The Belligerent Miss Boynton AND The Lurid Lady Lockport (Two Companion Full-Length Regency Novels) (39 page)

She must, however, have made some slight movement eventually, for Kevin suddenly withdrew the tip of his cane from the draperies and turned leisurely to face the room's newest occupant.

"Ah, my good woman," he drawled affably. "Allow me to present myself. I am, for my sins, your employer, the Earl of Lockport."

"Oh, my
Gawd
!" Olive Zook gasped out, unfortunately relocating her voice. Her hands flew to her cheeks in dismay as she completely forgot the breakfast tray she had tardily been carrying back to the kitchens. The silver tray and its burden of crockery and utensils slammed to the floor with a resoundingly loud crash.

"Oh, my! Oh, dear! Ach, now, wot has I done?" the maid wailed, simultaneously trying to straighten the cap lying all askew atop her stringy, faded blonde curls, gather together the broken crockery, and curtsy at least a half-dozen times in deference to her new master. In total, Olive was not a sight to encourage Kevin to believe The Hall and its occupants were anything more than he remembered.

His left eyebrow rose in feigned dismay as he tried in vain to still the maid's nervous flutterings. At last, realizing it was the only course left open to him if he were ever to get some sort of coherent speech from the woman, he put his hands on her shoulders and gently but forcibly pushed her into a nearby chair.

"Now," he said, as the last piece of crockery had finished twirling on the floor and slowly rocked itself into silence. "You have me at a disadvantage. I have introduced myself to you, but you have not told me your name."

"Me-me name's Olive, yer worship. Olive Zook," the still clearly distressed maid stammered. She was only kept from indulging in another flurry of curtsies by dint of Kevin's firm hand pressing down on her shoulder.

Once assured she had settled herself, he inquired urbanely, "Tell me if you can then—Olive, is it? Yes, of course, Olive—is it possible that anyone harboring even a whit of sense is in residence? In addition to yourself, of course, my dear."

Olive, blushing to the roots of her hair as her fumbling hands twisted her apron into an ever tightening corkscrew, replied disjointedly that Willie, the groom, and Lyle and Fitch, the gardeners, were about somewhere, and Hattie Kemp, the cook, was busy in the kitchen yard wringing a chicken's neck for today's dinner. But Gilly—sly thing that she was—had disappeared directly after luncheon, only the good Lord knew where, and hadn't been seen since. Oh, and the Lady Sylvia never saw anybody, Olive supplied almost as an afterthought, so she imagined his lordship didn't want her to go all the way upstairs to ask the Lady Sylvia if she wished to meet the new master, just to be sent back down with a flea in her ear for her troubles.

As Olive's rambling recital slowly wound down, Kevin had to fight the urge to quit this madhouse even if it meant he had to spend the remainder of the day in his curricle hunting for a suitable inn at which to spend the night. "Is there no housekeeper then?" he asked without much hope.

"Oh, my stars, sure'n there is. Mrs. Whitebread. Now how did I go and fergit dear, sweet Mrs. Whitebread?" Olive looked up at the Earl hopefully. "Does yer wants me to fetch her to yer, yer worship?"

"I believe that might be a step in the right direction, Olive," he concurred wearily and then added, "And it's 'your lordship,' Olive, not 'your worship.' I do believe you have confused me with one of the clergy, a profound error in judgment might I add."

Turning again to the window so as to blot out Olive's painful-to-watch series of bobbing curtsies, all done while retreating inch by agonizing inch toward the door, stepping on crockery and eventually crashing her posterior into the doorjamb, Kevin set himself to wait for Mrs. Whitebread.

She was in his presence in less than five minutes, bearing a tray of refreshments before her. Mrs. Whitebread was at least seventy, and that was being charitable, although her tiny, wizened body moved with the speed of a much younger woman. But, alas, her physical preservation did not extend to her hearing. Again and again the Earl presented his questions, and again and again he was misunderstood.

"I wish to contact Mutter," he informed the housekeeper, referring to his man of business, seemingly part of his inheritance from his great-uncle.

"Butter, you say? To be sure there's butter. And jam, too. Never let it be said Mrs. Whitebread scrimps on one of her snack trays."

Kevin tried another tack. Raising his voice a bit, he informed the housekeeper that his valet, Willstone, would be arriving soon, and he required rooms made ready for them both.

"Aye," she answered, nodding her head. "The millstone's been broke these five years and more. We shop in the village now, not that the quality's the same, you know. You'll be fixing the millstone then, your lordship?"

Giving it one last try he fairly shouted, "I need chambers prepared for my valet and myself."

Mrs. Whitebread sniffed disdainfully. "Of course you do, your lordship. As if Mrs. Whitebread needs to be told such a thing. Olive and I will see to it directly. There's no need to shout, you know. Mrs. Whitebread's been doin' this here job since before the likes of you was breeched, begging your pardon, my lord. Now don't you think I should send Willie for Mr. Mutter? He'll be that pleased you finally got here. Well, of course you want him here. I can't imagine why you didn't think of it yourself, you being an Earl and all."

Dumping the tray of tepid tea and stale cakes on his lap, Mrs. Whitebread then departed the room with alacrity, calling loudly for Olive as she went.

"I've got the perfect name for this place at last—New Bedlam. It fits it to a cow's thumb," Kevin told the room aloud. "Wait until Willstone sees this—he'll give in his notice immediately!"

But, no. Kevin was being unfair in his estimate of Willstone's strength of character, as that man told him when he arrived at the Hall not ten minutes later. The man, or so he said, could no more desert his master to the horrors of The Hall than he would leave a babe lost in the woods. Why his lordship's wardrobe would be in a shambles by the end of a week, a criminal waste of good tailoring. Besides, the Earl was all his valet could desire in a master, a living monument to Willstone's expertise, and never one to spill ink on his nankeens or wine on his neckcloth. Why his lordship didn't even take snuff, and only rarely affected those disgusting cigars that caused a man's clothing to reek of repulsive tobacco smoke. And of course there was another reason for Willstone's forbearance—he was convinced his lordship would have his fill of this place in no more than two days and they would soon be posting off to nearby Brighton and Civilization.

Willie the groom entered the drawing room next, and tugged at his forelock, bringing Kevin the message that Mr. Mutter would be happy to wait on his lordship at ten the following morning as he already had a pressing engagement for that evening (being a fourth at whist with the greengrocer, the vicar, and the local innkeeper—not that Mutter had disclosed this to the Earl's messenger), and Kevin had no choice but to resign himself to the delay.

Overruling his servant's reluctance, the Earl had Willstone join him for dinner that night in the dusty morning room behind the Long Library. The servings were small, which turned out to be a blessing, as very nearly none of it was edible anyway. Stabbing a particularly suspicious piece of meat, Kevin was goaded into telling his valet, "This cannot be other than some very gamey meat from a tough, strong tasting, and stringy rabbit. They can't hunt or trap animals around here, Willstone. I really believe the cook must merely wait for them to expire of old age, and then gathers them in like berries."

"Yes, my lord," Willstone answered, ever the scintillating conversationalist.

All in all, Kevin could
not
be said to be enjoying himself.

His only solace was some unexpectedly fine port Mrs. Whitebread miraculously unearthed from the cellars. After imbibing rather freely of two or more bottles, the new Earl was able to retire to his dank, dark chamber with only a small show of dismay and was actually able to fall asleep in his huge, hard, damp bed.

"Mutter," he warned the darkness around him before nodding off, "you'd better have a plausible explanation for hauling me down here."

#

By nine of the clock the next morning, Kevin was sure of two things. He would starve to death if forced to endure much more of Hattie Kemp's cooking, and that he would deal with any of Mutter's questions and be on the road to Brighten before noon or know the reason why not.

Normally at least a fashionable half-hour late for any appointment or engagement, the Earl was therefore uncharacteristically early for his meeting with his man of business. Even now he was blazing an impatient path in the dusty rug in the Long Library with his frustrated pacing—not an easy task in a room so clogged with clutter from its floor to its ceiling.

At long last Mr. Mutter appeared and, being a perceptive man, quickly got down to business. Seating himself behind the late Earl's cluttered desk, he leaned back in his chair and touched his spread fingers against each other like a child making a house with his hands. So inordinately overjoyed was Kevin to believe he would soon be on his way out of this god awful mausoleum that he did not remind Mutter that he was to remain standing in the presence of his superior until invited to sit down. It just didn't seem important.

"Please be seated, my lord," the lawyer intoned solemnly while Kevin looked about fruitlessly for a single spot in the entire large room that was not littered with books, charts, or other assorted clutter. At last he resorted to tipping a straight-backed chair forward, ridding it of its burden of rolled-up, yellowed scrolls, and positioned himself and the chair across the desk from the lawyer.

Silence reigned for a few minutes while the man consulted his large pocket watch. The only sound in the room was the ticking of two or more dozen clocks situated about the room until, as Mr. Mutter raised his head and closed his eyes, the hour struck ten; with each of the dozens of clocks beating out its ten gongs, the echo reverberating throughout the room like the coming of Doomsday.

"Hell and Damnation!" Kevin exploded when at last the din subsided. "I'll give the sack to the next person who dares wind these ridiculous clocks! Of all my late great uncle's eccentricities, this clock collection has got to be the worst."

Mr. Mutter did not comment one way or the other, but merely snapped his watch closed, sucked in his ample belly, replaced the watch in his brocade waistcoat, and began to speak in his high-pitched sing-song voice. He told Kevin that the estate in its entirety was, as per the entail, completely Kevin's, as he was the nearest surviving male heir. He then quoted the yearly income from rentals and the combined revenue of the farms, herds, forestry and quarry.

The total was not an inconsiderable sum, but that was to be expected. Even though the late Earl had allowed The Hall and adjacent grounds to decay for nearly two decades, the man had always taken great pride in his business acumen. Considering he hadn't spent an unnecessary groat in twenty years, his fortune must be at least twenty times his annual income.

Kevin leaned forward eagerly as Mutter ruffled another paper and began to read once more.

Kevin's quick mental figuring fell far short of the actual amount of the legacy Mutter quoted next. "That's quite startling—although pleasant to hear," he said as Mutter took a deep breath. "However, if I might interrupt for just a moment, my good man? May I ask why, if I'm such a wealthy man, you've settled none of the bills I have been sending you these many months?"

Mr. Mutter cleared his throat. He was, he then said, just now getting to that, if his lordship would refrain from any more questions for the moment. It seemed, the lawyer went on, begging his lordship's pardon, that the late Earl bore his grand-nephew no great love. Mr. Mutter looked to Kevin for agreement and Kevin nodded. That being the case, Mutter pressed on, the late Earl had concocted a confoundedly complicated but perfectly legal Will that, while being unable to keep The Hall or the yearly income out of his nephew's hands, did succeed in tying up the rest of the estate in what could only be deemed a crowning achievement of malice aforethought.

Did the new Earl know, by the way, of the existence of a young female named Eugenia Fortune?

The new Earl did not.

Mr. Mutter cleared his throat again. Miss Eugenia Fortune, he told Kevin, was the product of a union between the late Earl and a Miss Alicia Faulkner, a near neighbor.

"
Miss
Faulkner?" Kevin interjected, laughing in spite of himself. "You're kidding, aren't you, Mutter? Sylvester's been hiding a by-blow? Who would have supposed?"

"Er-yes-
Miss
Faulkner," the lawyer repeated, "though it was thought, at least at the time, that there had been a marriage between them. But after young Eugenia was born—a twin you know, but her brother stillborn, and Miss Faulkner a bedridden invalid from that day on—the Earl declared there had never been a marriage. With Miss Faulkner never seen by any but the servants, and the old Earl already a strict recluse, nothing was ever really done concerning the status of the child. Miss Faulkner passed away some eight years ago, never telling her side of the story—I must say that to be honest about all concerned with this delicate situation—and her daughter continued on here as before, as a servant of the house."

"I never heard of any marriage, any child—let alone twins. Why have I never heard of any of this?" Kevin asked, a frown wrinkling his smooth forehead.

"How could you? You and the Earl were never close, I dare to say, my lord, and you would have overlooked Eugenia on your rare visits here unless she were particularly pointed out to you."

"How old is this Eugenia person?"

Eugenia Fortune was about eighteen, the lawyer said dismissingly, and then he got back to the business at hand. "The bulk of the Earl's immense estate was his to dispose of as he saw fit, my lord. According to the conditions of the Will, it will be placed in trust for the Society For The Preservation Of The Unfortunate Barn Owl, a Society of his own making, my lord, unless you marry this Eugenia child before the year is out. You were running out of time, my lord, and as you refused to answer my many requests to come to Sussex, I withheld payments on your accounts, hoping it would be the spur you needed to bring you to The Hall. I felt the matter too delicate to discuss in a letter, you see."