Chapter Eight
THE ELEVENTH EARL of Rossingley woke late, still spreadeagled in the same awkward position in which he’d crashed across his bed at some godforsaken hour last night. His mouth felt like a repository for crushed dead flies, and when he attempted to extract his head from its wedged position between his mattress and his Louis XV chevet, his neck creaked alarmingly.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” said a breezy voice approximating his valet’s. It was distressingly grating. “Tea and a coddled egg? Or would you prefer to remove last night’s attire and bathe first?”
Lando’s swift reply was most unnoble. He lay, mewling, as Pritchard fussed around him, each brush of cloth, each trickle of water, each pad of softly shod foot on thick Aubusson ringing in his head as if a screech owl was nesting on his shoulder.
“I may have overcooked things last night, Pritchard,” he croaked after the pitiful whimpering failed to achieve the desired level of concern. “And my neck hurts.”
Bravely, Lando stretched it, this way and that, tempted to ask Pritchard to give it a rub but fearful the man’s touch might prove too vigorous for his fragile brain. Perhaps hanging himself over the side of the bed would help iron it out.
“I imagine, for a couple of seconds, those ancient torture rack thingies feel incredible, don’t you, Pritchard?” Lando prodded at his knobbly upper back.
“If only they didn’t leave a man too dead to appreciate it,” answered Pritchard, his tone dry as sand. He was used to Lando’s flights of fancy. “It’s their only fault, really.”
Lando groaned, wondering if death might be more pleasant than his current state of woe. But then he looked blearily down at his rumpled, ruined shirt from the evening before and suddenly remembered that kiss (or a misty, foxed version of it, anyhow). And what a kiss!
A giddy smile spread across his waxy features, and all thoughts of death vanished. Mr Angel had stolen his fob watch and then kissed him! What a delicious sleight of mouth, sleight of tongue, sleight of mind! Once more, his insides turned molten, nothing to do with the mound of syllabub and strong liquor marinating there but everything to do with that wonderful, extraordinary, heart-stopping kiss. Mixed with a not inconsiderable cool draught of relief that Mr Angel was, incredibly, of the lavender persuasion too. So, not a blackmailer after all, which would have been a terrible bore.
“Actually, an egg might be just the ticket.” Lando beamed at Pritchard as he scrambled to sit up against his pillows. “And then I fancy I shall spend the day here, resting.” Daydreaming of ebony hair and velvet ribbons and hazel eyes and…
A constipated look crossed Pritchard’s face. “That won’t be possible, my lord. Mr Robert Langford awaits you in the library. He is keen to hear how you fared at dinner with your young guest. A dreadfully tedious evening, I take it?”
“So tedious,” agreed Lando, careful not to catch his valet’s eye. “No wonder I availed myself of an uncommon amount of brandy. The only way one could endure it.”
“I can only imagine, my lord.” Tutting, Pritchard held up Lando’s ruined waistcoat. “An entire evening alone with a young man as singularly unattractive as Mr Angel.”
“My thoughts exactly. Send Robert up! And pass me my banyan. The rose silk one. I’ll conduct our meeting from here.”
Another pained expression. “He…ah…he thought you might say that and asked me to pass on his apologies. He said, and I quote, ‘inform his lordship that until he is sober and dressed in a fashion fit for a peer of the realm, his cake will be awaiting him in the library. And might be all gone if he isn’t smart about it.’”
Lando pouted. “Buggeration.”
*
STILL POUTING, LANDO , dressed in shirt sleeves and a ravishing aquamarine waistcoat paired with a peacock-patterned cravat swept into the library. Robert Langford, dressed in his plain grey riding coat, lounged in Lando’s favourite armchair, picking through a plate of iced fancies. If Robert selected Lando’s favourite of those, he might have a conniption. The coddled egg had defeated his tender stomach, so sugared almonds might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Why did you insist I meet you here, Robert? I should be abed.” He clutched his head as if it might fall off. “I have a terrible pounding at my temples. It must be the change in the weather.”
“Then you have my sympathies.” Robert smiled sweetly, reminiscent of Lando’s own, when he was in the mood for smiling. “Inglis informs me you were drunk as a wheelbarrow last night. Do you think the two things could possibly be connected in any way?”
As Lando collapsed into his comfy rosewood daybed, one arm flung across his brow, Robert took pity on him by placing a cup of tea in his other outstretched hand.
“Your visitor is perhaps a little more used to strong liquor than you.” Robert drank deeply.
Lando peeled open a bleary eye. “Have you come to gloat?”
“No. How was it?”
“It was…” Lando sighed. He might as well tell Robert everything. He’d prise it out of him eventually anyhow; he always did. “We can put our blackmail concerns to bed. Mr Christopher Angel has rather shown his hand in that direction.”
Robert raised a questioning eyebrow.
“He kissed me,” said Lando flatly. “I was…quite foxed.”
Robert snorted. “And he was quite brave.”
“Yes. He is brave. He…he doesn’t seem to be fooled by my…my exterior. In much the same way as it didn’t fool Charles.” Lando closed his eyes again. “Or you.”
“So you like him.”
“Possibly.” He paused. “I like his mouth, anyhow. Isn’t that enough for now? A man’s heart and his…his physical needs are not one and the same, Robert. One is quite capable of placating the latter without involving the former. As long as one retains the upper hand. Surely, you know that.”
Robert let out a guffaw and helped himself to another iced fancy. “It’s too soon in the morning to be hearing about your needs. Let me dampen them for you.”
He pulled out a piece of paper. “I have Will Blandford’s summary of his enquiries into the goings on at Gartside, in addition to my own. At the last count, Gartside has three by-blows roaming feral, sleeping in barns, and relying on the goodness of the village ladies.”
Robert could have been describing his own fate if his and Lando’s father had been such a man as Gartside.
“The rest of it is outlined here. Cottages requiring work with a description of repairs and the costs needed for each. Wages, crops, the deplorable state of the schoolhouse.” Robert stood to depart. “I can’t stay, I’m afraid. I have fields to plough.”
Handing the list to Lando, his eyes flashed with anger. “Take it. Fuel your plan with it. Whatever assistance you need, I’ll be only too happy to provide. And as for the by-blows, come the winter months and they need good food and beds, you know where I am.”
*
LANDO’S CONFIDENCE IN his ability to retain the upper hand with Mr Angel lasted for the length of time it took for his handsome guest to arrange himself in a chair in Lando’s majestic library, thank Lando for his generous hospitality—again—then fix that warm, honeyed gaze on his host. There was a strength in it, Lando decided, feeling decidedly weak by comparison, a penetrating intensity. Added to a lethal concoction of boyish charm and self-possession. And Lando admitted he was quite flayed open by it.
“I trust your sister is on the mend,” he opened, grateful for the barrier of his solid mahogany desk.
“Very much so,” agreed Angel. “Thus, we should not trespass on your hospitality any further. Already, you have done so much.”
Lando waved him away. “I have only done what your uncle would have wished. I believe, via a… um… circuitous route, we have established that.”
He swallowed, struck by a pang of guilt for referring to his beloved whilst entertaining lustful fancies for his nephew. Somehow, this dimpled, perplexing youth, with his whispered messages and his lush mouth, made any desires Lando held in that direction feel less like a betrayal of Charles’s memory and more a natural fork in the road dividing the past and the future.
“And to that end, I have a proposal for Anne,” Lando continued. “My dearest sister over at Horton is seeking a governess for her three daughters. Her husband, Sir Angus, is a kindly man, and a Member of Parliament. He rarely entertains in the country. In fact, he is rarely in the country himself. The family join him in London once in a blue moon, so you can be assured your sister will not be plagued by unwanted male attention. I take it she reads and writes adequately?”
“More than,” answered Angel promptly. “Her nose is forever in a book. She is also uncommonly skilled at the pianoforte and has a smattering of French.” His shoulders dropped with relief. “All she has ever wanted is a simple country life. She would be most grateful, my lord. As am I. I don’t know how I could ever adequately thank you.”
Lando could enumerate several ways, a few of them encompassing the sturdy desk currently separating his newfound unseemly desires from his grateful guest. Nobly, however, he stayed quiet, as befitted his station.
“Then that’s settled. I’ll have one of my chambermaids accompany her on the trip and stay with her for a time until Anne is totally at ease. I’m confident she will find my sister’s scholarly household to her liking.”
Angel rose to his feet. “Thus, my lord. I shall also beg to take your leave. My family must not trouble your generosity any longer.”
Gadzooks, no. “I…ah…I haven’t quite finished with you yet.” Heat rose up Lando’s neck; that sentence hadn’t come out the way he’d intended. “What I mean to say is that you and I have unfinished business.”
He wasn’t convinced that was any better, but at least Angel sat back down again. A curious smile played on his lips.
There was a pause whilst Lando formulated his next few sentences. The plan that had been assembling at the fringes of his consciousness had now, since his discussion with Robert, taken full bloom. It was a plan so bold he could hardly believe his underemployed, overindulged mind had conjured it.
“If I was a bit vague last night, it is because I have been thinking long and hard about what to do about Gartside,” Lando began with a nervous glance up at his guest. And nothing to do with too much brandy . “I have also been making discreet enquiries.”
He pursed his lips. “In my possession is written proof that your poor sister is not the only girl of whom the baronet has taken advantage. Furthermore, he is an appalling landlord, and loyal Gartside tenants are suffering—matters which I can also demonstrate. He has gambling debts and several examples of poor form around the ton. And if he is not taken in hand, there will be nothing left to show for his esteemed father’s efforts. Sir Horace Gartside, a dear friend of my father’s, was a good, honest man.”
“So I gather. The dowager Lady Gartside was also kind, if oblivious to her son’s behaviour. Anne had a fondness for her.”
Lando inhaled deeply. “In summary, we will not stand by and watch innocent women and poor countryfolk suffer while he racks up debts. I have devised a scheme to teach him a lesson he will never forget.”
Angel would be forgiven for wondering where his languid, playful earl had disappeared; this one had fire in his belly and a gimlet eye. “You mentioned stealing the estate, my lord. Ah…how do you propose we do that?”
“By sleight of hand, Mr Angel, by sleight of hand. Gartside is desperate for blunt. He’s in damned low water, and so we’re going to trick him into believing there is a simple way of restoring his fortunes. We’ll create an illusion, and he will cling to it. And shame him in the process, so that he never sets foot in the ton again. Or indeed, as I hinted last night, on the Gartside estate.”
As each pronouncement dropped from Lando’s lips, Angel’s fine eyebrows travelled higher and higher up his forehead. “Stealing an estate using trickery sounds like a very tall order, my lord.”
“Perhaps. But I have devised a plan that I believe is worth a shot. At first light on Tuesday, you and I travel to London.”
“We will?” Angel appeared momentarily stunned.
“We will,” Lando echoed. “There is much to accomplish if one is scheming to steal an estate.”
Angel shook his head in disbelief. “I am astounded. You—”
Lando took pity on him. “Your dear uncle was very…precious to me. And as a wise man recently pointed out, it is only that which he would have expected. That there are so many other reasons to ensure Gartside’s downfall only serves to strengthen my resolve.”
“Yes, but…that…someone…someone like you would come up with—”
“‘Someone like me’? An eccentric dandy, you mean?” Lando permitted himself a small smile. “Dandyism is a species not to be underestimated. It is a species of genius, haven’t you heard?”
Lando doubted his companion was familiar with the works of one of England’s finest eighteenth-century essayists, but then Angel strived to keep a roof over his head, whereas Lando spent most of his days lolling with his feet up, making his way through his extensive library.
“I’m beginning to think it might be,” Angel answered slowly. He permitted himself a small smile. “A species, if allowed, my lord, I would like to examine a little more closely. But forgive me, what I had actually been going to say was that my astonishment stems from admiration that a man such as yourself, who takes such pride in running his estates and affairs has the mental capacity and fortitude to also focus his attentions on someone so lowly as myself.”
If Lando had a fan to hand, he would have made coquettish use of it. “Your flattery is most welcome, sir.” Demurely, he dropped his gaze. He was being played like a fiddle but thoroughly enjoying the experience. In truth, he felt a touch giddy, as if standing on the precipice of something and preparing to jump. “You have my permission to offer it freely.”
“Then I shall. I shall flatter you as often as time allows,” answered Angel, dimpling wickedly. He tapped on the heavy slab of wood in front of him. “Starting by complimenting your choice of furnishings. I imagine one could put a sturdy desk like this to very good use, don’t you?”
*
INGLIS MATERIALISED AFTER Mr Angel’s departure to find his lordship flapping a hand across his blushing face. “Inglis,” Lando said in a weak voice. “Mr Angel is an awfully nice chap, don’t you think?”
“I take it your meeting was a success, my lord.”
“A great success. I feel quite…invigorated.”
“Very good, sir.”
Mr Angel . Christopher Angel . Even his name intoxicated. Lando inhaled deeply, suddenly aware of his blood thrumming through his veins, vibrant with the essence of his own existence. A raffish adventure was around the corner; he could feel it. Even perhaps, an adventure of an altogether more intimate sort, with Mr Christopher Angel.
Be that as it may, Lando had a baronet to bring down. He sat up straighter, aware of Inglis awaiting orders.
“Now, if you will, we have things to do, Inglis. Starting with a suggestion that you invite Pritchard to warm your bed tonight, as it will be the last opportunity for quite some weeks. The day after tomorrow, Mr Angel and I will be departing for London. Pritchard will accompany me, of course, whilst you will maintain a steady ship here. And, though Angel is not yet convinced of it, we shall not return until I have the keys to the Gartside estate clasped in my hand.”