How Not To Marry An Earl
How Not To Marry An Earl
Christine Merrill
The plainest Strickland sisterIn the Earl’s arms!Part of Those Scandalous Stricklands: To escape marriage to the new Earl of Comstock, bookish Charity must find her family’s missing diamonds. She meets her match in an intellectual stranger auditing the estate…little knowing he is Lord Comstock himself! With him, Charity feels different—even desirable! But will seizing one night of passion bind her to the very man she’s determined to avoid?
The plainest Strickland sister
Part of Those Scandalous Stricklands.
To escape marriage to the newly inherited Earl of Comstock, bookish Charity must find her family’s missing diamonds.
She meets her match in an intellectual stranger auditing the estate…not knowing he is Lord Comstock himself!
With him, Charity feels different—even desirable! But will seizing one night of passion bind her to the very man she’s determined to avoid?
Those Scandalous Stricklands miniseries
Book 1—“Her Christmas Temptation” in Regency Christmas Wishes Book 2—A Kiss Away from Scandal Book 3—How Not to Marry an Earl
“Readers will enjoy the strong characters, swift pace, lively wit and the wickedly fun escapades that stubborn lovers can get into.”
—RT Book Reviews on “Her Christmas Temptation” in Regency Christmas Wishes
“Book two in Merrill’s series is a triumph. Opposites attract, repel, collide and unite in this thrilling romance.”
—RT Book Reviews on A Kiss Away from Scandal
CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off the computer so they can check their email. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming and as a librarian. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.
Also by Christine Merrill (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase
The Wedding Game
A Convenient Bride for the Soldier
The de Bryun Sisters miniseries
The Truth About Lady Felkirk
A Ring from a Marquess
Those Scandalous Stricklands miniseries
Regency Christmas Wishes
A Kiss Away from Scandal
How Not to Marry an Earl
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
How Not to Marry an Earl
Christine Merrill
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07429-2
HOW NOT TO MARRY AN EARL
© 2018 Christine Merrill
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Caffeine, without whom this book
could not have been written.
Don’t ever leave me again.
Contents
Cover (#u75ae3fcc-01dc-5c62-9ed7-78e2d64c1a22)
Back Cover Text (#u0753de25-9a41-5b61-ba15-2514b00f3a90)
About the Author (#u45c6bbc2-a51a-5d8c-8aca-374c52976bfd)
Booklist (#u6b95500e-b614-5069-b90b-1c91e7f7fd9f)
Title Page (#uc07a3e7a-e2f0-59a6-b5e0-35a6d592fd4c)
Copyright (#uc290e8da-2634-5684-9316-67da1656f035)
Dedication (#uac12f71a-8dae-5c06-b212-d222cb432d95)
Chapter One (#uaa37bfc3-13fc-5162-8ae1-ae703abb890e)
Chapter Two (#udf4d3222-3898-5dca-b95b-4b7c115650a9)
Chapter Three (#u0fbe4c0c-f1e6-530e-b65a-76f963d6c6e7)
Chapter Four (#u5de7cdfe-4bc5-5fa1-8702-41babab2c609)
Chapter Five (#u5f944dbd-8c71-537b-a310-b4185fcdef73)
Chapter Six (#u6a73a9b1-b0b6-57d1-882f-5fb5026a85f1)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
It seemed as if Miles Strickland had been running for ages. First, it had been from Prudence in Philadelphia, to avoid the plans she had made for them. Then the Shawnee, during his brief idea to go West and seek his fortune.
He had run from the Iroquois on the way back.
He had been two steps from the altar and one step away from debtors’ prison when the letter had arrived from England and convinced him that his luck had finally turned. His kin had been American far longer than that country had existed and in none of that time had they mentioned the noble family tree they had sprouted from. But now, the British branches had died, leaving him heir to lands and a title.
Visions of wealth and comfort filled his head as he boarded the ship to cross the Atlantic. And then, he’d spoiled it all by actually becoming the Earl of Comstock. Apparently, the English Stricklands were no better off than the Americans. His family’s debts had been minuscule compared to the ones attached to his new title. And there was no hope in clearing them, since a lord was not supposed to work. Instead, he was expected to collect rent from tenants even poorer than he was and take a seat in a government he knew nothing about. His brother, Edward, had been lucky that the English navy had got to him first. If he’d lived, he would have been press-ganged into Parliament, as Miles had been.
He had no patriotic loyalty to the government he was expected to join and even less faith in this antiquated inheritance of power without money. There was to be no magical solution to his previous problems. Instead, everyone expected he would sort out the mess left to him by his distant relatives.
Worse yet, there had been a stack of tear-stained letters from Prudence that had beaten him across the Atlantic on a faster ship. The situation was dire. He was her last and only hope. He must return home to Philadelphia immediately.
But would he be allowed to do so? He did not think that the Prince who was currently running things would drag him back to the House of Lords in leg irons. But after what had happened to Ed, he could not be sure. His brother had gone to Barbados in an attempt to turn the family fortunes by investing in sugar. The next any of them had heard, he’d been impressed into the British navy. In his last letter home, he had begged Miles to watch over Prudence until he could return to her.
Shortly after that Pru had got the news that she was an impoverished widow. And now, the moment Miles was not there to watch her, she had made things worse. She was an exceptionally foolish girl and probably deserved what she got. But she was his responsibility, more so than these English strangers were. She needed him. What could he do but run back to Philadelphia, as fast as he had run from it?
It did not seem likely that Miles could leave from any of the ports around London, without someone noticing. So, he’d left the city making a vague reference to visiting the Comstock property while omitting the rest of his plan, which was to keep going until the entire country was no more than a distant memory.
He’d set off at a gallop and the fine blood he was riding was eager to carry him at full speed. It was the best horse he’d ever sat, much less owned. He’d had no trouble buying it on credit, since earls did not bother using actual money.
He must find a way to return it to its previous owners. In England, peers who could not pay for the things they bought suffered nothing more than embarrassment. But in America, he’d have been hung as a horse thief. His guilt when he looked at the bill to Tattersall’s was almost too much to stand.
What did bother him even more than the debts was having strangers scraping and bowing and calling him my Lord Comstock. He wanted to shout, ‘You don’t know me.’ If they did, they would realise that they had made a mistake in thinking a common ancestry qualified him to do the job they had foisted upon him.
After half a day’s journey, he passed the marker that indicated the edge of the Comstock holdings. There was no denying that the land he’d inherited was pretty, with rolling farmland and a village full of thatched-roof cottages. The view was spoiled when he paused to realise that he was responsible for keeping those roofs from leaking. But at least the tavern served a decent ale and did not enquire about his past, despite his accent. The last thing he needed was to be identified as their new lord and master before he could finish his drink.
* * *
After a light lunch he rode on towards the estate. But as he came around a turn in the gravel drive he saw two houses: the great house on the hill and a second house, large by normal standards, but dwarfed by the manor beyond it.
The smaller one must be the dower house that he’d been told of. It had been described as almost beyond repair, which meant it was unoccupied and unattended. If there was a couch, or at least a dry patch of floor to lay out his bedroll, he might stay there unnoticed. It would save him the trouble of making excuses to the servants at the great house about his sudden arrival and equally sudden departure.
And if there happened to be a set of silver left in a sideboard, he might still see some profit from this unfortunate trip. When pawned, a saddlebag full of second-best decorations would at least be enough to buy a ticket for home.
He dismounted, looped the reins over a nearby tree branch and approached the house. But before he’d got within ten feet of the door he heard a familiar angry bark and felt a fifteen-pound projectile strike his calf. He stared down at the little black-and-white head, with the equally small fangs sunk ineffectually into his boot leather, and resisted the urge to kick.
Instead, he reached down, grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and tugged it free, then lifted it to eye level, glaring at it.
The dog returned the sort of look normally reserved for cats and creditors.
‘I do not know what possessed me to rescue you at the docks, since this is all the thanks I’ve got for it. If this is how you treated your previous owner, I understand why he was trying to drown you.’ It had been instinct that made him drop his luggage and grab for the burlap sack that the boy had been trying to fling off the gangplank of the Mary Beth, assuming that the child’s father had told him, harshly but sensibly, that a sea voyage was no place for a dog. By the time he’d turned to assure the little attempted murderer his pup would be safe, the boy had vanished and Miles had been the owner of the most ungrateful cur in the New World.
‘Grrr…’ The animal made a snap at the empty air, trying to reach him. Miles had told himself for weeks that the dog’s bad temper was caused by close confinement and the constant rocking of the ship. But he appeared to be no happier on the dry land of England than he had been in America.
‘When I sent you on ahead with the Dowager, I hoped we might never see each other again. Have you managed to get yourself banished from the main house already?’
The dog squirmed in his hands, taking another snap before wriggling free and jumping to the ground. Then, he turned towards the dower house and leapt through a broken window, still barking.
Miles sighed. ‘I am not climbing in after you. There is a perfectly good door.’ He walked to the front of the house, reaching into his pocket for the ring of keys, before noticing that it already stood open a crack.
‘You can come out on your own,’ he called. ‘You have four good legs on you and no longer need my help.’ He listened for a scrabbling of paws or any other sign that the dog had heard and meant to obey him. If he planned to stay here, it might be handy to have the little beast chasing down rodents for him. With the door left ajar, the place was probably crawling with them. But since the dog loathed him and tried to bite each chance it got, he was probably safer putting it outside and trying to befriend the rats.
As he stepped into the house, it surprised him that there was no sign of the dog, nor the sound of barking from deeper inside. Was there a chance that it had fallen through a weak floorboard, or injured itself on broken glass? He was a fool to care for a thing that wanted no part of him. But at least there was no one around to witness his softness. He advanced into the house. ‘Where are you, you little bastard?’ With luck, he could lead it back towards the open door without incurring any damage to boot or hand. Then, he could block the window and lock the door against it until it gave up harassing him and found its way back to wherever it was being kept.
Miles looked around him at the entryway to the dower house. Except for the dog, the place would not be a bad one to hole up in, until he decided what to do with himself. The Dowager had spoken of repairs too expensive to render the place liveable. But she was a great lady, used to comfort and entertaining. To a man used to sleeping rough, it was near to a castle. It was damp, of course. But a fire would help that. And the furniture had been covered to protect it against time and the elements, which would likely enter through the leaks in the roof. He would not trust the mattresses to be dry, but in the rooms he passed on the way to the dog, there were no end of tables and chairs, and probably a few long benches and sofas that would make a decent bed if one was tired enough. It would do nicely, even if he couldn’t find any silver worth selling.
A streak of black-and-white fur passed by the doorway ahead of him. There was another familiar bark as the dog came to the end of whatever course it had set for itself. Then a moment’s pause before it pelted back across the opening in the opposite direction. The creature had played a similar game on the ship, running back and forth down the companionway, dodging curses and kicks from angry sailors and passengers before racing back into his cabin and falling into an exhausted heap at the end of his bunk.
It had been amusing the first time. Now it was just annoying. But before he could shout at it, someone else said, ‘Pepper! Be still.’
He froze. Though it had the strength of a general, the voice was definitely female. Was it the empty house that gave it such an unusual tone? It seemed to echo, yet was strangely muffled. He approached the room in front of him with caution, not sure if it was better to confront her, or sneak away unnoticed.
When he passed the threshold, the explanation was obvious. The dog had halted his insane racing and was sitting on the hearth, sniffing at the pair of women’s boots standing on the andirons. As he watched, one of them lifted as the woman wearing them stretched her body upwards, reaching for something in the chimney.
There was a shower of soot and a muffled ‘Damnation.’
The dog retreated with a sneeze, waiting for the ash to settle. Then, as helpful as ever, he lurched forward and grabbed a mouthful of skirts, swinging on them to further unbalance their wearer.
Miles could not help it. He laughed.
Slowly, the boot lowered, seeking footing on the grate. ‘Whoever you are, if you mean to harass me, I have a poker and am not afraid to use it on you.’ If her arm held the same resolve that her tone did, any blow delivered would likely be strong enough to make him think twice.
‘And I have a pistol,’ he countered. ‘But I don’t think either of us need worry, because neither of us wishes to resort to violence. At least until we know each other better,’ he added. In the past, there had been more than one woman ready to crown him with cast iron. As yet he had given this one no reason.
The dog skittered away as the boots hopped off the grate. After some shifting and more falling soot, the rest of the woman appeared in the opening of the fireplace. The rest of the girl, rather. Though she could not have been more than twenty, she was fully, and quite nicely, grown. Her bespectacled face was rather plain, though he doubted the smudges of ash on it helped her appearance. But one would have to be a fool to call a woman with such finely turned ankles homely.
She had nice calves, as well, even under the thick stockings she was wearing. He’d caught a glimpse of them as the dog had tugged at her skirts. And though the sensible gown she wore made no effort to flatter her figure, it could not manage to hide a slim waist and a fine bosom. He was not normally given to debauchery, probably because he had never been able to afford it. But if the village girls in Comstock were all as comely as this one, it might be tempting to play lord of the manor.
As if the dog could sense what he was thinking, its hackles rose and it faced off between him and the girl, baring teeth and offering a warning growl.
Miles braced himself for impact.
‘Pepper. Sit.’
As if by miracle, the dog responded to her command and dropped to its tiny haunches, still staring at him.
‘If you try anything, I will set my dog on you,’ she said, giving him a look as fierce as the terrier’s.
‘Your dog?’ he said, surprised.
She hesitated. ‘The Earl’s dog, then. But since he is not here and I am a member of his family, Pepper’s responsibility and affection have transferred to me.’
He opened his mouth, ready to argue that the owner of the ungrateful cur was right in front of her, should the animal choose to acknowledge him. But since Pepper was incapable of loyalty, obedience, or any other canine virtue, it refused to claim him.
Then he remembered that if his goal had been to slip on to the Comstock property and off again, unnoticed, he should not announce himself to the first person he saw, especially if he had been fortunate enough to meet a family member who did not immediately recognise him.
She was staring at him with narrowed eyes. ‘And now that I can look at you, it is apparent that you are not the common tramp I was fearing.’ She tipped her head. ‘By your accent, you are American. I’d think you were a member of the Earl’s party, but I was told he travelled alone.’
‘We came on separate ships,’ he said, falling easily into the first lie that came to mind. ‘I was to arrive first, but the seas were rough.’
‘You are the auditor, then,’ she said. There was no triumph in her voice, just a flat acknowledgement of the assumed fact.
He nodded, relieved to have his work done for him. But the auditor from America needed a name. ‘Potts,’ he said, automatically. He must look like the name suited him, for Greg Drake had mistaken him for just such a fellow when they’d met. ‘Augustus Potts, at your service, ma’am.’ He bowed to hide his wince at the Christian name that had popped into his head. Hopefully, the lie would not be needed for long. Who in their right mind would want to spend any length of time as Augie Potts?
‘Mr Potts,’ the girl replied, in the tone of one used to ordering servants about.
‘And who do I have the honour of addressing?’ he said, already suspecting that he knew the truth.
‘Miss Charity Strickland. Your employer’s distant cousin.’
He nodded in acknowledgement. He’d met her sister Hope, already. With some effort, he could see a resemblance. They shared the same wide brow and pointed chin.
But where Hope was uncommonly pretty, Charity was not currently so blessed. There was something too grave in her expression and the look in her eye was too discerning for one so young. Though she was not a lovely girl, he suspected she would age into her beauty and become a rather handsome woman.
‘Were you sent to inventory the main house?’ she said, in a matter-of-fact way to remind him that it was not his job to be standing here, staring at her.
‘And the dower house, as well,’ he said.
‘There is nothing of value here.’
In a pig’s eye. Her response had been a trifle too quick and too specific for his taste. She had come here to retrieve something or to hide it. And people did not normally take the time to hide things that were worthless. ‘If the house is empty, it makes me wonder what you were doing here, halfway up the chimney.’ He gave her a subservient smile. ‘Is there something I can assist you with?’
‘Birds have been coming down it and into the house. I was attempting to close the flue.’
‘I see.’ That was an even bigger lie than her last words had been. But if he was claiming to be Augie Potts, he could hardly point fingers. Instead, he stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Give me the poker, then. My arms are longer.’
‘That is all right,’ she said hurriedly.
She was far too eager to handle the matter herself. ‘Then, at least let me go up to the house and find a footman. A member of the family should not be doing servants’ work.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ she said, not bothering to try to charm him with a smile. ‘I think I have managed the matter well enough.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I did not interrupt you before you could complete what you were attempting?’
Her lips tightened ever so slightly with annoyance. ‘Certainly not.’
‘Then, allow me to give you a ride back to the main house.’
‘That will not be necessary, either,’ she snapped.
‘But we are both going the same way,’ he reminded her. ‘Since I have never been to the manor, I would appreciate a guide.’
‘It is not possible to get lost,’ she said. ‘The house is barely a mile away and you are on the drive already.’
She was trying to get rid of him. He had no reason to care why, for he was as eager to be gone as she was to have him so. Yet for some reason, he could not resist annoying her. ‘That is likely true. But it would be helpful if you could introduce me to the rest of the staff.’ He glanced out the window. ‘And a storm seems to be gathering. It has grown darker as we have been talking. I would not want to leave you here in the rain.’
‘I can wait inside until it passes,’ she countered.
So she had not finished what she had come to do. Since there was nothing in her hands, it seemed likely that she was searching for something rather than secreting something she’d brought with her. In either case, there must be some hidey-hole in the bricks worth investigating, once he had got her safely out of the way.
He smiled at her. ‘I am sure the Earl would have my head if I left you here in the rain.’ Then he stepped to the room’s doorway and waited for her exasperated huff of defeat.
It did not come. Other than a slight narrowing of her eyes, she gave no sign that his attempts to thwart her were annoying her. ‘If the Earl wishes it, then very well, Mr Potts. I would never go against his wishes.’
Then she walked past him towards the front door, the terrier following obediently at her heels.
Chapter Two (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
Charity Strickland’s day was not going to plan.
It had been bad enough to climb into the chimney and realise the niche she was looking for was just out of reach. To be discovered doing so had been even worse. Mr Potts was proving to be annoyingly clever, giving no indication that he believed her story about an open flue. He had pretended to, of course. But she suspected he was only toying with her, hoping to worm some piece of information out of her that could be reported to his master.
So far, it appeared that the new Earl meant to do just as she hoped he would, remain in London to perform his duties in Parliament. Should he suddenly decide to take an interest in her welfare, there was no telling what he might consider suitable for her future.
Whatever it was, she doubted it had anything to do with what she preferred for herself. As the youngest of three sisters, she was fed up with being dictated to by people who assumed they knew what was best for her. It had taken months to get the rest of the family out of the way so she might have peace to work. The last thing she needed was a stranger asserting his God-given right to control her because his fortunate birth had made him head of the family.
The season did not end until July and it was barely March. It would take only a few more weeks to accomplish her own plan. If the new Earl of Comstock kept to the business of governing, as he ought to do, she’d be gone long before he arrived, with enough money to set herself up for life in a manner that suited her.
But Mr Potts might prove to be just as annoying as the man who’d hired him. Though he had no right to order her around, so far he was proving to be a first-rate sneak. One had only to look at the dog’s reaction to him to know that he was not to be trusted. Pepper’s hackles had been raised from the moment that the auditor arrived. As they left the dower house, he was dancing along between them, biting at the man’s boot heels as if hoping to scare him away.
To Mr Pott’s credit, he had not given in to impulse and kicked at the dog. Perhaps he was not irredeemable. Or perhaps he had better sense than to abuse a pet belonging to a peer in full sight of a member of the family.
When they arrived at his horse, he stepped clear of the little black and white dog and mounted, offering a hand to her to help her into the saddle in front of him.
She smiled at him, wishing for not the first time that she’d inherited any of her sisters’ natural charm. ‘I could not possibly go without Pepper. I would not want him to become lost.’
Potts looked down at the little dog with obvious disgust. ‘In my experience, animals like this are surprisingly hard to lose.’
‘But what if this time is the exception? He might be set upon by some wild beast.’
‘You have wolves roaming so close to the house?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘And I am told there are no bears left in England. What else can there be?’
‘A hawk. Or perhaps an eagle.’
He sighed. ‘Next you will be telling me England has daylight owls.’ He held out a hand. ‘Give him to me.’
She scooped the dog up and offered him.
Potts took him by the scruff of the neck, nimbly dodging the snapping jaws and dropped him into the leather bag at the side of his saddle. The dog disappeared for a moment, like a swimmer beneath a wave. Then his head poked out from under the flap, offering something that looked rather like a canine grin.
‘There.’ Potts held out a hand. ‘And now, you.’
Gingerly, she offered her own hand and he pulled her up. He seemed to exert no strength at all, settling her on to the saddle in front of him, to sit on one hip. Then his arms took the reins on either side of her waist, holding her in place as they set off.
Though he showed no signs of noticing it, it was a surprisingly intimate arrangement. Perhaps such behaviour was common in America. Or perhaps she was not pretty enough to move him. He handled the horse as easily as if he was riding alone.
But for her, it was strangely disquieting. Though she did not normally dwell on the appearances of the men around her, it was hard not to notice this one. The arms that wrapped around her were long, as were the legs that brushed against her skirts. He must be well over six feet. He was not precisely gaunt, but there was an angular quality about his frame that seemed to carry to his face. The planes of his cheeks were sharp, as was the line of his jaw. His pale skin might have given another man an aristocratic air, but on him it seemed more scholarly than aloof, as if his studies kept him from the sun.
This attracted her more than his fine features or the shock of dark hair shading his brow. He looked like someone who might be content to hole up in a library. Though the muscles she could feel in the limbs surrounding her did not come from inactivity, he looked like a kindred spirit.
But it did not really matter what he looked like, or how he had come to be so. Men, especially ones that looked the way this one did, never gave such scrutiny to her. She turned her head and looked resolutely forward at the house they were approaching.
‘Comstock Manor,’ he said, stating the obvious. But there was a tone beneath the words that sounded not so much impressed as stunned.
‘You did not think it would be so large,’ she said.
‘I was told. But I could not believe it was true.’
‘It represents everything that is wrong with the family,’ she said. ‘Something that started as a good idea but grew out of hand until it was no longer possible to manage or afford.’
‘No wonder there has been trouble finding someone to record the contents. Who would want to take on such a job?’
‘We have lost more valuables than most people own,’ she said, speaking quite close to the truth. ‘Though most of them are not actually gone. They are just sitting in one of the forty rooms, waiting to be rediscovered.’
She felt something quicken in him at the mention of this surplus of material wealth, a faint, covetous quivering of his nerves. Then he relaxed again, as if afraid that she might have noticed his interest. ‘As a member of the family, I would think that you would be in a position to know where some of those things are.’
‘I might be,’ she said, turning back to blink at him in what she hoped was an innocent way. ‘The Earl will never be able to have an accurate accounting of them if I do not help. And I doubt you will be able to learn the lay of the place in whatever time he has allotted for the job.’
The horse pulled up short.
‘How would I…? I mean, you are right that there is no way for me to do this job without help. But the Earl would not know one way or the other, if I got it wrong, would he?’
He had not even crossed the threshold and he was already giving up. Or did he mean to collect full pay for a slapdash job? His reasons did not matter. Carelessness, laziness or moral flexibility would all suit equally well as a reason for his departure.
‘He will not know if the inventory is not complete unless we tell him,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But I have no intention of spreading tales to a man I never met, just because other men I have never met decided he is the heir.’
‘I see,’ he said, in an equally careful tone.
‘I am sure he is depending on your friendship for an accurate accounting,’ she added.
‘My friendship.’ Mr Potts laughed. ‘I can tell you in all truth that six months ago, I knew nothing of Comstock, his title or his property.’
This was even more interesting. If the Earl had hired a stranger to see to his interests abroad, he was likely to get the results he deserved. ‘The property is not technically his,’ she reminded him. ‘It belongs to the Crown.’ She smiled again. ‘But, as an American, you have no real loyalty there, do you?’ She had opened the door to conspiracy. Now they would see if Mr Potts walked through it.
‘Loyalty?’ He laughed again. ‘The whole point of my country was to escape this one. And yet, here I am, surrounded by riches that do not belong to the Earl and debts that do.’
‘That is a pity,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘In my opinion, the task set for you is a hopeless one. If you chose to resign from it, you could be long gone from here before anyone noticed your absence.’
Behind her, he started in surprise. ‘Miss Strickland, I was thinking just such a thing when you arrived.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But then, I would not be paid, would I? And an urgent need for funds was the only reason I even considered the job.’
Then she made the most daring move at all. ‘The house is not lacking for ornaments. If you chose to take something to compensate for your lost time, who would know?’
There was a long pause as he considered her words. But just as she was sure he would succumb, he baulked. ‘Stealing from the Earl would be wrong. Both a breach of the Commandments and the law.’
‘Of course,’ she added hurriedly, annoyed. If morality was seriously a concern, she might never get rid of the man. The next temptation would have to be far more subtle. ‘But there is no need for us to be discussing such things in the middle of the drive. As you said before, a storm is approaching. Come into the house and we will get you settled.’
And then she could go to work on him. Once he had seen the house and his place in it, he might be gone by morning.
* * *
When his ancestral home had been described to him, Miles had got a vague impression of a large but dilapidated manor in the country. But there was no way he could have imagined the thing that stood before him now. It appeared to be two or three large houses built cheek by jowl, as if the owners could not quite decide what they’d wanted and simply kept building on to it until the money had run out.
Having seen the accounts, that seemed to be exactly what had happened. When he’d set out from America, he’d assumed that all English lords had to be rich. But his family had run through their money generations ago. The rents from the tenants barely kept pace with the cost of maintaining the property. All that was left beyond them was the house and its contents. And the most valuable items were things he was not supposed to sell. He was expected to hold them in trust for future generations that might never be born if he could not manage to settle his business now.
But the caution to respect the entail had not impressed his ancestors. After greeting him on his arrival, the widow of his predecessor had barely taken a breath before announcing that the diamonds in the Comstock family jewels had been replaced with paste long before she became Countess. The Earls and Countesses of Comstock had been telling lies about their value for so long that it might as well be declared a family tradition.
On hearing this, he had assumed that there was nothing left of value. But though the collection of silver-framed miniatures on the hall table was not enough to save an earl from a life of ruin, the humble Miles Strickland could sell a sack full of them and have enough to live modestly for a good long time.
‘What do you think of it?’ He had almost forgotten Cousin Charity, who had led him in through the front doors and introduced him to the butler, Chilson, who had signalled for a footman to take his valise and another to remove the snapping dog from the saddle bag.
‘I do not know where to begin,’ he said, peering down the hall at what seemed to be an endless line of doorways, then staring back at Charity.
‘Do not worry. I will help you.’ There was no flirtation in the smile she gave him, only a sly twinkle in her eye that made him think any aid he received would benefit her more than him. Her companionable self-interest was an improvement on recent interactions with the fair sex.
When they realised he had a title, the women of London were friendly to the point of predation. He could hardly blame them for it, since they took their cues from the mamas and papas who were practically throwing their daughters into his path. Even the damned Prince who was currently running the country said that an earl without a countess was not doing his duty. He was supposed to marry, soon and well, for the sake of the title’s succession.
Apparently, he was to be bred like livestock. If the activity hadn’t involved marriage, he would have been all for it. But since a legitimate child was required, it took much of the fun out of his newfound popularity.
Since this distant cousin didn’t know who he was, she was currently treating him with the same indifference as women had before his sudden elevation. But since Charity was also the last unmarried girl in the family, the condition was likely temporary. Once she guessed his identity, she would chase him like a hound after a coon.
‘Thank you for the offer of aid,’ he replied. ‘And I assume this help will be in exchange for everything I can tell you about the new Earl?’
‘I think I know all I need to on that front,’ she said, with a frown that surprised him. It looked almost like a grimace of distaste.
‘Has he done something to put you off?’ Miles said.
‘He has done nothing so far,’ she said. ‘That suits me well, but I doubt it will continue. And the last thing I need is for him to arrive on my doorstep with a proposal.’
‘Your doorstep?’ He glanced around him.
‘Metaphorically speaking,’ she replied. ‘It is technically his house. I plan to be out of it before he arrives. But I am not quite ready to go yet, hence my hope that he will stay in London until Parliament ends its session.’
‘And you do not want to marry him,’ Miles said, strangely annoyed.
She shrugged. ‘It is not logical to expect instant compatibility, based on the convenience of a family connection. It is not as if I believe in something so foolish as the need for romantic love when marrying. But I do not want to rope myself to him or any other man for a lifetime without bothering to learn if we are temperamentally similar.’ She glanced down her nose at him, in frank and unladylike appraisal. ‘So far, I have not found many available men to my taste. I have exceptionally high standards, Mr Potts.’
He stared back at her, just as rudely, ready to say that plain girls were not usually so particular. Then he remembered her fine ankles and bit his tongue. ‘And so you should, Miss Strickland. If you meet him, you will find that the new Earl is not a bad fellow.’ Not totally bad, at least. ‘But you are right not to expect a marriage from him, sight unseen.’
She smiled at him in earnest now. The brightness of it transformed her face into something that was not beautiful, but held a certain allure that her frowns did not. ‘You are the first person to say that to me, Mr Potts. It is quite a novelty to hear such frankness.’
‘There is no reason for me to be anything else,’ he said, ignoring a stab of guilt. He had not been in any way frank. Worse yet, he had been talking about himself in the third person.
He cleared his throat. ‘And now, where would you recommend I begin my search—that is, my inventory?’
‘I suggest you begin by settling into your room and washing for dinner,’ she said with another shrug and an innocent blink. ‘If the accounting of Comstock’s possessions has waited for years, there is no reason to begin them this minute. You will find the job less daunting after a good night’s sleep and a decent meal.’ She walked up the stairs in front of him, casting a look over her shoulder to see if he followed. ‘Well?’
He paused. In any other woman, he might have thought it flirtatious, should she lead him straight to his bedchamber. But even on such a brief acquaintance, it was clear that Miss Charity did not flirt.
She likely did not know any better. He started up the stairs after her. ‘Surely it is not necessary for you to show me to my room.’
‘I shall be showing you a lot more than that before we are done with each other,’ she said.
He started in surprise.
Now her look was faintly exasperated. ‘You want to know the house, don’t you?’
‘Well…’ He did, of course. But was she really so unaware of him that her words held no hidden meanings at all?
‘Then you might as well enjoy the best of it.’ At the top of the stairs she marched briskly to the far end of one hall, waving at the corridor behind her. ‘The family stays in that wing. Grandmama is at the end, as is the Earl’s suite. The corridor to our right leads to the old part of the house. This side is for guests.’ She had reached a door at the very end. ‘And this is the Tudor room.’ She threw open the door and stood in front of it, gesturing inside. ‘It is said that Henry Tudor himself stayed here.’
He racked his brain for a moment, to attach significance to the name. ‘The King with all the wives.’
‘Six,’ she said with a deadpan look that announced her opinion of his limited knowledge of local history.
He held up his hands in surrender. ‘I can tell you everything you might wish to know about George Washington, if that makes a difference.’
‘I can tell you about him, as well,’ she said, arching an eyebrow. ‘There are books in England, you see.’
‘In America, as well.’ Damn few of them in his past, of course. But that was no fault of his. He looked ahead at the room in front of him. ‘So a king stayed here.’
‘And now, you shall.’
He supposed he should be honoured. He rarely cared about the previous occupants of the room, as long as the bed was soft and the sheets were clean. This would be luxurious, though not quite as good as the master suite he was entitled to. But he could hardly ask for that. Then he stopped to wonder. ‘Why would you give an auditor the best room in the house?’
By the time he’d turned to hear her response, her face was pleasant, passive and hospitable. But before that, had he seen a flash of something else? Alarm, perhaps?
If so, it was gone and she appeared to be the perfect hostess. ‘I want you to be happy. You are the Earl’s friend, after all. I can hardly treat you like staff.’
He glanced into the room, filled with any number of items worth taking when he went on his way. ‘How very kind of you, Miss Strickland.’
She gave a concluding nod. ‘Now, I will leave you to refresh yourself. Dinner is in the dining room at eight, Mr Potts. Do not be late.’
He hesitated for a moment, at the sound of the unfamiliar name, before getting his story straight and responding with an equally polite nod. ‘As you wish, Miss Strickland.’
Then she was gone down the hall, leaving him alone in the bedchamber of a dead king. He shut the door quietly behind her and turned to the matter at hand, his private appraisal of the room’s worth. What was there in this room that was worth selling? The furniture was valuable, the canopied bed hung with slightly dusty velvet on brass rings as thick as his thumb. Interesting, but not worth the effort of dragging down the drapery. The crossed swords over the mantelpiece gave the room a distinctly masculine air. If they were a relic of the room’s namesake they might be priceless. But to get them away he’d have to march through the entire house with a sword on his shoulder. The bedchamber he occupied was as far from the front door as it was possible to get.
His train of thought ground to a halt, then circled back, trying to think why that statement seemed so important. She’d said she’d put him in this room because of his supposed friendship to the Earl. But he had just told her that he had no real acquaintance with Comstock. Had she forgotten?
There was something about Miss Strickland that made him think she did not often lose track of the details. Which meant she’d simply told the first lie that had come to mind to explain her choice. There was something strange going on and he meant to find out what it was.
Chapter Three (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
Once she had put Mr Potts in his room and Pepper in her own, Charity headed back down the main stairs and out the front door, hurrying down the drive towards the dower house. He had been right. It was about to rain. The clouds had darkened considerably since their departure from the house, an hour ago. As she ran the last steps down the drive towards the front door, she felt the first drops striking the hood of her cloak.
She ignored them. She was so close to the truth that she could not let a little weather prevent her from finishing what she’d begun when he’d interrupted her. Of course, she needed an umbrella more than a ladder. She had been able to feel the edge of the niche when she had stood on the grate, but had not been able to reach the depth of it.
But with the arrival of an auditor, the day of reckoning had come and there was not a minute to spare for further preparation. She would find a stool in the kitchen of the other house and make do. Either the box was there, or it was not. She had to know.
She pushed through the dower-house door and slammed it behind her, allowing herself a moment of unfeminine pique now that there was no one around to hear. Then, she hurried to the sitting room, where the chimney was.
‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming.’
Charity gasped and clutched the door frame, startled out of her breath at the words. Mr Potts had removed the holland covers from one of the chairs by the hearth and was sitting comfortably, his long legs stretched out before him.
It took a moment to think of an appropriate response. The cold, rational part of her brain, the part that she could not seem to keep silent, commented that it was rare to be at a loss for words. Or at a loss for breath. It was rare that she was surprised at all. She was accustomed to outthinking the people around her with ease. Yet this stranger had bested her on her home turf.
‘You seem to be winded.’ He leaned forward and pulled the cover off the chair opposite him with a flick of his wrist. ‘Why don’t you sit, as well.’ Then, he smiled. ‘Perhaps I should light a fire for us to chase away the damp of the room.’
He was expecting her to cry out No! and confirm his suspicions that there was something up the chimney. She had no intention of obliging him. ‘How did you know I would come here? And how did you arrive before I did?’
‘What other reason would you have for putting me in a room that faced the back of the house and not the drive?’ He held up a hand. ‘Do not tell me it is because I am an honoured guest. I got the distinct impression before that you wished I would go to perdition.’
‘Not to hell. Just back to America. Or London, at least. Even after much preparation, the house is in a frightful state and not ready to be inventoried.’ She smiled and fiddled with her glasses, doing her best to appear young and out of her depth. ‘My sisters are both just married and Grandmama is travelling on the Continent. It is only just me now.’
‘But none of that explains why you would put me in the best room in the house,’ he said. ‘I assumed you wanted to finish what you were doing without my noticing your departure from the house. You did not come all the way here to close a flue. You were searching for something.’
She touched her hand to her chest, feigning outrage. ‘What reason would I have to lie about such a thing?’
‘I have no idea,’ he replied. ‘But I wanted to find out. It would have been impolite to ask you. It is one thing to accuse a woman you’ve just met of lying and quite another to catch her in said lie.’ He stretched his arms, lacing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. ‘So I shimmied down the drainpipe running beside the window of my room and came back here to see if you would return.’
‘If I hadn’t?’
‘Then I’d have said nothing more of my suspicions.’
Her heart was still beating faster than normal, probably from the shock he had given her when she’d come into the room. And once again, the rational voice spoke in her mind. Or rather, it laughed derisively. Now she was unsure what she should say next. It was a new feeling to be unsure of herself. She did not think she liked it.
But he seemed to be enjoying it immensely. ‘It will save us both some time if you simply admit that I am right. Then I will help you look for whatever it is you are hunting for and we can return to the main house.’
‘I might not be searching for anything,’ she said. ‘I might have been hiding something.’
‘I interrupted you before you could complete what you were doing. You had nothing in your hand when you came out of the chimney and I felt no bulges in your skirt that might indicate you’d concealed an item in your pocket. And the minute you could get rid of me, you came back to finish your search. It is far more likely you were looking for something than leaving something.’
His logic was not perfect, but it was better than she usually encountered. And he had let slip something far more important than a demonstration of deductive reasoning. He had all but announced that, while they had been riding, he had not just been supporting her to keep her from falling. He had held her tight enough to discern the contents of her pockets. Her heart was thumping in her chest, both from the memory of his hands on her and the subtlety of his reason for it.
He had searched her. And she had let him to it, behaving like a foolish school girl, excited to be in the arms of a handsome man. If she was not careful, he would run her like a greyhound after a hare, destroying her plans for an independent future. She must be much more careful.
‘Suppose you are correct in your assumptions,’ she said. ‘Why would you offer to help me?’ She watched for a slight change in expression that might tell her what he was really thinking.
‘I assume that what you are seeking is a part of the estate. We both want it to be found and returned. Don’t we?’ He steepled his fingers and stared at her as though daring her to deny it.
She should lie and tell him that, of course, that was what she’d been doing. To tell the truth was to surrender before he had a chance to attack. If he had the slightest inkling of what was in the chimney, he’d have the whole works under lock and key before she could save even the smallest portion for herself.
‘If there is something missing from the entail, it is only right that it should be returned,’ she said, choosing the hypothetical middle ground, watching for his reaction.
‘Or, I could help you find the thing you are looking for and look the other way,’ he added, his expression pleasant but opaque. ‘I could decide that it was none of my business.’ Now he was the one waiting for her response.
She gave the one that most suited the situation and pretended to be shocked. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’
‘For compensation, of course. It is time for us to lay our cards on the table, Miss Strickland. Whatever you are doing here, I suspect it is something you shouldn’t. I will keep your secret, if you pay me to do so.’
‘You will keep my secret for now,’ she corrected. ‘Until you decide I have not paid you enough and come back for more. That is how blackmail works, is it not?’
He laughed. ‘Very true.’ Then he said, in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I am new at it and have not had the time to think through all the ramifications.’
‘Then how about this one,’ she said. ‘I run back to the house and announce that the auditor is threatening me and I do not think he is an honest man. The servants believe me and contact the Earl. Since he barely knows you, he takes the word of family over anything you might say and fires you immediately.’
Mr Potts gave a brief start of surprise, then clapped his hands. ‘Bravo, Miss Charity. Bravo.’
He should be calling her Miss Strickland. Though as he had been patting her hips before, he probably thought he was entitled to some familiarity. ‘I did not give you permission to use my Christian name, Potts,’ she said, dropping the honorific from his to remind him he was little better than a servant.
He gave an apologetic incline of his head. ‘My apologies, Miss Strickland. But my rudeness aside, we seem to have arrived at an impasse. What are we to do?’ Then he looked at her for the answer.
She considered. It did not really matter if he was a paragon of virtue, or a total villain. The typical masculine response to a situation like this was usually much the same: to go to the chimney and take what was in it. She was smaller and weaker, and she could not stop him. But Potts was confusing her. He was tailoring his actions to hers and at least pretending that she could decide what would happen next.
To flatter your pride, announced the voice in her head. This one is a charmer.Be on your guard.
She touched her finger to her chin, pretending indecision, and scuffed the floor with the toe of her boot. Then she stared at him and spoke without irony. ‘We are going to allow me to get on with what I was doing, Potts. It may still amount to nothing. But if I do not do what I came here for, you will do it yourself as soon as my back is turned and abscond with anything you find.’
He nodded. ‘You have a surprisingly bleak view of my character, Miss Strickland. Not inaccurate, mind you. Simply bleak. But if the thing you are searching for can be split easily between us, I will be out of your hair and your life before cock’s crow.’
She clutched at her heart, feigning ecstasy at the thought of his absence. ‘Will you really, Potts?’
‘My plan on coming here was exactly what you suggested when we first met. I have urgent business back in America and no money for a return passage. I should not have to count every last part of the Comstock entail to get it. If I can find something of value that won’t be missed, I will take it, sell it and get a ticket on the first ship bound for Philadelphia.’ He pointed to the fireplace. ‘If there is such a thing hidden up that chimney, then go to, Miss Strickland. Go to.’
‘Very well, Potts,’ she said, with another insincere smile. If they found what she was looking for, there was no way he could take half of it, any more than she could. But he had planned to take something that would not be missed. She must hope that he could be steered towards discretion and not greed. Then she remembered that there were other issues to be dealt with. ‘I have but one problem. I was too short to reach it on the last visit.’
‘I am taller,’ he said, standing up, ready to take her place.
‘And wider,’ she reminded him. ‘It was a snug fit, even for me.’
‘There is nothing for it then,’ he said, went to the fireplace, hauled the grate out of its place and went down on one knee, patting the level plain of his opposite thigh. ‘Up you go.’
‘I was thinking more of finding a ladder,’ she said.
‘Have you brought one with you?’
‘Do not ask me facetious questions,’ she snapped.
He patted his knee again. ‘Come along, Miss Strickland. Let us settle the mystery in the chimney and then you will have time to berate me on my character.’
She sighed. She did not need her sisters to tell her that what he had suggested was improper. It would take only a minute or two to find something else to stand on. But she wanted an answer to the mystery, not in two minutes, but now.
Everyone said that impatience was a major flaw in her character. And she would address it later.
She stepped forward, crouched to move past him in the fireplace opening, braced herself on the walls of the chimney and raised a foot.
Before she could fumble, he had grabbed her boot and guided it to a place on his thigh. Then he reached beneath her skirts and tapped the back of her other knee as one might do to a horse to make him raise a hoof.
She lifted the foot that was still on the ground and he made a stirrup with his hands, boosting it to join the other one so she could stand on his leg.
He was right. She was several inches higher than she had been when standing on the grate. She felt the bricks surrounding her for the expected niche.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she admitted through gritted teeth. She stretched her fingers upwards and brushed a ridge and empty air where there should be brick, but nothing else. ‘I can feel it above me, but I am still too short.’
‘Step on to my shoulders, then.’ Before she could argue, his fingers were around one of her calves, firmly guiding her leg upwards.
For a moment, her normally agile mind went blank. His head and shoulders were under her skirt. This was the first, and possibly the last, time that a man would see her legs, much less touch them. She must pray that it was dark under there. If he looked up, he would see far more than her legs. He would be inches from everything she had to offer.
It was…
She shepherded her thoughts, trying to analyse the sensations running through her. The feel of his hand on her ankle was different to any touch she’d felt before, though it was not even skin to skin. The flesh under her wool stocking felt cold, but the blood beneath was racing hot, back towards her heart. And above it all, she was sure she felt the gentle stirring of his breath.
The world seemed to spin and waver around her, unsteady, as if she’d had too much wine. Then she realised that the feeling was not imagination. Her body trembled, trying to find balance as he guided it to stand on his shoulders like a Vauxhall Gardens acrobat. She could stop it by bracing herself against the brick walls around her.
She did so. But she didn’t like being steady. She wanted to feel strange and unsure, laughing as the whole world dropped from under her and she fell to land breathless in his lap.
‘Miss Strickland?’ The voice coming from under her skirts was muffled, but unemotional.
‘Uhh, yes,’ she said, hurriedly feeling for the niche in the wall that was now on a level with her face. Her heart gave another sudden swoop as her fingers encountered a box. ‘I have found something.’
‘Excellent.’ Both hands transferred to her left ankle as he began the delicate process of helping her down. By the time her feet were back on the hearthstones, she had regained control of her senses and could emerge, sooty but fully rational, from the fireplace. Then she held out the thing she had found: a wooden box about eight inches square.
‘It is not very large,’ he said, staring down at it.
‘It does not need to be,’ she said, fumbling with the catch. But she had thought it would be bigger than this. She had imagined a rectangular, leather case similar to the one that held the duplicates, with an easily found latch and hinges. But the wood under her fingers was completely smooth. Nor did there seem to be a separate top that could be lifted off. If she had not felt the lightness and heard a faint rattle from within, she’d have assumed that it was a solid block and not a box at all.
‘Hand it here for a moment,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Once he had hold of it, he buffed enthusiastically to remove the accumulated ash and grime. Then he handed it back to her to admire.
She adjusted her spectacles, wiping the grime from them to get a clear look. What had seemed to be plain mahogany was at least three colours of wood, inlaid in elaborate marquetry, no two sides alike. But though it was lovely to look at, the way into it was not more apparent now that it was clean than it had been fresh from the chimney. She stared back at him. ‘Do you have a penknife I might borrow?’
‘And spoil the fun?’
‘I am supposed to enjoy this?’ she asked, giving it a frustrated shake.
‘You are holding a Chinese puzzle box,’ he said patiently. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with them, but I have seen them brought from the Orient by sailors.’ He held a hand out for the box.
She hesitated. She had spent half a day up a chimney, rooting around in the dirt. She had run back and forth from the house, twice. All she wanted was a cup of tea and a wash and some sign that this quest was nearing its end. Instead, this clean and poised stranger stood ready to take it away and finish it for her.
She pulled it back. ‘Thank you, Potts, but that will not be necessary.’
‘I thought we agreed to share,’ he said, giving her a smile that could melt the snow off a roof.
She shook the box again, hearing only the faint rattle of the trick marquetry that hid the latches. ‘As you can hear, there is nothing inside. And, even if the box is rare enough to be valuable, it will no longer be so if you try to take half.’
‘Are you sure it is empty?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Perhaps something you do not wish me to see?’
She shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. ‘Even full to the brim, a box this size could not hold very much. If you wish the money to return to America, I am afraid you will have to get it by doing what the Earl expected: an inventory of the entail.’
‘Well, I must say, Miss Strickland, what got off to a promising start has been a most disappointing afternoon.’
‘That could be said of most afternoons at Comstock Manor,’ she said. ‘But there is no point in spending any more time here. Let us return to the main house. Dinner at eight, Potts. And tomorrow, we will begin the inventory.’
Chapter Four (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
If her sisters had been here, they would have known how to handle this.
Charity had never needed their advice before. It might seem immodest to think so, but wisdom usually flowed from her in their direction and not from them to her. Though she was youngest, she was better read and better educated than either of them. In matters that truly mattered, she was better at observing and understanding the world and the people in it. It was how she had known, before either of them, which men they were likely to marry. One had simply to watch dispassionately and draw conclusions from the data collected.
But that was not required at the moment. Tonight, she needed to be a polite and gracious hostess to a male stranger. She had never before had to deal single-handedly with a man in a social setting. On the rare times she had been forced from the house to go through the motions of the London Season, Faith and Hope had been there to chaperon and guide her, preventing a merely uncomfortable situation from turning into a fiasco.
But they were not here tonight and she had never felt so alone in her life.
Her first instinct had been to announce that Mr Potts could have dinner served on a tray in the location of his choosing. She would eat in the library, as she usually did, and go to bed after she had managed to solve the puzzle they had found in the chimney.
Now that she was in her room, she had taken the time to examine it. She’d run her hands over the inlaid wood panels, giving it a shake and weighing it with her hands. There was nothing about the sounds it made to indicate that they came from shifting contents and not the puzzle mechanisms themselves. Perhaps the things she’d hoped to find were packed tight in cotton wool, but she would have expected there to be more weight.
The problem deserved several hours’ study in the privacy of the library. But she had announced earlier that dinner was a formal arrangement and that he was expected to attend it. To cancel it and devote herself to solving the puzzle would announce to this interloper just how important a matter it was. When she had thought success was imminent, she’d felt that there was no choice but to accept his help. Instead, she had been given a locked box and a small reprieve. If she could make it through supper, she could plead exhaustion and retire to her room to open the box. There was a chance she might still complete her task without his even knowing.
But it was a slim chance, at best. The auditor was not like the rest of her family, who had long ago given up trying to understand her. When she had tried to outwit Potts, he had not just been able to keep pace with her, he had got one step ahead.
Perhaps it had been mere luck on his part. She prayed that when she came down to dinner she would find him as easy to gull as the rest of her acquaintance. But the little voice at the back of her mind whispered that her true wish was just the opposite. She wanted him to be just as clever at supper as he had seemed this afternoon. She wanted to spend more time with him, not less.
That alone was reason enough to avoid him. She was not thinking sensibly and it was all his fault. If she was not sure that she could best him in a battle of wits, what other weapons did she have?
At times like these, her sisters could fall back on their looks and flirt their way out of trouble. A flutter of eyelashes, a few shy smiles, and even the smartest of men around them tended to forget whatever it was that had been troubling them.
Charity sighed. Flirting required that she pretend to be someone she was not: sweet, biddable and somewhat in awe of the men around her. Even if she could manage those things, she was not pretty enough to dazzle a gentleman, especially not one that could dazzle in his own right.
Potts was astoundingly good looking for an auditor. The men in her family were handsome enough, in a refined sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. But looking at Potts was a study in the contrast of light and shadow. His eyes were so dark that it was a challenge to see where irises ended and pupils began, but they seemed almost black against his pale skin. And though he had smiled often, she’d got only glimpses of his teeth, which were very white and very straight.
Perhaps it was not that he was smarter than she. Perhaps her wits were slowed by the sight of him. The thought was cheering, but highly unlikely. She had yet to meet a man so handsome that she was rendered stupid in his presence. If anything, her mind had been working even faster than usual, now that he had arrived, gathering all the information it could about the man before deciding on a course of action concerning him. Dinner would be an excellent time to learn more, pretending that her interrogation was nothing more than polite chatter over the meal.
Charity went to the bell pull in the corner of her room and gave the single sharp yank that would summon her maid. Then she sat on the bed to wait, idly scratching the ears of Pepper, who was already sleeping there. No other female in her family had to go the bother of waiting for a servant. Her sister’s maids seemed to be always under foot, often one step ahead of their mistresses when it came to choosing the perfect gown for every occasion. But since Charity rarely bothered with her appearance, she had no right to be surprised that the maid was not pressing ribbons and starching petticoats.
* * *
After nearly twenty minutes, the door opened a crack and Dill appeared, staring at her mistress in silence.
Charity stared back at the maid, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
‘You rang, miss?’
‘Yes, Dill. I wish to dress for dinner.’
‘You do?’
Surely the request was not so very odd. ‘Yes, Dill. That is why I summoned you.’
‘You never dress for dinner, miss. Especially not when we are alone.’
‘We are not alone,’ Charity reminded her. ‘The auditor has arrived.’
‘And he will be dining with you?’
‘Yes, Dill.’
‘In the dining room?’
‘That is where we dine, Dill.’
‘You usually dine in the library,’ the maid said, still confused.
‘Not tonight, Dill.’
‘And servants dine below stairs,’ the maid said, stubbornly. ‘An auditor is a sort of a servant, isn’t it?’
‘He, Dill.’ The maid had a point. But employees occupied a place between servants and family. The way they were to be treated was likely situational and better decided by Grandmama, who was absent, just like her sisters.
In the end, Charity decided to lie. ‘Mr Potts is a friend of the Earl as well as his auditor. He will be eating in the dining room, like a member of the family.’
‘Oh.’ Dill stared at her for a moment. ‘You don’t dress for family, either.’
‘But I am dressing tonight.’
‘Oh.’ Dill gave a nod and a grin that announced she had seen Mr Potts and had a theory about Miss Charity’s sudden interest in looking her best.
‘Grandmama would expect me to treat a representative of the new Earl with proper respect,’ Charity added. When the maid did not move from the doorway, Charity cocked her head in the direction of the wardrobe. ‘That is why I have summoned you to help me dress.’
‘Ah.’ The girl ambled towards the gowns and pulled two from their pegs. Both of them were brand new and with décolletage that Charity found slightly intimidating. Dill grinned again. ‘How much respect do you want to show ’im?’
Charity took a deep breath, then pointed to the more modest of the two. ‘That one. And a shawl, I think.’
Dill shook her head. ‘A shawl defeats the purpose. I will have the footmen build up the fire in the dining room. That and some pepper in the soup and you’ll be nice and warm.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ she said with a sigh. Though the dress would make her feel uncomfortably exposed, it was no worse than what the other girls in London were wearing.
Of course, Mr Potts was not from London. America had been settled by Puritans. Perhaps he would be shocked by her. Or perhaps he would see through her ridiculous attempt to behave as other, normal girls did. Then he would laugh and dismiss her entirely. It would be a disaster, just as it had been in London, on those times she had followed her sisters’ advice and tried to mix in society.
She sat quietly as Dill worked over her, afraid to look in the mirror, not wanting proof that she looked as awkward as she felt. It was not as if she needed to impress him. He worked for her family and would have to be polite, no matter how she acted. But whether he voiced it or not, he would have an opinion.
She had escaped to the country because she could not abide the critical gazes and snide comments of the marriage mart, where men treated girls and horseflesh much the same. In both cases, they wanted an animal that was attractive, high-spirited. Then they put a bit in the mouth or a ring on the finger so that it could never think for itself again.
‘There, miss. All done.’ Dill stepped away, her hands falling to her sides, and added without a trace of irony, ‘And do not worry so. You will be the prettiest woman in the room.’
‘I will be the only woman in the room, Dill,’ she said, putting on her glasses and staring at her reflection. The results were…
Passable. She looked as well as she ever did. She was displaying an unusual amount of skin, which men generally liked. But there seemed to be too much. A gown like this required jewels and she had none.
Then a thought hit her and she smiled. ‘Dill, go to Grandmama’s room and bring back the case with the Comstock diamonds.’
A decent maid might have questioned her right to wear the things, since they were reserved for the use of the Countess. But Dill was merely adequate and did not bat an eye. She simply returned with the box and placed them on the vanity. Then she pulled a set of ear-bobs from their place and hooked them into the ears that had been exposed by Charity’s carefully styled hair.
‘The necklace, as well, I think,’ Charity said, feeling oddly like she was a little girl again, playing dress up with Grandmama’s jewellery.
‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ Dill answered, draping the heavy chain over her head until the teardrop-shaped lavalier fell in the hollow between her breasts.
It was an excellent choice. But not for the reason her maid thought. It would give Potts something to look at, other than her. With a three-carat stone in front of him, he would have no reason to care whether the woman wearing it was pretty or not.
And there could be no better way to assure the auditor that the entail was intact than to bring the Comstock diamonds out at the first opportunity. Once he had seen it, she could assure him that the rest of the parure was safe and accounted for. This, the most important item to be inventoried, could be checked off his list. And if he noticed that the stones she was wearing were paste?
She would claim to be just as surprised as he was. Either way, she would be able to draw conclusions about his intelligence and observational abilities. It was information she could use against him later.
She felt somewhat more confident about herself now that she had a plan. But it would not make the dinner any easier. Her stomach filled with nervous butterflies as she walked towards the stairs, only to see him coming down the hall on the opposite side of them.
‘Miss Strickland,’ he called. ‘Ahoy! Or perhaps, avast. I am not sure which is more appropriate in this case.’ He walked towards her with a cockeyed grin on his face, looking more appealing than she cared to notice.
She smiled back at him. ‘Ahoy is meant to call my attention. Avast is a request that I stop. Which did you want?’
His eyes swept her from head to toe, pausing for the briefest of instants to register the presence of the necklace. Then his gaze returned to her face, still smiling. ‘Both. I need an escort to the dining room. This house is not precisely a maze, but it is a long jaunt from end to end. I am likely to starve before the meal if left to my own devices.’ Then he held his arm out to her, as if he was about to lead her to the dining room.
But not really. At dinners and balls, the men who took her arm were either assigned to the task by some sympathetic hostess or volunteered because they hoped to make a good impression on one of her sisters. As she walked with them, they did not pay attention to her, but glanced over their shoulders to be sure that someone else was observing their gallantry.
But tonight, the man in front of her was focused solely on her, as if she was the prettiest girl in the room, just as Dill had said. Because they were alone. He was looking at her because there was nowhere else to look. There was nothing personal about it.
‘Miss Strickland?’ Now he was wondering at her hesitation.
‘Just thinking,’ she said, trying and failing to duplicate the light, flirtatious smile that her sisters used at times like this. But it was all wrong. She could not manage to look empty-headed while claiming to think. And now she could not decide how she was supposed to look, which must make her seem more dim-witted than thoughtful.
If her shifting expression seemed odd to him, he did not indicate it. He simply continued to smile and guided her down the stairs.
Chapter Five (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
When they arrived in the dining room, Charity Strickland chose a seat halfway down the table and indicated the place opposite that was set for him. It seemed that the staff had ignored her change in rank as the only family member present and put her in her usual place instead of moving her closer to the head of the table. Even when they were not here, empty places had been left for her sisters.
And for him, as well. The head of the table, where the Earl should be seated, had a place setting, but no chair. He could not help a small shiver of dread at the sight of it and the weird, undeserved respect that was offered to a supposed lord and saviour that none of them could recognise even when he was in the house with them.
‘My maid promised that a fire would be lit,’ she said, mistaking the reason for his shiver.
‘I am fine,’ he assured her. ‘If you are comfortable, do not concern yourself.’ He tried not to glance down at the expanse of ivory skin on display above the neckline of her gown, or to look even lower, searching for her body’s reaction to the cold room. Perhaps English gentlemen did not have such thoughts, but the crass American that he was thanked God for the superior view afforded a lowly visitor who was placed opposite Miss Charity instead of at the head of the table.
Her long neck had looked ridiculous in the high-collared dress she had worn this afternoon. But in a dinner gown, her exposed throat swept gracefully down to the swell of her fine, full breasts. Though there had been little light beneath her skirts when he had boosted her up the chimney, he had been holding a fine pair of ankles and felt delightfully rounded calves pressed on either side of his head.
And though her hands moved with masculine efficiency as they sliced the lamb on her plate, the fingers were long and tapered to fine, almond-shaped nails.
There was much to enjoy in the young lady that everyone had been insisting he marry, for duty’s sake and the good of the Empire. But there was also one thing he did not like at all. Dangling between those perfect breasts was what had to be the crowning glory of family jewels. The excessively large teardrop pendant would have dazzled him, had he not known it was a worthless copy. Now it merely depressed him.
Did she know? he wondered. Of course she did. The truth was supposed to be a secret passed from Earl and Countess to Earl and Countess. The Dowager had blurted it out to him the first time they’d met, then sighed with relief as if she’d transferred a back-breaking burden on to his unsuspecting shoulders.
As the youngest granddaughter, Miss Charity should know absolutely nothing about it. But she struck Miles as the sort of woman who was exceptionally good at ferreting out secrets. Which begged the question as to why she would flaunt it in front of him at the first available moment.
Because she wanted to convince him that nothing was amiss. Despite himself, he smiled. It was a pleasure to be in the company of a female whose actions had purpose.
She smiled back and the effect on her features was transformative. And for a moment, he forgot himself, grinning back, smitten.
Then she looked at him with a gaze as sharp as an eagle’s and said, ‘So, Mr Potts, tell me about yourself.’
He could feel the smile freezing on his face, as his brain struggled for an answer. At last, he replied, ‘There is not much to tell.’ It was true. He had not bothered to invent a past to go with his nom de guerre, so what could he possibly say?
She set down her knife and steepled her fingers. ‘Tell me anyway. I am fascinated.’ She did not look totally sincere, but she did look persistent. ‘I have never met an American before.’
He breathed a sigh of relief and a silent prayer of thanks for the topic. ‘I am from Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania.’
‘Where the Earl is from,’ she said.
‘It was where we met.’ That was metaphorically true, at least.
‘And what did you do, in Philadelphia?’
‘A bit of this and that,’ he said, for it was near to the truth.
‘Auditing?’
‘Never before. But I have a decent hand and feel qualified to take accurate notes on what is right before my eyes,’ he said, deliberately staring down at the counterfeit diamond.
His suspicions on her knowledge of the false diamonds was confirmed. As if she feared the topic of conversation was about to turn to the necklace, she lost interest in talking and concentrated on the strawberry compote that had arrived for dessert.
Which meant it was his turn to question her. He speared a berry on the end of his fork and bit into it with relish before asking, ‘Have you had a chance to open the puzzle box we discovered this afternoon?’
‘It is not your business whether I have or not, Potts,’ she said, not bothering with an honorific as if she sought to put him in his place.
‘On the contrary. The box and whatever is inside it are likely to be valuable, or else why would they be hidden? If they are part of the entailed property, I must record them.’
‘I doubt they are,’ she said, smiling sweetly and trying to put him off his guard, again.
It was badly done. She could not expect to command him one moment and play the fool the next. In response, he gave her a firm smile and a sceptical stare. ‘I think you had best let me be the judge, Miss Strickland. It is my job, after all.’
‘If there is anything of interest inside, you shall be the first to know,’ she said, not even bothering to look sincere.
‘So you have not opened it, yet,’ he pressed.
‘There has been little time to do so,’ she snapped, touching her hair. ‘These dratted curls take hours.’ Then, as if realising that ladies were not supposed to consider it a waste of time to beautify themselves, she shut her mouth in another forced smile.
‘They were well worth it,’ he assured her. ‘The effect is quite charming.’ He paused to see if the compliment had registered.
It had not.
He continued. ‘Puzzle boxes can be devilishly tricky things. Some have more than forty steps and secret compartments beyond that. I have done several of them. If you should need help…’
‘You think I should come to you?’ she said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
‘Who else is there?’ He gave an innocent shrug, then held out his hands to show he meant no harm.
‘You are shamelessly angling for an invitation,’ she said, both exasperated and surprised.
‘I love a mystery,’ he said.
‘Well, I have no intention of involving you with it, no matter how curious you are,’ she said with a sigh, tossing her napkin aside and rising from her seat. ‘There are some things that are just too private to share with people outside the family. And as I said before, if it involves the entail…’
‘You promise to tell me,’ he finished her sentence.
‘You have my word.’
Since she had lied to him several times already, he held little hope that she would turn over any valuables she found, no matter how much he might need them. He gave her another disarming smile. ‘If not cracking open your mysterious box, how are we to pass the evening?’
‘We?’ Apparently, she had not planned to entertain him after the meal. She had probably hoped to abandon him and work on the puzzle box. If she did, it would leave him free to stuff his pockets with knick-knacks and take to the road.
And it might leave her with a box holding thousands of dollars of loose stones, any one of which might set him up for life.
‘We, Miss Strickland,’ he repeated. ‘Surely you do not mean to leave me all alone on my first night here? What do you normally do for fun in this mausoleum, after the sun has set?’
‘I enjoy a good game of chess,’ she admitted, through gritted teeth.
‘An excellent suggestion.’ In fact, it was almost too good to be true. ‘I like nothing better. I will spot you three pieces of your choice.’
‘You will what?’ she said, narrowing her eyes.
‘It is called a handicap,’ he said, with excessive patience. ‘It gives a weaker player a chance to win.’
Apparently, she did not think she needed one for he could see fury rising in her like water about to boil over a kettle.
‘I know what a handicap is, Potts. I have never needed one before and I do not mean to start tonight.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, giving her a chance to change her mind.
‘I have been the best chess player in this county since I was thirteen,’ she said, glaring at him. Then she batted her eyes as if she was some simple female. ‘But by all means give my feeble feminine brain the advantage of three pieces. If you can manage a draw, I will let you help me with the puzzle box you are so eager to see inside of.’
‘Really?’ The secret to her character revealed itself, before he could even suggest the wager. Flattery might get him nowhere. But if he dared to condescend to her, she would not just hand him the keys to the kingdom, she would throw them with all her might.
‘Really,’ she said, her smile replaced by a determined nod.
‘Fair enough,’ he said and let the lamb lead him to the slaughterhouse.
* * *
The last time Charity had played chess, it had been with Mr Drake, who had been waiting for the opportunity to sneak into Hope’s room. He had been so distracted by the thought of her sister it had taken considerable effort on her part to make him feel that he had a chance to win. There was no fun in blunting her play and throwing games to weaker players. But she had not had the heart to punish that poor man when he was already having a difficult time winning Hope.
Tonight would be different. The exceptionally arrogant Mr Potts deserved no mercy. She would take his three pieces. And then she would take the rest, as quickly and painfully as possible.
She set up the game and glanced at his side for only a moment before removing his queen and both bishops from the board.
‘Ho-ho,’ he said, clapping his hands in approval. ‘You mean to make me work for my reward. Very well, then. Let’s begin.’
She had underestimated him. After so many years of people doing the same to her, she should have known better. Potts was a cautious player, but relentless, taking her pieces one by one and dodging the traps she set for him, even without the help of his stronger pieces. When she managed to claim a piece, it usually came with the sacrifice of one of her own. And, indignity of indignities, when he took her king, it was done with a clever arrangement of pawns.
She stared at the table in amazement. ‘I have never played a game like that before.’
‘Then you have led an exceptionally sheltered life, Miss Strickland.’
While that was quite true, it had nothing to do with her abilities at the chessboard. Nor had it anything to do with the quality of his play, which had been masterful.
Now he was staring at her expectantly. And for the first time in her life, she felt in awe of a man and at a loss for words.
‘Well?’ he said, with an encouraging tip of his head. When she did not respond, he added, ‘Have you forgotten our bet?’
She found her tongue again, clearing her throat and saying gruffly, ‘It can hardly be called a bet. You offered me no reward, if you lost.’
‘Since I did not lose, that is immaterial.’ He gave her a pitying smile. ‘Perhaps it would have been kinder of me if I had been more specific when you asked what I did, while in America.’ He cocked his head to the side, as if reliving the conversation in his mind. ‘I told you a bit of this and a bit of that. But when I was between this and that, and low on funds, I played chess for money.’
And she had fallen right into his hands.
‘Before we played, you promised that I could aid you with the puzzle box. May I see it, please?’ He was still smiling. Still maddeningly polite.
‘Of course,’ she said, rising and leading him from the room.
Chapter Six (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
If nothing else, he had found a way to stop Charity Strickland from questioning him about his non-existent past. Since her loss at the chessboard, she had barely spoken to him and put up almost no fight when he had requested a chance to see the contents of the box.
If it had been another woman, he might have feared that this was a sign of impending storm. But he sensed nothing from this one that hinted at petty tantrums or poor sportsmanship. Though she was clearly not accustomed to it, she responded to the trouncing he had given her with the sangfroid of an English gentleman.
It was rather confusing.
Perhaps it had unhinged her mind. That was why she showed no sign of modesty as she led him to her bedroom, instead of bringing the box to the parlour. Once there, she walked into the room without a second thought, took up the puzzle from her dressing table and sat on the edge of the bed, holding it out to him and gesturing that he join her.
He paused in the doorway, tempted to explain to her that the situation was totally inappropriate. Even Pepper knew it was wrong, for the detestable little cur looked up from where he had been napping on the pillow and gave a threatening growl.
Charity gave a single snap of her fingers and pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the room.
The dog stood, gave an apologetic wag of his tail, then obeyed, giving Miles a half-hearted glare as he passed.
That left him with no reason to refuse her, other than good manners and common sense. There was also the chance that, if he waited too long, the effect of the chess game might wear off and she would remember that she did not want his help. So he smiled, walked into the room and sat down beside her as if there was nothing odd about it.
She barely seemed to notice him, turning the box over in her hands, caressing the wood and feeling for loose panels and trim. A few moments passed. Then she smiled as the bottom panel slid a half an inch to the left. ‘I had no time to examine it before supper. It does not seem so very difficult.’ She handed it to him, to find the next step.
‘Perhaps not,’ he replied, running his fingers along the side before finding the wooden latch that had been exposed and pulling it up with his thumbnail. ‘But you agreed to my terms when we sat down to play chess.’ He handed it back to her.
‘But it does not take a genius, does it?’ she said, pivoting the front panel to reveal a keyhole and added, ‘Even if that is what you are.’
It was delivered as a statement rather than a compliment and he saw no reason to deny it. ‘Perhaps I am. But intelligence does little good for the individual when the people in power are foolish.’ For example, when one discovered that one’s family had already done irreparable damage to the inheritance. He glanced down at her. ‘I suspect you are familiar with that feeling, are you not?’ She must be. It was her family, as well. He worked a fingernail into the left side panel until he heard a click.
She opened the little door he’d unlatched and admired the tracery of inlaid metal revealed before prying a bit of it loose and fitting it into the keyhole. ‘It is worse for women,’ she said. ‘Men do not like it when we are too clever. They especially do not like being corrected when they are wrong.’ Her forehead creased as she turned the key and heard another click as the top panel popped up to reveal a second, seemingly blank surface beneath.
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Christine Merrill
The plainest Strickland sisterIn the Earl’s arms!Part of Those Scandalous Stricklands: To escape marriage to the new Earl of Comstock, bookish Charity must find her family’s missing diamonds. She meets her match in an intellectual stranger auditing the estate…little knowing he is Lord Comstock himself! With him, Charity feels different—even desirable! But will seizing one night of passion bind her to the very man she’s determined to avoid?
The plainest Strickland sister
Part of Those Scandalous Stricklands.
To escape marriage to the newly inherited Earl of Comstock, bookish Charity must find her family’s missing diamonds.
She meets her match in an intellectual stranger auditing the estate…not knowing he is Lord Comstock himself!
With him, Charity feels different—even desirable! But will seizing one night of passion bind her to the very man she’s determined to avoid?
Those Scandalous Stricklands miniseries
Book 1—“Her Christmas Temptation” in Regency Christmas Wishes Book 2—A Kiss Away from Scandal Book 3—How Not to Marry an Earl
“Readers will enjoy the strong characters, swift pace, lively wit and the wickedly fun escapades that stubborn lovers can get into.”
—RT Book Reviews on “Her Christmas Temptation” in Regency Christmas Wishes
“Book two in Merrill’s series is a triumph. Opposites attract, repel, collide and unite in this thrilling romance.”
—RT Book Reviews on A Kiss Away from Scandal
CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off the computer so they can check their email. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming and as a librarian. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.
Also by Christine Merrill (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase
The Wedding Game
A Convenient Bride for the Soldier
The de Bryun Sisters miniseries
The Truth About Lady Felkirk
A Ring from a Marquess
Those Scandalous Stricklands miniseries
Regency Christmas Wishes
A Kiss Away from Scandal
How Not to Marry an Earl
Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.
How Not to Marry an Earl
Christine Merrill
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ISBN: 978-1-474-07429-2
HOW NOT TO MARRY AN EARL
© 2018 Christine Merrill
Published in Great Britain 2018
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.
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www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Caffeine, without whom this book
could not have been written.
Don’t ever leave me again.
Contents
Cover (#u75ae3fcc-01dc-5c62-9ed7-78e2d64c1a22)
Back Cover Text (#u0753de25-9a41-5b61-ba15-2514b00f3a90)
About the Author (#u45c6bbc2-a51a-5d8c-8aca-374c52976bfd)
Booklist (#u6b95500e-b614-5069-b90b-1c91e7f7fd9f)
Title Page (#uc07a3e7a-e2f0-59a6-b5e0-35a6d592fd4c)
Copyright (#uc290e8da-2634-5684-9316-67da1656f035)
Dedication (#uac12f71a-8dae-5c06-b212-d222cb432d95)
Chapter One (#uaa37bfc3-13fc-5162-8ae1-ae703abb890e)
Chapter Two (#udf4d3222-3898-5dca-b95b-4b7c115650a9)
Chapter Three (#u0fbe4c0c-f1e6-530e-b65a-76f963d6c6e7)
Chapter Four (#u5de7cdfe-4bc5-5fa1-8702-41babab2c609)
Chapter Five (#u5f944dbd-8c71-537b-a310-b4185fcdef73)
Chapter Six (#u6a73a9b1-b0b6-57d1-882f-5fb5026a85f1)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
It seemed as if Miles Strickland had been running for ages. First, it had been from Prudence in Philadelphia, to avoid the plans she had made for them. Then the Shawnee, during his brief idea to go West and seek his fortune.
He had run from the Iroquois on the way back.
He had been two steps from the altar and one step away from debtors’ prison when the letter had arrived from England and convinced him that his luck had finally turned. His kin had been American far longer than that country had existed and in none of that time had they mentioned the noble family tree they had sprouted from. But now, the British branches had died, leaving him heir to lands and a title.
Visions of wealth and comfort filled his head as he boarded the ship to cross the Atlantic. And then, he’d spoiled it all by actually becoming the Earl of Comstock. Apparently, the English Stricklands were no better off than the Americans. His family’s debts had been minuscule compared to the ones attached to his new title. And there was no hope in clearing them, since a lord was not supposed to work. Instead, he was expected to collect rent from tenants even poorer than he was and take a seat in a government he knew nothing about. His brother, Edward, had been lucky that the English navy had got to him first. If he’d lived, he would have been press-ganged into Parliament, as Miles had been.
He had no patriotic loyalty to the government he was expected to join and even less faith in this antiquated inheritance of power without money. There was to be no magical solution to his previous problems. Instead, everyone expected he would sort out the mess left to him by his distant relatives.
Worse yet, there had been a stack of tear-stained letters from Prudence that had beaten him across the Atlantic on a faster ship. The situation was dire. He was her last and only hope. He must return home to Philadelphia immediately.
But would he be allowed to do so? He did not think that the Prince who was currently running things would drag him back to the House of Lords in leg irons. But after what had happened to Ed, he could not be sure. His brother had gone to Barbados in an attempt to turn the family fortunes by investing in sugar. The next any of them had heard, he’d been impressed into the British navy. In his last letter home, he had begged Miles to watch over Prudence until he could return to her.
Shortly after that Pru had got the news that she was an impoverished widow. And now, the moment Miles was not there to watch her, she had made things worse. She was an exceptionally foolish girl and probably deserved what she got. But she was his responsibility, more so than these English strangers were. She needed him. What could he do but run back to Philadelphia, as fast as he had run from it?
It did not seem likely that Miles could leave from any of the ports around London, without someone noticing. So, he’d left the city making a vague reference to visiting the Comstock property while omitting the rest of his plan, which was to keep going until the entire country was no more than a distant memory.
He’d set off at a gallop and the fine blood he was riding was eager to carry him at full speed. It was the best horse he’d ever sat, much less owned. He’d had no trouble buying it on credit, since earls did not bother using actual money.
He must find a way to return it to its previous owners. In England, peers who could not pay for the things they bought suffered nothing more than embarrassment. But in America, he’d have been hung as a horse thief. His guilt when he looked at the bill to Tattersall’s was almost too much to stand.
What did bother him even more than the debts was having strangers scraping and bowing and calling him my Lord Comstock. He wanted to shout, ‘You don’t know me.’ If they did, they would realise that they had made a mistake in thinking a common ancestry qualified him to do the job they had foisted upon him.
After half a day’s journey, he passed the marker that indicated the edge of the Comstock holdings. There was no denying that the land he’d inherited was pretty, with rolling farmland and a village full of thatched-roof cottages. The view was spoiled when he paused to realise that he was responsible for keeping those roofs from leaking. But at least the tavern served a decent ale and did not enquire about his past, despite his accent. The last thing he needed was to be identified as their new lord and master before he could finish his drink.
* * *
After a light lunch he rode on towards the estate. But as he came around a turn in the gravel drive he saw two houses: the great house on the hill and a second house, large by normal standards, but dwarfed by the manor beyond it.
The smaller one must be the dower house that he’d been told of. It had been described as almost beyond repair, which meant it was unoccupied and unattended. If there was a couch, or at least a dry patch of floor to lay out his bedroll, he might stay there unnoticed. It would save him the trouble of making excuses to the servants at the great house about his sudden arrival and equally sudden departure.
And if there happened to be a set of silver left in a sideboard, he might still see some profit from this unfortunate trip. When pawned, a saddlebag full of second-best decorations would at least be enough to buy a ticket for home.
He dismounted, looped the reins over a nearby tree branch and approached the house. But before he’d got within ten feet of the door he heard a familiar angry bark and felt a fifteen-pound projectile strike his calf. He stared down at the little black-and-white head, with the equally small fangs sunk ineffectually into his boot leather, and resisted the urge to kick.
Instead, he reached down, grabbed the dog by the scruff of the neck and tugged it free, then lifted it to eye level, glaring at it.
The dog returned the sort of look normally reserved for cats and creditors.
‘I do not know what possessed me to rescue you at the docks, since this is all the thanks I’ve got for it. If this is how you treated your previous owner, I understand why he was trying to drown you.’ It had been instinct that made him drop his luggage and grab for the burlap sack that the boy had been trying to fling off the gangplank of the Mary Beth, assuming that the child’s father had told him, harshly but sensibly, that a sea voyage was no place for a dog. By the time he’d turned to assure the little attempted murderer his pup would be safe, the boy had vanished and Miles had been the owner of the most ungrateful cur in the New World.
‘Grrr…’ The animal made a snap at the empty air, trying to reach him. Miles had told himself for weeks that the dog’s bad temper was caused by close confinement and the constant rocking of the ship. But he appeared to be no happier on the dry land of England than he had been in America.
‘When I sent you on ahead with the Dowager, I hoped we might never see each other again. Have you managed to get yourself banished from the main house already?’
The dog squirmed in his hands, taking another snap before wriggling free and jumping to the ground. Then, he turned towards the dower house and leapt through a broken window, still barking.
Miles sighed. ‘I am not climbing in after you. There is a perfectly good door.’ He walked to the front of the house, reaching into his pocket for the ring of keys, before noticing that it already stood open a crack.
‘You can come out on your own,’ he called. ‘You have four good legs on you and no longer need my help.’ He listened for a scrabbling of paws or any other sign that the dog had heard and meant to obey him. If he planned to stay here, it might be handy to have the little beast chasing down rodents for him. With the door left ajar, the place was probably crawling with them. But since the dog loathed him and tried to bite each chance it got, he was probably safer putting it outside and trying to befriend the rats.
As he stepped into the house, it surprised him that there was no sign of the dog, nor the sound of barking from deeper inside. Was there a chance that it had fallen through a weak floorboard, or injured itself on broken glass? He was a fool to care for a thing that wanted no part of him. But at least there was no one around to witness his softness. He advanced into the house. ‘Where are you, you little bastard?’ With luck, he could lead it back towards the open door without incurring any damage to boot or hand. Then, he could block the window and lock the door against it until it gave up harassing him and found its way back to wherever it was being kept.
Miles looked around him at the entryway to the dower house. Except for the dog, the place would not be a bad one to hole up in, until he decided what to do with himself. The Dowager had spoken of repairs too expensive to render the place liveable. But she was a great lady, used to comfort and entertaining. To a man used to sleeping rough, it was near to a castle. It was damp, of course. But a fire would help that. And the furniture had been covered to protect it against time and the elements, which would likely enter through the leaks in the roof. He would not trust the mattresses to be dry, but in the rooms he passed on the way to the dog, there were no end of tables and chairs, and probably a few long benches and sofas that would make a decent bed if one was tired enough. It would do nicely, even if he couldn’t find any silver worth selling.
A streak of black-and-white fur passed by the doorway ahead of him. There was another familiar bark as the dog came to the end of whatever course it had set for itself. Then a moment’s pause before it pelted back across the opening in the opposite direction. The creature had played a similar game on the ship, running back and forth down the companionway, dodging curses and kicks from angry sailors and passengers before racing back into his cabin and falling into an exhausted heap at the end of his bunk.
It had been amusing the first time. Now it was just annoying. But before he could shout at it, someone else said, ‘Pepper! Be still.’
He froze. Though it had the strength of a general, the voice was definitely female. Was it the empty house that gave it such an unusual tone? It seemed to echo, yet was strangely muffled. He approached the room in front of him with caution, not sure if it was better to confront her, or sneak away unnoticed.
When he passed the threshold, the explanation was obvious. The dog had halted his insane racing and was sitting on the hearth, sniffing at the pair of women’s boots standing on the andirons. As he watched, one of them lifted as the woman wearing them stretched her body upwards, reaching for something in the chimney.
There was a shower of soot and a muffled ‘Damnation.’
The dog retreated with a sneeze, waiting for the ash to settle. Then, as helpful as ever, he lurched forward and grabbed a mouthful of skirts, swinging on them to further unbalance their wearer.
Miles could not help it. He laughed.
Slowly, the boot lowered, seeking footing on the grate. ‘Whoever you are, if you mean to harass me, I have a poker and am not afraid to use it on you.’ If her arm held the same resolve that her tone did, any blow delivered would likely be strong enough to make him think twice.
‘And I have a pistol,’ he countered. ‘But I don’t think either of us need worry, because neither of us wishes to resort to violence. At least until we know each other better,’ he added. In the past, there had been more than one woman ready to crown him with cast iron. As yet he had given this one no reason.
The dog skittered away as the boots hopped off the grate. After some shifting and more falling soot, the rest of the woman appeared in the opening of the fireplace. The rest of the girl, rather. Though she could not have been more than twenty, she was fully, and quite nicely, grown. Her bespectacled face was rather plain, though he doubted the smudges of ash on it helped her appearance. But one would have to be a fool to call a woman with such finely turned ankles homely.
She had nice calves, as well, even under the thick stockings she was wearing. He’d caught a glimpse of them as the dog had tugged at her skirts. And though the sensible gown she wore made no effort to flatter her figure, it could not manage to hide a slim waist and a fine bosom. He was not normally given to debauchery, probably because he had never been able to afford it. But if the village girls in Comstock were all as comely as this one, it might be tempting to play lord of the manor.
As if the dog could sense what he was thinking, its hackles rose and it faced off between him and the girl, baring teeth and offering a warning growl.
Miles braced himself for impact.
‘Pepper. Sit.’
As if by miracle, the dog responded to her command and dropped to its tiny haunches, still staring at him.
‘If you try anything, I will set my dog on you,’ she said, giving him a look as fierce as the terrier’s.
‘Your dog?’ he said, surprised.
She hesitated. ‘The Earl’s dog, then. But since he is not here and I am a member of his family, Pepper’s responsibility and affection have transferred to me.’
He opened his mouth, ready to argue that the owner of the ungrateful cur was right in front of her, should the animal choose to acknowledge him. But since Pepper was incapable of loyalty, obedience, or any other canine virtue, it refused to claim him.
Then he remembered that if his goal had been to slip on to the Comstock property and off again, unnoticed, he should not announce himself to the first person he saw, especially if he had been fortunate enough to meet a family member who did not immediately recognise him.
She was staring at him with narrowed eyes. ‘And now that I can look at you, it is apparent that you are not the common tramp I was fearing.’ She tipped her head. ‘By your accent, you are American. I’d think you were a member of the Earl’s party, but I was told he travelled alone.’
‘We came on separate ships,’ he said, falling easily into the first lie that came to mind. ‘I was to arrive first, but the seas were rough.’
‘You are the auditor, then,’ she said. There was no triumph in her voice, just a flat acknowledgement of the assumed fact.
He nodded, relieved to have his work done for him. But the auditor from America needed a name. ‘Potts,’ he said, automatically. He must look like the name suited him, for Greg Drake had mistaken him for just such a fellow when they’d met. ‘Augustus Potts, at your service, ma’am.’ He bowed to hide his wince at the Christian name that had popped into his head. Hopefully, the lie would not be needed for long. Who in their right mind would want to spend any length of time as Augie Potts?
‘Mr Potts,’ the girl replied, in the tone of one used to ordering servants about.
‘And who do I have the honour of addressing?’ he said, already suspecting that he knew the truth.
‘Miss Charity Strickland. Your employer’s distant cousin.’
He nodded in acknowledgement. He’d met her sister Hope, already. With some effort, he could see a resemblance. They shared the same wide brow and pointed chin.
But where Hope was uncommonly pretty, Charity was not currently so blessed. There was something too grave in her expression and the look in her eye was too discerning for one so young. Though she was not a lovely girl, he suspected she would age into her beauty and become a rather handsome woman.
‘Were you sent to inventory the main house?’ she said, in a matter-of-fact way to remind him that it was not his job to be standing here, staring at her.
‘And the dower house, as well,’ he said.
‘There is nothing of value here.’
In a pig’s eye. Her response had been a trifle too quick and too specific for his taste. She had come here to retrieve something or to hide it. And people did not normally take the time to hide things that were worthless. ‘If the house is empty, it makes me wonder what you were doing here, halfway up the chimney.’ He gave her a subservient smile. ‘Is there something I can assist you with?’
‘Birds have been coming down it and into the house. I was attempting to close the flue.’
‘I see.’ That was an even bigger lie than her last words had been. But if he was claiming to be Augie Potts, he could hardly point fingers. Instead, he stripped off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. ‘Give me the poker, then. My arms are longer.’
‘That is all right,’ she said hurriedly.
She was far too eager to handle the matter herself. ‘Then, at least let me go up to the house and find a footman. A member of the family should not be doing servants’ work.’
‘That will not be necessary,’ she said, not bothering to try to charm him with a smile. ‘I think I have managed the matter well enough.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘I did not interrupt you before you could complete what you were attempting?’
Her lips tightened ever so slightly with annoyance. ‘Certainly not.’
‘Then, allow me to give you a ride back to the main house.’
‘That will not be necessary, either,’ she snapped.
‘But we are both going the same way,’ he reminded her. ‘Since I have never been to the manor, I would appreciate a guide.’
‘It is not possible to get lost,’ she said. ‘The house is barely a mile away and you are on the drive already.’
She was trying to get rid of him. He had no reason to care why, for he was as eager to be gone as she was to have him so. Yet for some reason, he could not resist annoying her. ‘That is likely true. But it would be helpful if you could introduce me to the rest of the staff.’ He glanced out the window. ‘And a storm seems to be gathering. It has grown darker as we have been talking. I would not want to leave you here in the rain.’
‘I can wait inside until it passes,’ she countered.
So she had not finished what she had come to do. Since there was nothing in her hands, it seemed likely that she was searching for something rather than secreting something she’d brought with her. In either case, there must be some hidey-hole in the bricks worth investigating, once he had got her safely out of the way.
He smiled at her. ‘I am sure the Earl would have my head if I left you here in the rain.’ Then he stepped to the room’s doorway and waited for her exasperated huff of defeat.
It did not come. Other than a slight narrowing of her eyes, she gave no sign that his attempts to thwart her were annoying her. ‘If the Earl wishes it, then very well, Mr Potts. I would never go against his wishes.’
Then she walked past him towards the front door, the terrier following obediently at her heels.
Chapter Two (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
Charity Strickland’s day was not going to plan.
It had been bad enough to climb into the chimney and realise the niche she was looking for was just out of reach. To be discovered doing so had been even worse. Mr Potts was proving to be annoyingly clever, giving no indication that he believed her story about an open flue. He had pretended to, of course. But she suspected he was only toying with her, hoping to worm some piece of information out of her that could be reported to his master.
So far, it appeared that the new Earl meant to do just as she hoped he would, remain in London to perform his duties in Parliament. Should he suddenly decide to take an interest in her welfare, there was no telling what he might consider suitable for her future.
Whatever it was, she doubted it had anything to do with what she preferred for herself. As the youngest of three sisters, she was fed up with being dictated to by people who assumed they knew what was best for her. It had taken months to get the rest of the family out of the way so she might have peace to work. The last thing she needed was a stranger asserting his God-given right to control her because his fortunate birth had made him head of the family.
The season did not end until July and it was barely March. It would take only a few more weeks to accomplish her own plan. If the new Earl of Comstock kept to the business of governing, as he ought to do, she’d be gone long before he arrived, with enough money to set herself up for life in a manner that suited her.
But Mr Potts might prove to be just as annoying as the man who’d hired him. Though he had no right to order her around, so far he was proving to be a first-rate sneak. One had only to look at the dog’s reaction to him to know that he was not to be trusted. Pepper’s hackles had been raised from the moment that the auditor arrived. As they left the dower house, he was dancing along between them, biting at the man’s boot heels as if hoping to scare him away.
To Mr Pott’s credit, he had not given in to impulse and kicked at the dog. Perhaps he was not irredeemable. Or perhaps he had better sense than to abuse a pet belonging to a peer in full sight of a member of the family.
When they arrived at his horse, he stepped clear of the little black and white dog and mounted, offering a hand to her to help her into the saddle in front of him.
She smiled at him, wishing for not the first time that she’d inherited any of her sisters’ natural charm. ‘I could not possibly go without Pepper. I would not want him to become lost.’
Potts looked down at the little dog with obvious disgust. ‘In my experience, animals like this are surprisingly hard to lose.’
‘But what if this time is the exception? He might be set upon by some wild beast.’
‘You have wolves roaming so close to the house?’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘And I am told there are no bears left in England. What else can there be?’
‘A hawk. Or perhaps an eagle.’
He sighed. ‘Next you will be telling me England has daylight owls.’ He held out a hand. ‘Give him to me.’
She scooped the dog up and offered him.
Potts took him by the scruff of the neck, nimbly dodging the snapping jaws and dropped him into the leather bag at the side of his saddle. The dog disappeared for a moment, like a swimmer beneath a wave. Then his head poked out from under the flap, offering something that looked rather like a canine grin.
‘There.’ Potts held out a hand. ‘And now, you.’
Gingerly, she offered her own hand and he pulled her up. He seemed to exert no strength at all, settling her on to the saddle in front of him, to sit on one hip. Then his arms took the reins on either side of her waist, holding her in place as they set off.
Though he showed no signs of noticing it, it was a surprisingly intimate arrangement. Perhaps such behaviour was common in America. Or perhaps she was not pretty enough to move him. He handled the horse as easily as if he was riding alone.
But for her, it was strangely disquieting. Though she did not normally dwell on the appearances of the men around her, it was hard not to notice this one. The arms that wrapped around her were long, as were the legs that brushed against her skirts. He must be well over six feet. He was not precisely gaunt, but there was an angular quality about his frame that seemed to carry to his face. The planes of his cheeks were sharp, as was the line of his jaw. His pale skin might have given another man an aristocratic air, but on him it seemed more scholarly than aloof, as if his studies kept him from the sun.
This attracted her more than his fine features or the shock of dark hair shading his brow. He looked like someone who might be content to hole up in a library. Though the muscles she could feel in the limbs surrounding her did not come from inactivity, he looked like a kindred spirit.
But it did not really matter what he looked like, or how he had come to be so. Men, especially ones that looked the way this one did, never gave such scrutiny to her. She turned her head and looked resolutely forward at the house they were approaching.
‘Comstock Manor,’ he said, stating the obvious. But there was a tone beneath the words that sounded not so much impressed as stunned.
‘You did not think it would be so large,’ she said.
‘I was told. But I could not believe it was true.’
‘It represents everything that is wrong with the family,’ she said. ‘Something that started as a good idea but grew out of hand until it was no longer possible to manage or afford.’
‘No wonder there has been trouble finding someone to record the contents. Who would want to take on such a job?’
‘We have lost more valuables than most people own,’ she said, speaking quite close to the truth. ‘Though most of them are not actually gone. They are just sitting in one of the forty rooms, waiting to be rediscovered.’
She felt something quicken in him at the mention of this surplus of material wealth, a faint, covetous quivering of his nerves. Then he relaxed again, as if afraid that she might have noticed his interest. ‘As a member of the family, I would think that you would be in a position to know where some of those things are.’
‘I might be,’ she said, turning back to blink at him in what she hoped was an innocent way. ‘The Earl will never be able to have an accurate accounting of them if I do not help. And I doubt you will be able to learn the lay of the place in whatever time he has allotted for the job.’
The horse pulled up short.
‘How would I…? I mean, you are right that there is no way for me to do this job without help. But the Earl would not know one way or the other, if I got it wrong, would he?’
He had not even crossed the threshold and he was already giving up. Or did he mean to collect full pay for a slapdash job? His reasons did not matter. Carelessness, laziness or moral flexibility would all suit equally well as a reason for his departure.
‘He will not know if the inventory is not complete unless we tell him,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. ‘But I have no intention of spreading tales to a man I never met, just because other men I have never met decided he is the heir.’
‘I see,’ he said, in an equally careful tone.
‘I am sure he is depending on your friendship for an accurate accounting,’ she added.
‘My friendship.’ Mr Potts laughed. ‘I can tell you in all truth that six months ago, I knew nothing of Comstock, his title or his property.’
This was even more interesting. If the Earl had hired a stranger to see to his interests abroad, he was likely to get the results he deserved. ‘The property is not technically his,’ she reminded him. ‘It belongs to the Crown.’ She smiled again. ‘But, as an American, you have no real loyalty there, do you?’ She had opened the door to conspiracy. Now they would see if Mr Potts walked through it.
‘Loyalty?’ He laughed again. ‘The whole point of my country was to escape this one. And yet, here I am, surrounded by riches that do not belong to the Earl and debts that do.’
‘That is a pity,’ she said with a shake of her head. ‘In my opinion, the task set for you is a hopeless one. If you chose to resign from it, you could be long gone from here before anyone noticed your absence.’
Behind her, he started in surprise. ‘Miss Strickland, I was thinking just such a thing when you arrived.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But then, I would not be paid, would I? And an urgent need for funds was the only reason I even considered the job.’
Then she made the most daring move at all. ‘The house is not lacking for ornaments. If you chose to take something to compensate for your lost time, who would know?’
There was a long pause as he considered her words. But just as she was sure he would succumb, he baulked. ‘Stealing from the Earl would be wrong. Both a breach of the Commandments and the law.’
‘Of course,’ she added hurriedly, annoyed. If morality was seriously a concern, she might never get rid of the man. The next temptation would have to be far more subtle. ‘But there is no need for us to be discussing such things in the middle of the drive. As you said before, a storm is approaching. Come into the house and we will get you settled.’
And then she could go to work on him. Once he had seen the house and his place in it, he might be gone by morning.
* * *
When his ancestral home had been described to him, Miles had got a vague impression of a large but dilapidated manor in the country. But there was no way he could have imagined the thing that stood before him now. It appeared to be two or three large houses built cheek by jowl, as if the owners could not quite decide what they’d wanted and simply kept building on to it until the money had run out.
Having seen the accounts, that seemed to be exactly what had happened. When he’d set out from America, he’d assumed that all English lords had to be rich. But his family had run through their money generations ago. The rents from the tenants barely kept pace with the cost of maintaining the property. All that was left beyond them was the house and its contents. And the most valuable items were things he was not supposed to sell. He was expected to hold them in trust for future generations that might never be born if he could not manage to settle his business now.
But the caution to respect the entail had not impressed his ancestors. After greeting him on his arrival, the widow of his predecessor had barely taken a breath before announcing that the diamonds in the Comstock family jewels had been replaced with paste long before she became Countess. The Earls and Countesses of Comstock had been telling lies about their value for so long that it might as well be declared a family tradition.
On hearing this, he had assumed that there was nothing left of value. But though the collection of silver-framed miniatures on the hall table was not enough to save an earl from a life of ruin, the humble Miles Strickland could sell a sack full of them and have enough to live modestly for a good long time.
‘What do you think of it?’ He had almost forgotten Cousin Charity, who had led him in through the front doors and introduced him to the butler, Chilson, who had signalled for a footman to take his valise and another to remove the snapping dog from the saddle bag.
‘I do not know where to begin,’ he said, peering down the hall at what seemed to be an endless line of doorways, then staring back at Charity.
‘Do not worry. I will help you.’ There was no flirtation in the smile she gave him, only a sly twinkle in her eye that made him think any aid he received would benefit her more than him. Her companionable self-interest was an improvement on recent interactions with the fair sex.
When they realised he had a title, the women of London were friendly to the point of predation. He could hardly blame them for it, since they took their cues from the mamas and papas who were practically throwing their daughters into his path. Even the damned Prince who was currently running the country said that an earl without a countess was not doing his duty. He was supposed to marry, soon and well, for the sake of the title’s succession.
Apparently, he was to be bred like livestock. If the activity hadn’t involved marriage, he would have been all for it. But since a legitimate child was required, it took much of the fun out of his newfound popularity.
Since this distant cousin didn’t know who he was, she was currently treating him with the same indifference as women had before his sudden elevation. But since Charity was also the last unmarried girl in the family, the condition was likely temporary. Once she guessed his identity, she would chase him like a hound after a coon.
‘Thank you for the offer of aid,’ he replied. ‘And I assume this help will be in exchange for everything I can tell you about the new Earl?’
‘I think I know all I need to on that front,’ she said, with a frown that surprised him. It looked almost like a grimace of distaste.
‘Has he done something to put you off?’ Miles said.
‘He has done nothing so far,’ she said. ‘That suits me well, but I doubt it will continue. And the last thing I need is for him to arrive on my doorstep with a proposal.’
‘Your doorstep?’ He glanced around him.
‘Metaphorically speaking,’ she replied. ‘It is technically his house. I plan to be out of it before he arrives. But I am not quite ready to go yet, hence my hope that he will stay in London until Parliament ends its session.’
‘And you do not want to marry him,’ Miles said, strangely annoyed.
She shrugged. ‘It is not logical to expect instant compatibility, based on the convenience of a family connection. It is not as if I believe in something so foolish as the need for romantic love when marrying. But I do not want to rope myself to him or any other man for a lifetime without bothering to learn if we are temperamentally similar.’ She glanced down her nose at him, in frank and unladylike appraisal. ‘So far, I have not found many available men to my taste. I have exceptionally high standards, Mr Potts.’
He stared back at her, just as rudely, ready to say that plain girls were not usually so particular. Then he remembered her fine ankles and bit his tongue. ‘And so you should, Miss Strickland. If you meet him, you will find that the new Earl is not a bad fellow.’ Not totally bad, at least. ‘But you are right not to expect a marriage from him, sight unseen.’
She smiled at him in earnest now. The brightness of it transformed her face into something that was not beautiful, but held a certain allure that her frowns did not. ‘You are the first person to say that to me, Mr Potts. It is quite a novelty to hear such frankness.’
‘There is no reason for me to be anything else,’ he said, ignoring a stab of guilt. He had not been in any way frank. Worse yet, he had been talking about himself in the third person.
He cleared his throat. ‘And now, where would you recommend I begin my search—that is, my inventory?’
‘I suggest you begin by settling into your room and washing for dinner,’ she said with another shrug and an innocent blink. ‘If the accounting of Comstock’s possessions has waited for years, there is no reason to begin them this minute. You will find the job less daunting after a good night’s sleep and a decent meal.’ She walked up the stairs in front of him, casting a look over her shoulder to see if he followed. ‘Well?’
He paused. In any other woman, he might have thought it flirtatious, should she lead him straight to his bedchamber. But even on such a brief acquaintance, it was clear that Miss Charity did not flirt.
She likely did not know any better. He started up the stairs after her. ‘Surely it is not necessary for you to show me to my room.’
‘I shall be showing you a lot more than that before we are done with each other,’ she said.
He started in surprise.
Now her look was faintly exasperated. ‘You want to know the house, don’t you?’
‘Well…’ He did, of course. But was she really so unaware of him that her words held no hidden meanings at all?
‘Then you might as well enjoy the best of it.’ At the top of the stairs she marched briskly to the far end of one hall, waving at the corridor behind her. ‘The family stays in that wing. Grandmama is at the end, as is the Earl’s suite. The corridor to our right leads to the old part of the house. This side is for guests.’ She had reached a door at the very end. ‘And this is the Tudor room.’ She threw open the door and stood in front of it, gesturing inside. ‘It is said that Henry Tudor himself stayed here.’
He racked his brain for a moment, to attach significance to the name. ‘The King with all the wives.’
‘Six,’ she said with a deadpan look that announced her opinion of his limited knowledge of local history.
He held up his hands in surrender. ‘I can tell you everything you might wish to know about George Washington, if that makes a difference.’
‘I can tell you about him, as well,’ she said, arching an eyebrow. ‘There are books in England, you see.’
‘In America, as well.’ Damn few of them in his past, of course. But that was no fault of his. He looked ahead at the room in front of him. ‘So a king stayed here.’
‘And now, you shall.’
He supposed he should be honoured. He rarely cared about the previous occupants of the room, as long as the bed was soft and the sheets were clean. This would be luxurious, though not quite as good as the master suite he was entitled to. But he could hardly ask for that. Then he stopped to wonder. ‘Why would you give an auditor the best room in the house?’
By the time he’d turned to hear her response, her face was pleasant, passive and hospitable. But before that, had he seen a flash of something else? Alarm, perhaps?
If so, it was gone and she appeared to be the perfect hostess. ‘I want you to be happy. You are the Earl’s friend, after all. I can hardly treat you like staff.’
He glanced into the room, filled with any number of items worth taking when he went on his way. ‘How very kind of you, Miss Strickland.’
She gave a concluding nod. ‘Now, I will leave you to refresh yourself. Dinner is in the dining room at eight, Mr Potts. Do not be late.’
He hesitated for a moment, at the sound of the unfamiliar name, before getting his story straight and responding with an equally polite nod. ‘As you wish, Miss Strickland.’
Then she was gone down the hall, leaving him alone in the bedchamber of a dead king. He shut the door quietly behind her and turned to the matter at hand, his private appraisal of the room’s worth. What was there in this room that was worth selling? The furniture was valuable, the canopied bed hung with slightly dusty velvet on brass rings as thick as his thumb. Interesting, but not worth the effort of dragging down the drapery. The crossed swords over the mantelpiece gave the room a distinctly masculine air. If they were a relic of the room’s namesake they might be priceless. But to get them away he’d have to march through the entire house with a sword on his shoulder. The bedchamber he occupied was as far from the front door as it was possible to get.
His train of thought ground to a halt, then circled back, trying to think why that statement seemed so important. She’d said she’d put him in this room because of his supposed friendship to the Earl. But he had just told her that he had no real acquaintance with Comstock. Had she forgotten?
There was something about Miss Strickland that made him think she did not often lose track of the details. Which meant she’d simply told the first lie that had come to mind to explain her choice. There was something strange going on and he meant to find out what it was.
Chapter Three (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
Once she had put Mr Potts in his room and Pepper in her own, Charity headed back down the main stairs and out the front door, hurrying down the drive towards the dower house. He had been right. It was about to rain. The clouds had darkened considerably since their departure from the house, an hour ago. As she ran the last steps down the drive towards the front door, she felt the first drops striking the hood of her cloak.
She ignored them. She was so close to the truth that she could not let a little weather prevent her from finishing what she’d begun when he’d interrupted her. Of course, she needed an umbrella more than a ladder. She had been able to feel the edge of the niche when she had stood on the grate, but had not been able to reach the depth of it.
But with the arrival of an auditor, the day of reckoning had come and there was not a minute to spare for further preparation. She would find a stool in the kitchen of the other house and make do. Either the box was there, or it was not. She had to know.
She pushed through the dower-house door and slammed it behind her, allowing herself a moment of unfeminine pique now that there was no one around to hear. Then, she hurried to the sitting room, where the chimney was.
‘I was beginning to wonder if you were coming.’
Charity gasped and clutched the door frame, startled out of her breath at the words. Mr Potts had removed the holland covers from one of the chairs by the hearth and was sitting comfortably, his long legs stretched out before him.
It took a moment to think of an appropriate response. The cold, rational part of her brain, the part that she could not seem to keep silent, commented that it was rare to be at a loss for words. Or at a loss for breath. It was rare that she was surprised at all. She was accustomed to outthinking the people around her with ease. Yet this stranger had bested her on her home turf.
‘You seem to be winded.’ He leaned forward and pulled the cover off the chair opposite him with a flick of his wrist. ‘Why don’t you sit, as well.’ Then, he smiled. ‘Perhaps I should light a fire for us to chase away the damp of the room.’
He was expecting her to cry out No! and confirm his suspicions that there was something up the chimney. She had no intention of obliging him. ‘How did you know I would come here? And how did you arrive before I did?’
‘What other reason would you have for putting me in a room that faced the back of the house and not the drive?’ He held up a hand. ‘Do not tell me it is because I am an honoured guest. I got the distinct impression before that you wished I would go to perdition.’
‘Not to hell. Just back to America. Or London, at least. Even after much preparation, the house is in a frightful state and not ready to be inventoried.’ She smiled and fiddled with her glasses, doing her best to appear young and out of her depth. ‘My sisters are both just married and Grandmama is travelling on the Continent. It is only just me now.’
‘But none of that explains why you would put me in the best room in the house,’ he said. ‘I assumed you wanted to finish what you were doing without my noticing your departure from the house. You did not come all the way here to close a flue. You were searching for something.’
She touched her hand to her chest, feigning outrage. ‘What reason would I have to lie about such a thing?’
‘I have no idea,’ he replied. ‘But I wanted to find out. It would have been impolite to ask you. It is one thing to accuse a woman you’ve just met of lying and quite another to catch her in said lie.’ He stretched his arms, lacing his fingers and cracking his knuckles. ‘So I shimmied down the drainpipe running beside the window of my room and came back here to see if you would return.’
‘If I hadn’t?’
‘Then I’d have said nothing more of my suspicions.’
Her heart was still beating faster than normal, probably from the shock he had given her when she’d come into the room. And once again, the rational voice spoke in her mind. Or rather, it laughed derisively. Now she was unsure what she should say next. It was a new feeling to be unsure of herself. She did not think she liked it.
But he seemed to be enjoying it immensely. ‘It will save us both some time if you simply admit that I am right. Then I will help you look for whatever it is you are hunting for and we can return to the main house.’
‘I might not be searching for anything,’ she said. ‘I might have been hiding something.’
‘I interrupted you before you could complete what you were doing. You had nothing in your hand when you came out of the chimney and I felt no bulges in your skirt that might indicate you’d concealed an item in your pocket. And the minute you could get rid of me, you came back to finish your search. It is far more likely you were looking for something than leaving something.’
His logic was not perfect, but it was better than she usually encountered. And he had let slip something far more important than a demonstration of deductive reasoning. He had all but announced that, while they had been riding, he had not just been supporting her to keep her from falling. He had held her tight enough to discern the contents of her pockets. Her heart was thumping in her chest, both from the memory of his hands on her and the subtlety of his reason for it.
He had searched her. And she had let him to it, behaving like a foolish school girl, excited to be in the arms of a handsome man. If she was not careful, he would run her like a greyhound after a hare, destroying her plans for an independent future. She must be much more careful.
‘Suppose you are correct in your assumptions,’ she said. ‘Why would you offer to help me?’ She watched for a slight change in expression that might tell her what he was really thinking.
‘I assume that what you are seeking is a part of the estate. We both want it to be found and returned. Don’t we?’ He steepled his fingers and stared at her as though daring her to deny it.
She should lie and tell him that, of course, that was what she’d been doing. To tell the truth was to surrender before he had a chance to attack. If he had the slightest inkling of what was in the chimney, he’d have the whole works under lock and key before she could save even the smallest portion for herself.
‘If there is something missing from the entail, it is only right that it should be returned,’ she said, choosing the hypothetical middle ground, watching for his reaction.
‘Or, I could help you find the thing you are looking for and look the other way,’ he added, his expression pleasant but opaque. ‘I could decide that it was none of my business.’ Now he was the one waiting for her response.
She gave the one that most suited the situation and pretended to be shocked. ‘Why would you do such a thing?’
‘For compensation, of course. It is time for us to lay our cards on the table, Miss Strickland. Whatever you are doing here, I suspect it is something you shouldn’t. I will keep your secret, if you pay me to do so.’
‘You will keep my secret for now,’ she corrected. ‘Until you decide I have not paid you enough and come back for more. That is how blackmail works, is it not?’
He laughed. ‘Very true.’ Then he said, in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘I am new at it and have not had the time to think through all the ramifications.’
‘Then how about this one,’ she said. ‘I run back to the house and announce that the auditor is threatening me and I do not think he is an honest man. The servants believe me and contact the Earl. Since he barely knows you, he takes the word of family over anything you might say and fires you immediately.’
Mr Potts gave a brief start of surprise, then clapped his hands. ‘Bravo, Miss Charity. Bravo.’
He should be calling her Miss Strickland. Though as he had been patting her hips before, he probably thought he was entitled to some familiarity. ‘I did not give you permission to use my Christian name, Potts,’ she said, dropping the honorific from his to remind him he was little better than a servant.
He gave an apologetic incline of his head. ‘My apologies, Miss Strickland. But my rudeness aside, we seem to have arrived at an impasse. What are we to do?’ Then he looked at her for the answer.
She considered. It did not really matter if he was a paragon of virtue, or a total villain. The typical masculine response to a situation like this was usually much the same: to go to the chimney and take what was in it. She was smaller and weaker, and she could not stop him. But Potts was confusing her. He was tailoring his actions to hers and at least pretending that she could decide what would happen next.
To flatter your pride, announced the voice in her head. This one is a charmer.Be on your guard.
She touched her finger to her chin, pretending indecision, and scuffed the floor with the toe of her boot. Then she stared at him and spoke without irony. ‘We are going to allow me to get on with what I was doing, Potts. It may still amount to nothing. But if I do not do what I came here for, you will do it yourself as soon as my back is turned and abscond with anything you find.’
He nodded. ‘You have a surprisingly bleak view of my character, Miss Strickland. Not inaccurate, mind you. Simply bleak. But if the thing you are searching for can be split easily between us, I will be out of your hair and your life before cock’s crow.’
She clutched at her heart, feigning ecstasy at the thought of his absence. ‘Will you really, Potts?’
‘My plan on coming here was exactly what you suggested when we first met. I have urgent business back in America and no money for a return passage. I should not have to count every last part of the Comstock entail to get it. If I can find something of value that won’t be missed, I will take it, sell it and get a ticket on the first ship bound for Philadelphia.’ He pointed to the fireplace. ‘If there is such a thing hidden up that chimney, then go to, Miss Strickland. Go to.’
‘Very well, Potts,’ she said, with another insincere smile. If they found what she was looking for, there was no way he could take half of it, any more than she could. But he had planned to take something that would not be missed. She must hope that he could be steered towards discretion and not greed. Then she remembered that there were other issues to be dealt with. ‘I have but one problem. I was too short to reach it on the last visit.’
‘I am taller,’ he said, standing up, ready to take her place.
‘And wider,’ she reminded him. ‘It was a snug fit, even for me.’
‘There is nothing for it then,’ he said, went to the fireplace, hauled the grate out of its place and went down on one knee, patting the level plain of his opposite thigh. ‘Up you go.’
‘I was thinking more of finding a ladder,’ she said.
‘Have you brought one with you?’
‘Do not ask me facetious questions,’ she snapped.
He patted his knee again. ‘Come along, Miss Strickland. Let us settle the mystery in the chimney and then you will have time to berate me on my character.’
She sighed. She did not need her sisters to tell her that what he had suggested was improper. It would take only a minute or two to find something else to stand on. But she wanted an answer to the mystery, not in two minutes, but now.
Everyone said that impatience was a major flaw in her character. And she would address it later.
She stepped forward, crouched to move past him in the fireplace opening, braced herself on the walls of the chimney and raised a foot.
Before she could fumble, he had grabbed her boot and guided it to a place on his thigh. Then he reached beneath her skirts and tapped the back of her other knee as one might do to a horse to make him raise a hoof.
She lifted the foot that was still on the ground and he made a stirrup with his hands, boosting it to join the other one so she could stand on his leg.
He was right. She was several inches higher than she had been when standing on the grate. She felt the bricks surrounding her for the expected niche.
‘Anything?’ he asked.
‘No,’ she admitted through gritted teeth. She stretched her fingers upwards and brushed a ridge and empty air where there should be brick, but nothing else. ‘I can feel it above me, but I am still too short.’
‘Step on to my shoulders, then.’ Before she could argue, his fingers were around one of her calves, firmly guiding her leg upwards.
For a moment, her normally agile mind went blank. His head and shoulders were under her skirt. This was the first, and possibly the last, time that a man would see her legs, much less touch them. She must pray that it was dark under there. If he looked up, he would see far more than her legs. He would be inches from everything she had to offer.
It was…
She shepherded her thoughts, trying to analyse the sensations running through her. The feel of his hand on her ankle was different to any touch she’d felt before, though it was not even skin to skin. The flesh under her wool stocking felt cold, but the blood beneath was racing hot, back towards her heart. And above it all, she was sure she felt the gentle stirring of his breath.
The world seemed to spin and waver around her, unsteady, as if she’d had too much wine. Then she realised that the feeling was not imagination. Her body trembled, trying to find balance as he guided it to stand on his shoulders like a Vauxhall Gardens acrobat. She could stop it by bracing herself against the brick walls around her.
She did so. But she didn’t like being steady. She wanted to feel strange and unsure, laughing as the whole world dropped from under her and she fell to land breathless in his lap.
‘Miss Strickland?’ The voice coming from under her skirts was muffled, but unemotional.
‘Uhh, yes,’ she said, hurriedly feeling for the niche in the wall that was now on a level with her face. Her heart gave another sudden swoop as her fingers encountered a box. ‘I have found something.’
‘Excellent.’ Both hands transferred to her left ankle as he began the delicate process of helping her down. By the time her feet were back on the hearthstones, she had regained control of her senses and could emerge, sooty but fully rational, from the fireplace. Then she held out the thing she had found: a wooden box about eight inches square.
‘It is not very large,’ he said, staring down at it.
‘It does not need to be,’ she said, fumbling with the catch. But she had thought it would be bigger than this. She had imagined a rectangular, leather case similar to the one that held the duplicates, with an easily found latch and hinges. But the wood under her fingers was completely smooth. Nor did there seem to be a separate top that could be lifted off. If she had not felt the lightness and heard a faint rattle from within, she’d have assumed that it was a solid block and not a box at all.
‘Hand it here for a moment,’ he said, fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief. Once he had hold of it, he buffed enthusiastically to remove the accumulated ash and grime. Then he handed it back to her to admire.
She adjusted her spectacles, wiping the grime from them to get a clear look. What had seemed to be plain mahogany was at least three colours of wood, inlaid in elaborate marquetry, no two sides alike. But though it was lovely to look at, the way into it was not more apparent now that it was clean than it had been fresh from the chimney. She stared back at him. ‘Do you have a penknife I might borrow?’
‘And spoil the fun?’
‘I am supposed to enjoy this?’ she asked, giving it a frustrated shake.
‘You are holding a Chinese puzzle box,’ he said patiently. ‘Perhaps you are not familiar with them, but I have seen them brought from the Orient by sailors.’ He held a hand out for the box.
She hesitated. She had spent half a day up a chimney, rooting around in the dirt. She had run back and forth from the house, twice. All she wanted was a cup of tea and a wash and some sign that this quest was nearing its end. Instead, this clean and poised stranger stood ready to take it away and finish it for her.
She pulled it back. ‘Thank you, Potts, but that will not be necessary.’
‘I thought we agreed to share,’ he said, giving her a smile that could melt the snow off a roof.
She shook the box again, hearing only the faint rattle of the trick marquetry that hid the latches. ‘As you can hear, there is nothing inside. And, even if the box is rare enough to be valuable, it will no longer be so if you try to take half.’
‘Are you sure it is empty?’ he asked with a raised eyebrow. ‘Perhaps something you do not wish me to see?’
She shook her head and gave him a pitying smile. ‘Even full to the brim, a box this size could not hold very much. If you wish the money to return to America, I am afraid you will have to get it by doing what the Earl expected: an inventory of the entail.’
‘Well, I must say, Miss Strickland, what got off to a promising start has been a most disappointing afternoon.’
‘That could be said of most afternoons at Comstock Manor,’ she said. ‘But there is no point in spending any more time here. Let us return to the main house. Dinner at eight, Potts. And tomorrow, we will begin the inventory.’
Chapter Four (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
If her sisters had been here, they would have known how to handle this.
Charity had never needed their advice before. It might seem immodest to think so, but wisdom usually flowed from her in their direction and not from them to her. Though she was youngest, she was better read and better educated than either of them. In matters that truly mattered, she was better at observing and understanding the world and the people in it. It was how she had known, before either of them, which men they were likely to marry. One had simply to watch dispassionately and draw conclusions from the data collected.
But that was not required at the moment. Tonight, she needed to be a polite and gracious hostess to a male stranger. She had never before had to deal single-handedly with a man in a social setting. On the rare times she had been forced from the house to go through the motions of the London Season, Faith and Hope had been there to chaperon and guide her, preventing a merely uncomfortable situation from turning into a fiasco.
But they were not here tonight and she had never felt so alone in her life.
Her first instinct had been to announce that Mr Potts could have dinner served on a tray in the location of his choosing. She would eat in the library, as she usually did, and go to bed after she had managed to solve the puzzle they had found in the chimney.
Now that she was in her room, she had taken the time to examine it. She’d run her hands over the inlaid wood panels, giving it a shake and weighing it with her hands. There was nothing about the sounds it made to indicate that they came from shifting contents and not the puzzle mechanisms themselves. Perhaps the things she’d hoped to find were packed tight in cotton wool, but she would have expected there to be more weight.
The problem deserved several hours’ study in the privacy of the library. But she had announced earlier that dinner was a formal arrangement and that he was expected to attend it. To cancel it and devote herself to solving the puzzle would announce to this interloper just how important a matter it was. When she had thought success was imminent, she’d felt that there was no choice but to accept his help. Instead, she had been given a locked box and a small reprieve. If she could make it through supper, she could plead exhaustion and retire to her room to open the box. There was a chance she might still complete her task without his even knowing.
But it was a slim chance, at best. The auditor was not like the rest of her family, who had long ago given up trying to understand her. When she had tried to outwit Potts, he had not just been able to keep pace with her, he had got one step ahead.
Perhaps it had been mere luck on his part. She prayed that when she came down to dinner she would find him as easy to gull as the rest of her acquaintance. But the little voice at the back of her mind whispered that her true wish was just the opposite. She wanted him to be just as clever at supper as he had seemed this afternoon. She wanted to spend more time with him, not less.
That alone was reason enough to avoid him. She was not thinking sensibly and it was all his fault. If she was not sure that she could best him in a battle of wits, what other weapons did she have?
At times like these, her sisters could fall back on their looks and flirt their way out of trouble. A flutter of eyelashes, a few shy smiles, and even the smartest of men around them tended to forget whatever it was that had been troubling them.
Charity sighed. Flirting required that she pretend to be someone she was not: sweet, biddable and somewhat in awe of the men around her. Even if she could manage those things, she was not pretty enough to dazzle a gentleman, especially not one that could dazzle in his own right.
Potts was astoundingly good looking for an auditor. The men in her family were handsome enough, in a refined sort of way, with brown hair and eyes. But looking at Potts was a study in the contrast of light and shadow. His eyes were so dark that it was a challenge to see where irises ended and pupils began, but they seemed almost black against his pale skin. And though he had smiled often, she’d got only glimpses of his teeth, which were very white and very straight.
Perhaps it was not that he was smarter than she. Perhaps her wits were slowed by the sight of him. The thought was cheering, but highly unlikely. She had yet to meet a man so handsome that she was rendered stupid in his presence. If anything, her mind had been working even faster than usual, now that he had arrived, gathering all the information it could about the man before deciding on a course of action concerning him. Dinner would be an excellent time to learn more, pretending that her interrogation was nothing more than polite chatter over the meal.
Charity went to the bell pull in the corner of her room and gave the single sharp yank that would summon her maid. Then she sat on the bed to wait, idly scratching the ears of Pepper, who was already sleeping there. No other female in her family had to go the bother of waiting for a servant. Her sister’s maids seemed to be always under foot, often one step ahead of their mistresses when it came to choosing the perfect gown for every occasion. But since Charity rarely bothered with her appearance, she had no right to be surprised that the maid was not pressing ribbons and starching petticoats.
* * *
After nearly twenty minutes, the door opened a crack and Dill appeared, staring at her mistress in silence.
Charity stared back at the maid, raising an eyebrow expectantly.
‘You rang, miss?’
‘Yes, Dill. I wish to dress for dinner.’
‘You do?’
Surely the request was not so very odd. ‘Yes, Dill. That is why I summoned you.’
‘You never dress for dinner, miss. Especially not when we are alone.’
‘We are not alone,’ Charity reminded her. ‘The auditor has arrived.’
‘And he will be dining with you?’
‘Yes, Dill.’
‘In the dining room?’
‘That is where we dine, Dill.’
‘You usually dine in the library,’ the maid said, still confused.
‘Not tonight, Dill.’
‘And servants dine below stairs,’ the maid said, stubbornly. ‘An auditor is a sort of a servant, isn’t it?’
‘He, Dill.’ The maid had a point. But employees occupied a place between servants and family. The way they were to be treated was likely situational and better decided by Grandmama, who was absent, just like her sisters.
In the end, Charity decided to lie. ‘Mr Potts is a friend of the Earl as well as his auditor. He will be eating in the dining room, like a member of the family.’
‘Oh.’ Dill stared at her for a moment. ‘You don’t dress for family, either.’
‘But I am dressing tonight.’
‘Oh.’ Dill gave a nod and a grin that announced she had seen Mr Potts and had a theory about Miss Charity’s sudden interest in looking her best.
‘Grandmama would expect me to treat a representative of the new Earl with proper respect,’ Charity added. When the maid did not move from the doorway, Charity cocked her head in the direction of the wardrobe. ‘That is why I have summoned you to help me dress.’
‘Ah.’ The girl ambled towards the gowns and pulled two from their pegs. Both of them were brand new and with décolletage that Charity found slightly intimidating. Dill grinned again. ‘How much respect do you want to show ’im?’
Charity took a deep breath, then pointed to the more modest of the two. ‘That one. And a shawl, I think.’
Dill shook her head. ‘A shawl defeats the purpose. I will have the footmen build up the fire in the dining room. That and some pepper in the soup and you’ll be nice and warm.’
‘I suppose you are right,’ she said with a sigh. Though the dress would make her feel uncomfortably exposed, it was no worse than what the other girls in London were wearing.
Of course, Mr Potts was not from London. America had been settled by Puritans. Perhaps he would be shocked by her. Or perhaps he would see through her ridiculous attempt to behave as other, normal girls did. Then he would laugh and dismiss her entirely. It would be a disaster, just as it had been in London, on those times she had followed her sisters’ advice and tried to mix in society.
She sat quietly as Dill worked over her, afraid to look in the mirror, not wanting proof that she looked as awkward as she felt. It was not as if she needed to impress him. He worked for her family and would have to be polite, no matter how she acted. But whether he voiced it or not, he would have an opinion.
She had escaped to the country because she could not abide the critical gazes and snide comments of the marriage mart, where men treated girls and horseflesh much the same. In both cases, they wanted an animal that was attractive, high-spirited. Then they put a bit in the mouth or a ring on the finger so that it could never think for itself again.
‘There, miss. All done.’ Dill stepped away, her hands falling to her sides, and added without a trace of irony, ‘And do not worry so. You will be the prettiest woman in the room.’
‘I will be the only woman in the room, Dill,’ she said, putting on her glasses and staring at her reflection. The results were…
Passable. She looked as well as she ever did. She was displaying an unusual amount of skin, which men generally liked. But there seemed to be too much. A gown like this required jewels and she had none.
Then a thought hit her and she smiled. ‘Dill, go to Grandmama’s room and bring back the case with the Comstock diamonds.’
A decent maid might have questioned her right to wear the things, since they were reserved for the use of the Countess. But Dill was merely adequate and did not bat an eye. She simply returned with the box and placed them on the vanity. Then she pulled a set of ear-bobs from their place and hooked them into the ears that had been exposed by Charity’s carefully styled hair.
‘The necklace, as well, I think,’ Charity said, feeling oddly like she was a little girl again, playing dress up with Grandmama’s jewellery.
‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ Dill answered, draping the heavy chain over her head until the teardrop-shaped lavalier fell in the hollow between her breasts.
It was an excellent choice. But not for the reason her maid thought. It would give Potts something to look at, other than her. With a three-carat stone in front of him, he would have no reason to care whether the woman wearing it was pretty or not.
And there could be no better way to assure the auditor that the entail was intact than to bring the Comstock diamonds out at the first opportunity. Once he had seen it, she could assure him that the rest of the parure was safe and accounted for. This, the most important item to be inventoried, could be checked off his list. And if he noticed that the stones she was wearing were paste?
She would claim to be just as surprised as he was. Either way, she would be able to draw conclusions about his intelligence and observational abilities. It was information she could use against him later.
She felt somewhat more confident about herself now that she had a plan. But it would not make the dinner any easier. Her stomach filled with nervous butterflies as she walked towards the stairs, only to see him coming down the hall on the opposite side of them.
‘Miss Strickland,’ he called. ‘Ahoy! Or perhaps, avast. I am not sure which is more appropriate in this case.’ He walked towards her with a cockeyed grin on his face, looking more appealing than she cared to notice.
She smiled back at him. ‘Ahoy is meant to call my attention. Avast is a request that I stop. Which did you want?’
His eyes swept her from head to toe, pausing for the briefest of instants to register the presence of the necklace. Then his gaze returned to her face, still smiling. ‘Both. I need an escort to the dining room. This house is not precisely a maze, but it is a long jaunt from end to end. I am likely to starve before the meal if left to my own devices.’ Then he held his arm out to her, as if he was about to lead her to the dining room.
But not really. At dinners and balls, the men who took her arm were either assigned to the task by some sympathetic hostess or volunteered because they hoped to make a good impression on one of her sisters. As she walked with them, they did not pay attention to her, but glanced over their shoulders to be sure that someone else was observing their gallantry.
But tonight, the man in front of her was focused solely on her, as if she was the prettiest girl in the room, just as Dill had said. Because they were alone. He was looking at her because there was nowhere else to look. There was nothing personal about it.
‘Miss Strickland?’ Now he was wondering at her hesitation.
‘Just thinking,’ she said, trying and failing to duplicate the light, flirtatious smile that her sisters used at times like this. But it was all wrong. She could not manage to look empty-headed while claiming to think. And now she could not decide how she was supposed to look, which must make her seem more dim-witted than thoughtful.
If her shifting expression seemed odd to him, he did not indicate it. He simply continued to smile and guided her down the stairs.
Chapter Five (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
When they arrived in the dining room, Charity Strickland chose a seat halfway down the table and indicated the place opposite that was set for him. It seemed that the staff had ignored her change in rank as the only family member present and put her in her usual place instead of moving her closer to the head of the table. Even when they were not here, empty places had been left for her sisters.
And for him, as well. The head of the table, where the Earl should be seated, had a place setting, but no chair. He could not help a small shiver of dread at the sight of it and the weird, undeserved respect that was offered to a supposed lord and saviour that none of them could recognise even when he was in the house with them.
‘My maid promised that a fire would be lit,’ she said, mistaking the reason for his shiver.
‘I am fine,’ he assured her. ‘If you are comfortable, do not concern yourself.’ He tried not to glance down at the expanse of ivory skin on display above the neckline of her gown, or to look even lower, searching for her body’s reaction to the cold room. Perhaps English gentlemen did not have such thoughts, but the crass American that he was thanked God for the superior view afforded a lowly visitor who was placed opposite Miss Charity instead of at the head of the table.
Her long neck had looked ridiculous in the high-collared dress she had worn this afternoon. But in a dinner gown, her exposed throat swept gracefully down to the swell of her fine, full breasts. Though there had been little light beneath her skirts when he had boosted her up the chimney, he had been holding a fine pair of ankles and felt delightfully rounded calves pressed on either side of his head.
And though her hands moved with masculine efficiency as they sliced the lamb on her plate, the fingers were long and tapered to fine, almond-shaped nails.
There was much to enjoy in the young lady that everyone had been insisting he marry, for duty’s sake and the good of the Empire. But there was also one thing he did not like at all. Dangling between those perfect breasts was what had to be the crowning glory of family jewels. The excessively large teardrop pendant would have dazzled him, had he not known it was a worthless copy. Now it merely depressed him.
Did she know? he wondered. Of course she did. The truth was supposed to be a secret passed from Earl and Countess to Earl and Countess. The Dowager had blurted it out to him the first time they’d met, then sighed with relief as if she’d transferred a back-breaking burden on to his unsuspecting shoulders.
As the youngest granddaughter, Miss Charity should know absolutely nothing about it. But she struck Miles as the sort of woman who was exceptionally good at ferreting out secrets. Which begged the question as to why she would flaunt it in front of him at the first available moment.
Because she wanted to convince him that nothing was amiss. Despite himself, he smiled. It was a pleasure to be in the company of a female whose actions had purpose.
She smiled back and the effect on her features was transformative. And for a moment, he forgot himself, grinning back, smitten.
Then she looked at him with a gaze as sharp as an eagle’s and said, ‘So, Mr Potts, tell me about yourself.’
He could feel the smile freezing on his face, as his brain struggled for an answer. At last, he replied, ‘There is not much to tell.’ It was true. He had not bothered to invent a past to go with his nom de guerre, so what could he possibly say?
She set down her knife and steepled her fingers. ‘Tell me anyway. I am fascinated.’ She did not look totally sincere, but she did look persistent. ‘I have never met an American before.’
He breathed a sigh of relief and a silent prayer of thanks for the topic. ‘I am from Philadelphia, in the state of Pennsylvania.’
‘Where the Earl is from,’ she said.
‘It was where we met.’ That was metaphorically true, at least.
‘And what did you do, in Philadelphia?’
‘A bit of this and that,’ he said, for it was near to the truth.
‘Auditing?’
‘Never before. But I have a decent hand and feel qualified to take accurate notes on what is right before my eyes,’ he said, deliberately staring down at the counterfeit diamond.
His suspicions on her knowledge of the false diamonds was confirmed. As if she feared the topic of conversation was about to turn to the necklace, she lost interest in talking and concentrated on the strawberry compote that had arrived for dessert.
Which meant it was his turn to question her. He speared a berry on the end of his fork and bit into it with relish before asking, ‘Have you had a chance to open the puzzle box we discovered this afternoon?’
‘It is not your business whether I have or not, Potts,’ she said, not bothering with an honorific as if she sought to put him in his place.
‘On the contrary. The box and whatever is inside it are likely to be valuable, or else why would they be hidden? If they are part of the entailed property, I must record them.’
‘I doubt they are,’ she said, smiling sweetly and trying to put him off his guard, again.
It was badly done. She could not expect to command him one moment and play the fool the next. In response, he gave her a firm smile and a sceptical stare. ‘I think you had best let me be the judge, Miss Strickland. It is my job, after all.’
‘If there is anything of interest inside, you shall be the first to know,’ she said, not even bothering to look sincere.
‘So you have not opened it, yet,’ he pressed.
‘There has been little time to do so,’ she snapped, touching her hair. ‘These dratted curls take hours.’ Then, as if realising that ladies were not supposed to consider it a waste of time to beautify themselves, she shut her mouth in another forced smile.
‘They were well worth it,’ he assured her. ‘The effect is quite charming.’ He paused to see if the compliment had registered.
It had not.
He continued. ‘Puzzle boxes can be devilishly tricky things. Some have more than forty steps and secret compartments beyond that. I have done several of them. If you should need help…’
‘You think I should come to you?’ she said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
‘Who else is there?’ He gave an innocent shrug, then held out his hands to show he meant no harm.
‘You are shamelessly angling for an invitation,’ she said, both exasperated and surprised.
‘I love a mystery,’ he said.
‘Well, I have no intention of involving you with it, no matter how curious you are,’ she said with a sigh, tossing her napkin aside and rising from her seat. ‘There are some things that are just too private to share with people outside the family. And as I said before, if it involves the entail…’
‘You promise to tell me,’ he finished her sentence.
‘You have my word.’
Since she had lied to him several times already, he held little hope that she would turn over any valuables she found, no matter how much he might need them. He gave her another disarming smile. ‘If not cracking open your mysterious box, how are we to pass the evening?’
‘We?’ Apparently, she had not planned to entertain him after the meal. She had probably hoped to abandon him and work on the puzzle box. If she did, it would leave him free to stuff his pockets with knick-knacks and take to the road.
And it might leave her with a box holding thousands of dollars of loose stones, any one of which might set him up for life.
‘We, Miss Strickland,’ he repeated. ‘Surely you do not mean to leave me all alone on my first night here? What do you normally do for fun in this mausoleum, after the sun has set?’
‘I enjoy a good game of chess,’ she admitted, through gritted teeth.
‘An excellent suggestion.’ In fact, it was almost too good to be true. ‘I like nothing better. I will spot you three pieces of your choice.’
‘You will what?’ she said, narrowing her eyes.
‘It is called a handicap,’ he said, with excessive patience. ‘It gives a weaker player a chance to win.’
Apparently, she did not think she needed one for he could see fury rising in her like water about to boil over a kettle.
‘I know what a handicap is, Potts. I have never needed one before and I do not mean to start tonight.’
‘Are you sure?’ he said, giving her a chance to change her mind.
‘I have been the best chess player in this county since I was thirteen,’ she said, glaring at him. Then she batted her eyes as if she was some simple female. ‘But by all means give my feeble feminine brain the advantage of three pieces. If you can manage a draw, I will let you help me with the puzzle box you are so eager to see inside of.’
‘Really?’ The secret to her character revealed itself, before he could even suggest the wager. Flattery might get him nowhere. But if he dared to condescend to her, she would not just hand him the keys to the kingdom, she would throw them with all her might.
‘Really,’ she said, her smile replaced by a determined nod.
‘Fair enough,’ he said and let the lamb lead him to the slaughterhouse.
* * *
The last time Charity had played chess, it had been with Mr Drake, who had been waiting for the opportunity to sneak into Hope’s room. He had been so distracted by the thought of her sister it had taken considerable effort on her part to make him feel that he had a chance to win. There was no fun in blunting her play and throwing games to weaker players. But she had not had the heart to punish that poor man when he was already having a difficult time winning Hope.
Tonight would be different. The exceptionally arrogant Mr Potts deserved no mercy. She would take his three pieces. And then she would take the rest, as quickly and painfully as possible.
She set up the game and glanced at his side for only a moment before removing his queen and both bishops from the board.
‘Ho-ho,’ he said, clapping his hands in approval. ‘You mean to make me work for my reward. Very well, then. Let’s begin.’
She had underestimated him. After so many years of people doing the same to her, she should have known better. Potts was a cautious player, but relentless, taking her pieces one by one and dodging the traps she set for him, even without the help of his stronger pieces. When she managed to claim a piece, it usually came with the sacrifice of one of her own. And, indignity of indignities, when he took her king, it was done with a clever arrangement of pawns.
She stared at the table in amazement. ‘I have never played a game like that before.’
‘Then you have led an exceptionally sheltered life, Miss Strickland.’
While that was quite true, it had nothing to do with her abilities at the chessboard. Nor had it anything to do with the quality of his play, which had been masterful.
Now he was staring at her expectantly. And for the first time in her life, she felt in awe of a man and at a loss for words.
‘Well?’ he said, with an encouraging tip of his head. When she did not respond, he added, ‘Have you forgotten our bet?’
She found her tongue again, clearing her throat and saying gruffly, ‘It can hardly be called a bet. You offered me no reward, if you lost.’
‘Since I did not lose, that is immaterial.’ He gave her a pitying smile. ‘Perhaps it would have been kinder of me if I had been more specific when you asked what I did, while in America.’ He cocked his head to the side, as if reliving the conversation in his mind. ‘I told you a bit of this and a bit of that. But when I was between this and that, and low on funds, I played chess for money.’
And she had fallen right into his hands.
‘Before we played, you promised that I could aid you with the puzzle box. May I see it, please?’ He was still smiling. Still maddeningly polite.
‘Of course,’ she said, rising and leading him from the room.
Chapter Six (#u8043bf5e-6032-5746-b912-09b0ca18cfe3)
If nothing else, he had found a way to stop Charity Strickland from questioning him about his non-existent past. Since her loss at the chessboard, she had barely spoken to him and put up almost no fight when he had requested a chance to see the contents of the box.
If it had been another woman, he might have feared that this was a sign of impending storm. But he sensed nothing from this one that hinted at petty tantrums or poor sportsmanship. Though she was clearly not accustomed to it, she responded to the trouncing he had given her with the sangfroid of an English gentleman.
It was rather confusing.
Perhaps it had unhinged her mind. That was why she showed no sign of modesty as she led him to her bedroom, instead of bringing the box to the parlour. Once there, she walked into the room without a second thought, took up the puzzle from her dressing table and sat on the edge of the bed, holding it out to him and gesturing that he join her.
He paused in the doorway, tempted to explain to her that the situation was totally inappropriate. Even Pepper knew it was wrong, for the detestable little cur looked up from where he had been napping on the pillow and gave a threatening growl.
Charity gave a single snap of her fingers and pointed to a chair on the opposite side of the room.
The dog stood, gave an apologetic wag of his tail, then obeyed, giving Miles a half-hearted glare as he passed.
That left him with no reason to refuse her, other than good manners and common sense. There was also the chance that, if he waited too long, the effect of the chess game might wear off and she would remember that she did not want his help. So he smiled, walked into the room and sat down beside her as if there was nothing odd about it.
She barely seemed to notice him, turning the box over in her hands, caressing the wood and feeling for loose panels and trim. A few moments passed. Then she smiled as the bottom panel slid a half an inch to the left. ‘I had no time to examine it before supper. It does not seem so very difficult.’ She handed it to him, to find the next step.
‘Perhaps not,’ he replied, running his fingers along the side before finding the wooden latch that had been exposed and pulling it up with his thumbnail. ‘But you agreed to my terms when we sat down to play chess.’ He handed it back to her.
‘But it does not take a genius, does it?’ she said, pivoting the front panel to reveal a keyhole and added, ‘Even if that is what you are.’
It was delivered as a statement rather than a compliment and he saw no reason to deny it. ‘Perhaps I am. But intelligence does little good for the individual when the people in power are foolish.’ For example, when one discovered that one’s family had already done irreparable damage to the inheritance. He glanced down at her. ‘I suspect you are familiar with that feeling, are you not?’ She must be. It was her family, as well. He worked a fingernail into the left side panel until he heard a click.
She opened the little door he’d unlatched and admired the tracery of inlaid metal revealed before prying a bit of it loose and fitting it into the keyhole. ‘It is worse for women,’ she said. ‘Men do not like it when we are too clever. They especially do not like being corrected when they are wrong.’ Her forehead creased as she turned the key and heard another click as the top panel popped up to reveal a second, seemingly blank surface beneath.
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Christine Merrill
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: The plainest Strickland sisterIn the Earl’s arms!Part of Those Scandalous Stricklands: To escape marriage to the new Earl of Comstock, bookish Charity must find her family’s missing diamonds. She meets her match in an intellectual stranger auditing the estate…little knowing he is Lord Comstock himself! With him, Charity feels different—even desirable! But will seizing one night of passion bind her to the very man she’s determined to avoid?