The Handbook to Handling His Lordship Read online

  And given what the Marquis of Ebberling thought he knew, the sooner Nate could find this particular female and be done with it, the better. Then he could drive himself to Brighton and have a little chat with his former comrade and remind Colonel Rycott just how little he appreciated being gossiped about. Or mentioned at all, for that matter. He’d found and trapped and killed his share of lions. More than his share, according to the French. And now cats and females and the occasional piece of lost jewelry suited him just fine, thank you very much.

  Once Ebberling was satisfied that the drawing accurately depicted Miss Rachel Newbury—or her image as of three years previously, anyway—the marquis handed over a hefty stack of blunt along with his address both in London and in Shropshire’s Ebberling Manor. Nate sat back and studied the pencil sketch. She was pretty, with that lifted-chin haughtiness Ebberling had described. In truth she could be anyone, residing anywhere in England. Given the supposition that she wouldn’t want to be found, however, he’d never encountered a better place to lose oneself than in the crowded streets of London.

  A stranger in a small village would be noticed. People would ask questions. Rachel Newbury wouldn’t want to answer questions, and she wouldn’t want to be remembered. She would likely be employed in some quiet, nondescript occupation where she was unlikely to encounter anyone from her prior life—as a seamstress or a baker’s helper, a shopkeeper’s assistant or even an old lady’s companion.

  Yellow-blond hair, brown eyes, haughty, and highly intelligent. Not much to begin with. But he’d found people in Europe in the middle of a war. That had been a matter of life and death, of security for England. This would be fun.

  The moment Lord Ebberling left the house, Nathaniel summoned his valet. “Franks, retrieve my saddlebag from the attic, will you? I’ve a bit of traveling to do.”

  The valet wrinkled his long nose. “My lord? How long will you be gone? I can’t possibly pack such a small bag with adequate garb and your toiletries. Allow me to fetch you a proper valise.”

  “A valise won’t fit on my saddle,” Nathaniel returned, the stifling robes of earldom beginning to close on him again, not that they’d ever fit well. For Christ’s sake, until two years ago he’d practically lived out of a saddlebag, acquiring additional things as necessary and discarding them once they were no longer needed. Evidently an aristocrat didn’t pilfer shirts from clotheslines, however.

  “Please reconsider, my lord. Wherever it is you’re going, you will have need of pressed shirts and starched cravats. You—”

  “Very well.” Cursing under his breath, Nathaniel motioned the servant toward the door. “One small valise. And tell Garvey I’ll be taking the phaeton. To Shropshire and its environs, since I’m evidently to inform people of my comings and goings now.”

  From his expression, Franks didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but Nate wasn’t in the mood to explain himself. He’d done his duty by the Crown, and now he did his duty to his family by taking the title his cousin Gerard had vacated after falling from a boat in the Lake District. What grated was the remaining wish to do something for himself, something that he wished to do for his own curiosity and interest. At the moment, that was riding—no, driving now—to Shropshire and the neighboring villages to look for a trace of Miss Rachel Newbury. And by God, he meant to find her.

  Chapter Two

  The washroom was the plainest room in The Tantalus Club. Even the kitchen had a selection of antique pots and pans lining the walls. The washroom, however, featured only a wooden chair, a small cabinet for towels and soaps, and a large brass tub in the middle. A small window did look out over the carriage drive, but after several men were caught trying to look inside, the window was actually raised so high on the wall that it now looked out into the sky.

  Considering the reputation of The Tantalus Club for hiring beautiful, unavailable women, Emily Portsman was somewhat surprised the window hadn’t been boarded over entirely. The fascination of the unobtainable, she supposed it was. But as she’d been obtained several times over the past three years, that explanation didn’t quite serve.

  As usual on Sundays and Thursdays, Emily was the last to use the bath for the day. With her making the schedules, that feat was particularly easy to arrange. By now the water had moved past tepid and into cool and unpleasant, but it served its purpose. And she needed the extra time that being at the end of the line provided. It wasn’t that she felt a particular need to scrub herself clean; in fact she had stepped from the tub nearly an hour ago.

  She currently sat in the simple wooden chair beside the bathtub, a warm woolen robe wrapped around her, and her latest gothic horror novel open in her lap. The Scottish Cousin featured a plot so convoluted she had no idea what was truly going on. It had passed the border of impossible five chapters ago, but it kept her entertained. And that was the point of it.

  Finally the small, secondhand clock sitting on the cabinet ticked past three o’clock, and she set the book aside and stood. Making her way back to the cold bath, she knelt beside the brass tub and unceremoniously dunked her head. Immediately the water turned a reddish brown, spreading out from the long strands of her hair until the entire bath was the color of weak tea. Emily drew her fingers through the mess, shaking it out vigorously, then grabbed for the stained brown towel she always used and wrapped it tightly around the dripping cascade.

  Immediately she went to the bowl of clean water she’d set aside and thoroughly washed her hands in the most abrasive soap she’d been able to find. No sense going through all this twice a week and then having stained brown fingers giving her away. Sitting on the chair again, she toweled off her hair, then combed through it until it was smooth and glossy. She would have to wait until it dried before she could take the straightening iron to it—only once had she made the mistake of putting metal to her hair while it was still wet, and she’d had to wear a matron’s turban for a week until the green tint faded.

  Now, once the thick paste of henna and tea and lemon juice had been rinsed away, she would have a head of pretty, if utterly unremarkable, dark chestnut hair. The color of a bay horse, one of her intimate companions had once said. Nothing to write a poem about, certainly, and that was precisely what she wanted.

  The door rattled, and she started. “Nearly finished,” she called, reaching over to collect her shift and pull it on over her head.

  “It’s Jenny,” a feminine voice in a light French accent called. “I have the new gown you ordered from Gaston’s.”

  Emily sent a glance at the tea-colored bath, then padded over in her bare feet to unlock the door and pull it open. “You know I didn’t order a gown from Gaston’s,” she said in a low voice, allowing the club’s majordomo into the bathroom before she closed the door again.

  Genevieve Martine, her blond hair pulled tightly into a bun that bespoke a governess rather than the second-in-command of an exclusive and decidedly unconventional gentlemen’s club, shrugged her shoulders. “It sounded plausible, no? Not that I think anyone cares to hear that you color your hair, Emily.”

  “It’s a matter of pride,” Emily lied with a short smile. “Not all of us have ravishingly lovely golden hair.” She fingered the mostly dry ends.

  “Mm-hm.”

  She would’ve preferred an even plainer brown color, actually, but the henna tended to turn everything red before it deepened to brown. The tea and the lemon juice helped, but to keep her hair from changing color every other day she had to apply the dye twice each week. “Was there a reason you wanted in here, then? The bathwater cooled past tepid an hour ago.”

  “I thought I might assist you with carrying buckets to empty,” Jenny replied, “since you’ll be overseeing the dinner service in an hour.”

  Emily blinked. “I did the schedule. You’re overseeing dinner service tonight.”

  “I was,” Jenny countered. “Now I’ve been volunteered to speak at a meeting for women who wish to own their own businesses.”

  “But—”
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  “Yes, I know. I don’t own The Tantalus Club. Diane does. She also asked me to attend, as she refuses.” Jenny grimaced. “I would decline also, but women who can envision owning their own businesses are also ones who can afford to wager here on ladies’ nights. In order to serve our own interests, I can be politic for an evening.”

  “You’re always politic, Jenny. It’s a talent of yours.”

  This time Miss Martine grinned. “One among many.” Walking over, she picked up a bucket, dipped it into the bathwater, and headed for the door. “You dispose of this in the back garden, do you not?”

  “The roses seem to like the henna. Or the tea. Or the lemon juice. I don’t know which one it is.” She frowned as she pulled on the simple blue muslin she’d brought into the bathing room with her. If she was to oversee dinner, she would need to change into something more enticing. Being noticed intentionally seemed mad to her, but on the other hand this was a house of beautiful women. A plain one would stand out like a crow amid peacocks. “You don’t need to help me, Jenny. I’ll manage.”

  “Nonsense. And if you’re worried about my discretion, consider that I’ve known for the past two years that you color your hair, my dear. And this is the first word I’ve spoken on the topic. If you wish, it will also be the last.”

  Clearly Genevieve Martine didn’t believe that Emily altered her hair color because of vanity, just as both Jenny and Lady Haybury knew that she had a past of which she refused to speak. “I would prefer that the topic be closed,” she said slowly, reflecting that while it might have been nice to have someone with whom to discuss whatever she wished, the counter to that would be that someone else would have information she’d worked for the past three years to bury.

  “Then it is closed.” Jenny waited until Emily had finished buttoning up her muslin, then pulled open the door. “And I will still help you carry water to the roses.”

  Emily cracked a smile. “Perhaps one day we can chat about henna,” she said in a low voice, “but for the moment I prefer to keep my secrets.”

  “I have several of my own, as well. I do understand.”

  Considering what she did know of Jenny Martine, of her mastery of several languages and the occasional references Diane made to her dearest friend’s “adventures” in Europe during the Peninsular War, Emily didn’t doubt that for a moment. She did wonder, however, if any of Jenny’s secrets involved murder. But that was one conversation she meant never to have.

  * * *

  A week roving across Shropshire had made one thing very clear to Nathaniel Stokes: Rachel Newbury knew how not to be found.

  None of the Marquis of Ebberling’s servants knew where she might have gone. None of them even knew who or where her parents might be. The letter of recommendation she’d produced upon applying for employment at Ebberling Manor proved to be false; at the least Debrett’s Peerage had no listing for a Lady Sebret. The fact that altering one letter of this mysterious previous employer’s name made it read as Secret didn’t escape him, either.

  “Was your trip successful, my lord?” his valet asked, as Nate took a seat on the edge of his bed to pull off his boots. The button fell to the floor, spinning on its end, and he stepped on the damned thing to silence it.

  “No, Franks, it was not,” he stated, flexing his tired feet. However necessary he’d come to think of his assumed frailties, another day or two without resting his foot and his limp would have become real. “You servants chat with each other, do you not?”

  “We do all dine together, generally.”

  “You know about each other’s families, relatives, places of birth, yes?”

  The valet continued emptying out Nate’s travel valise. “For the most part, yes. Some are more reticent than others, and I can’t say I know—or remember—every detail, but we do talk.”

  “And what would you say if one of your fellows never divulged anything of her past? Never said a word about anything that occurred before the moment she took the position?”

  “I would say that perhaps she was fleeing from something unpleasant, or sad.” Franks scowled briefly. “Or illegal. In that instance it would be the butler’s duty to discover if a crime had been committed, because that would reflect badly on the entire household.”

  “That’s what I thought.” Ebberling’s butler hadn’t known anything useful about Miss Newbury other than to second the marquis’s statements that the woman had been quite young, pretty, well educated, and rather haughty. High in the instep, as the butler had declared.

  “Will you be staying in this evening, my lord?”

  He shook himself, belatedly removing his spectacles and tossing them onto the bed. “Yes, I believe I will. Inform Mrs. Blanchard, will you?”

  “Certainly, my l—”

  “There you are.” A warm male voice came from the doorway.

  Nate turned his head, pushing back against the instinct to reach for the pistol in his bedstand. “Laurie.” Damnation. He’d completely forgotten about his brother’s impending arrival. It wouldn’t do if he actually became as absentminded as he pretended.

  “I expected a dressing-down when I arrived,” the nineteen-year-old drawled, strolling into the room. “Had a defiant speech memorized and everything. Didn’t expect you wouldn’t even be in London to hear it.”

  Clenching his jaw, Nate sent a glance at the valet. “That will be all, Franks.”

  “Very good, my lord.”

  “You were on one of your hunts, weren’t you?” Laurence Stokes asked, shutting the door behind the servant. “What is it this time? A missing ring? Some lordling’s stray dog? You’re an earl now, you know. Your new peers will only look down their noses at you if you allow them to hire you to find their bits and baubles.”

  “Are you certain now is the best time for you to be criticizing how I choose to occupy myself?” Nate countered. “Unless you’re hoping I’ll be so busy with defending my honor that I’ll forget why you’re here.”

  Laurence waved a dismissive hand at him and flopped into one of the chairs placed before the empty fireplace. “I learned a long time ago that you never forget anything, Nate. You’ve a library for a brain, with every topic neatly indexed for later reference.”

  “And you have a sieve for a brain, retaining nothing but absolute nonsense.” Nate stood, but with his tired foot he didn’t feel much like pacing. Instead he sank into the chair placed at right angles to his brother’s. “In your letter you said you had a disagreement with one of your professors. At least tell me it was something academic and not a moral clash over whether you should be allowed to have a whore in your rooms or not.”

  Laurie wrinkled his nose. “Do you have any idea how tiresome it is to have you for a brother?” he finally said, a sigh in his voice. “However clever I may think I’m being, you simply cut a swath through all the cobwebs of deceit, put your hands on your hips, and bellow out the facts.”

  Ignoring the fact that he hadn’t bellowed anything, and that evidently his brother had been caught with a chit in his rooms, Nate cocked his head. “‘Cobwebs of deceit’?” he repeated.

  “I was going to say clever cobwebs, but I’d already used clever, and you would have said I was repeating myself.” Laurence thudded a fist into his thigh. “I know you don’t want me here, and honestly I’d rather be back at Oxford with my friends, but I made a mistake. I’m sorry.”

  “How long is this punishment?”

  “Yours, or mine?” Laurence shrugged. “The term’s nearly over. I’ll miss a fortnight, and the final exams.”

  For a long moment Nathaniel gazed at his brother. People said they looked a great deal alike, but other than having the same green eyes, he didn’t see it. Laurie’s hair was darker, more of a solid brown than his own. Nate was taller by two or three inches, but he remained uncertain how long that might be so. No one, however, had ever said they behaved alike. And for that, he was generally grateful. “Being excluded from final exams isn’t a first offense, Laurence,” he f
inally said. Ten years separated them, but most of the time it felt more like a hundred.

  “I—”

  “I hope you realize this isn’t a holiday. You’re not going to spend your days at Gentleman Jackson’s or Haymarket or Tattersall’s, and you damned well aren’t going to any clubs or soirees.”

  “So you mean to keep me locked up here? In the cellar, I presume?”

  “You’re heir to an earldom now, and you’re going to be more prepared for it than I was.”

  “Prepared how?” his brother asked, green eyes narrowing suspiciously.

  “To begin with, I’m going to show you all of the accounts and ledgers. And then you can balance them.”

  “On my head?”

  “Very amusing. And yet I’m not at all moved toward sympathy.”

  “Nate, that isn’t—don’t you have people who do that? Cousin Gerard must have, because he couldn’t do a sum to save his life.”

  “I do hope that wasn’t a jest aimed at our dear late cousin’s unfortunate and untimely demise, Laurence.”

  His brother flushed. “No, of course not. He drowned, anyway. That had nothing to do with ledgers. Unless he threw himself into the lake to avoid balancing them.”

  Nathaniel stood. “And now I’m even less sympathetic toward you. I’ve been the Earl of Westfall for two years. It’s time you learned something useful. Let’s begin with the accounts of three years ago, shall we?”

  “Nate, I was only attempting to keep you from yelling at me for the chit in my rooms. Don’t be a bloody axeman.”

  Hm. That actually seemed a rather apt description. But no one had ever asked him how he meant to deal with inheriting either an earldom or a younger brother, and he was expected to manage both. “It’ll be good for you. You shouldn’t have to rely on someone in your employ to tell you your own finances. Now come along. We might as well get started.”

  With a curse, Laurie clomped to his feet. “You know, suddenly I’m not so grateful that Gerard’s inheritance got you this position, or that it paid for me to be at Oxford in the first place.” He sidestepped on the way to the door and snatched up Nate’s spectacles. “And I don’t think you are, either,” he said, putting them on. “Hah. Glass, just as I thought. Why are you pretending to be addlepated again? You resigned from the service, you said.”