Chapter 9
Sherbrooke townhouse
Portman Square
Tuesday evening
Whit felt very fine, a man pleased with himself and his world.
After a splendid afternoon spent with his enthusiastic wife, followed by a much-needed nap, he’d managed to escape from his house before his daughter could catch him.
Nor did he see his eldest daughter, Eliza, doubtless in her room preparing for the evening with that sour-faced maid of hers, Claudine.
His precious Averil, now pleased with him since she’d secured his promise to see his hoyden daughter off to Bath if she refused to apologize to Teddy Jewel Friday night, if, that is, poor Teddy accepted their invitation.
If he refused, why then, she would chaperone Eliza to the Winter-Smiths ball.
Whit profoundly hoped his presence wouldn’t be required.
Soon Eliza would be out of his house. Whit wondered if Eliza’s fiancé, Winstead Towbridge, who sported a good deal of blue blood in his veins, had ever witnessed his future wife’s temper in full flight as her father had.
Probably not. Eliza was too smart to let her tongue loose before she had him to the altar.
Whit liked Winstead, a jovial young man, raised to privilege, of course.
He loved the land and would doubtless prove to be a good master when his turn came, which Whit hoped would not be for a long time, but alas, he’d heard Jame son Towbridge was not in the best of health, melancholia, he’d heard Winstead tell Eliza.
Whit loved his daughter, recognized her dislike for her sister, he wasn’t blind, but he didn’t understand it. He had to admit too he’d witnessed Eliza’s unkindness to the servants. Odd, but she and Averil appeared to get along splendidly.
All in all, Whit’s life was very pleasant, well, except for the dislike between his precious Averil and Cam and the very real concern about what Cam would do if Teddy Jewel did indeed come to dinner.
Sometimes he wished he’d had three sons.
Daughters were the very devil. No, he wasn’t going to worry about any of that until tomorrow.
Just pesky little worries, nothing more.
He thought of his wife, thought of their lovemaking just that afternoon and smiled, fatuously.
As he walked down the front steps and climbed into his carriage to travel the single mile to the Sherbrooke townhouse on Portman Square, it didn’t surprise Whit when the English heavens split open and dumped rain.
His coachman, John, flew off his perch to hold an umbrella over his master’s precious head.
As he settled against the lovely dark burgundy squabs in his grandfather’s splendid old carriage that Averil believed should be in mothballs, he breathed in the lovely old smell of cracked leather, enjoyed every creak and groan, and felt contented to his boots.
No mothballs for this splendid old conveyance.
Tonight he wasn’t going to think about the minor problems at home. He was going to think about how he and Alex Ivanov, if Ryder was right about his ward, were going to make a good deal of money.
Whit had always been a bit intimidated by the Earl of Northcliffe’s very impressive early Georgian townhouse, the largest on Portman Square, lovely pale weathered brick, perfectly maintained, the servants efficient and ever so obliging, the ancient butler Mr. Plume as impressive as a king.
Whit was seated in an exquisitely comfortable Spanish winged chair he imagined had been appropriated from Philip II’s palace in Madrid after Elizabeth’s drubbing of his armada in 1588.
The drawing room was warm from the lovely fire in the exquisite Carrera fireplace, the dark blue and green Aubusson carpet soft and thick beneath his polished boots, the high shine achieved by his valet Slipper’s special champagne recipe, a secret handed down from his grandfather.
In but a moment Mr. Plume gently placed a snifter of very fine brandy in his hand, informed him Mr. Sherbrooke would be with him shortly.
Whit admired Ryder Sherbrooke, a fine-looking man, a smile usually on his face, a jest on his lips.
Mayhap before Averil he’d admired his wife a bit more, Sophie, a lovely name.
She was charming, kind, attentive. And the stories he’d heard from others who’d visited Ryder’s two grand houses in Upper Slaughter in the Cotswolds—one for all Ryder’s rescued children.
He’d been told how all Ryder’s children clustered around him to vie for his attention, which he freely gave them.
He loved them, took care of them, educated them so if some were criminals, as some believed, they at least spoke like gentlemen and ladies.
He even educated the girls, something he couldn’t imagine until, after Cam had begged him for a solid three months, he’d agreed to hire a tutor.
Mr. Watts was short and thin nosed, with lovely white teeth and newly down from Cambridge.
It had paid off, for Cam had found mistakes in Whit’s own calculations for a new time-watch.
Mr. Watts had informed his lordship that his sixteen-year-old daughter was smart, mayhap smarter than he, a difficult admission for a young scholar to admit.
In odd moments Whit bemoaned the fact she wasn’t a boy and off to Oxford like her much older brother, Bryant, his heir, but it wasn’t to be.
Cam was of marriageable age and what was he to do?
In addition to a splendid dowry, she was blessed with her mother Tansia’s beauty.
Ah, and she made him laugh, singing him ditties made up on the spot about his cronies and the lords in Westminster.
He flinched remembering how he’d heard Cam say to Mrs. Willig, “No laughter now, Mrs. Willig, not after AA—” After Averil.
Whit knew he should remonstrate with her for that impertinence, but he hadn’t.
Oil and water, he thought again, and sighed.
Whit cursed under his breath remembering his promise to Averil wrung out of him after he’d collapsed from pleasure, sprawled on his back in the middle of his century-old feather tick: If she doesn’t apologize to Teddy, you know he won’t offer for her and it’s off to Bath she goes, my lord. You promised.
Ryder said from the doorway, “Whit, you look like one of my children, little Rory, ready to burst into tears whenever he’s chewing over a difficult problem and he can’t immediately figure it out.”
Whit snapped back, managed a smile and rose.
Was he so obvious? He regarded his longtime friend in his immaculate evening clothes.
Always sought after, was Ryder, popular with men and women despite his peculiarity of housing children he’d rescued.
They shook hands. Whit said, “Problems seem to multiply the older my children get. Does little Rory cry, or does he solve his problems after sufficient chewing?”
“Usually Rory figures out his problems on his own. The most recent problem he faced was how to coax a sparrow into eating from his hand.” Ryder grinned.
“He ended up using a long branch with a saucer tucked in on the end with grain in it. It worked. Every day the branch got shorter. It took a week, but the sparrow was eating out of Rory’s hand.
Come, Whit, you’re looking on the constipated side. ”
“Ah, that’s a lovely thought.” He shrugged.
“I’m no more concerned than usual. Homelife, you know, always there to make a man want to pull his hair out.
Suffice it to say, children are the very devil.
” He pulled his grandfather’s watch from his vest pocket.
It was getting late. “Where is your ward, Ryder?”
“I believe I hear him now.”