Good Earl Gone Bad (12 page)

“At the moment, it's her father I need to speak to,” Jasper said, explaining why he'd run his friends to ground in Brooks's in the first place. “I sent Hermione home to await further instructions from me, and before you ask, she was shaken up enough by finding Saintcrow's body that I believe she will not venture out for the rest of the day at least.”

“And you want to see if Upperton knows anything about Saintcrow's demise?” Trent guessed.

“Precisely,” Jasper said, rising. “So, let's go.”

They ran Lord Upperton to ground at White's, where he'd somehow managed to keep up his membership.

“My lord,” said Jasper to Hermione's father, where he slumped in a dark corner with a cup of strong coffee—obviously nursing a headache from overindulgence the evening before. “Might we have a few words?”

Without waiting for an invitation he and Trent took chairs on either side of the older man.

“What do you want?” Upperton said indignantly. “Didn't you get what you wanted from me last night? I would have thought you'd be off celebrating your impending nuptials.”

“Is that any way to speak to your future son-in-law?” Jasper asked, noting the nervous way that Upperton beat his fingers on the table before him. “I would have thought you'd welcome me with open arms. Especially if you're hoping for any sort of beneficial marriage settlements.”

That woke Upperton from his malaise. Sitting up straighter, he said, “But I thought because you won her at cards there would be no settlements.”

It was really too disgusting that the man would let his daughter go into a marriage thinking there would be nothing put in place to protect her interests, Jasper thought. “Of course there will be settlements,” he said, biting back the scold he longed to give the man. It would do no good, and since he knew that he would provide adequately for Hermione and any children they might have, even if her father would not, it was beside the point.

“That's a relief,” said Upperton with a grin. “I look forward to meeting with you, Mainwaring.”

“We're not here to speak of settlements, however,” said Jasper, exchanging a glance with Trent who was looking at Upperton as if he were a toad. “We're here to ask you about Lord Saintcrow.”

At the mention of Saintcrow, Lord Upperton frowned. “What of him? He hasn't found some fault with those damned horses, has he? If so, it's too late. The fellow won them fair and square and I haven't got the blunt to pay him the amount they're worth.”

“Nothing like that,” Jasper assured him, suppressing his annoyance at the ease with which Upperton discussed his daughter's horses. “Indeed, he won't be able to find fault with anything ever again.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Upperton demanded.

“He's dead, man,” Trent informed Hermione's father, who blanched at the bold announcement.

“Well, don't look at me!” he said, throwing up his hands as if to ward off an accusation. “I had no reason to see the fellow dead. We'd completed our business. I was finished with him.”

“But what of Hermione's anger over how you lost her horses,” Jasper asked, watching the older man carefully. “Did you perhaps try to get them back, and argue with Saintcrow over the matter?”

Upperton's look of puzzlement was reassuring on the one hand—that he did indeed have nothing to do with Saintcrow's murder—but on the other, it was highly angry-making. Because it was clear from his expression that asking for his daughter's horses back was so far from the realm of his possible motivations as to be unthinkable.

What a delightful man he would have as a father-in-law, Jasper thought with sarcasm.

“It was finished,” Upperton said with a shake of his head. “My daughter might not understand the whys and wherefores of gentlemanly behavior, but I thought you would, Mainwaring. A gentleman does not renege on a deal. No matter how angry one's daughter might be over it. I would no more ask for those horses back than I would cheat at the tables.”

At the very least, Jasper was glad to know that neither of the Uppertons was responsible for Saintcrow's murder. He might despise the way Hermione's father dismissed her wishes out of hand, but he was relieved not to need to defend the man against a murder charge.

“Very well,” he said aloud. “Now, I must ask you to return home and inform your daughter about what passed between us last night. Because I mean to ask for her hand this afternoon, and it would be better if she knows about it beforehand from you.”

Upperton looked as if he would like to object, but on seeing just how serious Jasper was, he bit back his protest.

“Very well,” he said with a nod. “I'll just finish up this drink and—”

“Better to go now,” Trent said with pleasant menace.

“I agree,” Jasper said, equally persuasive.

Upperton sighed. “Very well. I'll go now.”

When he was gone, Jasper gave a sigh of his own. “And that's the man to whom I have pledged to tie my family for the rest of my life.”

“Look at it this way,” Trent said, ordering a glass of ale. “If nothing else, it will make a charming story to tell your grandchildren.”

But Jasper was rather skeptical whether Lady Hermione would allow there to be any issue from their marriage at all. Especially when she heard how he'd happened to go about winning her father's consent to the match.

 

Nine

“What is it, Papa?” Hermione asked once she'd taken a seat.

She'd spent many an unpleasant session standing before her father's desk in the library back in the Upperton town house in Grosvenor Square, but this was the first occasion on which she'd done so in their rental house in Half-Moon Street. But no matter the locale, there was an eerie similarity to the feelings of frustration such meetings engendered. Especially when whatever infraction he called her to task for seemed to pale in comparison to his own actions—whether it was losing the money meant to pay the butcher at the races, or her coaching pair at the card table.

This time, however, something was different.

For one thing, he looked guilty. Something she'd never, ever, seen her father do.

That he might well feel guilty given the fact that he'd lost her horses, she didn't consider. He'd not shown any sort of remorse at the ball last night. Indeed, he'd been as unrepentant as ever. Even if, by some miracle, the error of his ways had been pointed out to him, she didn't think he'd be easy to convince. A man didn't change his entire outlook on life in the space of an evening. And her father had never been one to alter his behavior even an iota at another's behest.

Could it be that he'd learned of Lord Saintcrow's death? she wondered. It was possible. Maybe even probable. But he would hardly look guilty about that. Unless of course he'd had something to do with it. But she had her doubts about that possibility as well. He had no reason to want Lord Saintcrow dead. Certainly not over the loss of her horses.

“There is something I must tell you, my dear,” he said, breaking into her reverie.

“You'd better just tell me, Papa,” she said when he didn't speak up at once. “Clearly your news is bad.”

She only prayed he hadn't wagered Queen Mab this time.

“Do not speak to me as if I am one of your grooms, daughter.” Lord Upperton bristled. “I may be a disappointment to you but I am still your father.”

Knowing that argument was futile, and wanting him to get to the point, she sighed. “I meant no disrespect, Papa. I simply wish to know what you have to tell me. And my apprehension lent sharpness to my tone. My apologies.”

He made a noise of disbelief, but did not press the matter.

“I have been making preparations to wed the Countess of Amberly,” her father said.

Since she knew that the countess was his lover, and wealthy enough to make a marriage to her advantageous to her father, Hermione was hardly shocked by the news.

“To further that aim,” her father continued, toying with a bit of dried sealing wax on the surface of his desk, “I was engaging in some business dealings last evening that would make it possible for me to court Lady Amberly in the style to which she has become accustomed.”

Translation: he had been gambling to earn enough of the ready to convince his creditors not to reveal his degree of debt to the lady before he could manage to wed her.

“I see.” Hermione wondered idly just how naïve her father thought her. Surely he didn't think she believed this nonsense about business dealings. He'd lost her horses. And only a simpleton would miss the disappearance of bits and pieces of valuable furnishings from the house.

“Yes,” he continued, staring at a spot just over her left ear. “I have sold the Lincolnshire property for a tidy sum. You know how difficult it sometimes is to get monies from our estates, and as we've never visited it since your mama died, I thought it time to part with it.”

An outright lie, she guessed. The likelihood was that he'd lost it at the tables. And despite her determination to remain calm, she said, “That property was in Mama's family for generations.”

Not to mention that it had been promised to Hermione upon her marriage. Which would not be happening anytime soon, she admitted, but she'd liked the idea of having something of her mother's when she wed.

But her father had already moved past that, waving his hand in the air as if her objection were a mere trifle.

“I will purchase something handsomer once I'm wed to Lady Amberly,” he promised her. “And do not think I've forgot it was to go to you on your marriage. I will simply have to give you something else. And sooner than you might have guessed.”

His words sent a frisson of unease through her.

“What do you mean?” she demanded, tired of his innuendo and evasions.

But instead of looking cowed by her tone, Lord Upperton seemed pleased with himself. Clearly his earlier trepidation had been replaced with sangfroid now that the news of the property loss had been given.

“It is high time you were married,” Lord Upperton said in a tone that made her grip the arms of her chair as if it were in danger of tossing her out onto the Aubusson carpet. “Don't you think, my dear?”

No, no, no, no.

“What have you done, Papa?” she asked, not daring to stand up lest her legs give out beneath her. “What have you done?”

“Nothing awful, I assure you,” Lord Upperton said with a shrug. “I've been thinking about what would become of you if something untoward were to happen to me. I cannot countenance the thought of you playing poor relation to my nephew Charles in the event of my death. Why, you'd be tossed out on your ear within a week of his assuming title.”

That he was likely right considering that Hermione and her cousin Charles had been at loggerheads since their first meeting as children was beside the point.

“Why this sudden fear for my future?” she asked with a frown. “Are you ill?”

He had been looking paler of late, she considered, and his skin was looking quite gray now. Maybe his late nights at the tables were taking a toll.

“Certainly not,” Lord Upperton said with the indignation most men of middle years reserved for questions of their own immortality. “I am fit as a fiddle.”

That was a relief at least. He was a trial, but she loved her father despite his sins.

“Then what…?” she began, before the answer came to her in a blinding revelation.

“Lady Amberly wants me out,” she said flatly.

The widowed countess was well-known throughout the
ton
for being the highest of sticklers—though if that were the case then her interest in Lord Upperton was hardly in keeping with her previous patterns. Even so, she had made it plain on her one and only meeting with Hermione that she disapproved greatly of the younger lady's practice of so masculine a pursuit as driving, and had even suggested that if Hermione wished to spend time in her company then she should turn her attention to something more suitable to her station and sex.

Her father's flush at her assertion told Hermione all she needed to know.

“Lady Amberly's opinion of me notwithstanding, Papa,” Hermione said through clenched teeth, “I believe I am capable of deciding when and whom I shall marry. And I certainly do not need you making arrangements in back rooms of gaming hells to see me settled. If it comes to pass that you do marry Lady Amberly, then I shall simply seek shelter from one of my friends.”

At least she hoped she might. Leonora was newly wed, but she would surely allow Hermione to stay in the guest room of Craven House for a short time until she could make other arrangements.

“This has nothing to do with the countess,” Lord Upperton said haughtily. “I simply thought it time for you to wed and I made arrangements to that end.”

“Who is it?” she asked, unable to keep the tension from her voice. Please let it not be some crony of his from the tables, she prayed silently. Marriage to a gamester would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

“I've promised him to let him break the news himself, my dear.” Her father's gentle tone was even more difficult to endure than his bluster. “Do not worry. I think you'll be quite pleased. He's accounted to be a handsome fellow. And I feel sure you'll rub along well enough together.”

One rubbed along well enough with an acquaintance one didn't find particularly entertaining. One rubbed along well enough with the anonymous maid provided by an inn for an overnight stay.

A husband—the very word made Hermione's gut clench in objection—the man who would be able to forbid her from keeping horses at all if he chose; who might decide to deposit her in some country backwater to molder; who had the right to use her body whenever the mood struck him …

This last sent a shot of fear through her so strong she had to keep from crying out.