Laura Matthews (24 page)

“And may I, as a friend, make a suggestion about Edward?”

“Please do.”

“I had a letter from my solicitor yesterday, just before I left St. Aldwyns. He’s made thorough inquiries into Mr. Curtiss’s disappearance and has discovered what may be a trace of him, though it is by no means certain.”

“He’s alive?”

“Almost assuredly alive. His present location is more dubious.” Alvescot smiled at her, a slowly widening grin. “I think it would not be altogether necessary to inform Edward of the tentative nature of my solicitor’s findings. If he were, perhaps, told that his father was running a gambling establishment, quite successfully, in northern Italy, I think he would in all probability be willing to seek him out. It would be essential to give Edward a reasonable traveling fund, but I’d be willing to see to that.”

“Don’t be absurd. Edward is my financial responsibility, if he’s anyone’s.” But her eyes sparkled. “A gambling establishment? Is that true?”

“Yes, as far as Hobart can tell. Apparently Curtiss has shifted the location from time to time, but there’s little doubt that it’s he. Hobart wanted to know if I wished a man sent to confirm the most recent location. All his information has come from travelers, most of whom didn’t know Curtiss, but there was one man, a former friend, who confirmed the whole story, thinking it a marvelous jest.”

“How bizarre! But exactly what one might expect of the Curtisses,” she remarked, her expression slowly becoming more serious. “James, I don’t mind if you tell Edward. In fact, I wish you would. On the other hand, I’ve come to be quite fond of Louisa and I think I would prefer that she and her mother didn’t know, at least not yet. Mabel would want to hound him down, and she would drag poor Louisa halfway across the Continent to find him. What sort of life would that be for Louisa, even if Mr. Curtiss accepted them, which you may be sure he wouldn’t want to do? I’ve already done enough damage in Louisa’s life.”

Alvescot squeezed her hand. “Don’t be feeling guilty about that. Oldcastle needed a little push.”

“Yes, but I gave him a shove.” Vanessa sighed, nestling her hand in his. “Do you know, Louisa told me yesterday that she’d never been apart from him this long since they met? Even when he made infrequent trips to his home, he was never gone more than three weeks. She misses him dreadfully.”

“I’ll look him up next time I’m in London and see what I can do, but don’t expect much. Finding out her father’s running a gambling establishment won’t further endear the family to him, especially when the old devil was supposed to be dead.” Unconsciously he had begun to rub the soft flesh between her thumb and forefinger. “So you wish me just to tell Edward? I don’t think he’ll mind keeping it a secret from his mother and sister.”

“If you would. I don’t care about Mabel, but I’d rather spare Louisa any unnecessary pain if possible.”

He nodded. This seemed as good a moment as any to advance his cause. Go slowly, he reminded himself. “I told my mother about your unusual household.” There was a wry light in his eyes, inviting her to share his amusement. She responded with a hesitant smile, so Alvescot continued, “She thought you and John and Catherine needed a vacation from them and suggested you might come for a visit to St. Aldwyns when Charles is fully recovered. She’s anxious to meet you.”

Vanessa was shaken by the invitation. It had been phrased in such a way that it told her very little. If he had said, “I want you to come to St. Aldwyns and meet my mother,” she would have known a little better how he felt. And yet there was no reason for him to convey such a message if he . . .

There was a tap on the door and she gently withdrew her hand from his as she called, “Come in.”

A footman entered to hand her a letter. “A boy’s just brought it from the village, ma’am. He’s awaiting a reply.”

Vanessa broke the seal and quickly scanned the short note. “My word!” She turned to Alvescot to ask, “Did you stay at the inn in the village last night?”

“No, in Basingstoke. Why?”

She made a gesture indicating she would explain in a moment and rose to go to her desk. Her writing equipment was still lying there from her previous exertions and she quickly penned an answer, folding it carefully before handing it to the footman. “Have the boy take this, Thomas, and see that he has a coin, please.”

When the footman had left, she remained sitting at her desk frowning thoughtfully at the closed door. Alvescot cleared his throat to gain her attention, his brows raised with curiosity.

“It was from William,” she explained. “He’s at the inn in the village. Just passing through, he said, and wondered if he might stop in for a short visit.”

Alvescot laughed. “On his way from London to Suffolk, no doubt. What did you say?”

“I said we would be pleased to have him, and that I hoped he would spend the night. Poor soul! He must be missing Louisa as much as she misses him.” Vanessa couldn’t resist a small chuckle. “Passing through! I daresay he’ll have some story concocted about how he’s on his way to Andover or Salisbury. Don’t press him, if you please. Louisa will be so happy, and Mab . . . Oh, my God!”

She looked stricken for a moment and he rose to come and stand behind her, placing one hand on her shoulder. “Whatever is the problem? I thought this was just what all of you wanted.”

“But you’re here!” she groaned. “Mabel will think you’ve come to offer for Louisa, and William . . . Heaven knows what William will think.”

“Shall I leave?” he asked stiffly.

Vanessa turned to look up at him, a smile flickering on her lips. “No, of course not. I shall give you the Chinese Chippendale bedroom, James. I know you’ve longed to have it. William can have the Blue Velvet. But I must go and arrange for everything. This will take a bit of handling. We’ll talk later . . . if that’s all right?”

“Certainly,” he agreed. His disappointment came out only in his flat statement. “You have more important things to do right now.”

“Not more important, James. More immediate.”

Chapter Seventeen

The interview, Alvescot decided as he left the Morning Room after her, had not followed quite the course he had expected. On the drive from St. Aldwyns the previous day, he had pictured them firmly engaged within ten minutes of his seeing her. Of course, his excuse of coming because she hadn’t written was not much better than Oldcastle’s “passing through,” but it had seemed sufficient at the time. He
had
been worried about her and he
had
intended to take her to task for her silence, but he had also expected all that to vanish in a moment and to hold her in his arms, where she most decidedly belonged.

He had come with his valet in the traveling carriage and now sent for Bibury to bring his two valises to the Chinese Chippendale bedroom. After all this time, he was eager to see if it was worth the wait, and her teasing him about it. Not that he minded her teasing—he considered it a very good sign. She could just as easily, however, tease him when he was holding her in his arms.

The walls of the room were hung with Chinese painting on silk, with mirror paintings on either side of the fireplace. It was a spacious suite, with a dressing room attached, and various pieces of Chinese porcelain were displayed around the two rooms. The carved mahogany four-poster was decidedly English, however, with needlework hangings, and the painted chimneypiece bore no trace of Chinese inspiration. As elsewhere in the house, the chimneypiece was carved in a fable motif, this one of bears and bees, which was so unoriginal as to be similar to one Alvescot had at St. Aldwyns. His mother had once told him it illustrated the Spanish proverb, “Take what you want, says God. Take it, and pay for it.” Well, he would be perfectly willing to buy off Hortense, Mabel, Edward, Louisa, Oldcastle, and anyone else, if he could simply have the right to hold Vanessa in his arms.

Bibury leisurely unpacked and put away his clothing, while the earl stood at the window looking out over the park. In the distance he could see the village and he wondered just how Oldcastle
would
react to his being there. It was the most infernal luck that William hadn’t come the previous day. Then perhaps Louisa would be engaged to him and Mabel would be satisfied. Alvescot did not look forward to meeting any of the household members, but he decided it behooved him to seek out Edward as soon as possible. That one thing he could do for Vanessa, and she might be so grateful she would rush into his waiting arms.

God, he was too old for this half-witted daydreaming. There was plenty of time to court Vanessa. She wasn’t going to disappear. It bothered him that she’d looked so confused about the offer to visit St. Aldwyns, and even though they’d been interrupted, she could have said something about it before she left him. Had he put it wrong? He was trying to be so careful not to rush her. His arrival had come as a surprise, and he wanted to give her sufficient time to recover before he asked her to consider how she wished to spend the rest of her life.

He’d given it a great deal of thought. John had to know Cutsdean as his ancestral home, but Alvescot could not totally neglect St. Aldwyns. And what if they had children of their own? There was no solution but to share the two estates as their residence, going from one to the other during the course of a year. It was not ideal, but it would have to do. Almost anyone she married would expect at least as much of her. Alvescot was willing to make quite a few concessions if Vanessa was willing to marry him.

And why shouldn’t she be? He had a lot to offer her, didn’t he? She would become a countess and mistress of St. Aldwyns as well as Cutsdean. He would take some of the burden of management from her shoulders. The children would become his responsibility as well as hers. Somehow, he wasn’t sure all these things held the attraction for her that they might have held for another woman, but he realized that was part of her appeal to him. She was a strong, self-sufficient woman, with a beauty and intelligence to match. But he knew, as surely as he stood there by the window, that she wouldn’t marry him unless she loved him. And about that he could not be sure.

“Thank you, Bibury. I won’t be needing you until later,” he said, dismissing the valet.

First he would find Edward and take care of that problem. It had begun to seem a rather insignificant problem, actually. If not the least of his concerns, Edward seemed rather low on the list right now, especially because Alvescot considered the matter more or less settled.

Edward proved, however, not only elusive but, when finally tracked down to the Orangery, of all places, to be in an obstinately foul mood. The earl wondered if it had continued unabated since the staged accident with the pony.

“I see you’re back,” Edward said with his customary sneer. “You
take your obligations as co-trustee rather seriously.”

“True.” Alvescot watched the young man peel an orange and carelessly toss the skin on the ground. “I have some news I thought might interest you.”

“I doubt it.”

There was no sense allowing the fellow to irritate him, but Alvescot could feel the muscles in his jaw tighten. “Probably not,” he said levelly, “if you don’t consider it of any importance that your father’s alive.”

“What are you talking about?” Edward demanded. “My father killed himself over a year ago.”

“He tried to make it look as though he had. What he did was turn all his property into ready cash and take off for the Continent.”

“You’re lying,” the young man snarled. “Why would he do that?”

There was a gleam in Alvescot’s eyes, but he said, “I could only speculate on that, Edward. What I do know is that he’s been running various gambling establishments in northern Italy, and doing very well at it.”

Edward tossed the uneaten orange toward the rear of the building, wiping his hands fastidiously on a linen handkerchief. His eyes were hooded now, but Alvescot could see that his cupidity had won over his disbelief. “Where in northern Italy?”

“He’s been in Turin and Milan, but the latest information places him in Genoa, where he’s using the name Como. By all accounts, he’s living very well, has grown a beard, and changes his name each time he moves. I shouldn’t think it would be difficult to track him down.”

“No, but it would be expensive,” Edward said, with a shrewd look at the earl. “How did you happen to gather all this information?”

“I was curious,” Alvescot replied, indifferent. “Your sister couldn’t ‘feel’ that your father was dead, you know, and it started me to wondering. I had my solicitor check it out.”

His show of indifference did not fool Edward for a moment. In Edward’s experience, one did not go to the time and expense of such an action without a definite goal in mind. And he considered it highly unlikely that the earl was going to all this effort for his feather-brained sister, so it must be Vanessa who had captured his interest. No wonder she wouldn’t come around for Edward! He was not in a position to compete with Alvescot’s title and wealth, and it was just like Vanessa to overlook Edward’s inordinate good looks for the craggy-faced earl. He was determined to make them both suffer for this slight.

“I haven’t the wherewithal to travel to Italy on some wild goose chase,” he said, caustic now. “There’s no guarantee I would find my father, in any case. Your information could very well be wrong. I think it just as likely my father is dead and someone has mistaken a similar-looking man for him. Running a gambling establishment is not the sort of thing a gentleman does.”

Alvescot shrugged and turned away. “Believe what you wish. Actually, I think it’s wise to be skeptical in instances such as this.” He paused with his hand on the door. “Perhaps I won’t bother telling your mother and sister. Mrs. Curtiss would undoubtedly make a mad dash for Italy to find her husband and enjoy the benefits of newly-acquired wealth. On the other hand, I might be remiss in withholding the information.”

As he started to let himself out, he felt Edward move forward and grab his arm. “No, don’t tell them. It would only be upsetting if the tale proved false. The thing to do is for me to go and see, now I think of it. That would save my mother and sister unnecessary false hope,” he said virtuously. “But I’ll need money for the trip. I can’t tolerate traveling in a shabby way. And it may take time to track my father down, if it is my father.”