Magic in the Stars (15 page)

Ignoring her sister’s effervescent foolishness, Aster held
out her hand to the unknown Ives. “It is common in good company to introduce
one’s self, as my sister has plainly forgotten. I am Lady Azenor Dougall,
astrologist and eldest daughter of the Earl of Lochmas. I take it you have met
my sister, Lady Briana, and my cousin, the Honorable Deirdre McDowell.”

Younger than Theo, with burly shoulders and square features
framed by burnished bronze hair, the unknown Ives bowed over her hand. “William
Ives- Madden, at your service. I believe I’ve been labeled the guilty party in
Cook’s departure. I beg your pardon, my lady, and will do all that I can to
rectify the situation.”

“My word, a Pisces Ives, the world will never be the same.” Aster
settled against the cushions and studied another of the late earl’s
illegitimate sons. They were far more interesting in person than in her charts.
“You may remove your animals to the conservatory, where they will be much
happier surrounded by earth and sun. I recommend finding a servant to tend
them. It is not a job for kitchen staff.”

“We haven’t staff enough to keep the conservatory warm in
winter, my lady. The dogs are trained to use the back doors in the one room
that always has people about. But I shall remove them for warmer months,” he
offered gruffly.

Aster looked from this tweed-and-leather dressed, very
masculine Ives to her wide-eyed and fascinated female relations. “His
intentions are not honorable. You will steer our guests away from him.”

“I will happily leave the respectable ladies to Theo,”
William agreed with a shrug. “But do not trust Jacques, either.” He elbowed the
blond, amiable gentleman who had entered with him. “He may seem simple, but
he’s devious.”

Making a dramatic bow, Jacques gestured for the boy to step
forward. “And I don’t believe you’ve met Hartley Ives-Weldon.”

Dark auburn with a sprinkle of freckles, Hartley bowed
formally over Aster’s hand. “A pleasure, my lady.” He couldn’t be much more
than ten, but he behaved with more dignity than his elders.

“Ah, this one shows evidence of a mother.” Aster vaguely
recalled an actress on the marquess’s charts but couldn’t recall the specifics.
And Hartley was only one of a pair of twins if she recalled correctly. She
would have to be wary that they didn’t attempt to fool her with their
appearances.

“Very good. Hartley,” she said. “If you and William would
begin removing animals from the kitchen, we might have some hope of retaining
kitchen staff. Bree, you and Dee see if the staff needs any help in putting
together dinner, please. How many of us are there? I will see what I can do
about setting up a table.”

“There’s just us,” Jacques said cheerfully. “Dunc eats in
his chambers, and Theo has gone out to deal with rioting farmers. Hugh is never
to be found. And I’m not simple or devious. I just lack that exhausting Ives
ambition.”

“You’re Aries. That’s to be expected.” Aster gestured
dismissively, focusing on the more important topic with a frisson of fear.
“Rioting farmers? Is this an occupational hazard in the country? I don’t wish
to invite guests if there is any danger.”

All three Ives brothers shrugged as if riots were a daily
occurrence, like the sun rising at dawn.

“Theo just needs to find the instigators. Foraging for food
is a better use of our time,” Jacques said cheerfully. “Ladies, if you’ll
follow us, we’ll hold our own private riot in the kitchen.”

Aster desperately wanted to follow them. She also wanted to
run after Theo and warn him again of the assassination parts in his family
sector.

But as usual, she was good for nothing except as a
Prophetess of Doom.

Sir, this is to
advise you and the other Parson Justasses to make your wills. If your threshing
machines are not destroyed directly we shall commence our labours.
Captain Swing

Theo cursed the notorious message carried to their door by a
neighbor lad who had been handed it at the tavern. He cursed the bloody-minded
farmers who hated change and forced him to ride out in the damp night when he’d
rather be at his telescope. He cursed them for obliging him to leave the lovely
Lady Azenor to his brothers. And he cursed Duncan for getting himself injured
so he didn’t have to deal with these bafflewits.

And he cursed even more when Duncan’s eldest twin cantered
up half way into the village. “What the devil are you doing out here? Shouldn’t
you be home with your mother?”

“She has a new beau,” Hugh said cheerfully. “She says we are
to learn to be rich men.”

The twins’ mother was an actress and the daughter of an
actress. They lived in a society between classes, choosing which rules they
wished to obey. With the burden of duty weighing on him, Theo admired their
freedom.

“I trust that means she wants you to learn to work hard,”
Theo said dryly. “I don’t think it means you are to follow me to the tavern.”

“If I do what you do, won’t that teach me?” he asked with
the aggravating simplicity of a ten-year-old. “I used to follow Father, but
he’s not much fun anymore.”

Devil take it
. Of
course the twins were accustomed to Duncan telling them what to do. It must be
even more confusing for them than it was for Theo to have Duncan living in a
sour cave.

“I doubt your father takes you to the tavern. Where’s
Hartley?”

“He’s following William. He likes animals. I don’t. Father
says I’m the eldest and should learn to run the estate.” Hugh darted him a look
from beneath an overlong hank of auburn. “I know I can’t have a title, so don’t
lecture.”

“The bloody title is nothing but a headache anyway,” Theo
muttered. “But I can’t teach you what I don’t know. You should be back at the
house eating dinner or irritating your father.”

He rode into the inn yard and scanned the lights in the
tavern, seeing nothing unusual. But spying a phaeton in front of the stable,
his irritation escalated and he swung down despite the lack of activity. “You
don’t belong in a tavern or around disreputable rogues,” he warned his nephew.

“I want to see how you stop a riot. Will you hire men to
shoot the farmers?”

“Bloodthirsty ghoul. There will be no shooting on my watch.”
He didn’t have time to fling the boy over his saddle and take him home. Hugh
would have to learn the hard way that Theo was a lousy teacher. He had no idea
how Dunc would handle the wretched farmers. He just wanted to rid the world of
vermin so he could return to his studies.

Of course, the vermin he had his eye on now wasn’t a farmer
but the person who had driven that phaeton earlier.

Striding into the dim tavern and spotting his drunken sot of
a neighbor in a booth as expected, Theo almost forgot the damned farmers and
the murderous Captain Swing.

But conscious of his duty and the brat on his heels, Theo
approached Samuel, the innkeeper behind the bar, and signaled for his usual
ale.

“Who’s the instigator this time?” he asked. Duncan had dealt
with the Swing rioters last summer. Theo hadn’t paid the incident much
attention then, but he remembered Samuel as being on Duncan’s side.

“Outsiders,” Samuel replied, understanding without
explanation. He pulled a tankard and glanced at Hugh. “That Pamela’s whelp? Is
she back in town?”

“My mother is in Oxford,” Hugh replied with pompous
politeness—a product of repetition since his mother was invariably an object of
village curiosity. “I am staying with my father, the marquess of Ashford.”

Samuel snorted. “Even the ginger can’t hide Ives arrogance.”

Theo thumped the boy’s shoulder. “He’s teaching me to farm.
Are the outsiders staying here?”

“One or two. The rest . . .” Samuel glanced
toward the drunk in the booth. “They be staying with tenants here and about.”

Theo understood the innkeeper’s inference—
with Montfort’s tenants
.

Lord Henry Montfort owned the land north of Iveston, but it
was his lackwit son, Roderick, who lived in the manse. Duncan had told Theo
that Roderick had harbored the criminals last summer. He attracted the desperate
sort because decent folk wouldn’t pay the ridiculous rents he charged for unrepaired
cottages and poor farmland.

“Well, look, and if it isn’t the milksop and the cub,” Roderick
chuckled drunkenly from his corner. “What drags you out of your books to see
what real men do in the evening?”

Theo was no stranger to the insults for his preference for
books over fisticuffs. He placed a warning hand on Hugh’s head. “Bullies never
grow beyond adolescence,” he said loudly, for Montfort’s benefit as well as the
boy’s. “True gentlemen needn’t denigrate others to make themselves feel better.”

Obviously too drunk or ignorant to grasp the insult, Roderick
raised his tankard. “They’re burning your fields as we speak. The Ives pedants
will have to give up changing the way things are always done and do it like the
rest of us, or go broke.”

“Or go broke like the rest of you?” Theo asked idly,
concealing his alarm. It wouldn’t do to ride off in a panic over gossip from a
sot. Besides, he had another interest that came first. “Exhausting your fields
is how you paid for that phaeton?”

“Won that in a race,” Roderick said proudly. “That’s how a
gentleman does it, not by grubbing in the dirt.”

That was all the confirmation he needed.

“Go outside, Hugh,” Theo warned in a low voice. Insults rolled
off his back, but now that he’d verified the phaeton’s ownership, justice was
required. “It’s about to get ugly in here.”

“How am I supposed to learn to be a gentleman?” Hugh asked
indignantly. “I’ll just stand here and watch along with these other coves.”

Theo was aware that other men watched. If he put his mind to
it, he might even know their names. But Montfort was the source of his anger.

Leaving the boy under Samuel’s protection, Theo carried his
mug over to the booth.

“Now, yer lordship, we don’t want no trouble in here,”
Samuel called.

“No trouble,” Theo said, glaring at the fair-haired rogue in
the booth. “I just see a grinning toad who needs a lesson. He ran ladies off
the road today and nearly destroyed a good team and my coachman by racing that
phaeton and leaving them injured in a ditch without even stopping to offer aid.
Don’t you think that requires a lesson?”

He heard grumbles of assent, and chairs pushing back as some
of the cowards ran from trouble.

“I did no such thing,” Montfort said, too drunk to see the
danger. “Your fancified excuse for a carriage isn’t balanced. Told you it
wouldn’t hold up.”

“The carriage isn’t at fault when a nodcock forces it into a
ditch. And when said nodcock fails to stop and help the injured, he deserves a
good horsewhipping. Pity I didn’t bring one with me. I don’t suppose any of you
gentlemen have a whip at hand?” Theo asked, keeping his eyes on the baron’s son.

Finally grasping the insult was directed at him, Roderick
glared through bleary eyes. “Bookworms don’t have the guts to whip a dog,” he
said scornfully.

“You haven’t the wits or the guts to know dogs don’t need
whipping,” Theo snarled, expecting the man to come out fighting.

When Montfort didn’t even attempt to come after him, Theo
realized the dolt was too drunk to stand. Already frustrated beyond measure to
be here instead of where he wanted to be, he grabbed Montfort by the shirt
front and dragged him from his seat.

The sot swung wildly, landing a weak blow on Theo’s ribs. In
disgust, Theo released his grip and let his opponent slide to the floor. Once
Roddy was sprawled across the boards, Theo upended his nearly-full tankard over
his head. “I’ll wait until you can stand before thrashing you properly.”

Dirty blond hair dripping, Montfort clenched his fist and scrambled
to stand. “Why, you—”

“Upstart?” Theo suggested, walking away. “I can’t think of a
better epithet at the moment. Come along, Hugh, we need to feed a few farmers.”

Montfort staggered in Theo’s direction, but Theo merely
stepped aside, letting his neighbor fall against a table. “Sorry about the
mess, Samuel.” He threw a gold coin on the bar. “That should cover the cost of
tossing out the rubbish.”

Before he could reach the door, horses galloped into the inn
yard, accompanied by warning shouts. Gut clenching, Theo stepped outside.

“They’re torching the hay shed!” one of Duncan’s older
tenants yelled. “And marching this way.”

Wanting nothing more than his quiet study, Theo dashed for
his horse with Hugh on his heels.

If he hadn’t dallied with Roderick . . . If he’d known where to
go or which farmer to talk with . . . But he didn’t. And now buildings were burning
and men could be hurt.

He didn’t personally know the hardworking men in the fields—but
he
had
grown up around them. He couldn’t
believe they’d burn their crops without coming to Duncan with their grievances
first.

Of course, if they’d come to Duncan recently . . . They’d
probably been thrown out on their ears. Which was why they were trying to get
his attention. And Theo was failing them.

“Ride back to the house,” he shouted at Hugh. “Tell them I
won’t be home soon. And tell your father he’d better hire a steward with a big
stick and spine of steel.”

“Can’t I watch the fire?” the boy called in disappointment.

“No,” Theo said firmly. “It will burn out, then there’ll just
be a lot of drunken shouting. The ladies have probably fixed a nice meal by
now. Get something to eat.”

As Hugh happily rode off with that thought, Theo realized
that Azenor had taught him one thing already—boys could be bribed with food.

***

Aster was directing one of the new maids in how to
properly remove the plates from the right side of each person at the table when
Hartley’s sturdier twin rushed into the room, brimming with excitement.