Rakes and Roses (Proper Romance Regency)

by Josi S. Kilpack

  Sabrina had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him that Lord Damion had never actually purchased the properties for as small a sum as agreed to in the contract. Only four of her clients had been unable to pay off their debts by the end of the term, and she had created a mortgage for two of them and paid full value of their assets for the others, minus what they owed Lord Damion and the five percent interest. The point of such a low settlement in the contract was to motivate the foxes to be active in resolving the debt some other way.

  Mr. Stillman, however, had no hope of raising the forty-two hundred pounds he owed Lord Damion any other way. It was simply too much money. She had anticipated Mr. Stillman would pursue the marriage inheritance, which would help him secure a mortgage before the end of the term. It was yet one more way she had not fully appreciated the depth of this situation.

  “Do you not have any other sources of income available to pay off the debt? Could you get a mortgage, for instance? Or . . . perhaps there is a relative who could help you?” She could not believe what she was saying! Lord Damion was determinedly against family members coming to the aid of his foxes, and yet she was encouraging that very direction.

  It is different now, she told herself. He is taking responsibility. He is thinking of his future.

  Mr. Stillman set his jaw. “I am determined to resolve this debt and never find myself owing ever again. My poor reputation, both moral and financial, means a legitimate mortgage is not an option, and I have no family foolish enough to lend to me. I need to find my own solution.”

  Sabrina thought carefully about what to say, fearing she would reveal how much of his situation she knew. “What of your uncle who made his fortune in India? If he has done so well, then perhaps he would extend you some opportunity. I’m sure he would not like to see you lose this land.”

  Mr. Stillman shook his head. “He has assisted me before, digging me out of more than one pit of debt, each time believing his help would change me. It didn’t, and he finally cut me off. He is already agreeing to see to my physical care when you leave for Naples—did Therese tell you that was arranged?—which is more than I deserve. I have written to him my sincerest apologies, which I hope will soften him toward me, but I will not follow that letter with one asking for financial help he was right to refuse me.” He sighed and stared at the board. “I need to be a different man than I have been, Lady Sabrina. If I manage the profits wisely going forward, perhaps one day I can be a landowner again.” He looked up at her. “Do you think that is possible?”

  It was burning her throat not to ask him about the marriage inheritance, but he’d said nothing about it to Lady Sabrina. She swallowed and focused on his question.

  “It is possible, if you proceed wisely,” she said. “Have you considered textiles? With the cotton imports coming more regularly from America, there is more and more money to be made in that sector, especially if you can anticipate changing trends early on.”

  “I have not considered anything,” Mr. Stillman said, then pulled his eyebrows together in a thoughtful expression. “Where would I start in learning about textiles?”

  Sabrina shared what she knew about the industry that was already well-established in Leeds and growing quickly in Manchester. Mr. Stillman listened intently as they continued their game.

  “I could locate some additional information if you like,” she said when she sensed he was beginning to feel overwhelmed. She made a mental note to ask for Mr. Gordon’s help to address the selling of his estate—there had to be a different way to go about things.

  “I would appreciate that very much. Thank you, Lady Sabrina.”

  They each made a few more moves in silence. The game was beginning to drag, and she wondered if he was prolonging it on purpose. If he let her win, she would be furious.

  “Would you like to hear about the time I accidentally drove my father’s carriage into Alderfen Broad?” Mr. Stillman asked in a jaunty voice.

  “I most certainly would,” she said, relieved at the change in topic. She gave him a smile that he returned tenfold.

  He told her of the escapade in exaggerated language and with so much feeling that she had tears streaming down her face by the end from laughter. When had she ever laughed this hard? She was in the process of catching her breath when he moved his rook and captured her queen.

  “Checkmate,” he said with a grin and a wink.

  She stared at the board, mapping out his last few moves to see how he’d done it. After seeing the route he’d taken, she raised her head to meet his eyes. “You used that story to distract me?”

  “Yes,” he said with a self-satisfied nod. He tossed her king into the air a few inches and caught it in his fist. “I did. Thank you for the game, Lady Sabrina. I am already looking forward to our rematch.”

  Sabrina leaned back in her chair, both frustrated and flattered. Yes, Mr. Stillman was someone she was going to have to keep her eye on.

  Elliott was in his study when Brookie brought him a letter. He recognized the handwriting and took a breath to prepare himself. Harry’s letter from almost two weeks ago had been short and to the point. He’d been badly beaten and was recovering at the home of a friend but would need a place to go in a few weeks. Could he count on Uncle Elliott to care for him after his current placement could no longer keep him? It had not been arrogant, but neither had it been humble. Elliott and Amelia had crafted a simple response. Yes, they would help with his recovery; please send additional information.

  Harry only ever came to Elliott when he needed something, and as soon as Elliott had stopped taking care of the need—which had always been financial until this last letter—Harry had ignored him. The last time they had spoken in person had been last year when Elliott had gone to London to see both Harry and Timothy; Harry had been insulting and rude before storming out of the pub where they had met for breakfast.

  Elliott braced himself, broke the seal on the letter, and read. When he finished Harry’s surprisingly humble letter of apology and contrite regret of his former behaviors, Elliott blinked and read it again.

  Could this really be from his nephew? Elliott retrieved the letter from a few weeks ago to compare the handwriting just to be sure. A lump formed in his throat. If he trusted the words and tone of the letter, it seemed Harry had found the redemption Elliott had been praying for.

  When he joined Amelia for tea a few hours later, he passed the letter to her. As she read Harry’s words, he spread butter and jam on a slice of her homemade bread. They always had bread for tea.

  “Well,” Amelia said when she finished reading, setting the letter aside and picking up her cup of tea. “That is an unexpected turn.”

  “Indeed. What do you think of Harry’s apology?”

  “If his words can be believed, it’s remarkable.”

  Elliott nodded, more confident of his impressions now that Amelia shared them.

  “He still hasn’t said where he’s been recuperating, though, has he?”

  Elliott nodded. “I noticed that too. Odd that he has not told us. I shall ask him directly.”

  “Excellent idea,” Amelia said with a nod. “I worried after that last letter, afraid of what we might be getting ourselves into, though we certainly had to help him. This letter”—she waved at the paper on the table—“gives me hope that he might actually be on a better path. The only thing that could be more helpful would be if he could find himself a good woman.” Amelia leaned forward for her own slice of bread.

  Elliott laughed and shook his head. “And to think you were so very against my campaign.”

  “This is nothing to do with the campaign, only that the right woman can give a man purpose enough to change his behavior. If the right sort of woman could cross Harry’s path at this time in his life, it could put his future into a new perspective. ”

  Elliott thought about how often he wore blue because Amelia said it looked well with his eyes and how he no longer removed his shoes when he was lounging in the study. He w
alked every day because Amelia said it was good for a man his age to be active, and he had not smoked a single cigar since the night before his wedding. She had certainly changed him for the better, and he could not think of what he wouldn’t do to please her.

  “Ah, yes,” Elliott said with a nod. “There are few things more powerful than a good woman taking charge of a man.”

  The day after their first chess match, Sabrina returned to Mr. Stillman’s room before dinner. Determined to win, she kept conversation to a minimum to maintain her focus. Once she captured his king, she sat back in her chair with a smug grin. It had taken only eighteen moves.

  “Well done,” Mr. Stillman said. “You beat me.”

  “Yes,” she said, copying what he’d said the night before. “I did.”

  “And did not even need to resort to distraction in order to do so.”

  “Well, I have no stories to compete with driving a carriage into a lake.” She paused. “I have been wondering about the horses pulling that carriage, though. What happened to them?”

  “Ah, yes, I shall tell you,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “Though I should warn you I come across quite heroic in that part of the story.” He leaned forward and told her how he had jumped into the lake and cut through the harness straps so the horses could swim to shore.

  “You are funning me,” she said, trying to picture a fourteen-year-old boy doing such a thing.

  He laughed. “I am not! It happened just as I said and is likely the only reason I survived the beating my father gave me for having destroyed his carriage. If the horses had not survived . . .” He whistled and shook his head. “I would not be here to tell the tale.” He continued smiling but there was a tightness there.

  Had he truly been beaten? Not that he didn’t deserve punishment, but being physically dominated could break things inside a person. It was too heavy a thought for her to allow, not when she needed to be attentive to the present.

  She wasn’t sure she could believe he’d rescued the horses, and yet she could picture him doing just that sort of thing. A younger Mr. Stillman seemed exactly the type of boy who would walk the roofline twenty feet up, burn down sheds on accident, release a neighbor’s pigs, and then brag about the triumph to his friends. Did that mean he had been punished for all those things too?

  “I must tell you, Lady Sabrina, and I will understand if you find it hard to believe because there are so many virtues I have not taken to heart, but I have always appreciated honesty. In myself and in others.”

  “And yet if you are a dishonest man, saying you are honest is the very easiest lie to tell.”

  Mr. Stillman considered that for a few moments, then nodded. “I suppose that is true.”

  They held one another’s eyes for a moment, then two, then several. He looked so sincere in what he said, so trustworthy and solid. His eyes were like a clear lake where a person could see all the way to the bottom, and she felt that if he were lying, she would see it. Know it.

  Something shimmered between them. Perhaps it was only that she believed what he said, but it felt like more. A knowing sort of feeling. But could you really know a person from looking in their eyes? Outside of a novel, of course.

  Therese came with Mr. Stillman’s dinner tray, which was the excuse Sabrina needed to break free of his gaze. She excused herself while Therese put a small tablecloth over the chess table. Sabrina imagined taking dinner with him here, in this room. Just the two of them. With the light turned low and . . .

  “Will you return after dinner?” Mr. Stillman said to Sabrina. “We need to break the tie.”

  “I . . . shall see,” Sabrina answered before quitting the room. It felt unwise to return when she’d already spent so much time in his company these last two days—and enjoyed it more than expected. She ate dinner alone in the large dining room, then caught up on the London papers for nearly an hour before her feet took her to his room seemingly of their own volition.

  They played chess again, and she strove for a better balance between engaging in the conversation and remaining focused on the game. If she won this third game, she would break the tie, and it felt very important that she leave this room the victor. Paramount, really.

  “Where did you grow up, Lady Sabrina?”

  Personal questions always tightened her defenses. “Why do you ask?”

  He laughed self-consciously. “I do not know. To start conversation, I suppose. Your focus on the game is a bit intense, and I must distract myself from my fear of losing to you again.”

  She looked up from her study of the board. She had three potential moves, but each of them would create advantages on his part, and she was trying to best plan which sequence to put in play that would be least damaging to her own campaign.

  “I think it interesting that people give a fig one way or another where someone was born.” He’d admitted last night that Mr. Ward had given a report on her, which meant he certainly knew of her illegitimacy.

  Mr. Stillman considered her comment. “And I find it interesting that people use the cliché of ‘giving a fig’ in such a context. What is so great about figs, I wonder? Truffles, for instance, are far more valuable than figs, and truffle oil . . .” He let out an appreciative whistle. “That is something that would be hard to part with, assuming the information you sought was of equal value, which you could not know until after the deal had already been made.”

  “You misunderstand,” Sabrina said. “A fig is of little worth, that is the point. Not giving a fig means that you care very little.”

  “Well, then, you used it incorrectly because I would give a truffle to know where you were born.”

  He had her there, but she rolled her eyes and moved her attention back to the game. She was down to choosing between two moves now, realizing the third move would give him too much advantage if he reciprocated with his knight.

  “So, do they grow figs in the town where you were born?” he asked casually a few minutes later.

  She laughed out loud. Why did no one else make her laugh like this? “You are quite determined, aren’t you? Well, then, I was born in London.”

  “Really?” Mr. Stillman said, leaning against the pillows and lacing his fingers over his stomach.

  She found her eyes drawn to the deep V of his nightshirt, the smattering of golden-blond hair of his chest just visible. An uninvited image of Richard with his shirt off pushed into her mind, and she replaced that unsavory memory with the imagination of how Mr. Stillman would look bare-chested. She entertained that image longer than was wise.

  Mr. Stillman continued. “You seem much more a woman from the country than a city girl. What with your roses and such.”

  “Perhaps because you have known me only in my country house, though a growing number of people no longer consider Wimbledon ‘the country.’”

  “I think of Wimbledon as the country, though I’ve seen only a bit of it through the window.” He waved toward his view of green hills and a few chimney stacks poking up from pitched roofs of other homes.

  “And where were you born, Mr. Stillman?”

  “At the same Stillman estate I shall have to sell within the year.” He spoke casually, and Sabrina had to stop herself from repeating her opinion that he should not being too hasty taking such a step. She still needed to talk to Mr. Gordon about how they might better handle that situation.

  “Have you brothers or sisters?” she asked, more comfortable with him being the topic of conversation.

  “Two sisters,” Harry said. “Hazel is the oldest, by ten minutes. Hannah came when we were three.”

  Sabrina blinked. She’d known he had sisters from the investigation she had done before agreeing to take him on as a client. “Oldest by ten minutes? You are a twin?”

  He nodded but showed neither excitement nor reticence to talk of this interesting detail.

  “I am not sure I have ever met a twin.”

  “Well, most twins do not survive childbirth.” He shrugged, and discomfort enter
ed his expression, lowering both his energy and his shoulders. “As it was, Hazel was born with a clubfoot.”

  She waited for him to expand, but he leaned forward and focused on the board even though Sabrina had not yet made her move. The changes this topic had brought into his demeanor were poignant. She decided to test his insistence that honesty was the one virtue he had not cast by the wayside along with the other morals he’d dismissed.

  “You and your twin sister do not get on?”

  He flickered his gaze at her, then back to the board. “Not in so many words, no.”

  “How many words does it take to better explain it?”

  He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Between Hazel’s sex and her physical failing, she was all but invisible. The attention and support I received for my sex and my health cast a particularly long shadow that further hid her from view. When Hannah was born . . . Well, my parents had an able-bodied daughter to put their minds to. The difficulty this created for Hazel is something I did not realize for most of our life and have never remedied. She is, as you can imagine, rather resentful.”

  Sabrina stared at him. “I did not expect such an answer.” It was humble and insightful and tinged with regret. And, perhaps most interestingly, honest. As far as she could tell.

  Harry shrugged, still looking at the board for reasons she better understood. Honesty invited vulnerability, yet he’d still told her the truth when he could have given a different—and easier—answer.

  “Where has life taken your sister?” Sabrina asked, feeling a kinship with this woman she’d never met but whose circumstances—through no fault of her own—kept her on the outside. But then, wasn’t everyone a victim of circumstances in one way or another? Mr. Stillman’s circumstances had spoiled him and left him irresponsible and hedonistic.

  “The one good turn my parents did for Hazel was providing her an excellent education. She finished her own schooling at the top of her class and immediately began teaching. Last I heard, she was teaching French and mathematics at a girls’ school outside of Brighton.”