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Authors: Lord Greyfalcon’s Reward

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BOOK: Amanda Scott
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An hour later she sat at the little mahogany desk in her sitting room, nibbling the end of her pen thoughtfully. She could not, in propriety, write to a single gentleman to whom she was quite unrelated. Despite the fact that her father treated her as an unpaid housekeeper and Greyfalcon’s mother treated her as a nurse-companion, she was still an unmarried lady and, at twenty-one, not altogether upon the shelf. It would be most unbecoming for her to write the sort of letter she wanted to write to the new Lord Greyfalcon. It would not, however, be improper for her to pen a simple request for his return on behalf of the dowager countess.

Accordingly, in the very elegant copperplate so painfully learned at Miss Pennyfarthing’s Seminary for Young Gentlewomen in Oxford, she composed a graceful letter, explaining that she was doing so only at his mama’s most earnest request and asking him to come home at his earliest convenience. Since her father’s title was the honorary one bestowed upon the younger son of a marquess—for he was the late Marquess of Lechlade’s fourth son—he could not frank her letter for her, so she entrusted it to the post with some misgivings, lest Greyfalcon begrudge the expense of a few pennies to receive it.

Since any reply would quite naturally be sent to Greyfalcon Park, it was necessary to inform the countess of what she had done, and this was accomplished the very next day. Her ladyship chose for the moment to be grateful, but when her son’s reply arrived less than a week later, the attitude she displayed to Sylvia was a long-suffering one.

“You did your best, my dear,” she said, languishing against a pile of soft pillows on her drawing-room settee and looking very elegant in a lace cap and a robe of pink gauze, “but no one could have expected more than that he would say what he has said. Francis has no regard for anyone other than himself, just as his papa always said.”

Suppressing a surge of annoyance, the strength of which surprised her, Sylvia adjusted the little petit-point footstool beneath her ladyship’s pink-sandaled feet and said with forced calm, “Would you like me to ring for tea, ma’am?”

“That would be pleasant,” agreed the countess, sniffing at her vinaigrette. “One must keep up one’s strength, after all. Although I don’t expect anyone will hear the bell. Imagine his writing that I am surrounded by doting servants. If only he knew.”

Biting her lip, Sylvia moved to pull the bell. She was not in the least surprised when it was promptly answered by a tall young footman, neatly attired in the Greyfalcon blue-and-scarlet livery. The fact was that, much as the countess complained of her lot, her staff was an excellent one, well-trained under her temperamental husband and managed to a nicety by Merrill, the Greyfalcon butler. Greyfalcon had not concerned himself with the niggling details of household management as he had those of his estate, but he had certainly expected everything to run smoothly, nonetheless.

Sylvia had seen the new earl’s reply to her letter, and while she could not but deplore his having written that he had no intention of returning to the country for some months because country life bored him, she could accept as typically masculine his belief that his mother, with a houseful of doting servants, had little need of his company. What angered her was his lordship’s casual postscript, noting that now that there were funds at his disposal, he intended to enjoy himself. A man who could drop twelve thousand at a sitting at Brooks’s, she thought, could no doubt bring an abbey to a grange in less than a year if he were not stopped.

Back at home that evening, she tried to bring the subject up tactfully over supper; however, her first efforts eliciting no more than a series of grunts from her father, whose nose was, as always, in a book, she tried a more direct approach.

“Papa, I am speaking to you. I wish to know more about Greyfalcon’s fortune.”

Lord Arthur, his attention dragged at last from the book beside his plate, blinked at her through his spectacles. “What is that you say, my dear?”

“Papa, do you not control Greyfalcon’s fortune? You are his chief trustee, are you not?”

Lord Arthur frowned at her. “This is scarcely a fit subject for the table, Sylvia, nor one for discussion with a delicate female, come to that.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Pooh. You cannot expect me to run this house for you, sir, nor to look after Lady Greyfalcon as I do, and still profess to be a fan-fluttering damsel unable to comprehend matters of finance. Where would we be, I wonder, if I had to have every such matter explained to me and then shook my head and batted my lashes and professed a lack of understanding of such complicated stuff? Do be sensible, Papa. This is important.”

Lord Arthur grimaced. “I am perfectly sensible, thank you, and the fact of the matter is that I have been plagued with that man’s affairs for several weeks now, and I have no wish to be plagued with them over my supper tonight. I didn’t like his father. I cannot imagine what possessed the man to dump his posthumous minutiae in my lap, unless it was merely to annoy me. And as for his wife, all I can say is that it takes a stronger man than I am to stomach her whining and her megrims.”

Sylvia lowered her lashes demurely. “Lady Greyfalcon said his lordship admired your vast intelligence, sir.”

“Stuff,” replied her sire, unimpressed.

She chuckled. “Yes, no doubt, sir, but you do not answer my question, and while I promise not to subject you to whining or megrims, I can also promise to give you no peace until you satisfy my curiosity.”

“Sylvia,” he growled, “such curiosity is most ill-favored in a young woman of quality.”

“Papa, you are wasting your breath.” She waved to the maidservant to begin clearing the first course, then made a tent of her fingers beneath her pointed chin, waiting only until the servant had left the room before continuing. “Now, tell me, sir, does he control his fortune or do you?”

Lord Arthur sighed but gave her his full attention at last, pushing the book aside. “I have discretionary control until he turns thirty, more’s the pity. I believe he is turned twenty-nine, however, so it will be for less than a year.” When Sylvia allowed herself a small grunt of satisfaction, her father glared at her. “I hope you haven’t got some maggot in your head, girl, because I don’t intend to play nursemaid to that young man. The faster I can turn his affairs over to him, the better I shall like it. If he then chooses to play at ducks and drakes with his fortune, that’s his own lookout.”

“But surely,” she protested, “you have a duty to protect the estate.”

“Never asked for it,” he told her. “Don’t intend to let it bedevil me.”

He pulled his book forward again as the maid entered to begin serving the second course, and Sylvia knew it would do no good to attempt to discuss the matter further. Clearly, her father had no intention of exerting his power over the new Lord Greyfalcon. His lordship’s mother had no influence with him at all, so if anyone was going to bring him to his senses, she would have to do it herself.

Retiring to her sitting room, she gathered her materials at her desk. Then, this time carefully altering her own elegant hand to more nearly resemble her father’s broad-nibbed scrawl, she set to work, entrusting the result the following morning to the postman, who promised faithfully to see it on its way to London at once.

Intercepting the reply when it came posed no problem, for Lord Arthur paid no heed to the post unless he was expecting a new book to add to his vast collection, and then he looked only for parcels. Greyfalcon’s letter, though it came with commendable promptitude, was both disappointing and infuriating.

In bold black letters upon expensive gray paper, his lordship regretted that he had appointments that would preclude his waiting upon Lord Arthur in Oxfordshire. He further hoped that Lord Arthur would understand that such a meeting could serve no purpose and assured him that he placed every confidence in him to look after his affairs at home until such time as the trust might be concluded. Greyfalcon trusted, moreover, that he might depend upon Lord Arthur to see it that a generous draft was deposited quarterly in his London bank.

Sylvia scanned the letter in rising fury. Not one word about his mother, merely that arrogant assumption that Lord Arthur would make all tidy. Just who did Greyfalcon think he was? Did he actually think Lord Arthur had nothing better to do than to attend to Greyfalcon’s affairs?

Briefly, she considered the possibility of writing him once more, more forcefully, but less than a moment’s reflection was necessary before she discarded the notion. Greyfalcon would at best merely refuse again to come into Oxfordshire, and she would be where she was right now. More positive action was required.

Not for the first time she wished she had a friend or relative nearby to whom she could unburden her feelings. But there was no one. There had been no one since Christopher’s death. Of course, she mused, she could write to Joan. Lady Joan Whitely had been her bosom bow at Miss Pennyfarthing’s, and although she was now Lady Joan Gregg, Countess of Reston, she had been at that time quite as much a madcap as Sylvia.

Joan would appreciate her feelings. She had met Sir Francis Conlan only once, but had promptly dubbed him arrogant and unfeeling for the simple reason that when he had learned that his brother, Christopher, then a student at Christ College, Oxford, had been caught in the act of assisting two young ladies to sneak back into their seminary after midnight, Sir Francis had traveled all the way from London to Oxford himself in no pleasant temper to put a stop to such goings-on. They had all three of them suffered the rough side of his tongue on that occasion. Yes, Joan would understand. But Sylvia had no wish to entrust her feelings in the matter to a letter. It would be much the better plan to discuss the matter with Joan personally.

No sooner had the thought entered her head than she began to take action. There were arrangements to be made, of course, for she had no chaperon to travel with her and she could scarcely leave without seeing to her father’s comfort and to Lady Greyfalcon’s as well. But by the time she had dispatched a message to Lady Joan and received an enthusiastic invitation to come to London at once and to stay as long as she liked, she had discovered that the vicar’s housekeeper, Mrs. Weatherly, had formed the intention of visiting her brother in London and would be glad of Miss Jensen-Graham’s company on the trip. She had also arranged for the vicar’s wife, Mrs. Mayfield, and their daughter, Lavender, to visit the countess daily.

Though Lavender was well-known to be the silliest young woman in the neighborhood, Mrs. Mayfield was a calm lady who could be depended upon not to fidget her ladyship unduly. More important, they were the best Sylvia could do on short notice. By the end of the week her cases were packed and she was ready to set out for London.

2

S
YLVIA’S FIFTY-MILE JOURNEY
to London was wearing but uneventful. The vicar’s elderly traveling coach had little to recommend itself by way of comfort, but it was clean and Mrs. Weatherly was a restful companion in that she rarely spoke except to comment upon the cool weather, the lack of sunshine, and—when they stopped overnight at the Greyhound in Maidenhead—to condemn the hostess’s housekeeping methods. Since the inn had retained an excellent reputation from before the day when on his way to the block Charles I had taken leave of his family there, Sylvia saw no reason to enter into debate over the issue, and had gratefully sought her pillow without examining the sheets.

They entered London via Kensington by late morning of the second day, and it was with relief that Sylvia bade her companion good-bye when the coachman let her down before the tall, imposing house in Berkeley Square that was the London residence of the Earl of Reston, Joan’s esteemed husband. Her cases were swung down by the obliging, middle-aged coachman, who also offered to run up the steep, stone steps to knock on the door for her.

Sylvia, aware that the earl, known to be a stickler, might be at home, agreed at once, awarding the man a brilliant smile. Moments later, a footman in the Reston gray livery ran down the steps to collect her cases, and within ten minutes she was in the charming first-floor saloon that was Lady Joan’s favorite room, watching her friend toss aside a newspaper in order to leap to her feet to greet her.

Attired in a sea-green silk afternoon gown, Lady Joan Gregg was nearly as slender of build but several inches taller than Sylvia. Her bright golden eyes sparkled and her cinnamon-colored curls, arranged in a thick mop that had been cropped in the latest style, bounced erratically as she hurried forward.

“Sylvia, what a pleasure this is,” she exclaimed, grinning. “Do sit down at once and tell me everything you left out of your letter. I shall order refreshments for you, in case you are starving, but I hope you do not mean to retire until supper to rest, like Aunt Ermintrude always does.”

Sylvia chuckled. “How is Lady Ermintrude?”

“Better than she would have one believe,” replied Joan with a wide grin. “She is here with us, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know,” Sylvia replied. “How could I? You wrote nothing about her in your brief letter. Please don’t say that we shall be expected to cosset her and tend to her needs. I promise you I have had all I can take in that direction from Lady Greyfalcon.”

“So that is your reason for fleeing Oxfordshire! I might have known it would be something like that. Have I not been attempting unsuccessfully to get you to spend a Season in town these past two years and more?”

“I could not leave Papa,” Sylvia said calmly.

Lady Joan wrinkled her button nose but made no comment, and just then the footman returned with their refreshment. Waiting only until her guest was served, Lady Joan dismissed the servant and demanded to know precisely what was going forward. “For I don’t believe you mean to stay very long, my dear, much though we should like to keep you here with us.”

“I doubt that Harry would be so quick to agree with you,” Sylvia said with a teasing smile. “Confess now, when you told him I was coming, he nearly suffered a seizure.”

“Not quite so bad as that,” Joan said with a responding smile. “You and I are several years older now, you know, so he cannot expect us to get into the same sort of mischief we got into as girls. And he scarcely knows the half even of that, for I have never described any but the mildest of our transgressions to him.”

BOOK: Amanda Scott
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