Leslie Lafoy (3 page)

“Good day, madam,” he drawled. She started and met his gaze as a blush swept into her cheeks. She hadn’t been searching for a beginning at all, he realized. She’d been absorbed in consideration of his physical person. And judging by the guilty look in her eyes, her mental attentions had bordered on indecent. Carden only barely managed to keep his smile contained as he added, “How may I be of service to you?”

She softly cleared her throat, squarely met his gaze, and answered, “I’ve been told that this is the residence of Mr. Carden Reeves.”

“It is.” God, her voice was just as exotic as she was. Definitely British but with a very slight, gently rolling foreign accent that he couldn’t place. And in that instant he knew that he’d hire her regardless of her references. Maybe there was something to convenience he’d been overlooking all these years. It was certainly worth a try.

Carden smiled and leaned his shoulder against the doorjamb, saying, “The interviews are to begin promptly at two. You’re welcome to wait on the walk until then. It would be unfair to the others to begin early.”

She blinked those incredibly blue eyes of hers and looked sincerely puzzled as she said, “Interviews?”

Most actresses dressed better, but he had to admit that she had talent. Willing to play his part, he blithely supplied, “For the housekeeper position advertised in this morning’s
Times.
”

For a second, anger flashed in her eyes like ice in the sun and then it was gone, replaced by a kind of tattered resignation that made him want to reach out for her, to take her face gently between his hands and ask her to tell him how she came to be standing on his doorstep. She’d cry and he’d kiss away her pretty tears and draw her inside, assuring her that all would be—

“I’m not here to interview for employment,” she said, shattering his fantasy. “I have personal business to discuss with Mr. Reeves. Is he perchance at home and receiving callers this morning? It’s very important.”

She thought he was the butler? In what corner of the British empire did butlers answer the door at noon dressed only in a silk dressing gown? Amused, he crossed his arms over his chest and inquired, “What sort of personal business?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but ‘personal’ implies that it would be inappropriate to discuss the matter with anyone but Mr. Reeves.”

She’d said it kindly and softly, but the notes of censure were there nonetheless. One needed a housekeeper who fully understood and was willing to hold the line of propriety. At least in public. “I’m Carden Reeves. And I’m certain that I’d recall having previously met you, madam. What personal business could there be for us to discuss?”

She drew back—not as though repulsed by any means, but in apparent shock. He couldn’t tell whether it was because she’d suddenly realized that she was speaking not to the butler but to the master of the house, or because the masters of the houses in that far corner of the empire didn’t answer their own doors in dressing gowns. As her gaze skimmed him from hair to toes, he decided that it must be the latter; she seemed more curious than embarrassed. He liked curious women.

“Madam?”

“Forgive me,” she said somewhat breathlessly as she met his gaze again. “It’s just that you’re nothing at all like Arthur.”

If her intent was to give him a turn at rocking back on his heels, she succeeded. “You know my older brother?”

She nodded. “Your brother was a wonderful, kind, and considerate man.”

He felt the earth shift under his feet and he straightened his stance, desperate to hold his equilibrium. “Was? Did you say
was
?”

She too shifted on the step, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin slightly. “I regret having to be the bearer of such news, but nine months ago your brother and his wife departed for a brief expedition into the interior of Belize. Since they haven’t returned or sent word, they’re presumed to be dead.”

“Presumed?” he repeated, knowing even as he did that he was grasping at straws. “Then he might still be alive.”

Her smile was tight, and deep in her eyes he saw the tiniest, briefest flicker of irritation. “You know nothing of the jungle, do you, Mr. Reeves?”

“He can’t be dead. He simply can’t be.”

“I’m afraid that is the most likely of all the possibilities.”

Christ on a crutch, this was the very last thing in the world he wanted to hear. First Percival and now, apparently, Arthur. He was cursed. And damned. If word got out of his change in status, his every waking moment would become a living hell. He didn’t deserve this. Nothing he’d ever done in his life had been rotten enough to have brought this kind of divine vengeance down on his head.

“Mr. Reeves?”

He quickly scrubbed his hands over his face and then dropped them to his sides as he tried to focus his vision on the woman standing in front of him. The beautiful messenger of ugly news. Proof that God had an extremely twisted sense of irony. And a mean streak as wide as the Thames.

“While I’m sensitive to your upset and grieving, Mr. Reeves,” he heard her say kindly but firmly, “there are, unfortunately, matters which simply must be dealt with immediately.”

He should ask her in; discussing personal matters on the front steps was definitely outside the bounds of social protocol. “Such as?” was all he managed to choke out.

“I am Mrs. Gerald Treadwell,” she began, her smile weak and strained. “Your brother and sister-in-law left me in charge of their affairs. It was to have been a very temporary arrangement, but the circumstances changed. I thought it best to bring what was left of their lives to you. Since your sister-in-law was an only child and orphaned, you are the only living relation of whom I am aware.”

His brain wasn’t working properly; he heard her words—each and every one of them—but only one out of three had any sort of significant impact. He couldn’t ask her to repeat it all. It wouldn’t make any difference anyway. He considered what he remembered of her little speech. She’d said her name was Treadwell.
Mrs.
Treadwell. And something about bringing … A dim light flickered in his awareness. Personal effects. She’d brought him Arthur’s and Mary’s personal effects.

Carden nodded. “Have the boxes or trunks or whatever delivered at my expense.”

“I’ve already seen to the order and the paying of the costs, Mr. Reeves. They should arrive here within a few hours.”

He thought that should have concluded their conversation, that with that she should have expressed her condolences one more time and then bid him good day and walked away. But she didn’t. She stood there, watching him with huge blue eyes filled with patient expectation. “Why,” he wondered aloud, “do I sense that our conversation is not yet done?”

“Perhaps because it isn’t,” she instantly countered. “I have brought your brother’s children home.”

“Children?” He all but choked on the word. Good God, the woman was better than any professional pugilist he’d ever seen. She hadn’t laid a hand on him and yet he was reeling.

“Were you not aware that your brother had children?”

“Arthur and I…” Memories swept over him and with them came the usual flood of anger. In the span of a single heartbeat, the cloud numbing his mind was seared away. “Never mind,” he said laconically. “It’s hardly relevant. How many children? And
please
tell me that there’s a son or two in the litter.”

It wasn’t either irritation or impatience in her eyes this time; it was anger. She didn’t make the slightest effort to conceal or bank it but instead turned her back to him and crisply nodded. A sudden movement out toward the street caught his attention and drew it past her. There was a rented hack at the curb, the driver apparently sleeping in the box, whip in hand. It had been the opening of the carriage door that had drawn his gaze.

He watched as a young girl in a ragged dress stepped down onto the public walk. A second girl, slightly smaller, followed on her heels, her skirts too short by half and exposing far too much of her calves to be decent. A third girl—a very little one—jumped two-footed from the carriage and bounded to a halt beside what he could only presume were her older sisters.

Carden stared at the carriage door and willed a young male—size didn’t matter—to come out of the dark recesses. He was still commanding it when the eldest of the three girls turned back and smartly closed the door on his one and only hope of salvation.

It was all but official. He was going to become Carden Reeves, the goddamn seventh Earl of Lansdown.

C
HAPTER
2

What doubts Carden might have been able to entertain as to their parentage evaporated as the three girls came to stand beside their nurse on his front steps. They were the very image of Arthur; the same dark eyes fringed with long, thick lashes that had been entirely too feminine on their father, the same full shape of their lower lips, the same way of holding their heads. And damned if they didn’t have Arthur’s manner about them, as well. All the world was an adventure for them, every person in it subject to open scrutiny and finely honed analysis. And at that moment he felt very much like a bug in a jar.

“Mr. Reeves,” their nurse said as they boldly looked up at him, “may I present your nieces, Amanda, Beatrice, and Camille.”

Alphabetical. How typically Arthur.

“Darlings, this is your Uncle Carden. Your father’s younger brother.”

Out of sheer habit, he countered, “Half-brother.”

The littlest one looked as though she might cry. The eldest didn’t react at all, her face seemingly having turned to stone. The middle one cocked her head to the side and narrowed her eyes as though she were trying to see him more clearly. Their nurse—Mrs. Treadwell, he recalled—arched a gorgeously shaped eyebrow and softly cleared her throat. The sound reminded him of Sawyer and, belatedly, good manners.

“Won’t you please come in?” he asked, stepping back and drawing the door wide with a gesture every bit its equal. Mrs. Treadwell nodded and motioned his nieces forward. They marched across his threshold in alphabetical order and then stopped dead in the center of his entryway. He closed the door, his mind racing.

“Ah … This way, into the parlor,” Carden said, motioning yet again, this time to the small room reserved for the receiving of guests—not that he ever had any that didn’t know him well enough to come in through the back door.

“If you’d like to have a seat, ladies,” he offered even as he noted the layer of dust covering all of the furnishings. Someone—probably Barrett—had written “hire a maid” in the stuff that coated the narrow table backing one of the matching settees. Hiring a maid was properly within the housekeeper’s duties, of course. And he definitely intended to hire one of those today. In a matter of hours, in fact. “If you’d be so kind as to excuse me for a few moments,” he said as the three younger guests plopped down on the upholstery with enough force to raise a choking cloud. “I need to make myself a bit more presentable.”

“That would be fine, Mr. Reeves,” the nurse said, apparently rooted to a spot in front of the unlit hearth. “And most appreciated,” he thought he heard her add under her breath.

He was tempted to point out that she hadn’t shown the least little sign of being repulsed by his state of near nudity; that she’d seemed more entranced than anything. He kept his observations to himself, however, deciding that they’d gotten off to a rough enough start without deliberately trying to embarrass her. “Would you care for some refreshments while you wait?”

“That would be most considerate.”

“I’ll see to it, then. Ladies,” he offered, giving them a brief bow as he backed out of the room and pulled the doors closed behind himself.

Once alone and out of their sight, he paused and raked his fingers through his hair. Sweet Jesus. Arthur. Dead. And with daughters his only legacy. What a hell of a mess this was now. How long could he hold things off? How long could he keep up the pretenses and maintain the tidy, uncomplicated nature of his life? Six months? Maybe a year? It all depended on what he did with his nieces and with their exotically tempting nurse. Sending them away would be the easiest, most intelligent thing to do. The rebellion of the Sepoys had made a mess of India. But he had friends still garrisoned in the Transvaal. Maybe …

Carden raked his hair one more time and set himself in motion, hoping that he’d have a solution by the time he finished dressing. In the meanwhile, he had something approximating a plan that didn’t involve any effort from him beyond giving orders. He could delegate with the best.

He’d no more than stepped into the breakfast room than Aiden looked up from the
Times
and quipped, “You look a little harried.”

“There’s a crisis of sorts. Have you heard Sawyer come in?”

“No. But then, he could have found something to clear that perpetual lump from his throat.”

“Drat and damnation.” How long could it take to see the tailor and pick up a new supply of unmentionables? “All right, Aiden, consider yourself pressed into duty. Sitting in my front parlor is a stunningly beautiful woman with an unfortunate case of duty. Accompanying her are three little girls dressed in rags.”

His friend laughingly folded his paper. “Your past has finally caught up with you.”

He had better sense than that but knew now wasn’t the time to undertake a discourse on the subject of sexual precautions. “The urchins are my nieces and the woman who dragged them in here is their nurse. For God’s sake, be a good friend and fix a tea tray and take it to them while I dash upstairs and find my clothes.”

Aiden retrieved his watch from the table. “It’s been only thirteen minutes since Barrett went up.”

Which made it less than ten for his world having been set on its ear. “Then he’d damn well better be as good as he thinks he is,” Carden pronounced as he headed for the stairs.

*   *   *

“I don’t like him.”

Seraphina pursed her lips and considered how she ought to reply to Camille’s declaration. Honesty was a good thing and yet, on the other hand, the girls’ survival was utterly dependent on firmly placing themselves in their uncle’s good graces.