Chapter 4
Chapter Four
There’d been a world of bitterness in that last statement. Graeme stared at the closed door a moment, remembering a vision from the past: Blythe in the arms of his cousin, Archie, her bodice pulled down, her breasts exposed to Archie’s fevered groping.
All the old emotions stirred—anger, jealousy, and above all, the desire that had consumed him, despite the fact that he’d been a young lad and she’d been almost five years his senior.
He’d opened his mouth and brought attention to the couple, attention that had forced a marriage, when all he’d wanted was to stop Archie.
It had been his fault she’d been made to marry.
Calf love, it had been, an infatuation that could never bear fruit—then.
What he’d learned that day had made him cautious with women and careful about expectations. He’d had lovers but never fallen in love. He’d never expected to marry.
An earl without male relatives would have to marry and produce an heir.
What he needed was a simple transaction: a sensible young woman of good reputation who would bear sons, manage the house while he was away for months, perhaps years, and who wouldn’t stand in the way of his career.
He went back to the tray and lifted the cover and set it down again, his appetite gone. The journals and papers on the desk beckoned him to work, but what he wanted was another proper drink.
What he needed was a clear head.
He rang for a fresh pot of tea and went to the desk.
A half hour later he threw down the logbook he was reviewing and rubbed his eyes.
The columns of numbers marched profitably down each page, but one number revealed payments on a sizeable loan from an unfamiliar bank.
If the estate was doing well, why the loan?
There was the work on the townhouse of course, or…
had his cousin been a gambler? Morley hadn’t mentioned it.
Perhaps Archie’s expenses were related to the ladybirds he’d welcomed into his home.
Clothing one countess was expensive, but two or more of the ladies in a harem?
What was the truth about Archie and Blythe? He glanced at the clock. Morley was waiting for him at White’s.
In the hall he found the butler directing two footmen with a large trunk.
“What is this?” Graeme asked.
“The trunk is mine, my lord.” Dressed for outdoors, Blythe descended the stairs, an older, plainly attired woman following her with a valise. She hadn’t been part of the line of servants earlier so she must be the lady’s maid, and had been busy upstairs packing this trunk.
Blythe hadn’t said she was traveling.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
She pulled on a glove. “Adwick, thank you, that will be all. Radley, will you check whether I left behind the book I was reading?” All four servants dispersed, and she faced him, tying the bow on her massive bonnet.
“The new earl has arrived. The old earl’s countess is departing.
My duties here are done. I’ve found other accommodations. ”
Outside the open door, a shabby carriage stopped. A servant in Chilcombe livery ran up to it.
The carriage was a hired hack. She wasn’t traveling as far as Risley Manor in that.
“Are you off to a coaching inn to hire a chaise? Doesn’t Chilcombe have a traveling chaise or carriage to take you to Risley?”
“How I travel is not your concern, my lord.”
“You’re… what? Off to stay with a friend?”
“Bearing in mind the impact of my presence on your reputation, I thought it best that we do not dwell under the same roof.”
A cold chill passed over him. The rumors must be true. “Who is he?”
Her mouth firmed. “The fact that you have the discourtesy to ask that question proves the need for me to leave.” The tension in her was palpable.
“I have found temporary lodgings. I have taken the liberty of asking one of your servants to see that my maid and I are safely settled, after which, he will return to Chilcombe House.”
“Who is providing these temporary lodgings?”
She leveled the same quelling gaze he’d once seen Wellington direct at an unwelcome mushroom who’d needlessly sought his attention.
Perhaps the exuberant young girl had become a formidable woman.
He might be unwelcome but he wasn’t a mushroom. He was the earl. Surely, he had some say about the dowager countess’s conduct.
All the more reason to have her gone, yet the thought of her leaving, to go off to a lover—
“I am providing the accommodation, sir,” she said finally. “I have arranged quite respectable lodgings elsewhere. This is your home now, not mine, Lord Chilcombe.”
“No,” he said, anger rising. “I see your gambit, Blythe. You want me to appear to society to be a scoundrel, casting you out of your home.” If he had any hopes for a plum assignment, he’d best protect his reputation as a gentleman.
He walked to the door, beckoned the servant outside, and told him to send the hack on its way.
Blythe grasped at composure and pushed down the urge to shout.
She’d had one year and one month without an Earl of Chilcombe meddling in her life. “It is not your decision to make.”
“I arrive in town and displace a countess from her home? What will that do to my reputation? What sort of gentleman do you think I am? If anyone is to leave it will be me.”
“If anyone is to leave?” she said, her voice rising as she lost her internal battle. “I’m not thinking of your reputation, I’m thinking of mine. Except for cheating at cards, you gentlemen may do whatever you please, never mind the cost to your wives and children.”
She squeezed her eyes, suppressing a burst of angry tears, gathered herself, and found him staring at her like she was the lowliest sort of insect.
The insolent prig.
Easing in a breath, she went on. “Had I known your arrival would be so soon, I would have already been gone.”
“Is there no dower house? Until the business of the will is settled… for heaven’s sake, Blythe, if you must leave, why not return to Risley Manor?”
Archie had made great use of the Risley Manor dower house before moving his beastly activities to the north wing of the manor. If she were the earl, both dwellings would be torn down.
“This is your home now. I will not spend a single night under the roof of an unmarried man. I bid you adieu, Lord Chilcombe.”
“No.” He repeated, his jaw locked. “You will, of course, stay here.”
Speechless with anger, she struggled for words.
“What’s needed,” he said, “is a chaperone. I’ll take rooms at an inn until you can search out some older relation.”
Her only older relation was Great-Aunt Winifred, and the old besom had cut ties after she’d paid a call at Risley Manor, and Archie had invited his nurse to join them for tea.
“It will have to be one of your relations,” she said. “I have none handy.”
“What of Cousin Freddy’s widow? She must be forty if she’s a day.”
“If you’ll recall, that particular wife died quite some time ago. The current widow is not yet two and twenty.”
Though, come to think of it, Melusine Blatchfield’s presence would be perfect revenge on this managing earl.
“It may be indelicate to mention,” she said, pausing to adjust her bonnet, “but Freddy’s widow would very much like to have a title.
Countess would work quite well. She’s young enough to bear many children, though she’s only managed to produce daughters so far.
Invite her here, if you dare. Perhaps her mother could come along and chaperone your courtship of her. ”
Graeme blinked and pressed his lips together.
“I say!” a man bellowed from the doorway. “ Ain’t this Lady Chilcombe’s house? Why is this cheeky chap sending my hack away with my trunk still atop it? Put the case there, if you please.”
A scrawny fellow in regimentals directed the earl’s footman to place a scratched, battered trunk on the tile next to Blythe’s more elegant luggage.
Tall, sandy-haired, and lean—far too thin, actually—the visitor turned a bright grin on her and opened his arms. “What kind of welcome is this, Blythy?”
Will. Will was here. She hadn’t seen him in years.
Moisture welled in her eyes and throat, and she heard Graeme’s indrawn breath. Nudging the pompous prig out of the way, she walked into the welcoming arms, feeling… safe, protected, for the first time in ages.
“Will,” she said pulling back to examine him. He seemed to have grown taller since his last leave and was far too careworn for his age, but mischief gleamed in his eyes, like it had in the old days when the brat had pulled pranks on her. “Has the army not been feeding you?”
“Arrgh. Aye, feeding me bullets and plague, and a few poisoned spears on the side. I just landed at Deal two days ago, and lucky I was to find transport. Who’s this fellow?” he added in a stage whisper.
Heavens. Will and Graeme might have arrived on the same ship. She was glad that they hadn’t.
“I may ask the same about you.” Graeme’s smooth tone would cut butter but the stony look in his eyes told her what he was thinking.
She swallowed a defiant chuckle. “My lord,” she said, “may I introduce Captain Willis Lynford? Will, this is Graeme Blatchfield, the Earl of Chilcombe, who like you, has only just arrived in town.”
“The new earl? I thought you wrote that he’d be arriving in… Beg pardon. Er, pleased to meet you. I suppose I’d best look for a bed elsewhere.” Will’s eyes narrowed. “I say, are you living here, Blythe?”
“No,” she said, and at the same time Graeme said, “Yes.”
She locked eyes with him, furious at the cool, knowing look he sent back. “I’m leaving,” she said.
“She’s staying, Captain Lynford.”
Will took a step forward. “I say, sir. Just what are your intentions toward my sister?”
Blythe sighed. She’d kept her letters to Will cheerful, omitting her marital trials. It seemed the rumors had reached him anyway.
“Your sister?” Graeme looked skeptical, and so he might. Where her half-sibling was tall and fair, like his father, she was of average height and dark, like hers.