Chapter 44
Forty-four
Eleanor
While waiting for Grey‘s return, El had taken a seat in the manor’s informal withdrawing room.
After Percival was led back to his cell, Grey found her.
His expressive lips were turned down in gloom, but he took the seat beside her with an air of.
. . relief. Setting aside her book, she studied the new lines carved in his face and dared to sympathetically stroke his jaw with a finger.
Surprisingly, he caught her hand and held it against his bristly cheek.
“I am a fool,” he said sadly, before releasing her.
“You are a man of intelligence and scholarly wisdom who does not understand fools,” she corrected. “You believe people are like you.”
“Which is foolish. You should go back to the house. Hunt is bringing in Stew next. Sutter has promised to lend his knowledge as a lawyer. This won’t be at all pretty—Percival spilled everything he knew. My heir is a lazy, privileged bounder.” He seemed weary beyond words.
Grey was never weary. He had the energy of a thousand suns.
Eleanor desperately wished she dared hug him, but he was still a lord and she was a nobody.
“You shouldn’t have to testify against your heir.
Perhaps you could leave him to Hunt and Mr. Sutter and spend your time writing letters to your trustees and so forth about who is to take your cousin’s place? ”
“I sent inquiries some days ago. I do remember how to write on my own.” His lips tilted wryly.
“They tell me his debts exceed his trust fund and he has fraudulently endangered the estate’s reserves.
I have agreed to pay the merchants and tailors because they do not deserve to suffer.
But I have refused his gambling debts. He played with high-ranking nobles who have means well beyond his or mine.
They are the reason he’s so desperate. His debtors are powerful men who are threatening to send him to prison.
What he has done as a consequence. . .” He gestured helplessly.
“Is appalling. I do not know the penalties for attempted murder and conspiracy to do so.”
Murder, his heir had attempted to murder him. El didn’t concentrate on this appalling fact but on easing Grey’s pain. “It is amazing how wicked people find each other. Unless they require your testimony, you do not need to witness this.”
She would do anything to wipe the desolation from his eyes and return the amazing resilience that had allowed this lonely man to travel and create a life without friends or family. “Thea says Mort has been released and is in an awful decline. Would you care to give him some encouraging words?”
He pondered it, but an uproar outside the door drew their attention. They rose to peer into the long hall.
Rafe hustled cousin Stewart, shouting obscenities, down the corridor from his cell. Eleanor wrapped her hand around Grey’s and held him back.
She had once thought his heir resembled Grey, but as they approached, she could see the dissipation in his cousin’s red-veined countenance.
His stylishly trimmed mane was thinning and greasy from pomade.
His once fashionable clothes had not held up well in the filth of the crypt, and blood stained his cravat from Grey’s blows.
Passing the entry where they stood, Stewart saw them, shot them a baleful glare, and spit like an animal in Grey’s direction. Rafe dragged him on before he could spew more spite.
“You do not need to hear more of that,” El declared firmly.
“Let us give solace to a starving artist. Might you buy his painting that shows your view from the attic? You could take it with you when you leave.” Saying that wounded her right down to her smallest toe, but she was trying to be realistic.
Grey was hurting and in turmoil. Clinging to her hand meant nothing.
“Yes, I think you are right,” he said after a brief hesitation. Apparently laying some of his demons to rest, he continued more determinedly, “Hunt can have my written statement if he needs it. He might pry more sense from the lackwit without my presence.”
With a brisk step, Grey led her down the wide central hall toward the front. “Arnaud also has a piece I’d like to consider.”
At the white marble stairs in the entry, they ran into a small crowd gathering around the manor’s ancient tall case clock as it bonged the hour.
Two young boys, a rather polished young man who must be their tutor, and Major Ferguson crouched about the windowed case, watching the pendulum.
Thea was observing from the bottom of the stairs.
“What is happening?” Eleanor whispered, because they seemed to be concentrating very hard on the old timepiece.
Thea smothered a laugh. “Those ornately engraved brass pendulums contain strange lines the boys believe are a map to the mad earl’s treasure. But they have been unable to decipher it. They are now looking for patterns in the clock movement.”
Lavender, the modiste Eleanor had met earlier, swept from her sewing manufactory, hands full of silk, and hesitated at the gathering on the landing. The tutor cast her an admiring glance and hastily urged the boys to make room for her to pass.
Lavender didn’t appear to notice. “You have torn your hem, Miss Leonard. You should have my ladies repair it, but those dirt stains may never come out. Why don’t you stop by the shop and find something possibly a little more practical? And then Kate can find a way to repair this one.”
Poor Peg had done her best to mend El’s new gown so she might look presentable at the Priory, but apparently, she’d failed. El glanced down at the sadly wilted sprigged muslin and sighed. “I’ll never learn to be ladylike.”
“Now who is being foolish? Come along, Miss Leonard, I believe I owe you a gown.” Grey tugged her arm. “Is Arnaud at the gallery?” he asked of Thea before rushing off.
“Consoling Mort and rehanging his work, yes. Mort will appreciate a few kind words. Shall I accompany you?” Thea seemed prepared to follow.
“No, we have many errands. We are taking a day of rest.” Energy apparently restored, Grey nearly dragged El from the manor.
“If the clock is correct, it is already two. Our day is almost over,” she said dryly as they hurried down the manor’s rutted carriage drive. “And is rushing about your notion of resting?”
“How is it that there is suddenly so very much to do?” His tone was almost accusatory. “Where is Andrew? I have questions.”
El feared they were about the furniture. Rather than reply, she tested him with her own queries. “Did he not set up your bed properly last night? Was it more comfortable than sleeping on sagging rope?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Of course, it was. And having a washstand with a mirror for a change was excessively useful. I no longer fear finding shaving soap behind my ear. But the desks are still in the cart. They will be a difficulty to carry upstairs and Andrew cannot do it alone.”
He was staying! She prayed. She practiced her best courtesy in hopes she wouldn’t rile him.
“I can work in the parlor, if that is a help. And thank you for the lovely mirror and dressing table! I am not accustomed to seeing so much of myself. I’m not entirely certain I enjoy it, but the thought was lovely.
It seems a great deal of trouble for six months.
” That last line was another test, she feared, but she could not resist. Her entire future rested on his answers.
His active mind swerved in a different direction. “Good, glad you like the mirror. You have never had an opportunity to see how beautiful you are. Once you learn to wield your feminine wiles, Andrew will have to fight off suitors with a shotgun. Women are dangerous to have around.”
Suitors? Beautiful? Both notions shocked her long enough for him to steer her toward the inn’s shops. Grey thought curly-haired, plain, stick-like her, beautiful? More likely, he was trying to distract her from whatever he was up to. That thought returned her tongue.
“I thought we were to go to the gallery to help Mort?” El asked, hesitating at the entrance to the innyard.
“I am not utterly useless. I know what to say to dejected artists, despite Percy’s calumny.”
Evidently, his confidence had not been dented by the court proceedings. Her own was not so resilient, but under current circumstances, his mattered more.
Grey continued barking orders. “You will follow Miss Lavender’s suggestion and choose a new gown. Yours was ruined in my employ, so I shall pay for it. You do not need my assistance in choosing dresses any more than I need assistance at the gallery. I do not intend to be a hovering suitor.”
He abandoned her at the inn door, leaving El with her mouth open and the innkeeper’s wife looking on with amusement.
“A forceful man is the baron,” Verity noted at El’s confusion. “I rather like the ones who allow women to have their own minds.”
“I have my own mind. He has nothing to do with it,” El said dazedly. Although his words had evidently sent her mind reeling again. Suitor? He was considering himself among the many of her imagined callers?
She continued on to the shop, until she realized she didn’t have Peg and wondered if she should go back to the house.
But the lovely shopkeeper saw her hesitating in the hall and called a greeting.
“Miss Leonard—Eleanor! I heard of your bravery. The brute has ruined your new muslin, I see. I think I have just the thing to replace it. Since we have your measurements on file, this should be simple.” Kate rummaged through one of her trunks.
“Aren’t you to be married in the morning?” El asked in bewilderment as the auburn-haired clerk began scattering gowns across a table.
Kate beamed. “I am. Rafe is holding our wedding breakfast in the pub after services. I hope you and Greybourne will attend.”
“And you will continue to work afterward? Or will someone else be here to finish my gown?” Perhaps the blow to her head had been more serious than she’d thought. The world suddenly appeared to be spinning at great rate.
Of course, the only world she’d ever known was Edinburgh, and given her poverty, it had been limited.
Kate laughed. “I love working. One day, I hope to have a housekeeper again. But for now, I have two boys going to school, and they need so much. . . I am grateful for your business.” She stuck a pin between her teeth and tucked a frill into the neckline of a practical round gown.
Uncertain of her ability to choose wisely, El cautiously pointed out a pretty blue-green frock that Kate did not seem to be considering. “That is a pretty color.”
Placing the pin in the ruffle, Kate happily set aside the dull gown and held up the pretty one.
“Peacock! If you are daring enough to wear it, it will suit you well. You’ll want more fashionable sleeves, but I think we have the perfect scarf to tuck into the neckline so it won’t need a flounce.
Yours is a classic beauty that doesn’t require frills to be noticed. ”
Classic beauty. Perhaps she ought to peruse a mirror more often. Or everyone was giving her Spanish coin.
Grey wasn’t much inclined to flattery.
How daring was peacock? She’d just thought it pretty.
“With your lovely short hair and curls, you should wear earbobs. They will drive the gentlemen quite mad.” The shopkeeper produced dangling pearl clips that El couldn’t resist because they swung about if she tossed her head.
She couldn’t toss her shorn hair, but earbobs.
. . Was this what it took to become visible? She might enjoy learning, if so.
By the time Kate had the gown and other bits sorted, they heard the men clattering into the lobby, shouting for ale.
“I hope Fletch or Rafe has returned from the manor. Verity is a bit timid about serving rowdy gentlemen.” Kate folded up the gown. “It’s late enough. I’ll lock up and we can see what they’re celebrating.”
By the time they reached the pub, Grey, Arnaud, and the other artists were quaffing ale and merrily toasting each other, while Major Ferguson poured. Seeing Kate, the major emerged to kiss her proudly. “Next round is on me, boys! Tomorrow, I’ll be wed to the finest lady in existence.”
Kate blushed and pushed him back toward the bar. “Did the boys discover the clock’s treasure?”
Kate’s intended poured half pints for her and El. “I think Thea will have to talk to the earl’s ghost before that puzzle is solved. This celebration, our artistic friends will have to explain.”
Grey separated himself from his happy new friends and led El to a table. “He is wrong, you know,” he murmured in her ear. “You are far finer than Mrs. Morgan, but we will allow a besotted, almost newlywed to have his fancies.”
“How many pints have you had?” El asked, blushing despite her disbelief.
“None. I don’t like the stuff.” He lifted his full mug when the others at the bar did. “To fame!”
“And fortune,” Arnaud called. “We’ll help you hang your new purchases so your magazine friend can see how well they look outside of the gallery.”
“He’s likely to be here in a day or two. Work fast!” Grey lifted his mug again to their cheers.
“Your art critic is arriving so soon?” El sipped nervously at her own mug. This was a new side of Greybourne that she’d never seen. She was uncertain what to make of him.
“Our ladies of the Priory have been spreading gossip. Infamy attracts attention. I may be notorious for a day or two. You may wish to hide at the manor so as to not be part of the story once they learn I am to have my heir removed from my hair, so to speak.” He sloshed his ale swinging it about and added cynically, “The publicity should be good for book sales. My publisher will be pleased.”
“Gossip will bring journalists?” Her head was definitely fuzzy again. Libraries and books had never spun her about like this.
“And art critics.” Grey lifted his mug to the barkeep again. “Better have rooms made ready, Major. I am not prepared to put up the sots. And they are not exactly the sort to dine with the ladies.”
Even dour Mort lifted a mug to that. “Ply ’em with drink, I say. Make ’em happy.”
Kate had settled on a bench to pick at piano keys in the corner. Finding what she wanted, she began a joyful tune that brought children running in from the kitchen.
Grey brushed the new earbobs in El’s ears. “I like those. We may have to find a proper lady’s maid who can keep your curls trimmed so I can kiss your pretty ear.”
Which he proceeded to do, only to abandon her as the gentleman from the manor entered, along with the bailiff—leaving El with her dizzy head in the clouds.
She thought, just maybe, she wasn’t invisible anymore.