Court a Lady with Care (A Gentleman’s Guide to Courtship #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

May 1823

W hen Lady Isabella Merriweather dressed as a maid and entered a room, she might as well have been a clock for all the attention paid to her. Which was exactly what she wanted. Anonymity birthed knowledge. Because when you might as well be a clock, people talked.

And Isabella listened.

Head down, soapy, sloshing bucket held before her, she knelt beside the gentlemen sitting near the windows of Hotel Hestia’s green sitting room. The spice of the spilt brandy wafted up her nose, and the thick, sweet smoke of a cheroot drifted down onto her small lace cap. The curtains had been thrown wide open, and a hot ray of light drenched her. And as she swept up the broken glass, dodging a brandy-splashed Hessian lifting to cross a knee, gossip poured into her ears.

“Good as married,” the Earl of Sillsbury said with a slap of his thigh. “My little Mags will soon be a duchess!” Sillsbury likely had the right of it, but he didn’t have to crow. Isabella’s brother, the Duke of Clearford, did seem to prefer the earl’s daughter to all the others who hoped to catch his eye.

“Blast it all, Sillsbury!” Mr. Haws boomed. The powerful voice belonged to a powerful man, tall and thick like a barrel, his brown hair receding from his brows to create a point some inches above his nose. He stomped his foot much too close to Isabella’s backside for her comfort. She scooched farther away and continued picking up bits of broken glass as Haws pulled words out of an inarticulate growl. “My Bethy has just as much chance as your chit. She’s a prime one. Good teeth. Besides, I have an ace up my sleeve. The duke won’t be able to say no.”

Isabella swallowed a snort. How many blasted times had she heard these men compare their daughters to horses? If she ever discovered her brother using such language, she’d… she’d… she’d toss this bucket of dirty water right over his head. She reached into the water, shivered, and pulled out the cloth, wrung out the liquid and began to sop up the brandy. She kept her head down, her face tilted away from the conversation happening beside her.

Sillsbury grunted. “I’d hardly call good teeth and a wanton disposition an ace. Clearford won’t fall for that. You own a cotton mill, after all.”

“And it makes more money than you’ve inherited!” Mr. Haws’s cheeks were burning up and puffing out.

Sillsbury waved away the threat of his companion’s potential eruption. “Speaking of teeth, you know who else has ‘em?”

“Who’s that, then?” Haws did indeed forget his bluster, cheeks shrinking and paling as he leaned forward to hear the earl better.

“The mare we saw at Tattersalls this morning.”

Isabella sighed and used all her strength not to sink her head into the bucket and scream. Let the bubbles catch her frustration.

“Should we see her again?” Haws rocked to his feet. “I’ve got a mind to make her mine.”

Sillsbury stood, too. “Rather like the duke will do to Margaret.” His laughter hit Isabella like a brick, and she stayed curled over the bucket as the men argued across the room, their guffaws muffled only by the door slamming behind them.

She fell onto her backside with a groan, propping herself up on her arms behind her and stretching her legs out on the dry side of the bucket. She’d learned nothing new, except perhaps that Samuel was closer to choosing a bride than he let his sisters think. Nothing new there. He’d put an ocean of distance between himself and them since becoming a duke. He acted more like a distant guardian than a brother.

She missed him. But she refused to accept his silence. If he wouldn’t tell them his mind, she’d discover it in other ways.

Not like she’d be going out of her way to do so. She already spent every free moment collecting information on the members of the ton . When one flirted with scandal, it helped to know which way the constant current of rumors in London swirled. She learned which way the soap swirled, too. A consequence of her information gathering.

Isabella rolled her legs beneath her and finished mopping up the spilled brandy. The gentlemen had barely acknowledged their mess, only enough to ring for a maid. When Isabella had seen the girl assigned to clean it up waddling toward the room with a bucket, she’d intercepted her, offered to do the work for her. The girl hadn’t even blinked. Her shoulders had relaxed as she’d handed the bucket over. No one ever questioned Isabella when she offered to do the work for them. In her Hotel Hestia uniform of a green gown and white apron, she fit the part. And young maids were only too quick to release a responsibility or two.

As she left the parlor, bucket gripped in both hands, she closed the door with her foot. Dump the water, then hunt down young Mr. Lemmings.

He’d recently moved out of his parents’ townhouse to find lodgings of his own. There were more permanent solutions for a gentleman with deep pockets. He spoke of the Albany but had quickly discovered a banker’s son had no shot at those prestigious lodgings. He’d gotten rather stuck at the Hestia. Good thing. Would be more difficult to eavesdrop on him at the all-bachelor lodgings. And otherwise, he was terribly easy to eavesdrop on. Always had a drink in hand, and the drink always loosened his lips. She’d discovered a ridiculously easy way to get him talking on any topic, too.

And after she dealt with the dirty water, smoothed her skirts, and pilfered a silver serving tray and bottle of wine, she employed it. She marched down the long hallway through puddles of dusty light. Along one side of the hallway, large glass windows alternated with thick blue curtains. They were always thrown open during the day, brightening the narrow space and revealing the hotel owner’s good taste. Everything—wallpaper, sconces, mirrors, floral arrangements, furniture, and rugs—was ordered to perfection as if it had grown there, a garden of delights one wished to sink into and never leave.

And guests, as far as she could tell, did stay. Or they returned, paying whatever fee Hotel Hestia demanded to take cover beneath its roof.

The owner, whoever he was, would be a wealthy man, no doubt. She’d only ever seen glimpses of him, a large form slipping through the shadows. The maids whispered of him—devil, beast, cursed. Silly things. Clearly, he was either a recluse or a man who didn’t bother with his employees. Nothing mythic about him, certainly.

She climbed a set of hidden stairs reserved for the servants, then slipped into the parlor on the second floor (the Hestia had one on each level). Quiet as could be, she set the tray down. None of the three gentlemen leaning over the card table noticed her entry. They’d not ordered wine, but they would not reject it. She slipped her hand into and out of her pocket, a slim, folded bit of paper tight between her fingertips. She dropped it on the table beside the tray and cleared her voice.

Mr. Lemmings grunted and remained fixated on his cards. No one else even flinched.

Isabella rolled her eyes. “Pardon me.” She tried to sound timid even as she raised her voice.

Slowly, the three gentlemen, Lemmings included, considered her. Annoyed, all of them. She stepped to the side to ensure they saw the wine.

“Pardon me,” she said again, keeping her face lowered, “but should I post this letter over here?” She glanced behind her shoulder at the paper she’d just dropped on the table there.

“Letter?” Lemmings scowled at his friends. “Any of you writing letters?”

The men grumbled and shook their heads.

Isabella picked up the paper, frowned at it. Now for the trick. “It’s addressed to a Cathy…?”

Lemmings fell into the back of his chair with a chuckle. “That’s my sister’s name.”

Yes. Yes, it was. “If it belongs to no one here, I’ll take it to Mrs. Smith.” The Hestia’s head housekeeper. “So, she can find its owner.”

But the men were ignoring her again, playing, chatting. About Cathy. She didn’t need an answer, anyway. Only invisibility would do. Isabella opened the parlor door and closed it without leaving. No one noticed. She slipped behind a tall folding screen in the corner of the room, sidestepping the chamber pot and wrinkling her nose. How long could she hold her breath? Hopefully, Lemmings got to the point quickly.

“How is old Cath doing?” one of the men asked.

“How’m I s’posed to know?” Lemmings answered.

“She married yet?” A third voice. Interest rolled its tone higher. Good to know. At least one gentleman possessed an interest in Miss Cathy. Mrs. Garrison would like to know about any competition.

Lemmings grunted, and the sound of cards slapping against the table followed. Cheers, groans, then Lemmings said, “Not yet. But there’s a man who’s interested. So my pa says. He can talk about nuthin’ else. Cath, though… seems like she’d rather run in front of a speeding carriage than let the fellow court her.”

“Who is he?”

“Dunno. Some fellow connected to an admiral. Cath says she’s never met him. Any time he’s supposed to call, his mama shows up instead.” Silence, the shhhh of cards being shuffled. “Not his mama, I don’t think. The fellow in question is a ward of the admiral’s. A nobody who’s made a mountain of money for himself. Now the admiral’s wife wants him to wed.”

“Doesn’t sound like this Midas wants to be wed. ”

“Damn shame he’s avoiding Cathy. She’s not so bad.” Those words muffled. Isabella peeked between a crack where two panels were hinged together. One man at the table slumped and hid behind a fan of cards. No doubt he was the one Mrs. Garrison had to worry about. Or perhaps not. He didn’t seem likely to do more about Cathy than grumble, which was perhaps more than Mrs. Garrison’s ward was doing about the girl.

“Cathy’s the least annoying of my sisters,” Lemmings said. “I’d take her over Mary any day. But she does like an awful lot of attention. If she’s being ignored, she tends to pout.”

Oh, Mrs. Garrison, her ward more precisely, was in trouble. If he did not start lavishing the young Cathy with attention, he’d never make her his wife.

That was enough information. She picked her way carefully around the chamber pot and out the door. She didn’t stop in the hallway and only breathed deeply once in the alley behind the hotel. She grabbed her cloak from where she’d stashed it on a hook in a dark corner of the mews and set her steps for the admiral’s house. Mrs. Garrison would benefit from this information. A bubble of glee grew in her chest. Some might say Isabella crept about for her own amusement, but she gathered gossip for everyone else.

For the women on the marriage mart, who needed to know if their suitors would make happy husbands. For her older sisters and her twin, who needed to know what rooms the ton had abandoned, so they could hold their secret meetings. For her younger sisters so she would know what families it would be best for them to marry into when the time came. For Samuel because he shared nothing with them. And for Mrs. Garrison because she’d asked, because that older lady wanted to see the young man she called son find happiness and love.

What was his name? Randal? Gavin? She’d heard it so long ago and never once met the man. Since she had no face to put with the name, it had quite dissipated. And asking Mrs. Garrison now would only offer insult.

Isabella paused at the corner, the admiral’s strong, tall, gray-faced townhouse just in sight. A man strode with long, powerful legs toward the door. A hat pulled low and a tall coat collar popped high covered his hair. He’d shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets, and he swept inside without knocking, his broad shoulders swallowing the dark space between the frame before disappearing behind the slammed door. A family member? A friend? The nameless son Isabella had never met?

No matter. She wasn’t here for whomever that had been.

Isabella scurried toward the house, knocked, kept her cloak when the butler offered to take it, and rushed into her friend’s sitting room.

Mrs. Garrison rose from a little writing desk, her face a broad smile below red hair streaked liberally with white. She never wore a cap inside and always seemed to peek into mirrors as she passed them, to poke at her hair with the grin of a pleased cat. “Lady Isabella, what a lovely surprise. What brings you to my corner of London?”

“What else?” Isabella sank into a chair, glad to be off her feet. “Gossip.”

Mrs. Garrison joined her, rubbing her palms together. “You always do know everyone’s secrets. Now, tell me everything.”