Petteril’s Party (Lord Petteril Mysteries #9)

Chapter One

No one rushed around from the stables to see to the horses. No one appeared at the front door to welcome the temporary tenants of Temper House.

Piers Withan, Viscount Petteril, stepped down from his carriage alone.

Birds sang all around him, from nearby trees and the rooftop, their voices blending into one glorious song.

He regarded the fine country house he had taken for this fortnight.

It had a pleasing but blank facade, as though it were asleep—which would explain the silence of the servants who were supposed to be within.

Mickey, the Petteril coachman growled his way down from the box.

“I’ll rouse ’em, my lord,” he promised ominously, striding up to the front door.

Piers glanced back inside the coach. April, his wife, slept on, her hand under her cheek on the padded squabs.

He didn’t wake her. Pregnancy tired her more than she ever admitted, and she tended to fall asleep at all sorts of odd times.

Attracted by the bright spring flowers blooming in the garden to the left of the drive, Piers strolled off in that direction.

An open book abandoned beneath a large oak tree made him smile, but before he could pick it up and deduce its owner, he saw a man ambling down a path toward him.

His mid-brown hair was cut neatly if unfashionably, but his coat was shapeless, and the spring sunshine glinted off several shiny patches where it was wearing thin.

He wore spectacles and seemed to be gazing up at the sky as though it displeased him.

He was certainly frowning direly, until with clear startlement, he became aware of Piers and stopped dead.

The frown vanished and he strode up to Piers, grinning, his hand thrust out.

Piers had no idea who he was. Some servant of the estate welcoming him?

One of his old friends he had forgotten?

Piers searched the young, undistinguished features of the man’s face for any clues, any sense of familiarity, and found none.

Which meant precisely nothing, of course.

He rarely recognized faces unless he saw them every day. Or unless April kept him informed.

He played safe, smiling back with a carefully cultivated vagueness that could be construed as neither rude nor over-familiar, and shook hands.

“Withy!” exclaimed the newcomer, wringing his hand with both of his own.

So, a friend then. Which one? One could not tell much from the one word greeting. Too young to be the Professor, too ill-dressed to be Hubble...

“Goodness, you’ve smartened yourself up,” Piers’s friend said, looking him up and down with a mixture of amusement and awe.

“Goes with the territory, don’t you know,” Piers said amiably, beginning to place his friend’s familiar voice. “What is the house like?”

“Huge—though you might not think so, these days. Only got here about an hour ago myself, but I’m dashed glad I brought Meg Tilney to see to the servants for there’s hardly any of them! For a house of this size, I mean.”

With some relief, Piers realized this was indeed his old friend, Mallory Keith, most absent-minded of academics. Meg Tilney was his landlady and housekeeper in Oxford. Keith had offered to bring her “to keep an eye on things for us.”

Old familiarity spread into place—the man’s current shy smile, the previous frown of deep concentration that had nothing to do with his surroundings and everything to do with whatever theory was forming in his head.

With recognition, came a surge of affection and pleasure.

He had not seen Mal in well over a year.

“Let’s go and see how my coachman’s getting along,” Piers said, picking up the book beneath the oak tree and passing it to Mal, who accepted it with a faint air of surprise. “And you must meet my wife, of course.”

“Looking forward to it, Withy,” Mal assured him, adding anxiously. “Hope her ladyship won’t mind my odd manners.”

“Well, she tolerates mine and accepts everyone else just as they come,” Piers assured him. Most unworldly of men, Mal was unlikely to have heard the rumours that the new Viscountess Petteril was of lowly birth. Though he was sure the others would know.

April had emerged from the coach, and was talking to a young woman beside it, while a liveried footman was helping unload the baggage. Both women watched Piers and Mal approach, the strange young woman betraying a touch of trepidation.

“Oh, Piers,” April said in her usual cheerful way. “This is Mrs. Tilney. Mrs. Tilney, my husband, Lord Petteril.”

Mrs. Tilney curtseyed, blushing furiously when Piers bowed in return. “We have met, but your lordship won’t remember.”

His lordship didn’t, of course, though since he had been to Keith’s lodgings on many occasions, she was no doubt correct. Hastily, he introduced Mallory Keith to his wife, and they all walked together toward the house, which now stood open to receive them.

The footman bearing April’s trunk, stood aside to let them enter first—which might have been courteous except for the fact that baggage should have been brought in by a back door.

A servant employed at Temper House would have known that.

In addition, several buttons of his coat were unfastened, presumably for comfort.

Piers met his gaze with some curiosity and caught an expression that was half cynical contempt, half-defiance, though it vanished as soon as he encountered Piers’s gaze.

Electing to let the matter go for now, Piers made a quick study of the footman, trying to find a feature or two to remember him by.

He wore livery, but no wig. His dark hair grew in a slight widow’s peak, and his eyes were rather pale, almost reflective.

He was a handsome young devil, which no doubt accounted for his air of certainty and self-confidence.

Two maids waiting in the entrance hall curtseyed to them. One girl was tall and plump, with downcast eyes. The other was slender and extremely pretty, her upward glance pert and inquisitive.

“There seems to be a very small staff in the house, my lady,” Mrs. Tilney said anxiously. “Only those two maids and a cook, besides the footman. Apparently, Lady Temperley took all the other servants to London with the family.”

April glanced at Piers. “She wrote to us that the house would be fully staffed, but I’m sure we can manage. We are an informal party, are we not?” April was nothing if not optimistic.

“There are a couple of reception rooms and an office down here,” Mrs. Tilney told them. “The main drawing room and dining room are upstairs, and the bedchambers on the floor above. I’ve asked for tea to be sent to the drawing room—I hope that is as you wish?”

“Oh yes,” said April. “Just what we need.” One of the maids took hats and cloaks from her and Piers, and they followed Mal Keith and Meg Tilney up the pleasantly curved staircase and a grand landing to a drawing room with a fine view over the gentle, rolling hills.

“I’ve never had to look after a house this large before, but it all seems very clean and in good order, despite the lack of staff,” Meg said anxiously. “The bedchambers too...” She curtseyed again and backed toward the door.

“Are you leaving us?” April asked in some surprise. “Won’t you have tea too?”

Meg looked unhappy and awkward.

Mal said bluntly, “She’s not sure of her place. She now owns the house I live in in Oxford, and we are friends. But she’s not sure if she’s friend or servant to everyone else here.”

“We are an informal party,” Piers said. “And we’re all friends here.”

“But Lady Petteril is our hostess,” Meg said.

Only because it was Piers who had heard of the house close to Oxford that the Temperleys were willing to rent for a few weeks.

“Then we shall all be comfortable,” April said. “I don’t stand upon ceremony myself. I can’t.”

“Why not?” Mal asked in surprise.

“Mal doesn’t notice gossip,” Piers said to April, “and wouldn’t be remotely interested if he did.

” He glanced at the others and added mildly, “Not everyone approves of our marriage, which to most might appear unequal. Since this is a reunion of old friends, I vote for the egalitarianism of our student days.”

Not all students were egalitarian, of course. Many stood rigidly on their birth and wealth and allowed no one to forget it. But Piers, far from being the viscount in his student and early fellowship days, had found his friends among the true academics and eccentrics.

“He means sit down and have tea,” Mal said to Meg. “You’re one of us, not a servant.” Which was surprisingly succinct for Mal.

***

THE REUNION PARTY HAD been April’s idea.

She knew Piers missed his old Oxford friends.

Indeed, he had missed his old life there to the point of agony.

April doubted there had ever been a man more reluctant to inherit a title, relative wealth, and position in society.

He had meant to live his life in study, research, and academia.

Being sprung to the head of the noble Withan family, while dealing with his own grief at the many deaths that had got him there, had not been good for him.

When April had first stumbled into him—accidentally while trying to rob his house—he had been something of a wreck of apparently insurmountable misery and melancholia who had lost every purpose in life.

In a word, he had needed looking after. And yet, somehow it was he who had looked after April, the urchin from the gutter who had stolen from him.

She had thought he was mad, in a heroic kind of a way, for he was funny and reckless and frighteningly clever, with a kindness that had seemed bottomless.

She had never expected to become his wife, but here they were, still looking after each other, despite the disapproval of just about everyone. And she rather suspected something similar was going on with Mallory Keith and Meg Tilney.