The Toplofty Lord Thorpe (8 page)

Julian waited until the roadway opened up a bit and then motioned for Dexter to join them. “I had thought we'd ride over to the Anscom farm and have a chat with Miss Anscom's father. I understand he is a widower, and this Susan woman his only offspring.”

“Oh, how terrible,” Lucy put in, noticing the tightness around Julian's mouth. “You must find the person who preyed on this innocent girl and her poor father and bring him to justice.”

“Yes,” Julian agreed, comforted by the knowledge that Lucy understood his feelings in the matter. “Once Raleigh informed me of the magnitude of Mr. Anscom's loss, I realized that my problems pale considerably in comparison. Someone must hate me very much, to go to such heartless lengths in order to punish me. Besides being nearly the only female in this area wellborn enough to suit his purpose, Miss Anscom was without motherly influence to guide her away from giving her heart to a man who had not asked for her hand.”

“You seem sure there was a man involved,” Lucy said, clearly hoping he would enlarge on his theory.

“It only stands to reason, Lucy,” Dexter put in airily. “Deuced hard to make babies without 'em.”

“Dexter,” the earl suggested coldly, “I believe the road narrows just ahead. Please drop back where you belong.”

“Put my foot in it, didn't I?” Dexter asked, taking in Lucy's heightened color.

“Why should today be any different?” Julian agreed quietly, wishing his next of kin on the moon of some suitably faraway place.

“He meant no harm,” Lucy told him once Dexter had turned his horse and dropped back to wait for the groom.

Julian looked at her piercingly. “Are you suggesting then that he is harmless—for if you are, I agree totally. I would find myself hard pressed to believe Dex capable of the hideous act we are assuming someone has committed.”

“Exactly what are we assuming?” she asked, suddenly not so sure of her interpretation of the gossip that had started the entire affair.

Julian adjusted himself in the saddle and explained, “As I see it, we have several theories. One: the whole story is a hum, made up out of whole cloth for scandal's sake by some idiot bent on embarrassing me or, perish the thought, driving Cynthia to breaking our engagement so he can clear the way for himself.”

Lucy shook her head. “No, it can't be that—at least the first part of your theory. For Miss Anscom
is
dead.” The second part, the one concerning Lady Cynthia, she did not choose to dwell on, as she was sure that subject would cause Julian pain.

“Yes, she certainly is,” the earl agreed. “But
someone could have used her death for his own purposes—
after
the fact. We have no proof that anyone actually caused her death. After all, anyone could have written those letters.”

Lucy considered that theory for a moment, acknowledging that it had some merit, but not willing to believe it. “What are your other ideas? You said you had more.”

“I have entertained dozens, my dear, but a few do stand out as being the most feasible. All right, theory two: Miss Anscom, for reasons of her own, decided to take her life, and not wanting her father to know the real reason, named me as the father of her child.”

“You mean, she was protecting someone?”

“Precisely.”

Lucy looked over at the earl, amused by his formal speech as he wrestled with speaking to her about so distasteful a subject. “Then it is possible that you are to be the scapegoat for some hot-blooded farmer's son? Oh, Julian, how the mighty have toppled.”

Thorpe made a face. “I don't pretend to like it, brat, but as it is only a theory, I imagine I shall learn to live with it.”

“But you have another theory?” she pursued, feeling like she was forced to draw every word out of him.

“Yes, I do, and it is the one I am regretfully forced to believe is correct. Someone went to a lot of trouble to impersonate me, seduce Miss Anscom, and then desert her once his mission was accomplished.”

Two Lord Thorpes? But didn't everyone know who
he was, what he looked like? “How could that be possible?” she asked aloud.

Julian shrugged. “Quite easily, I imagine. I do not make a habit out of residing at Hillcrest. I doubt that my face is that well known, especially this far afield.”

“Even if that's so, how could the schemer be sure Miss Anscom would commit suicide—or write letters to all the papers before jumping into the pond? No, Julian,” she denied, shaking her head, “I don't believe that theory. Unless…”

“Unless what?” he asked as Lucy hesitated.

Lucy didn't like what she was thinking. It was so horribly cold-blooded, so very
evil.
“Unless,” she told him, her voice barely above a whisper, “Miss Anscom was a party to the whole thing, only to be betrayed in the end by her fellow schemer.”

“You mean, she wrote her suicide notes with no plan of killing herself—just stirring up trouble?” Julian asked, trying to understand.

She nodded her head furiously. “She wrote her own suicide note and then her lover drowned her. Oh, what a terrible thing!”

“Oh! What a great piece of nonsense!” Dexter quipped, having ridden up closely behind the pair, who were so engrossed with each other that they hadn't noticed his approach. “Where could you hope to find two such people—one so deplorably evil and another so deplorably stupid? You'll not get me to believe such a scatterbrained tale, and neither would anyone else. Hoo! And they say you're so clever, coz. Well, you'd never prove it by me.”

“Well then, Mr. Smartypants, what do you think?” Lucy challenged, trying hard not to stick out her tongue at the infuriating young dandy.

“I don't have a theory. Don't have to, as I see it. I'm a suspect, remember? All I have to do is stick around so that no one can say I haven't done my duty by my cousin and watch the fun. Tell me, coz,” he asked, clearly full of himself, “don't it make you feel all warm and cozy inside to know that your blood kin is here, watching over you, so to speak, in your time of trouble, ready to either take bows if you're found innocent or step into your shoes if you're found guilty? I feel rather like Georgie Porgie, ready to pull out a plum.”

“You're despicable!” Lucy cried, believing Dexter guilty of heaping yet another load of woe on his cousin's weary head.

“On the contrary, my dear,” Julian corrected her, giving his cousin a knowing look, “I find my mind to be greatly relieved. I now know that Dexter definitely isn't guilty—if your theory is the correct one.”

“How do you know that?” she asked, totally confused to see a smile touching his lordship's lips.

Julian just shook his head and replied with maddening arrogance: “Because nobody, not even a country miss, could ever be brought to believe that this ridiculous ninny could possibly be the Earl of Thorpe. If I am unknown, I assure you my reputation is not. Dexter would have much better luck impersonating my groom back there. Their intellect is about
equal, although I must say the groom is a better horseman.”

“I think I've been insulted, stap me if I haven't,” Dexter said, chuckling. “Does this mean I'm no longer a suspect, coz?”

“You never were,” the earl informed him, to Lucy's chagrin. “Neither you nor Parker ever was. As I've said before—you are Rutherfords, and above such low deceit.”

“I think I'm going to be sick,” Lucy muttered, realizing that she had a long way to go in convincing Julian that “Rutherford” was not a synonym for “perfect.” Prodding her mount with her boot heel, she moved ahead of the cousins, calling back over her shoulder, “I don't know which of you I pity more—as it is so hard to choose between arrogance and idiocy. Come! On to face Farmer Anscom and see if he recognizes either of you.”

F
OLLOWING DIRECTIONS
Dexter had received from the innkeeper in Alsop-en-le-Dale, the small party drew up their horses at the crest of the third hill to the north of the town and looked down into the small valley where the Anscom farm was situated. Julian eyed the unkempt fields with the distaste only a good land manager could know, while Lucy clucked her tongue at the neglected state of the small manor house and outbuildings.

“I thought you said this Anscom fellow was a gentleman farmer,” Dexter said, breaking the small silence. “No wonder the chit grabbed at you, coz. She must have been desperate to improve her lot.”

Lucy was becoming very weary of Dexter's frequent allusions to the possibility of Julian's guilt. “She did not ‘grab' for anything his lordship offered, you thick dolt, for
he
didn't offer anything.”

“Of course he didn't,” Dexter assured her hastily. “It's just that it gets so confusing trying to separate Julian from the real criminal. In my mind I know he is innocent; it is only my mouth that confuses the issue.”

“Then I suggest, my dear cousin, that you keep your mouth shut,” the earl put in before Lucy could let loose with what he was sure was bound to be a
scathing lecture. “The last thing I need now is another gravedigger—I've already got one person shoveling away at my reputation quite handily as it is.”

Dexter again believed himself to have been insulted. “Far be it from me to cast aspersions, coz,” he said huffily, “but have you never thought that if you had taken the time to be a bit more
human
in your dealings, you might not have this lamentable tendency of yours to attract people who wish you harm? I mean, you must have done something…”

Lucy winced, realizing that there was a grain of truth hidden somewhere in Dexter's muddled defense. Julian wasn't the easiest person to like, what with his strict code of behavior and somewhat cruel habit of ignoring those he felt beneath him either socially or intellectually. It was possible, even probable, that he had offended more than a few persons either unwittingly or purposely, yet she could not recall ever hearing a single person speak out against him publicly.

She stole a look at the earl, just now sitting stiffly in the saddle, glaring at his cousin, and felt a small shiver climb up her spine. It would take a strong man to stand up to Julian and thus expose himself to the man's rapier tongue as well as the sure censure of his powerful circle of friends. A covert revenge might be the only way open to someone bent on satisfying some real or imagined offense.

“Despite his rather crude way of expressing himself, Dexter may have a point,” Lucy said slowly, praying Julian wouldn't take her words the wrong
way. “We have never compiled a list of enemies from which to choose possible suspects.”

Lucy could feel the chill descending about her shoulders as Thorpe turned his icy gaze on her. “A gentleman doesn't have enemies. He has acquaintances, and if he's fortunate, a few good friends. It is impossible for anyone to wish me ill. I pride myself on being a fair man, an equitable man. The entire notion is ridiculous.”

“And he says I'm digging his grave,” Dexter muttered under his breath, “when he condemns himself out of his own mouth, unless he wants us to believe this plot was hatched by his ‘friends.'” More loudly he said, “What about that fellow you blackballed for having a grandfather in trade, coz? Or the divorcée you snubbed so royally at Almack's? Then there's old Crosley, who left town in disgrace when you refused to sup at his table because you said he smelled of the stable. Oh, yes, and do you remember…?”

Thorpe's expression clouded as Lucy's gaze slid away from his to concentrate on a patch of wildflowers at the edge of the road. It all sounded so petty and priggish when Dexter said it. “Enough!” he commanded, suddenly unwilling to hear more. Was he really as snobbish and unyieldingly arrogant as he sounded, as Lucy's hastily concealed agreement with his cousin made him feel?

His own recent brush with the pain inflicted by society's treatment of those they felt beneath them made him acutely aware of the pain he himself had dealt out from his lofty mountaintop of self-assurance.
Telling himself that he hadn't been acting any differently than any of his peers was small comfort to him now. “I begin to wonder,” he said at last, “why either of you put up with me.”

Dexter was quick to respond, saying kindly, “Oh, you're not such a bad sort, coz. Just hold yourself a trifle high, that's all. I lay it at your mama's feet, personally, filling your head full of her notion that the Rutherfords are just one step short of divine.”

The horses were getting restless, dancing about a bit at this lengthy delay. “Do you think we could continue this soul-searching some other time?” Lucy asked as her mount sidestepped impatiently. “Once we're back at Hillcrest you can examine your conscience and compile a list of your bad habits. Personally, I agree with Dexter, Julian. You're not a bad sort.” At Julian's raised eyebrows she added, dimpling prettily, “Why else do you think I've been making a cake of myself over you these three years past?”

Julian watched Lucy as she set her horse off down the hill, a small one-sided smile lighting his previously somber features. “The chit's dotty over you,” Dexter told him, giving him a hearty clap on the shoulder. “And to think you might have been saddled with that block Cynthia. When you find your enemy, coz, I suggest you give him a smacking kiss on the cheek!”

As Dexter followed Lucy down the hill, the earl steadied his mount as the small smile on his face spread into a wide grin. He had been guilty of the sins of pride and social prejudice in the past—rather
like that Darcy fellow Lucy had likened him to not so long ago—but perhaps, just perhaps, it wasn't too late for him to change. He certainly had been liking himself better the last few days. With Lucy's help, he thought hopefully, he just might become the Julian Rutherford she believed him capable of being.

It was only as he started on down the hill to the Anscom farm that he remembered that unless he discovered the person behind the plot to ruin him, he might just learn his first lesson in humility the hard way—from behind prison bars.

 

“W
ELL THAT WAS
a wasted journey,” Dexter said as he lowered himself gingerly into a chair in the drawing room. “Damn me if that nag of mine didn't have a razorback pig for a sire. Leave me out of any more gallivanting about the countryside, coz, unless we do it up behind your team. If man had been meant to ride horses, we would have been born with leather bottoms, I say.”

Julian ignored his cousin as he poured himself a generous drink before the ladies joined them. He didn't know which had left the worst taste in his mouth—the truths about his character Dex and Lucy had brought home to him so clearly or his confrontation with George Anscom. Even with his newfound generosity of spirit, the earl found it impossible to find one thing to praise in the person of Susan Anscom's father. “Wine, Dex?” he asked, hefting the decanter invitingly before pouring himself another portion.

“I'll have a small sherry, if you please,” Lucy said, entering the room and taking up the chair Dexter hastened to offer before holding her breath with special care this evening, and knew that the deep rose gown she had chosen would look its best in the complimentary color scheme of the drawing room. “I do hope dinner will be served shortly, as our long ride today has made me quite ravenous.”

Thorpe turned to smile at her, a delicate crystal goblet of sherry in his hand, and stopped in his tracks. She had done it again, the wily minx—knocked him off balance with the devastating impact her vibrant good looks tended to have on his traitorous body. Her midnight-dark hair, with its tendency to curl lovingly against her neck, was just untidy enough to invite his fingers to bury themselves in its soft warmth. Her silken white skin, especially the curving expanse visible above her low-cut gown, drew his gaze like a beacon, while his mouth longed to sip at the moist pink pout that she was just then nervously touching with the tip of her tongue. And the rest of his body—ah, the rest of his most traitorous body—was already light-years ahead of his mind in conjuring up the delights it too could discover.

Damn her, he thought automatically, as he had been accustomed to thinking each time Lucy's mere appearance had this effect on him. No gentleman should feel this way about a lady of quality. It was indecent, that's what it was. But then he brought himself up short, remembering that his opinion of what a gentleman should and should not do—or feel—had already
been proved faulty. He did not seriously believe that this physical attraction to Lucy was wrong, did he?

It was wrong when he had been an engaged man, surely. But he was now free to court Lucy with a clear conscience. Certainly the girl was not unwilling, he told himself, fighting down the faint feeling that no well-bred young lady should be so frank with her feelings. Where would he be now if Lucy were just another simpering miss? Still standing in the middle of the Selbridges' ballroom like some stuffed owl, he told himself ruefully, that's where.

Lucy watched entranced as Julian's suddenly tense features relaxed and a new warmth crept into his eyes, while Dexter, believing himself to be a man of the world and up to all the rigs, found himself feeling suddenly protective of little Miss Gladwin's virtue. Seeing the assessing look in his cousin's eyes, and knowing his cousin's determination once he had set a course of action, Dexter knew he was going to have a front-row seat for the courting of Lucy. He took a long drink of wine, wondering if he would be shirking his duty if he failed to quickly cast himself in the role of gooseberry.

While Lucy and Julian stared at each other, ridiculous smiles lighting their faces, Parker, who had been busy since their arrival checking on the estate books, entered the drawing room and asked if the earl had met with any success that afternoon.

“That would depend upon your definition of success, Parker, old fellow,” Dexter told him glumly, “and whether or not you wish to work under Julian
or me. So far, all we seem to be doing is finding more damning evidence. It seems now that our only hope is that we are the only ones to think there is a plot to frame Julian for doing away with Miss Anscom. A mere scandal will blow over in time, but not a charge of murder.”

Parker looked at his cousin, his dislike easily read in his eyes. “You cannot ever say anything without trying to make some sort of jest, can you, Dexter? Cousin Julian is in dire need of our assistance right now, so I suggest you desist from these ridiculous suggestions that you are soon to be the next earl. I find it distasteful in the extreme.”

“Oh, really?” Dexter shot back savagely. “How does the thought of me bloodying your lip suit you—that is, if I can find one on your fish face?”

For a moment it looked as if the two cousins were about to come to cuffs there and then, but Thorpe stepped between them, warning: “Have you both forgotten there's a lady present?”

“Two, actually,” corrected Rachel smoothly as she entered the room. “Good evening, everyone. May I hope for a report of today's findings? Lucy was so busy preening since her return that I dared not disturb her.”

“Aunt,” Lucy hissed, coloring prettily.

“We can only thank Lucy for allowing us to enjoy the beautiful results,” Julian said, turning Lucy's flush of embarrassment to one of joy. “As to our news, Rachel, I'm afraid it is not all that good. George Anscom was not very forthcoming.”

Raleigh chose that moment to call them to table, and as they didn't wish to be heard discussing such a delicate subject in front of the servants, it wasn't until the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room that the subject was again broached.

“You didn't linger very long over your brandy and cigars,” Rachel remarked, looking mostly at Dexter, who was smiling like a child with his mouth full of candy treats.

“I became weary of the exchange of insults between my cousins and called a halt before one of them stabbed the other with the cheese knife,” Julian drawled, scarcely hiding his amusement. “Each was outdoing the other with declarations of their loyalty to me while trying to get in swipes of each other at the same time. I'm still trying to decide if I should be flattered or simply put gloves on them and enjoy the spectacle of having them go at each other on the south lawn. What do you think, Rachel?”

While Julian and her aunt laughed companionably, Lucy felt another unfamiliar pang of jealousy directed toward Rachel. This wasn't the first time she had thought the earl and her aunt got along a little too well. Surely she hadn't been mistaken in thinking Thorpe was beginning to see her in a new light—even admiring her a little? Or did he see her as a child, amusing, soft on the eyes, and flattering in her open infatuation with him, but not to be taken seriously? She gnawed on her bottom lip a bit, thinking furiously. How could she make him realize that she was
a woman grown—a woman ready to love and be loved?

“Lucy?” her aunt prompted, clearly calling her to attention. “Julian was just telling me that he believes the newspaper report calling Mr. Anscom a gentleman was in error. Why don't you tell him that story your father is so fond of?”

Remembering the slovenly appearance and crude manners of George Anscom, Lucy smiled as she realized that her father would have enjoyed meeting the man—a man who proved his point so well. For Sir Hale had a fine contempt for the so-called “gentleman's code” that was used to separate Englishmen into classes. Lucy believed this contempt to be one of the driving forces behind her father's eccentric behavior—he kept trying the bounds of propriety just to show the extent to which society would accept ridiculousness from someone they had deemed a gentleman.

Seeing that she had everyone's interest, Lucy sat up straight and prefaced her story by explaining gentlemen in general. “As Papa has told me, gentlemen consider themselves a race apart. A gentleman must have the correct attitude of mind, you know, that puts him above the run of ordinary mortals. Indeed, being a gentleman is a full-time occupation.”