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And the profits aren’t too shabby, either.
SO, HOW MANY WERE THERE going to Saint Ives…er, who all will be gathering at that Grosvenor Square mansion? Ticking them off on one’s fingers would get:
One small but inventive staff.
One Interesting Family.
One old friend.
One slightly illegal adventurer.
One possible killer.
Lastly, arriving late and without notice, one dedicatedly mild-tempered Marquis of Westham.
Perhaps he should have sent a note….
They Gather Here Together…
If possible honestly, if not,
somehow, make money.
—Horace
TRAFFIC BECAME BOTH more frequent and slower as Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, neared the metropolis of London atop his favorite mount, Sampson.
The stallion took exception to nearly every coach, wagon and curricle that approached them along the roadway, and Morgan was kept occupied in restraining Sampson from breaking into a gallop that could only end in disaster—at least according to Wycliff, Morgan’s valet, who rode along just behind him, shadowing him like a damp gray cloud on an otherwise sunny day.
It was a cloudy day, in point of fact, but Wycliff could make anything feel worse than it actually was. It was his particular gift.
“There he goes again, my lord!” Wycliff exclaimed in clear (and expected) horror as a dray piled high with empty cages lumbered past. “Hold him, my lord! Hold him!”
Morgan, a top-o’-the-trees whipster who would have no trouble commanding six highly strung and definitely randy stallions while tooling a coach through a field filled with flirtatious mares, merely gritted his teeth and danced Sampson carefully past the dray wagon.
“Remind me, Wycliff, if you will, precisely why you have chosen to accept my invitation to ride with me today,” the marquis drawled as the valet, his face ashen, drew his aged gelding abreast of Sampson.
“You put forth a wish to ride ahead of the coaches, my lord,” Wycliff said, employing both hands on the reins of his persecuted mount. “I could not in good conscience remain safely in the coach. There…there could well be brigands about, my lord.”
“Too true. Tell me, what had you planned to do if any attacked us? Faint on them?” the marquis asked, casting a short glance at the valet, just long enough to be reminded of the man’s tall, reed-slim and rather badly proportioned body, his bald pate that looked so naked even beneath the man’s low-crowned, broad-brimmed hat (held up mostly by Wycliff’s astonishingly protrudent ears), and the fellow’s narrow, pasty face that must have been turned to the wall when lips were being handed out. “That said, and considering your truly humbling loyalty to my person, you won’t mind overmuch if I toss you to the first ones we meet, will you?”
The valet laughed. Giggled, actually. Nervously. Partly because he was a nervous sort, but mostly because he was one of those unfortunate souls born without the ability to recognize sarcasm, although he did laugh at odd moments, as if he sometimes had inklings that he should. “You are so droll, my lord, I always say so. Brilliant wit, my lord! I am so proud to be in your employ. Indeed, sir, I exist only for the pleasure of serving you.”
“My, aren’t I the lucky one.” Morgan smiled thinly, and urged Sampson ahead once more. “Do try to keep up, Wycliff.”
“Yes, my lord, indeed, my lord. Keeping up, my lord,” Wycliff answered, digging his heels into the gelding’s flanks, which served to break the patient horse into a slow and rather bumpy trot.
Wycliff was in the way of a test, and the marquis had employed the man three months earlier because, and not in spite of, the valet’s grating effect on his lordship’s nerves. It wasn’t the man’s features that annoyed him; he wasn’t that shallow. It was the nervous, always inappropriate giggle, and the perpetual doomsaying, and, mostly, the man’s creepily subservient ways that set Morgan’s teeth on edge.
The way Morgan saw it, if he could make it to London without pummeling the man heavily about the head and shoulders before sticking him skinny-shanks-up in a trunk in the boot of one of his two traveling coaches, he should be able to handle any provocations being in the metropolis for the Season might toss at him.
Because he was about to become one of the most sought-after bachelors of the Season, Lord help him.
Morgan knew he cut a fine figure atop the bay stallion, dressed in his best hacking clothes, finely polished Hessians, and his favorite curly brimmed beaver. A five-caped dusky gray driving coat fell in neat folds from his shoulders and cascaded over Sampson’s twitching flanks.
A fully loaded and ready brace of pistols nested in special pockets built into the saddle in case any of Wycliff’s feared brigands dared approach, and the gold-tipped sword cane had been slid into its holder, also incorporated into the saddle.
He wore dove-gray gloves on his hands, covering the gold-and-ruby signet ring that had been his father’s, and had tucked a fine wool scarf beneath his coat, knitted by his mother and handed over two days ago with the admonition to wear it or Catch His Death Of Cold (A pity Lady Westham’s health did not support a sojourn to London; she would have had Kindred Spirits waiting for her there).
A handsome man, in his prime at thirty, the marquis could lay claim to startling blue eyes, a thick mop of blacker-than-black hair, a truly glorious, aristocratic nose, a firm, strong jaw, and the physique of a true Corinthian: broad shoulders, narrow through the hips, long, muscular legs.
He knew he turned heads; he had always turned heads, even in the nursery. He had always been lucky, and popular with the ladies, and having a title and not inconsiderable wealth had done nothing to diminish the high regard in which he had been held during his first and only London Season.
There were even those who had congratulated him on the outcome of his duel with Perry Shepherd, the truest friend one man could have.
Fools. Sycophants. Morgan was not looking forward to meeting any of those people this time around, or in following any of the pursuits that had engaged him for most of that first Season.
He would not drink to excess, he would not play cards for any but tame stakes, he would avoid mills, and Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Saloon. These were all occasions of sin for a man with a volatile temperament.
Instead, he would frequent the balls, the soirees, the Italian breakfasts for six hundred of one’s closest friends. He’d even force himself through the doors of Almack’s, perish the thought, and in general, he would behave as what he was, a man on the lookout for a wife.
When he thought of his plan, he knew it to be a recipe for boredom, and that seemed like a good thing. No temptations, no pretty Covent Garden ankles vied for by all the young bucks, no provocation more than having to deal with Wycliff when the man wrung his hands over the fact that Morgan often preferred to shave himself.
Confident, sure of himself, Morgan Drummond, Marquis of Westham, rode on toward London, into the dense, yellow, odoriferous fog that hung over the city, and straight for his destiny.
EVEN AS MORGAN RODE toward his destiny, Emma Clifford, along with her mother, Daphne, all but stumbled into the foyer of the marquis’s Grosvenor Square mansion, followed hard on their heels by the maid, Claramae. It was noticed immediately that the maid was weeping, an action, to Claramae, that was as natural, and as frequent, as exhaling.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Thornley said, for he, as butler, was already present in the foyer. He made it a point to always be present where he was needed, leading to the whispered rumor that he was, in reality, triplets. This seemed to explain to the staff how the man could appear to be in three places at once, with all three watching to make sure the servants missed not a speck of dust on the library shelves, didn’t overlook polishing the doorknobs, or ever dare to sample meals meant for abovestairs.
Thornley, his spine rod-stiff, his chin lifted high, took a moment to assess his lodgers. Well, all right, the Marquis of Westham’s lodgers, if one wished to nitpick.
He doubted Miss Emma Clifford would have much trouble bagging at least a reasonable husband in the next few weeks, with only her all but nonexistent dowry standing as an impediment to a more brilliant match.
The young lady was a beauty, a diamond of the first water. Petite, dark haired, and with stunning gray eyes, she had a look of liveliness about her, not at all a milk-and-water miss. She had conversation, she had wit, she moved with a natural grace, and she must possess the patience of a saint in order to put up with the menagerie that had come to Town in tow with her.
Mrs. Clifford the Elder, thankfully not present at the moment, was Imminent Disaster rolling on wheels, and Thornley, with his highly developed sense of self-preservation, had dedicated himself to not watching what Fanny Clifford did, hearing what she said, or speculating on what she might do or say next.
Mr. Clifford Clifford, Thornley had decided within five seconds of meeting the boy, was a dead loss, and he refused to think of him, either.
Although the mother, the Widow Clifford, held a certain nerve-shredding appeal. Thornley believed in an armful of woman, and Daphne Clifford could fit that bill very well. She had dimples, not just in her plump cheeks, but at her elbows as well, and Thornley had scolded himself mightily when he’d found himself cogitating the odds of dimples also decorating the lady’s knees.
All in all, Daphne Clifford had a look of faded glory, gray eyes like the dust of roses, and hair once red but now streaked with silver. A woman of some beauty, for all her short stature, and quite beyond Thornley’s touch. Everyone above a housekeeper was beyond Thornley’s touch; he had accepted that long ago, and had resigned himself to bachelorhood without many regrets.
He would not even speculate upon how very comforting warm, dimpled knees might be, pressed up against him, spoonlike, on cold winter nights.
“Good afternoon, Thornley,” Emma said, stripping off her gloves. “And see if you can turn off that watering pot behind me, if you could, please. It was no more than a simple walk in the Square. You’d think I just led a forced march to Hampstead Heath and back. Mama,” she added, “Riley will be happy to take your things for you.”
Daphne Clifford, who had been staring at Thornley, and smiling rather dreamily, quickly pulled off her gloves, mumbling, “I…I was just doing that, dear.”
“Yes, miss,” Thornley said, bowing to Emma, then glaring at the sniffling Claramae in his practiced, penetrating way, which quite naturally served to instantly silence her, mid-snuffle. “If you’ll forgive her, miss, Claramae has quite a fear of fog such as we’ve been enduring these past three days. She once became lost for more than two hours, as I recall, not ten feet from the kitchen door.”
Being a proper butler, and loyal to his staff, Thornley refrained from adding that Claramae could also most probably become confused and misplace all sense of direction in a small linen closet. While carrying a blazing lamp. And while gripping a length of stout string tied to the doorknob.
Daphne Clifford who, after giving over her gloves, bonnet and pelisse, had been doling out a lint-dusted penny to Riley, snapped her thin purse closed and added her mote to the conversation: “Why the child thinks we needs must take the air for a full hour every day, even when that air tastes of coal dust and we can’t see our own fingers in front of our faces…why, I sometimes wonder for her mind.”
“Yes, Mrs. Clifford,” Thornley said, bowing once more, even as he shuddered inwardly at this clearly too-intimate conversation with the woman. Wasn’t it enough that he was attracted? Did she have to make matters worse by smiling at him? Showing him those dimples? “It is my understanding that all social events have been postponed again for this evening due to this pea soup, as we here in London call it.”
Thornley would bow and agree with anyone, even the devil himself, if it would get these two ladies out of the foyer and upstairs before the tea grew cold (or his libido grew any warmer). Thornley liked an orderly household, one that ran to his schedule, and Miss Clifford’s daily walks around the Square at three o’clock pained him, and that schedule, dearly.
With a sharp look to Riley, and then to the door, the footman jumped to, pushing a rolled-up carpet firmly against the bottom of the door, to keep the yellow fog in the Square, rather than allow it to seep into the mansion. Similar measures had been taken at every door, every window, and the lack of aesthetics bothered Thornley, but not as much as waist-deep fog in the mansion would do. Mrs. Timon had already developed a hacking cough and had been ordered to her bed.
“Is there—” Daphne began, and Thornley ended, “Tea and fresh, warm biscuits await both you good ladies in the main drawing room. I do believe there is also blueberry jam, your favorite I noticed, Mrs. Clifford. If I might lead the way, madam?”
Thornley realized at once that he had made a verbal mistake, adding that bit about the jam in some absurd thought of puffing himself up in Daphne Clifford’s eyes. She immediately grabbed hold of his arm at the elbow, as if they were man and woman, not butler and well-born tenant. A lesser man would have felt a jolt of hope, but Thornley was not a lesser man. He knew his place.
“You’re so good, so kind, Thornley,” Daphne trilled, batting her remarkably lush eyelashes at him. “La, I fear we must be quite the burden to you, new to London as we are.”
“Not at all, madam,” Thornley assured her as Miss Clifford, whom he had instantly recognized as the wits as well as the anchor of the entire Clifford family, turned to pat Claramae’s arm.
“We’ll take no more walks until this fog is dissipated, I promise. I was foolish to insist, but I do so hate being cooped up inside, ever, no matter how pleasing my surroundings. And I’m very sorry you were frightened out there, Claramae,” she apologized in her pleasing voice.
Indeed, all of Miss Emma Clifford was pleasing, to the ears, to the eyes. Even to the mind, unless one was the sort to be frightened by an intelligent female. Still, for all her perfection, she hadn’t got her mother’s dimples, which at least Thornley could only consider a pity. A bleeding pity.
“Yes, miss,” Claramae said, stuffing a soggy handkerchief back into her apron pocket even as she dropped into a quick curtsy. “’Tis just that robbers and murderers lurk in the fog. Everyone knows that.”
“Possibly, Claramae, but if those cutpurses and cutthroats encountered the same problems we had in seeing even two feet in front of us, I imagine they’re all still out there, bumping into each other, cutting each other’s noses off, and no worry to us.”
“Yes, miss. I’ll take your things, miss? Everything will need a good brushing, as it’s so dusty out there.”
Emma handed over her bonnet, gloves and pelisse, and Claramae scuttled off toward the baize door under the stairs, leaving Emma to follow in her mother’s wake.
She could hear Daphne Clifford still nattering nineteen to the dozen to Thornley.
Emma sighed, shook her head and mentally attempted to compose a small homily that would convince her mother that, while Thornley was admittedly a well-setup gentleman, he was their butler, not their host.
Not that this would matter a whit to Daphne, Emma realized on yet another sigh. She had never before noticed her mother’s proclivity to gush, to eyelash bat, to simper and giggle. At home, Daphne concentrated on her embroidery. At home, Daphne still spoke well of her husband, dead these three years. At home, Daphne behaved herself.
Here, from absolutely the first moment her mother had set eyes on Thornley five short days ago, the woman had been afflicted with some strange mental aberration that had her believing she was a young girl on the flirt.
It was embarrassing, that’s what it was, and that Daphne’s old chum, Lady Jersey, seemed to encourage her was only to be considered criminal. Emma knew that Sally Jersey was laughing behind her hand at Daphne, but Sally Jersey had also issued them all vouchers to Almack’s, so Emma had steeled herself to overlook the woman’s rather perverse humor. But only until she had snagged herself a suitable husband. After that, she would cut Sally Jersey dead, and hang the consequences, no matter how much her mother seemed to admire the woman.
Emma entered the large main drawing room just as her mother was asking Thornley to please “play Mother” for them and pour the tea. She’d stopped short of asking the man to sit down, spread a serviette over his knee and join them in their refreshments, and Emma could only be grateful for that small favor.
The butler, his ears rather red, cited his inability to linger, as he had pressing duties, and avoided Emma’s gaze as he walked, stiff-backed, from the room.
“Mama, you really mustn’t do that,” Emma said, sitting down on the facing couch, the silver tea service between them.
“Really mustn’t do what, dear?” Daphne asked vaguely, making a great business out of attempting to lift the teapot before sitting back, sighing. “Much, much too heavy. You know, Emma, this is a very pretty place, by and large, but I don’t understand opulence if it’s too heavy to use.”
Emma bit her bottom lip, reached forward to place a cup beneath the spout of the teapot, then tipped the pot on its cradle to pour the tea…as the pot was designed to do. “Here you are, Mama. You must be chilled. Drink up.”
“Oh, my,” Daphne said, giving the teapot a little push with her spoon. “Would you just look at that, Emma? What will they think of next?”
“I have no idea, Mama,” Emma said, straight-faced, then looked up as her grandmother entered the room.
She resisted sniffing the air for the scent of mischief, because she didn’t want to know, and because she was a well-bred young lady. Which didn’t mean she could overlook the rather shrewd look in her grandmother’s lively eyes. Living with Fanny Clifford was rather like being in charge of maintaining the night fire in a forest, so that it didn’t go out and wolves were able to approach. One could not rest easy, ever.
“Fresh from your nap, Grandmama?” Emma asked, her voice deliberately vague, only mildly and politely interested in whatever answer her grandmother might offer.
Because Fanny Clifford never napped, and Emma knew this. What she didn’t want to know was where her grandmother had been the past hour, or what she’d been doing. No sane person would. It was better to pretend to believe a lie, and much easier than trying to explain any of her grandmother’s activities to Daphne Clifford.
“A lovely rest for these weary old bones, yes, dear,” Fanny lied smoothly as she lowered her small, paper-thin self onto the couch beside Daphne. “And you two were out mucking about in the fog again, I suppose? You’ve a smut of coal dust on your nose, Daphne.”
Daphne quickly raised her serviette to her face, exclaiming, “Oh, no, no! No wonder he looked at me so oddly. I could just Expire. I’m So Ashamed.”
“Twit,” Fanny Clifford muttered, winking at her granddaughter. “There’s no smut, Daphne. I was merely checking to see if you’re still so arsy-varsy over Thornley. And you are. And still making a cake out of yourself, I have no doubt. My wastrel son must be spinning in his grave, that you’d think to replace him with a servant. Of course, Thornley is butler to a marquis, could even be called a majordomo, so that might have Samuel not rotating quite so fast. The boy always was hot for titles.”
“I am not making a push for Thornley, Mother Clifford,” Daphne protested, but she did not look the older woman in the eyes. “Doesn’t he have the loveliest posture? Samuel always slouched so.”
Emma added two sugars to her tea. “Grandmama, remember, we are not to specifically mention the marquis in public unless forced to do so, and then just to say that he is our unfortunately absent host. Thornley was adamant about that. I think the poor man must be strapped for cash, which is the only explanation I can find as to why he leases rooms to perfect strangers for the Season. We were even quite vague with Lady Jersey on her single visit here, as you might remember, although she is much too interested in herself to notice where she is when she’s telling all and sundry how very wonderful she is. But we must protect the man’s reputation.”
“Humph. If it’s his reputation he’s worried about, you’d think he’d at least vet whom he leases to better before allowing them to run tame in his household.”
Emma put down her spoon very carefully, trying to hang on to her composure. She had two choices: ignore what her grandmother just said—hinted at—or ask the woman what she meant. She must be feeling daring, or else the fog had muddled her mind, because she then took a deep breath and asked, “What have you done this time, Grandmama? Waited until either Mrs. Norbert or Sir Edgar went out and about, and then pored through their belongings?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Emma. Your grandmother would never do any such thing. It would be unladylike, and too shabby by half,” Daphne scolded, brushing pastry crumbs from her skirt. “Would you, Mother Clifford? Sneak about, that is, and poke into drawers and such?”
“Here’s a lesson for you, Daphne. You, too, Emma. Never ask questions you wouldn’t want to hear answered.” Fanny shook off Emma’s silent offer of tea (a move meant to shut the woman up, at least for a few moments), stood, and headed for the drinks table. She picked up the decanter of sherry, made a face at it, then poured herself two fingers of port.
Daphne looked to her daughter, her eyes wide. “She wouldn’t…she couldn’t go poking about in…she—oh, Lord, she did, didn’t she? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. Tell me!”
“She did,” Emma admitted to her mother. Why hadn’t she waited until she and Fanny were alone, before opening this particular jar of worms? “But,” she added quietly, “I believe that was yesterday.”
Emma looked at her grandmother as that tiny, always energetic woman sat herself down once more, and decided she had to know everything, now. “What was on today’s agenda, Grandmama? Waiting until one of them fell asleep, and then prying open his or her mouth, to count teeth?”
“A good hiding, Emma, I’ve always said you should have had at least one during your formative years. Don’t badger an old lady, all right? If you behave, I may make you happy and tell you that I have been badly served for my inquisitive nature.”
“You got no reward for your nosiness, you mean,” Emma interrupted. “Good.”
“A dozen hidings wouldn’t have been enough,” Fanny said, sipping at her port. “But I tell you, I’m extremely disappointed. Mrs. Norbert, after a careful investigation of her belongings—oh, Daphne, close your mouth before a fly lands in it—is a seamstress.”
Emma blinked. “Well, yes, she said as much, Grandmama, that first night at dinner. A seamstress who came into some inheritance or another. She doesn’t wish to enter Society, but only to be treated like a lady for a few months, being waited on, eating well. She hasn’t tried to hide her past. What of it?”
Fanny rolled her still bright-blue eyes. “A seamstress, Emma. You know what that means. Or, what it usually means, not that old hatchet face would have been more than a penny-a-poke gel, up against some slimy warehouse wall.”
Daphne dropped her teacup—it shattered against the edge of the table—before slapping her hands over Emma’s ears. “Mother Clifford! I’ll not have you saying such things with my innocent daughter here. Or with me here, come to think of it. Samuel always said you had a mouth that needed a good scrubbing with strong soap.”
Emma calmly reached up and removed her mother’s hands, unfortunately just in time to hear Fanny go off on one of her favorite jaunts—that of riding up and down her daughter-in-law’s tender sensibilities.
