The Reluctant Earl (17 page)

Jarvis smiled with pleasure.  “I hoped you’d say that.  I think Annabelle would like it if the two of us came to visit her together.”

As they began to discuss travel plans, Claire went rigid.  She didn’t want Simon to go to Ireland.  In fact, everything in her was screaming against it.  She had to keep him home.  But, how?  It was a perfectly reasonable thing for him to want to do.  She listened to the thudding of her heart and knew she had to think of something.

Later, as she lay beside Simon in the great bed in the earl’s room, she listened as he talked enthusiastically about the prospective trip.  He ended by saying wistfully, “I wish I remembered my mother better.  If she had lived, perhaps things would have been different between my father and me.”

Claire doubted that, but remained silent.  She had been wracking her brain, but hadn’t yet come up with sufficient reason to keep Simon at home.   Her da had called this feeling she had
‘the sight,’
and told her she got it from his mother.  She had felt it only twice before, once when her mother was planning to go visit an elderly woman from the parish, and once when Liam had been planning to bring Simon home from school.  The first time she had succeeded in distracting her mother from the visit by pretending to be sick herself.  The next day they had learned that a lantern had tipped over in the old woman’s house and it had burned to the ground with the old woman in it.  The second time she had convinced a skeptical Liam to check the chaise he was going to drive, and he had found one of the supports was dangerously cracked.  That was when he told her about
the sight.

And now she had the same feeling that something bad was going to happen to Simon if he went to Ireland.  Everything in her wanted to beg him not to go, to stay home with her.  He would probably give in when he saw how upset she was.  But how selfish she would appear if she tried to keep him from visiting his mother’s grave!  Then she had an idea.

I’ll get Da to go with him.  If something should happen, Da will know what to do.

Simon was leaning over her and she lifted her mouth for his kiss.  They had not made love in months, because of the baby, and she knew he was looking forward to her next visit to the doctor and hoping she would get his approval to resume their normal relationship.

His mouth lingered on hers and, for the first time since the baby, Claire felt desire stirring in her body. 

“I’ll put Uncle Richard off until after your doctor’s visit,” Simon said huskily.  “That way I can say goodbye to you properly.”

“Don’t say goodbye,” she said sharply.  “Never say that to me, Simon.”

He gave her a puzzled look.  “All right, I won’t say it then.  What would you like me to say?”

“Just tell me you love me.”  She could hear the quiver in her voice.

“Are you all right, Claire?”

She got a grip on herself and managed a smile.  “I’m perfectly fine – just rather tired.”

“Then go to sleep, my love.  You’ll feel better tomorrow.”

She nodded, he kissed her again and they settled themselves to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The following morning Claire sought her father at the stud farm.  Liam was in his office doing paperwork, and she closed the door for privacy. As he looked up from his desk, she said urgently, “I need to talk to you, Da.”

He pushed his desk chair back and gestured Claire to the chair opposite him.  “What is it, girl?  You look worried.”

She sat and looked into her father’s eyes, the eyes that were so like her own.  “I want you to go to Ireland with Simon,” she said.  “I’d go if I could, but since I can’t, I want you to go in my place.”

His forehead creased and his eyes narrowed.  “Claire, why in the world should I go to Ireland with Simon?”

Claire said, “I’m nursing a new baby, Da.  I can’t go and I need you to go in my stead.  Simon can’t be allowed to go alone!”

Liam lifted expressive black eyebrows.  “Simon won’t be alone; he’s travelling with Richard Jarvis.  Jarvis is a rich and powerful man, and Simon is an English earl.  Nothing is going to happen to either of them, especially in Limerick.  The United Irishmen have been fairly crushed in that area.”

She leaned forward, willing him to understand.  “It’s just …  Da I have the feeling.  The way I did when I told you there was something wrong with your carriage.  Remember, you told me I had the
sight,
that I had inherited it from your mother?”

“I remember,” Liam said quietly.  He regarded her in silence for a long moment.  Then, “What are you afraid of?”

She made a restless movement with her hands.  “I don’t know!  I just have this feeling that something bad is going to happen to Simon and one of us needs to be with him.”

Liam regarded her gravely.  There was gray at his temples now, and the squint lines at the corners of his eyes were deeper.  He had just turned fifty, and he looked and acted like a man accustomed to authority.  When he remained silent, Claire slid toward the front of her chair and said pleadingly, “Next to me and William, Simon loves you best of anyone in the world.  You know that.  He even named his first son after you!”

Liam smiled.  “And you know Simon is like a son to me.  But I really don’t think he will be in any danger, Claire.  They’re not touring the country; they’re going to visit a grave, and then they’re coming home.  If I thought there was real danger I wouldn’t want him to go at all.”

“Da, please,” she held her clasped hands to her breast as she made her plea.

“I have too much work to do here, Claire; I don’t want to miss the time.  You know that Simon and I want to get the costs of the stud under control.  Lord Welbourne bought too many mares, and we’ve had too many foals that didn’t turn out to be racers.  I know I can make the stud profitable again, and I have some buyers coming next week to look at two of the mares...” He stopped abruptly as Claire stood up. 

“That’s all right, Da.  I understand.  I’ll just go myself and take William with me.”

Liam stood as well.  “Absolutely not.” They looked at each other, then he sighed with resignation, “If you feel as strongly as that
beag amhain,
then I will go to Ireland with Simon.”

“
Thank you
, Da
.
”  She came around the desk and hugged him.  “I’ll feel much more comfortable if you are with him.”

He patted her back.  “Do not be worrying yourself over Simon.  I’ll take good care of him, I promise you.”

She looked up to him, a smile on her lips, tears in her eyes.  “I know you will, Da.  You always have.”

#   #   #

Liam told Simon he would like to see Ireland again and asked if he could join Simon and his uncle on their trip.  Simon, who was always happy to spend time with his father-in-law, gladly agreed.  Nor did he seem to find anything strange in Liam’s request, which was a relief to Claire. 

The night before he left, Simon and Claire made love for the first time since the baby.  Afterward he held her in his arms while she slept, breathing in the scent of her hair and skin.  He didn’t want to leave her, but he had so much, and his mother had had so little.  It felt right that he should make this pilgrimage to her grave. 

He had so much.  Sometimes, when he was sitting with the family after dinner, he would look around and think: We’ve done it.  We’re married.  We have a baby.  We have Liam and Elise and Uncle Richard, who will always love us and help us.  We have this beautiful home to pass down to our son.  And William will grow up knowing his father loves him.

As he lay awake in the dark room, his sleeping wife in his arms, Simon rested his lips on her hair, his heart so full of love he thought it might burst out of his chest.  All of this was because of Claire, he thought.  Everything good in his life was because of her.

“Thank you,” he whispered into the soft hair under his mouth.  “Thank you, Claire, for loving me.”  Then, carefully, he slid away from her into his own part of the bed and closed his eyes to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Simon rapped on the door of the early Georgian stone house that went by the name of Castle Asenath.  The three men waited for a full two minutes before an elderly man with a shock of gray hair answered the door.

“Ah!” he said in surprise, thick gray eyebrows lifted in amazement.

Simon produced a pleasant smile.  “You must be Donovan.  I did send you a notice that I would be arriving with two guests.  I am the new Lord Welbourne.”

The day was dark and overcast and all of a sudden the heavens opened.  “For God’s sake, man,” Richard Jarvis said.  “Step away from the door and let us in.”

The entry hall the three men stepped into was unlighted and furnished with a single table and chair.  Simon looked around and mentally shivered. 
What a dreary looking place
, he thought. 

The butler finally spoke.  “We received your letter, my lord, and we are prepared to receive you.”  The words sounded as if they had been memorized.  Then he added, as a palpable after-thought, “I’m that sorry about your da.”      

“Thank you,” Simon said.  “Our baggage is in the carriage out in front.  Is there someone who can carry it in for us and see to the horses?  The coachman will also need a place to sleep.  He will be driving us back to the coast in a few days.”

“I’ll see to it, my lord.  Now, if you gentlemen will come into the parlor, I’ll get Timmy to bring in your bags and take the coachman to the stables.  Mrs. Fitzsimmons, our housekeeper, will be down to ye soon.”

Simon, Liam and Richard followed Donovan down a narrow hallway into a smallish room.  Two sofas were placed in front of the fireless chimneypiece, above which hung a painting of a man on horseback surrounded by foxhounds.  The other walls were decorated with a limited variety of hunting scenes. 

The room was frigid.

“Might we have a fire here, Donovan?” Simon asked.

The butler looked harried.  “I’ll see what I can do, m’lord,” he mumbled.

Richard Jarvis spoke in his most commanding voice, “Get the fire going.  It’s freezing in here.”

Donovan gave him an injured look.  “Young Sean is home today sick.  His lordship never gave us an exact date as to when he would arrive.”

Liam said something in Irish and Donovan’s head snapped up.  He replied in the same language, and hurried off.

“I think we’ll get that fire,” Liam said with grim satisfaction. 

Simon said curiously, “What did you say to him, Liam?”

“I told him to move his lazy arse and get some wood for the fire.”

Simon looked around the room in bewilderment.  “This is not exactly what I had expected to find.  Mr. Halleck never mentioned that the castle itself was a ruin and the family lived in a house that had been built on the property.”  He walked to one of the two windows in the room and stared through the dirty glass at the ancient three story stone tower that stood some quarter-mile away.

“You can see towers like that all over the country.” Liam spoke behind him with palpable bitterness.  “Many of them were built during the time of Cromwell, when the English were busy devastating the whole of Ireland.”

Simon noted that his father-in-law’s Irish accent, which had faded somewhat during his years in England, had come back the minute he set foot on Irish soil.  Simon turned from the window and asked,  “Do you think we have a chance of getting dinner here?”

“God, I hope so,” Jarvis said.  “I’m starving.”

“Oh, they’ll be a cook,” Liam said.  “The servants have to eat, after all.”

Jarvis said, “I don’t like this, Simon.  When you and I went over the books for this place they showed there was a cook, a scullery maid, a housemaid, a footman, a butler and five men to work on the property.  Do you remember?”

“I do, Uncle Richard,” Simon said.  “That’s why I didn’t think they’d be any problem with us making this visit.”

Liam said, “Who makes this report to your estate agent?”

“Halleck hired a solicitor from Limerick to oversee the household here and make twice yearly reports on income and expenditure.”

“And the last time any member of the family visited here was when Simon’s mother died.  That was … fourteen or so years ago?”

“Yes,” Simon said.

Jarvis said in an outraged voice, “And since then the Earl of Welbourne has been paying for all these servants who don’t seem to exist!”

Simon looked at Liam and saw on his face what he had expected to see. He sighed and turned to his uncle.  “This is what happens when an owner neglects his responsibilities and becomes an absentee landlord.  My father – and I – are to blame for the situation here, not these people.”

“Nonsense,” Jarvis snapped.  “That solicitor in Limerick is to blame.  I’m sure he’s being paid to lie to us.”

“Of course he is,” Simon said.  “But we’re here to visit my mother’s grave, Uncle Richard.  I don’t want to worry about the servants’ honesty right now.”

Richard opened his mouth to protest and Liam cut in.  “The boy is right.  You need to hold your tongue, Jarvis, and let us do what we came to do.  Wait until you get home and have time to think before you start roaring around here accusing people.”

Jarvis turned to his nephew to protest, but Simon said, pleasantly but definitely, “We’ll talk about it when we get home, Uncle Richard.”

Jarvis looked surprised, then thoughtful.  “Very well, Simon.  If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Donovan came back into the room accompanied by a boy carrying an armload of wood.  “This is Timmy.  He’ll be making the fire for you.”

Simon looked at the young man, who was dripping wet, and said mildly, “I thought you were taking our horses to the stable.”

The clear blue eyes of Ireland looked serenely into Simon’s.  “I showed the coachman where to go and he said he’d take care o’ the horses since I was after having to make the fire.”

Simon, taking in that guileless blue gaze, had to fight down a grin.  He was beginning to find this whole situation amusing.

“Thank you, Timmy,” he said courteously.