How I Met My Countess (16 page)

“Oh there was a bit of a hullabaloo over it, especially a few months later, when Archie’s uncle— that old drunkard Lord Edward—up and died, leaving Archie as the next in line. Since the marriage couldn’t be undone, the Sterlings did their best to bring her up to snuff, but you know Lucy—” Jack grinned. “I think the entire family drew a collective sigh of relief when Archie died in that gaming hell and the title passed to Thatcher.” He laughed. “Can you imagine, Lucy Ellyson a duchess?” He shook his head. “Oh, she’s given them nothing but trouble as Lady Standon. Too much of her father’s temper. She’s never been one to suffer fools gladly, and unfortunately, Society is rather overflowing with them.”

Well, on that point, Clifton couldn’t argue, for he found London Society utterly ridiculous. Yet Lucy’s temper aside, why had she married Archie Sterling?

“I’m sorry,”
he’d managed to say
. “I suppose I should use your married name, but I fear I don’t know it.”

She’d shaken her head.
“Lucy will still do, my lord.”

Nor had she told him she was a widow. Or Lady Standon.

His jaw tightened as he remembered how he had teased her about Monday Moggs.
“So if he’d had a title, estates, an income and a stable full of well-mannered horses, you wouldn’t have floored him? You’d have let him carry out his nefarious plans?”

Lucy Ellyson had tossed aside the promise she’d made to Clifton and snapped up Archie Sterling, the eventual heir to a dukedom.

Their interview from earlier glowed in an entirely new light. But it left one largely unanswered question.

“Why would Malcolm have left her his fortune?”

He hadn’t meant to say that aloud, but Jack, as it turned out, had his own theories.

“Perhaps he was in love with her. Though I would have thought Mariana, pretty thing that she was, would have been more to his taste. Gads, every man who ever went through that house left half in love with one of them. Glorious creatures, the pair of them.” Jack raised his glass in a mock toast.

Clifton sat back, trying to piece together everything Jack had just given him. “Why ever would she have married him?” he muttered more to himself than for Jack’s benefit.

“Marry Archie?” his friend replied, mistaking the question for curiosity. “I’ve wondered that as well. Must have been for a demmed good reason, for Lucy Ellyson was never a foolish bit of muslin.”

This pulled Clifton’s rising temper into check, because Jack was right. Lucy had never been a girl whose head was turned by a title or wealth.

“Might have done it out of grief,” Jack offered. “Mariana and her father had died. She had no one left, no one to turn to. And there was Archie.” He glanced up at Clifton. “I suppose you can understand that one. I thought for sure you’d never come home after Malcolm died. That day you sailed from Thistleton Park, I told Miranda it was most likely the last time we’d ever see you again. Never known a man so lost in grief and heartbreak.” He reached over and slapped him on the shoulder. “Glad to see I was wrong.”

Clifton nodded his thanks, but his thoughts were awhirl. A cacophony of questions rang a heavy peal over his head.

Why had Lucy not just waited for him?

Why had Malcolm left his money to her?

Even as his anger and suspicion welled up inside him, urging him to march over to Brook Street and demand answers from her, Clifton’s pride rebelled, latching onto another of Ellyson’s truisms.

Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to hear the answer.

No, he couldn’t ask her. She was the one, after all, who’d broken faith with him, married another… . She owed
him
an explanation.

If only he had Malcolm’s will in hand, then he might find some clue… . If only Strout’s clerk hadn’t misplaced it …

Clifton paused. The clerk …

“That’s it,” Clifton said, rising abruptly to his feet. Oh, why the hell hadn’t he thought of it before? The clerk!

“What’s it?” Jack asked, looking up from his comfortable chair.

“In the mood for a little investigation, a la George Ellyson?”

Jack’s mouth spread into a wide grin and he bounded to his feet. “Will it prove to be illegal or illicit?” Obviously Clifton’s contentedly married friend hadn’t left his Mad Jack ways completely behind.

“Possibly,” Clifton said as he made his way out of the club.

“Far better than meeting up with my brother for another one of his prowsy lectures,” Jack declared as he followed, hot on the earl’s heels.

As they left White’s and waited for Clifton’s carriage to be brought around, Jack crossed his arms and kicked at a stone. “You never did say which one of the Ellyson sisters you fancied.”

Clifton looked straight ahead. After a few moments, he said, “Lucy.”

“I thought as much,” Jack said. “She seems more your type. Fancy her still?”

“No,” Clifton lied.

And Jack, being a former rake and ne’er-do-well, knew better than to call him out.

“There must be some solution to all this,” Lucy suggested, settling back on the cushion she’d pulled down and set near the grate. “Something amenable to all of us.”

“You both could move out,” Minerva suggested. Then she grinned at her own jest.

But it might have been the two bottles of claret they’d consumed that had Minerva—of all people—grinning. For after Lord Lewis’s departure, they’d raided the kitchen and discovered a small cache of a decent vintage, as well as a plate of biscuits.

Two bottles of claret and a plate of sweets had them fast friends.

“I have no other place to go,” Lucy confessed. “My father’s house in Hampstead belonged to the Duke of Parkerton. When Papa died, the lease ended. ’Tis why I married Archie.”

“The duke cast you out from your home?” Elinor asked.

Lucy nodded.

Her new friend huffed. “If ever I meet the man, I shall give him a piece of my mind. What a horrid fellow he must be,” she declared.

“Indeed!” Minerva concurred.

“I fear I am not only a relic but a pauper as well,” Lucy told them.

“What of the contessa?” Elinor asked, then blushed at the mention of the lady who was never named aloud in the Sterling clan. Emboldened as she was, she asked, “Wouldn’t she help you?”

“Oh, hardly,” Lucy told them. “The last thing the contessa needs is a daughter half her age about. She’s too young, she avers, to have a daughter my age! Besides, she’s usually up to her ears in debt— especially when she’s in between protectors.”

“Oh, such a thing! I never knew,” Elinor declared before she turned to Minerva. “Why don’t you move out? Surely there is some dower house or other such suitable residence that your cousin can offer you, considering the circumstances. You’ve never been at a loss to tell us how much more superior the Earls of Gilston are, what an ancient lineage they hold.”

Minerva blushed. “I’ve been dreadfully horrid, haven’t I?”

Elinor glanced away, for she was still far too much of a lady to be completely honest.

However, Lucy wasn’t so restrained. “Beastly,” she said before she collapsed into a fit of tipsy giggles, which was then joined in by Elinor and Minerva.

“As for moving home, it is impossible,” Minerva said. “My cousin has made it clear that I am a Sterling now, and as such, Hollindrake’s responsibility, not his.” She paused, and what it cost her, Lucy could only imagine, for then Minerva added, “I have nowhere else to go.”

Her honesty sent a quiet chill through the room.

Elinor glanced away. “Nor I.”

“Obviously,” Lucy began. She shifted and glanced up at Elinor. “But however could your mother tolerate such circumstances. She just sat there!”

Lucy’s mother may be a disgrace, but she would never have allowed such abuse.

Elinor shook her head. “Oh, heavens, Lucy, that woman wasn’t my mother. That is Lord Lewis’s new wife.”

“The former Oriable Huthwaite,” Minerva supplied. “Low
ton
, really. Very low.”

“Agreed,” Elinor said, her nose wrinkling. Then she glanced over at Lucy. “No offense meant.”

“None taken,” Lucy said.

“I will be the first to say that your origins came in quite handy tonight,” Minerva admitted. “Perhaps Bath schools should be teaching alternative uses for candlesticks.”

“What I don’t understand,” Lucy said, “is that if Lord Lewis is your stepfather and that lady isn’t your mother, then how can he have control of your future or Tia’s?”

“When he married my mother, he gained our guardianship.” Elinor glanced away, tears forming in her eyes. She set aside her glass and wiped at them. “It is intolerable. I may have my freedom from him, but my sister does not. And now he means to see Tia married.”

“She’s but a child!” Minerva protested. “Not yet fourteen.”

“Yes, I know,” Elinor said. “But it wouldn’t be the first time he forced one of his stepdaughters to wed against her wishes. That is why I snatched her out of her school and brought her here to London. To hide her from him, until I could apply to the duke for help. But now …”

They all realized that help from His Grace might not be forthcoming, or, at the very least, difficult to obtain.

“We must stop him,” Lucy said. Then she corrected herself. “We will stop him.” She reached over and squeezed Elinor’s hand.

They sat for a while in silence, each consumed with her own thoughts.

“She truly does have us boxed into a corner,” Minerva said in an uncharacteristic bit of cant. “But in your case, Elinor, it might be a good idea to take Her Grace’s advice and get married.”

“I have no intention of getting married again,” Elinor declared. “I have no need of finding myself in another man’s bed.” Her nose wrinkled in dismay.

“Nor I,” Minerva agreed quickly. “I’ll not be some man’s duty.”

Lucy glanced at both of them and realized they were talking about their marriage beds. While she’d never met the first Lord Standon, Philip Sterling—twenty years older than Minerva when she’d become his third bride—she’d heard enough gossip to know he’d been naught but a brute and a lout. Elinor hadn’t fared much better with Philip’s brother Edward, or, as Sterling family gossip had it, a self-affected drunk who’d fancied his young male companions more than his innocent bride.

No wonder the other two Lady Standons lacked any enthusiasm for marriage.

“It isn’t all that bad,” Lucy declared. “The duty, that is.”

When they both gaped at her, Lucy cursed the claret that had loosened her tongue and her unfortunate tendency to blurt out whatever she was thinking.

Elinor, emboldened by her own glasses, giggled. “Are you going to lead us to believe that Archie Sterling was a good lover?”

Lucy laughed. “Who, Archie? Oh, good heavens, no!”

Then she realized what she’d just admitted.

Elinor’s eyes widened. “You’ve had a lover!” she declared, wagging her finger at Lucy. “A good one.”

Rather than looking askance, the two ladies edged closer to Lucy.

“Do tell,” Elinor pleaded.

“Yes, all the details,” Minerva said.

“No!” Lucy replied, shaking her head furiously.

“Oh, it must have been heavenly,” Elinor said, nudging Minerva. “For look how she blushes.”

“Was it one of the King’s agents?” Minerva asked.

Lucy sat back, her mouth gaping.

“Oh, please, Lucy,” Minerva said. “We know all about your father. I suppose there were ever so many daring agents you met. It must have been one of them.”

They both sat there, grinning at her like a pair of hungry cats.

And there would be no putting them off.

“Oh, if you must know,” Lucy said, “it was. But I cannot say more than that. I won’t say more than that.”

Elinor nodded to Minerva, who then topped off Lucy’s glass.

“Weren’t we discussing Elinor’s situation?” Lucy reminded them, making a note not to drink any more claret, or she’d be prattling on worse than Mariana ever had.

“Yes, I suppose we must,” Minerva said. “Really, Elinor, perhaps, as Lucy suggests marriage might agree, and it would keep that despicable step-father of yours at bay.”

Lucy glanced over at Minerva, for her new friend’s unwitting suggestion rang true for her as well. If she was married, Clifton couldn’t come after her. He wouldn’t dare… .

“I was raised to be a duchess,” Elinor declared. “Not take potluck with the leftover gentlemen in the duchess’s journal.”

“Even if it means saving Tia?” Lucy asked quietly.

They all turned and looked at the lone volume sitting where the duchess had left it on the stand in the foyer.

“There is only one way to find out,” Lucy said, getting up and crossing the room. She paused for a moment and stared down at the worn cover, at the girlish scrawl written across the front.

Private. The property of Felicity Langley.

So the duchess had held dreams as well, Lucy mused. And found them in her marriage to the man who’d inherited the Hollindrake dukedom.

Taking a deep breath, Lucy picked up the book, then dashed guiltily back to her spot near the fireplace, having closed the door behind her.

They all sat there for a moment, waiting, until Minerva said, “Oh, bother, Lucy. Open it!”

Lucy nodded, counted to three and, letting the Fates and happenstance guide her, opened to a random page.

“What does it say?” Elinor asked, edging down the settee until she could look over Lucy’s shoulder. “Oh, goodness. It is Winny Addleston!”

“Not Minny Winny,” Minerva said, rising from her chair and coming to sit beside Lucy on the floor. “Goodness, everyone knows he’s a great fool!”

“Minny Winny?” Lucy shook her head. “It says nothing like that. Now here, listen to what she writes:

Lucy looked up. “Why, he sounds like a decent prospect.”

Minerva sniffed. “If you want to spend the rest of your days buried in the country listening to him wheeze.”