Chapter 9 #2
“I suppose you encountered plenty of paintings in the houses your father dragged you to.” The dowager’s statement was less abrupt, as though he’d provoked her sympathy.
“I did indeed. Meandering through the galleries at Chatsworth and Wilton House provided me an excellent education.”
Eamon spoke without regret, but Caro pictured a lonely boy wandering dark and empty corridors, set aside and forgotten. Had he entertained himself by gazing at the paintings until someone finally remembered to fetch him?
“I will not inquire about your actual schooling,” the dowager continued.
“Public schools and universities churn out vapid young men fit for nothing. My husband was one of those, but fortunately he had enough shrewdness to forget everything they tried to beat into him. My son, on the other hand, became a dreamy recluse.”
Caro’s rose to his defense. “Leopold was very learned, Maman.”
“I daresay he was. Never did him much good that I could discern. I know you were fond of him, Caro, but it is the truth.” The dowager focused on Eamon once more. “You are going to find all the paintings worth something and sell them for us, are you not?”
Eamon made her another bow, this one subdued. “I will do my best, Your Grace.”
“See that you do. Now, about you tossing Rudyard on his, as Leo terms it, derrière. That will cause a scandal, I wager. How many people witnessed it?”
“A good number, I am afraid,” Eamon confessed.
Caro had kept herself well away from the open front door during the incident, but at this time of day, there would have been plenty of passers-by, as this side of Grosvenor Square was a thoroughfare to Hyde Park to the west, New Bond Street to the east, and Oxford Street to the north.
“Rudyard will complain,” the dowager said. “What do you intend to do about it? Caro must not be touched by scandal. The ton can be brutal, and she does not have the high birth to withstand it.”
Caro did not wince at the dowager’s blunt words, because they were only the truth.
Eamon glanced at Caro, and she read compassion in his eyes. She did not like how much that warmed her.
“Her Grace could always sack me,” Eamon suggested. “Be outraged at me for the manner with which I behaved toward her cousin.”
“Ha,” the dowager snorted. “Not what I’d recommend.”
“I have no intention of dismissing you, Mr. Stone,” Caro said stoutly. “That is exactly what Rudyard would want.”
“What Rudyard wants is the dukedom,” the dowager said.
“The title, the power, the seat in the House of Lords, and the envy of his friends. He knows there’s no money in the estates, but he cares nothing for that.
His father, Rudolph, rest his soul, was much cannier about the blunt, as the English say, so it is not a fortune Rudyard is after.
The foolish boy craves the glory, without understanding the work that being an aristocrat entails. ”
Leo listened to all this with rapt attention. The dowager never curbed her speech or avoided serious subjects in his presence. Leo was a duke now, the dowager contended. Better he learned the harshness of the world early and be prepared for it.
“Rudyard does not see behind the trappings of power,” Eamon said, nodding. “It is a common failing among the Upper Ten Thousand, if you’ll pardon me, madame. My father was able to worm his way among them by making those he targeted fix on those trappings.”
“I am not surprised,” the dowager said. “Sir Benedict flattered them with great skill, from what I recall. You do not offend me, young man. I have the advantage of being somewhat of an outsider. Though French aristocrats were almost as foolish, which is why they fell. Napoleon and the Republic may be gone now, but all those aristocrats will never lift themselves again.” Her expression took on a faraway light before she waved it away.
“But never mind. We must decide how to protect Leo and Caro.”
“Leo is the Duke of Aylesmore, and Ca—the duchess—is his mother,” Eamon said. “That should count for much.”
“You would believe so,” the dowager said wisely. “But in our world, ladies have no real power at all. Oh, we wield it—there are those who would not dare to oppose us—but we do it with the force of our personalities. Caro has no force. She is too kind.”
Caro flushed. “Maman.”
“Do not argue, my dear. You are kind. It is refreshing, and why I did not kick up a fuss when Leopold chose to marry you. I understood his reasoning perfectly, and I have become quite fond of you. But you do not have the strength to oppose wealthy men in their counting houses scheming to take the world away from you.”
“I agree,” Eamon said, with a glance at Caro that made her flush deepen.
The dowager fixed her hard gaze on Eamon.
“You, on the other hand, are the son of a swindler. I am certain you learned a few tactics from your father about how to wrap the haut ton and all their men of business around your fingers. You will find a means to keep Rudyard from having his way, and you will keep Caro from scandal. You cannot afford exposure either, can you? Or else Cheswell’s will cease to employ you, and so will the aristocrats who hire you to find art for them. ”
Eamon withstood this onslaught without flinching.
Caro knew her mother-in-law was not threatening to betray Eamon’s origins but simply stating harsh truths.
If Rudyard discovered who Eamon’s father had been, he’d use that fact to convince every solicitor in the land that Caro lacked judgment and force her to hand over her son to Rudyard.
“You have my word that I will assist you to the greatest extent,” Eamon said to the dowager.
He turned to Leo, who’d stayed by the window, a sturdy lad in trousers and frock coat that he’d gotten plenty dusty.
“In fact, I will pledge myself to you, Leo—Your Grace.” Eamon bowed to him and remained bent from the waist. “I promise to be your protector, to make certain you will never be taken from your family, especially not to live with your odious cousin Rudyard. Will you have me, my liege?”
The duchess frowned at Eamon’s sudden solemnity and overblown language. Caro said nothing, letting Leo respond on his own.
Leo studied Eamon’s bowed head in a mixture of perplexity, awe, and delight. Then he walked to Eamon and rested a small hand on his shoulder.
“Rise, Sir Eamon,” Leo said in as serious a tone as Eamon had used. “I accept your pledge and will take you for my knight.”
Eamon came out of his bow but went down on one knee. “Thank you, my liege. I will ever be in your debt.”
The dowager’s brows furrowed further, as though she did not know what to make of this play, but Caro turned quickly away, so no one would see her eyes fill with sudden tears.
No letter from Mr. Clive waited for Eamon when he returned to Cheswell’s. Likewise, none had been delivered to his lodgings in Oxford Street when he reached it that night.
Eamon had sent Clive several missives requesting a meeting to discuss the duke’s artworks, but he’d received no word back. He’d gone over Clive’s ledgers that Caro had given him, finding them masterworks of obfuscation. The man used codes of his own that Eamon had yet to decipher.
“Nothing from Mr. Clive, but you do have a few other letters,” the landlady told Eamon at his inquiry.
Mrs. Temple was a willowy personage who wore billowing caps but dresses of so straight a line she resembled nothing less than a snowy egret with a head plume. She handed him three folded and sealed letters as they stood in the cold downstairs hall.
“One from your Scottish friend, Mr. McCormick, and one from his lordship. Oh, and this one is intriguing.” Mrs. Temple turned it over in her hand.
“It has been franked by the Prince of Osagard. My, my. Someone knows someone in high places. The Prince and Princess of Osagard have become very fashionable, you know, since they gave all that money to defeat Napoleon. The prince wanted to form his own regiment and fight, but of course, he couldn’t, being foreign.
” She added this last in a confiding tone.
Plenty of foreign princes had thrown together to fight Bonaparte, but Eamon knew what Mrs. Temple meant.
Though the Prince of Osagard was in exile in London, he could hardly raise a regiment that might be turned against the British Crown once his men had bested Napoleon.
Eamon doubted the prince would want to do such a thing, but the theory that he could was what counted.
Eamon reached for the letters. “Interesting. Thank you, Mrs. Temple.”
Mrs. Temple, who was clearly curious, released the papers with reluctance. “I’ve got a bite set on the board in the dining room. Mind you take some food. You work hard all day and then pour over them books all night. You’ll waste away, lad.”
Mrs. Temple’s “bite” usually consisted of several meat pies, large hunks of bread, piles of boiled potatoes, and three different kinds of tarts. She served these on a long table in her dining room, which was often filled with gentleman boarders as gossipy as she.
“Thank you, Mrs. Temple.” Eamon had purchased and eaten a hand pie from a cart on his way home, not eager to chat with those who’d want to pry information from him about the Duchess of Aylesmore and her family. “I’ll retire, but if I grow hungry, I’ll come down.”
Mrs. Temple shook her head. “Waste away, I say. You need a nice lass to look after you.”
At her words, the intense memory rose of Caro’s kiss—her lips beneath his, her trembling shock when they pulled apart, the taste of her filling Eamon better than any feast.
Eamon tamped down the vision with difficulty. “Alas, I am a man scratching for his living. No woman would be foolish enough to take me on.”
Mrs. Temple waved this away. “You’re charming enough to convince any lady to be your helpmeet.
That’s the best sort of marriage, you know—true partners in life who can sort out anything thrown your way.
Mr. Temple and I were such a pair.” She paused, her eyes growing misty.
“Rest his sweet soul. Now, off you go to read your letters. One from a friend of the Prince of Osagard, just fancy. I wager that between whoever that friend is and Lord Dominic, you can find a lady who has a few coins to rub together.”
Eamon raised his brows. “I thought I was to marry a true and equal friend. Partners against the world.”
“Yes, but a bit of blunt doesn’t hurt, my boy. You read the letter franked by the prince first. It is likely the most important of all.”
Eamon did not recognize the handwriting on the direction, and he had to admit he was as curious as Mrs. Temple. He did not intend to open it and read it in front of her, however, as she obviously wished.
Eamon thanked her again, bade her goodnight, and started up the stairs. Mrs. Temple didn’t hide her disappointment, though she returned his farewell cordially enough.
Mrs. Temple remained in the hall, watching Eamon climb the wooden staircase all the way to the third floor. He waved at her when he reached his landing, and only then did she finally turn away.
Eamon entered his rooms, which were well fitted for a man of modest means. He had a sitting room and a bedchamber, both paneled in soft golden wood, their furniture comfortable if aging. He had a desk large enough for his work in the front room and a warm bed in the rear one.
Mrs. Temple was generous with fuel and candles—as long as one paid one’s rent in a timely fashion—so the rooms were warm and light.
Others at Cheswell’s congratulated Eamon for stumbling onto such pleasant lodgings, but Eamon hadn’t found this house by luck. He’d learned from his father how to discover the most agreeable places to live for the least possible expenditure.
Eamon opened the franked letter first, his inquisitiveness as healthy as Mrs. Temple’s.
The letter wasn’t from a friend of the Prince of Osagard, as Mrs. Temple had speculated, but from the Prince himself.
Mr. Stone,
I am extending an invitation for you to attend my wife’s supper ball at our home in Portman Square, Wednesday the twenty-second of May, at ten o’clock in the evening. We will expect you punctually.
Yours in friendship,
Rupert Vollen HRH
Osagard