The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance (82 page)

While he was gone, Ted poured himself another glass of cognac and stared into the fire. He was home, yet he felt more lost than when he’d found himself in a log lean-to during a blizzard. He had no doubt Whitbread would have the viscount’s rooms prepared for him, not his old comfortable bedchamber on the upper floor. He’d have to sleep where his father and brother had died, with their ghosts scolding him for his sins and his seven-year defection. He’d sleep next to his mother’s room, the one that had stayed empty so long. Her ghost was sure to plague him to marry, to fill the nursery. Damn them all and the nightmares he’d suffer. Hadn’t he suffered enough?

They should rest easy. He understood duty and obligations. He’d come home, hadn’t he? Despite the bumblebroth sure to follow, despite the danger and the disappointment.

Home. This place was too quiet to be the home he remembered, with rowdy boys and a constant bustle, with boots and books and sporting dogs on the furniture, with friends and neighbours in and out all day, with dreams.

And now there was duty. And half a bottle of cognac left.

“What shall you do first, My Lord?” Whitbread asked when he returned with a tray of bread and cheese.

“After finishing this bottle? A bath and a good night’s sleep. Then I’ll lie low until Noel’s return. He’s been in charge for over a year, so he deserves to hear my plans before they are made public. I know I cannot keep my reappearance secret for long, not with the servants who saw me arrive and carried in my baggage.” And not with Whitbread settling him in the viscount’s suite and ordering a lavish dinner. “Please ask the staff to refrain from spreading the news in the village as long as possible.”

Whitbread stiffened his spine and pursed his lips. “Driscoll Hall servants do not gossip about their employers. The secret of your survival never passed through the gates.”

“Of course not. My apologies, Whitbread. I am merely used to strangers whose loyalty is as thick as one’s purse is heavy.”

The butler nodded. “Then once Lord Noel returns, you can take your proper place?”

“Not quite that easily. I’ll speak to the solicitor before travelling to London to face the War Office. Mr Armstead still handles the family’s affairs?”

“A somewhat younger Mr Armstead, the nephew of the gentleman in charge when you left. Very learned, this one, and equally as careful of the family’s business. Lord Driscoll had great confidence in him. Lord Jared, that was.”

“Fine. I’ll ask him to call here in a few days. And I’ll have to speak with the local magistrate, too. Who took over from old man Cole?”

“His son, Edwin.”

“Ned? He was always as stiff-rumped as his sire. He’s what? Thirty-five years old or so? I doubt he’s mellowed with age. But he’ll know me, so he’ll have to vouch for my identity. I’d have to pay my respects at the Knolls anyway, I suppose.” Which was the last thing he wanted to do, after being dead or being viscount. “Unless he’s gone to London for the season?” Ted could only hope.

Whitbread sniffed. “The Coles no longer travel to the metropolis.”

“No? I’d have thought that high-nosed wife of his would insist on taking her place in the ton.”

Whitbread decided to let Lord Noel explain about The Incident. “Rumour has it that Lady Cole might be increasing again.”

“Deuce take it, I suppose Cole has a quiverful of heirs by now.”

“Some gentlemen take their responsibilities to heart.”

Enough to take a shrew like Lady Cole to their beds. Ted shuddered and poured the last of the cognac into his glass. “Find me another bottle, Whitbread. Or two.”

Millie moved ahead. With dread
.

What if Edwin tossed them out? What if there was no more money, ever? What if highwaymen stole the little money they had? What if some woman recognized Millie from her wild red hair and steered her daughters to the other side of the street? Worse, what if some man recognized her — or just noticed her wild red hair — and thought she was a lightskirt or bachelor fare?

Millie tried to think optimistically, she really did. If nothing else, once they reached Knollwood she’d get to place flowers on her mother’s grave. Maybe she’d ask if anyone ever placed a marker for the neighbour’s son who’d never come home. She could bring her oldest friend flowers too, and shed a few more tears. Maybe then they’d be the last tears for the young man who’d broken her heart all those years ago, first by leaving, then by dying.

Now wasn’t that something to look forward to? Millie asked herself. Revisiting old graves and old dreams.

Bah! She had too much to do to turn into a maudlin miss. Next she’d get the vapours.

No, that was Aunt Mary when the hired coachman almost put their carriage in a ditch. Or when an innkeeper threatened to drown the dogs because their barking disturbed the other guests.

Millie thought about drowning them herself, and the reckless driver too. His ham-fisted driving set the coach to careening, which gave Min travel sickness. On Millie’s only half-decent boots. The shouts and curses from the drivers of the imperilled carriages they passed set Finn to yipping. In her ear. And the garlic and sausage scraps the daredevil driver tossed to the dogs gave Quinn wind. In her lap.

The journey was nerve-racking. Their arrival proved only slightly less fraught.

Edwin, whom everyone but his wife called Ned, and his wife, who insisted on being addressed as Lady Cole, did not close the door to the Knolls in their faces, but neither did they welcome Millie and Aunt Mary with open arms. Aunt Mary was right that they’d be too embarrassed to send the unwanted visitors to the village inn. Millie was right that they’d be happy to send them to perdition.

Or the attic.

Lady Cole declared those were the only available rooms, forgetting that Millie knew precisely how many chambers the sprawling old house possessed. Lady Cole also decreed that the dogs could not be let loose anywhere else in the house, although her savages — her children — were permitted to run wild. The three mongrels on the top floor meant someone had to climb up and down the narrow attic stairs every few hours to let them out — on leads, of course — to relieve themselves or to eat in the kitchen. Except for that duty, Millie was to keep to her room when company came.

“And for heaven’s sake, Mildred,” Ned’s wife declared, “put a cap over that unruly red hair so the servants don’t call you a trollop.”

The servants were overworked and browbeaten. They, at least, appreciated that Millie took on the dog-minding duties and offered to read to the children.

The children, all four of them, were spoiled and nasty, mean to the harried nursemaids and cruel to the dogs when they saw them. They stole Min’s ball, pulled Finn’s tail and chased Quinn under the furniture. When Millie tried to correct their behaviour, they went crying to their mother, who pursed her lips so tightly her teeth might get chipped. When Aunt Mary said that the dogs were complaining, Lady Cole threatened to have her sent to an asylum. Millie stopped reading to them. So what if the demons grew up ignorant and unlettered? Their mother saw nothing wrong with that, either.

Millie’s young sister’s welcome was no warmer. Winnie was a petulant nineteen, bored in the country, and still blaming Millie for her lack of a season, a beau, a husband. Spared the red hair that plagued Millie and Ned, Winnie was a beautiful strawberry blonde. She knew exactly how beautiful.

“To think you used to be the belle of the local assemblies and a toast of London,” she said with a sneer. “You look like one of those women from the almshouse now, all skin and bones, and your skin is as rough and dark as a piece of toast.” Winnie was delightfully curved, to her delight, with a perfect peaches and cream complexion that she admired in every mirror she passed. “And one would think you a ragpicker in those clothes, with those callouses! The Incident was bad enough, but you’ll never pass for a lady looking like that. Why, I’d be mortified if any of my friends saw you.”

Millie would be surprised if the brat
had
any friends. “I doubt I shall be here long enough to meet your acquaintances, Winnie.” The Knolls was proving less comfortable than the cottage in Bristol. And less cheerful than the almshouse.

“Good. But as long as you are here, do remember that I am not a child, Mildred, so stop calling me Winnie. My name is Winifred. And no, do not look at me in that sorrowful way. You brought all of your woes down on yourself. And on the rest of us.”

Aunt Mary took to her bed, surrounded by her beloved pets. They did not have much to say about the current circumstances. Neither did Millie. What was the use of sharing her dismay?

These people might share her blood, but they were not family. Even the house was no home to her, not while it was decorated to Lady Cole’s garish, overcrowded taste. For this Millie had sold her diamond earbobs?

Millie counted the coins left from the journey. She swallowed her pride, her hurt, her red-headed temper, and the words she was aching to say. Instead she went to the solicitor’s.

Ted’s brother was so excited to have him back, you’d think Noel was released from prison, instead of from the duties of a title. He couldn’t wait to go tell the neighbours, then hie off to London with Ted to settle the questions of the inheritance, the army and the funeral they’d held. Then Noel intended to resume the life of a carefree bachelor on the town: cards, clothes, horses, women and wine.

Gads, was Theodore Driscoll ever that young? No, Ted always had ambition to be something other than a rich lord’s idle, indolent son. He never sought to be a London swell, only a success. He’d proved himself worthy, but it had been too late. Now he was determined to prove himself worthy of succeeding his father and brother.

The first step towards that future was the magistrate, Edwin: Lord Cole.

“No need to send ahead for an appointment like some wine merchant,” Noel said. “Old Ned’s always on his uppers, and under his spouse’s thumb, but he doesn’t mind me running tame at the Knolls. Gives him someone to talk to besides his wife and sister and those beastly children. Makes him feel important, you know, giving advice to a younger man. I never listen, naturally. He’s as ignorant of the latest farming techniques as a hedgehog.”

When they got to the Baron’s manor house, Noel jumped off his horse, tossing the reins to Ted. A young woman was racing down the steps towards him, skirts flying, bonnet ribbons streaming behind her.

“You’ll never believe what’s happened,” she told Noel, ignoring Ted entirely, as if he were a servant.

“Wait until you hear
my
news,” Noel answered.

She grabbed his arm and dragged him around the side of the house. “Me first.”

Ted watched them go. Yes, he’d been that young, once. The ache in the vicinity of his heart proved it.

The pretty female had to be little Winnie, only not so little any more, but a regular diamond. Doing mental calculations of her age, he wondered why no handsome young chap had scooped her up years ago. Most likely her father had been holding out for a duke or something.

A sullen groom arrived to take the horses, without so much as a nod to the unkempt rider. Ted shrugged and climbed the steps to the Knolls, the way he’d done for so many years. An unfamiliar butler came to the door and told him to go around back to the service entrance. Ted almost told the man to go to hell, but he gave his name instead. The fellow’s jaw dropped open.

Before the butler could close his mouth, Ted said he’d announce
himself.
He knew the way. He used to know this house as well as his own.

The furnishings in the rooms he passed were different, and different from anything that should have appeared in England. Egyptian, Ted thought, with touches of chinoiserie. And Greek statues in various niches. He followed the voices he heard coming from what used to be the morning room: loud, angry voices.

“How dare you!” a female was shouting. “Keeping us in purgatory when I possess a substantial fortune!”

“You had to reach your majority to inherit your mother’s portion. That’s what the trust said,” a man replied. Ted thought the defensive whining sounded like Ned Cole’s.

“So I had to grow turnips just to eat? You could not have advanced some of the interest? Or after Papa died, laid out your own funds for the few months until my birthday? Why, if you’d bothered to inform me of my coming wealth I could have borrowed against it, rather than fret over heating the cottage in the winter.”

“What? Trust a peahen like you to manage that kind of money?” A different female shouted back. “You’ve already made mice-feet of your life,” she shrilled. “And dragged us into the mingle-mangle to boot. There’d be a lot more gold in the Cole coffers if your father hadn’t had to pay off That Man.”

Ted knew it was rude to interrupt a private argument, and Zeus knew he did not want to get between warring women. The door was open, though, and one of the females, who was either very fat or very pregnant, spotted him and shrieked. ‘Who let this ruffian in my house? Do something, Cole. Don’t let him have the good silver. Or the children,” she added as an afterthought.

Ted ignored her, the bluster coming from the other side of the room, the weeping older woman, the squabbling children, the butler puffing down the hall. The parlour could have held forty people; Ted saw only one.

She was the last person he wanted to see, and the woman he saw every night in his dreams. No, it could not be. Fate could not continue to be so cruel. This female was thin and pinched looking, like somebody’s poor relation.

Then the lady angrily pulled an ugly lace cap off her head, sending hairpins and wild red curls in every direction. She threw the hat on the floor and stamped on it. “That’s what I think of your opinions, and your human kindness.”

There was no mistaking that hair, that temper, those flashing green eyes. His mouth went dry. His knees locked. His blood froze in his veins. But he was a man. He’d survived a rifle shot, a plunge into a raging river, capture by unfriendly natives and years in the wilderness. He could survive this too. At least until he was outside where no one could see him.