane had taken up her teacup again and was swirling the tea dregs around in it
as if she could read her future there. She was not pleased with what she saw, Stony thought, for she said, “Tsk. And he has not bothered to answer my letter either.”
She’d summoned the baron, too? Stony wondered if Miss Kane had been as peremptory with Strickland, or if she had also sent him a bank draft. Strickland was not known to be plump in the pocket; neither was he rumored to be below hatches enough to go into trade. The thought of a bank draft reminded Stony of the check in his pocket. He took it out and handed it to her. Better it stick to her hand than his conscience. “Your retainer.”
“Oh, no, you must keep it. For your time and trouble.”
Stony shook his head and stood to go. “No, I cannot accept what I have not earned. I assure you it has been no trouble, and a pleasant time.”
Miss Kane stood too, to walk him to the door. “Please keep it. If not for your efforts, then for your boots.”
“My…?”
The dog had cast up his accounts, and a few expensive hothouse flowers, on Stony’s feet. The viscount had to bite his tongue to keep from using the vocabulary that kept the parrot banned.
Miss Kane was shaking her head as if she were reading his mind now, which was a great deal easier than the tea leaves. “I know what you are thinking,” she said, “but my aunt did love him.”
Or her aunt did not love her niece. It was none of his affair, thank goodness. Stony was halfway to the door when he stopped. “Miss Kane, I really hate to say this”—he hated himself more for not fleeing when he had the chance—“but I truly think you should reconsider.”
She looked at the check in her hand. “I suppose you would think so, if you need money as badly as— That is, I thank you for coming.”
“It is not just the money. I do not believe either of the men you mentioned can serve you as well, or look after your interests. I greatly fear you might be taken advantage of or misled. I would feel negligent if I did not warn you of the pitfalls awaiting a….” He wanted to say ninnyhammer, but that was no way to ingratiate himself with a potential employer. “A newcomer to our city.”
A Perfect Gentleman Page 5
