Kate Noble (15 page)

“Lord Fontaine!” Romilla exclaimed. “How lovely to see you. You’re just in time for tea.”

Max and Will took in the full tea service and the tiers of pastry and sandwiches. In their minds, it was still breakfast time. “Tea, madam?”

“Yes, we serve tea at half past ten in this house,” Romilla answered. “I see you brought a friend. Mr. Holt, it’s good to see you again.”

“My pleasure, ma’am. I enjoyed your party last week. Quite the loveliest affair.”

Romilla fluttered prettily at the compliment, her manner warming to accept the new addition.

The gentlemen sat, more than eager to take part in some mid-morning victuals. They were male after all, Gail thought, so food was always a welcome sight. Gail reached for her own abandoned scone, but a quick glance from Romilla stopped her from indulging in such a messy treat in front of the gentlemen.

“Tell me, Mr. Holt, how is it you came to be friends with Lord Fontaine?” Romilla began, taking the lead, as she had yesterday. Gail feared that she would talk over them again, but Mr. Holt seemed able to hold his own in any conversation. He smiled easily and launched into stories of two mischievous youths, growing up on the Bristol coastline. He told of boyish adventures, tree climbing, playing in the woods—tame stories that satisfied the party’s need for conversation, but were obviously only shadows of the actual exploits.

Twenty minutes passed, without anyone but Romilla and Mr. Holt speaking. Occasional questions were directed toward Evangeline, so she had to pay attention, smiling and nodding when appropriate, but Gail had nearly nodded off while sitting upright. Only a discreet pinch from Evangeline kept her from slumping to sleep.

One of the maids entered to clear the remains of the tea tray, and Gail looked wistfully as she took away her now cool, uneaten scone. Romilla’s voice was becoming raspy from carrying the weight of conversation, and a shared look between Gail and Evangeline cemented the need to put their plan into action.

The maid who had been clearing up the tea service was given a quick wink—the signal had been sent. She, in return, gave an almost imperceptible nod, and just as silently gathered the rest of the cups and saucers and left the room.

Two minutes later, a beautifully anguished shriek rent the air. Romilla stood up so quickly, she overturned the small stool near her left foot.

“What on earth…?” she said as she trotted to the door. Mrs. Bibb opened the drawing room door before Romilla could, nearly braining her mistress in the process. Luckily, they both had reflexes enough to stop before any further pratfall could occur.

“Oh, Milady!” Mrs. Bibb said, breathless. “Might I have your presence in the kitchens? There’s been an emergency.”

Before Romilla could protest, Mrs. Bibb had taken off down the hall again. Romilla, torn between her duties to her house and the need to chaperone the girls, hesitated for two seconds, indecision showing on her face.

“Girls, I won’t be but a moment. Please keep our guests entertained,” she said, and ran down the hall after Mrs. Bibb, making certain to leave the drawing room doors open, lending at least some propriety to the situation.

The party had risen from their seats when Romilla had excused herself. Now they all held their breaths.

It was Max who broke the silence.

“She’ll be back shortly, I presume.”

A quick mischievous glance between Gail and Evangeline did not go unnoticed by their guests.

“Or perhaps not…” Max said, an eyebrow rising.

“I doubt she’ll be back for at least an hour.” Evangeline sat, waving for the others to follow her example.

“A problem in the kitchen will take an hour to rectify?” Will frowned as he took his seat. “I do hope it’s nothing serious.”

“Oh no! It isn’t dire!” Evangeline exclaimed. She turned to her sister. “I think Gail could best explain.”

Gail froze. She hadn’t expected…she didn’t think…She looked at the three faces focusing attention all on her: encouraging Evangeline, curious Mr. Holt, and a highly skeptical Lord Max Fontaine. He looked as if he couldn’t believe that Gail could or would plan anything properly. Her eyes narrowed.

“Well, the difficulty in the kitchen is that tonight’s supper has gone completely awry, as I suspect a dog from the street has snuck in and stolen the joint of beef. It takes time to restructure an entire meal, arranging sauces and side dishes to go with whatever Mrs. Bibb can get at the market at such an hour. Up to, oh, twenty minutes to rearrange. Then I’m afraid my stepmother will discover a problem in the hedgerow in front of the house—the very same rogue dog dug up the beautiful crocuses she had specifically ordered and placed in a widening flow by the daffodils. Seeing to the reordering of flowers and new planting design will have to be done immediately—she would never let such a thing sit. It will take another twenty minutes at least. Then of course there is a very important letter of correspondence that has gone missing from her desk.”

“Rogue dog, again?” Will asked.

“Not to worry. It should turn up in another twenty minutes. All added, Romilla will be unfortunately entangled in domestic problems for at least an hour,” Gail concluded, her cheeks tinged with red at admitting all their deeds.

Max and Will looked at each other, clearly impressed.

“When did you have time to, er, come across this stray dog?” Will asked, the corners of his lips twitching.

“This morning. Gail asked Mrs. Bibb to, ah, keep an eye out for such a beast,” Evangeline answered.

Max grinned in spite of himself. Soon enough, a small chuckle escaped.

“Well,” he said gruffly, “uh, that’s very interesting.”

“Yes, interesting!” Will exclaimed. “So much so, that I think someone deserves a gift for such an
interesting
occurrence.”

Will reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a bulbous handkerchief. He unwrapped it, and held out a raspberry scone.

Gail gasped with unexpected pleasure, smiling brilliantly at Will. So focused was she on her treat, she didn’t see Max’s brow crease into a scowl.

AS
it turned out, Gail and Evangeline’s elaborate schemes were to be unnecessary.

Romilla was exasperated. First, Mrs. Bibb and Cook insisted a dog had run into the kitchen and stolen the joint of beef that had been planned for dinner. If it hadn’t been Mrs. Bibb making the claim, Romilla would have suspected foul play. Next, that same dog (which no one had been able to catch) had torn up the beautiful purple crocuses she’d had planted just yesterday. She sent the gardener off immediately for replacements, and when she finished, she noticed a letter she had started that morning to her bank was missing from her escritoire. She inquired of the footman if he had accidentally sent it off with her other correspondence (which would have been disastrous, as she was not yet finished), which he had not. She was about to knock on the library door and see if she had left the letter there, when the door suddenly opened from the inside.

“Ah, my darling! Exactly the person I needed!” Sir Geoffrey took his wife by the arm and pulled her into the library, shutting the door behind them.

“Geoffrey, what on earth…”

But Romilla was silenced by a long, fervent kiss from her husband. As always, she was a bit shocked by the thrill this man made her feel, as if she were a girl of seventeen again. All too soon, he pulled away, leaving her breathless.

“We should start every conversation that way,” Sir Geoffrey said, a bit breathless himself.

“I agree,” Romilla mused, licking her lips, held in her husband’s trance. She shook herself, remembering her responsibilities in the house—time and efficiency must be maintained. “Dearest, I’m looking for a letter I was writing this morning. Did I happen to leave it in here?” She pulled away from him reluctantly, straightening her frock as she began to search the room.

“Forget that for a moment,” Sir Geoffrey said, following his wife to his desk, where she rifled through the papers. “Romilla, I’ve just received the most interesting communication. From the Duke of Wellington.”

Romilla stopped rifling immediately. “The prime minister?” she repeated.

“Yes! He has just sent a missive; apparently he has received a letter from Barivia, which he enclosed.” He handed both letters to his wife, her own quite forgotten.

“It says I am to be placed in charge of trade relations with the German principality of Barivia. And that an emissary from that country is coming next week.”

“Darling, I have spent the last twenty years of my life in Europe, and I have never heard of Barivia.”

“Neither had most of England, until recently,” Sir Geoffrey replied, smiling, and launched into his lesson on Barivian anthropology.

Barivia, it seemed, was an extremely small country in the German states, on the northwest coast. So small in fact, that even though it is on the North Sea, it was mostly ignored by shipping routes for larger ports of call such as Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.

Barivia was fairly unchanged during the Napoleonic wars, mainly because people on both sides plum forgot it was there. Everyone in Barivia grows their own food, uses the same plows and tools and homes that their parents and their parents and their parents used—Germanic construction being, of course, quite sturdy. The only two products they ever exported were chocolates, which were decidedly second-rate next to Bavaria’s—and suffering from the similarity in the two countries’ names, Barivia’s chocolate profits were sadly undercut. The second export was Gunter Roffstaam, a painter of no importance historically or to this story, so it’s not surprising that no one has ever heard of him, unless they visit his parents’ farm, where his mother shows everyone the lovely portrait he did for her birthday and his father grunts about having only three daughters and one worthless son. But, as it’s been stated, he’s irrelevant.

What was relevant however, was that after eons of being the quiet, simple, forgotten country, Barivia suddenly found itself being spoken of in the highest echelons of the British government.

While tending to his herd of goats, farmer Bjorn Roffstaam—a distant cousin of the irrelevant artist Gunter (due to a lack of marital choices, Barivia is horribly populated by Roffstaams)—noticed one of his charges going into a craggy hole in a rock face near the coastline. While attempting to retrieve the errant goat, Bjorn discovered possibly the richest vein of high quality iron ore in Europe. It was malleable. It was pure. And England wanted it.

Romilla interrupted Sir Geoffrey there. “But why on earth would England want to import iron ore? We have loads and loads of it here—we don’t need more…do we?”

“While it’s true that we mine a great deal of iron ore”—Sir Geoffrey never missed a chance to pontificate—“the fact is, we use it to build parts for the textile mills and the new railways—and those don’t require very high-grade iron. This is the purest stuff anyone has seen! Iron like this can undergo the reduction process necessary to produce sheet metal. And sheet metal is going to be a fantastic industry in the future.”

Romilla was about to open her mouth with a question (for she always had questions), but Sir Geoffrey continued. “If Barivia started a manufacturing plant, it would take years and years—we already have the plants in place.”

“Besides,” Romilla added wisely, “we don’t want Barivia to start into the iron industry—it would lower our prices abroad.”

“Exactly.”

“It so often comes down to money, doesn’t it?”

“More often than not, my dear. Now, according to Wellington, both Hanover and France have made their interest in the ore known. We don’t want them in the iron business either, and luckily Barivia has decided to contact us, by sending this emissary”—he consulted the letter in his wife’s hand—“a Count Roffstaam.”

“Another one?” Romilla asked in disbelief.

“My dear, I should not be surprised if everyone in such a small country is named Roffstaam. But he is coming next week, and Wellington has appointed me to the task!”

“Darling, I’m so impressed for you.” Romilla beamed. “But why does not the Duke involve himself in something of such great import?”

“I suspect he would, but he’s busy with the Catholics, and his whole cabinet is in an uproar. But if we get rights to the iron ore, it would be quite a feather in my cap. That awful business in Lisbon can be put aside…I could possibly receive an appointment to a ministry.”

“Oh!” Romilla exclaimed, and threw herself into her husband’s arms, kissing him fervently. When she finally stopped, she couldn’t stop speaking. “That would be wonderful! You of all people deserve such an appointment! And it will happen, dearest, it will! We’ll be the toast of London and…” Sir Geoffrey finally silenced her with another kiss.

After a time just beyond respectable, Romilla broke away and said, “What do we know about him? Of course he’ll have to be entertained. Shall I organize a dinner party immediately? Where do I send his direction? Oh heavens, the things to do!”

Sir Geoffrey chuckled. “He will be staying at lodgings in Mayfair the Duke has had arranged. He’s arriving next week, so you have plenty of time to organize a party. But darling, there is one thing I need to talk to you about…” He hesitated.

“Yes, dearest? What is it?”