Mad About the Earl (19 page)

“Well, I suppose you might,” he drawled. “Your sister’s acquaintance in these parts is so small, it could hardly be anyone else, could it?”

Was that a gibe? If their good and worthy neighbors shunned them, it was hardly Griffin’s fault. “You encourage her in this folly.”

The dark eyes glinted. “What an odd notion you have of me that you should think so.”

“You should have told her to go home and change,” snapped Griffin.

“Ah, but that would argue a far more intimate relationship between us than you would allow, my friend.”

“You needn’t go on discussing me as if I’m not here,” remarked Jacks. “Tony doesn’t mind my breeches, do you, Tony? Besides, he’s right. He has no authority over me, and I wouldn’t heed him anyway, so I don’t see why you should hold him responsible.”

Maddox had shown singular interest in Jacks since her return from Bath. While his innocent sister seemed to think their neighbor offered nothing more than the friendship he’d always shown her, Griffin thought otherwise.

Maddox was Griffin’s friend, too, but he was also possibly the last man on the planet Griffin wanted as a husband for his sister.

Besides, the fellow encouraged all her headstrong ways, including this mania the girl had for dressing in men’s clothes. It was hoydenish, bordering on the scandalous. If news of her eccentric behavior traveled to London, he’d never marry her off.

No, Maddox could not be permitted to court Jacqueline. Besides, for a deVere, marriage was never a matter of personal choice. As none knew better than Griffin.

“Go home and change into a gown,” he ordered her. “And tell Peggy to do something with your hair.”

“Oh, very well,” she grumbled, swinging herself up onto her horse without even a mounting block or a leg up. Griffin shook his head.

“She’s no simpering miss, that one,” said Maddox with a smile.

“What she is, is none of your concern!” flashed Griffin. “My sister is not for you, Maddox, so get that notion out of your mind once and for all.”

“But as the dear girl so often points out, it’s only nine hundred and forty-nine days until her twenty-first birthday,” Maddox murmured. “And I am a very patient man.”

The implication made hot blood rush to Griffin’s face. “If she marries you, she won’t get a penny from me.”

Maddox’s aristocratic mouth flattened. “You’re a brute, deVere, but I’ve never heard you descend to vulgarity before. I don’t give a damn about your money or hers, and you know it.”

Griffin would not be fobbed off. Between his teeth, he said, “You’ll not have her, do you hear me?” He’d let deVere marry her to the ancient Malby first!

“You always did possess an uncertain temper,” said Maddox, leaning forward a little in the saddle. “Small wonder, the rumors that have sprung up about you. Even I begin to question if they’re true.” For a few heartbeats, his gaze locked with Griffin’s.

No, no, not Maddox, too. Surely he’d believed Griffin’s denial, even if no one else in the county had. Good God, they’d practically grown up together!

“The coroner entered a verdict of accidental death,” he ground out. “The matter has been put to bed.”

“Yes, but he can always reopen an inquest if new information comes to light, can’t he?” said Maddox. He hesitated, and although his manner was customarily debonair, Griffin knew Maddox watched him like a hawk. “There are rumors of a witness.”

White-hot terror shot through Griffin like a flare. He took a few moments to catch his breath. “A witness? Who?”

“That, I do not know. But I recommend you come out of your cave for a while and show the people you’re not such an ogre as they think. Public opinion is stacked against you here.” Grimly, he added, “They do try peers for murder these days, you know.”

“Yes. I know it.”

With a nod, Maddox touched his whip to the brim of his hat and urged his horse forward.

Griffin stood watching him go. For a few disorienting seconds, he felt as if every ounce of feeling had left his body. Then sensation returned in a surge of furious fear. Swearing viciously under his breath, he turned on his heel and strode off, back to his ditch.

But the work had lost the power to calm his jangling nerves. He’d delayed far too long and was about to reap the reward.

He needed to get Jacks away from Cornwall and safely married to a man who was not Anthony Maddox or the pox-ridden old degenerate their grandfather had chosen for her. To do that, he must give Jacks a season—immediately—and he needed Rosamund if he wanted Jacqueline’s debut to be a success.

Maddox had implied he intended to offer for Jacqueline when she turned one and twenty, with or without a dowry.

But that marriage could never be. Jacqueline was out of her senses if she entertained the notion. Even mere friendship with the fellow was dangerous, if it came to that.

Griffin was no expert in such things, but it seemed to him that Jacks was not in love with Tony Maddox. The fellow was a Devil with the ladies, however. If he chose to
make
Jacks fall in love with him, she might do so. And what woman didn’t unburden all her secrets to her lover?

That would be fatal. He needed to remove his sister from Maddox’s vicinity and get her married off as soon as may be.

Time was running out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

When Rosamund and her companion arrived at Pendon Place, no one came out to greet them. Diccon the footman handed Rosamund and Tibby down from the carriage and preceded them up the stairs. He rapped on the door with a pristine, white-gloved hand.

While they waited for what seemed an inordinately long time for someone to answer, Rosamund gave Tibby a reassuring smile and looked about her.

What she saw daunted her somewhat. The exterior of the house showed clear signs of neglect, a sad contrast to her recollection of its immaculate grandeur three years before. The lawn hadn’t been scythed for some time, and the graveled drive was dotted with weeds. On the house itself, the windows that weren’t covered in ivy were in dire need of cleaning.

The place felt desolate, abandoned.

If the exterior of Griffin’s lair looked like this, she shuddered to imagine the inside.

The massive door creaked open a short way, and a round-faced gimlet-eyed woman appeared. She had apple-red cheeks and mousy hair caught up in a straggling knot at her nape.

The woman jabbered something at them, which Rosamund found unintelligible but took as a demand to state their business.

Diccon the footman looked down his nose at the woman. “Lady Rosamund Westruther and Miss Tibbs to see Lord Tregarth.”

“Strangers, you say?” The woman peered at Tibby, then at Rosamund. “We don’t have no truck with them in these parts. The master, ’e don’t see no one a’tall.”

“He will see me,” said Rosamund. “Fetch him and tell him his affianced wife is here.” She smiled. “Would you be so kind as to show us in?”

She attempted to peer past the housekeeper, but the woman was a head taller than she and built like a sofa, so that was impossible.

The housekeeper eyed her narrowly, as if she suspected her of intending to steal the silverware. “He’s not here and won’t be back till nightfall, so there’s no point in your waiting, is there? Affianced wife, did you say?”

“Yes. I did,” said Rosamund. She took out her card and handed it to the housekeeper. “And you must be the housekeeper. Mrs.…”

“Peggy’ll do, mistress.” She thought for a moment. “You’re that heiress.” Her mouth turned down at the corners. “We don’t have much truck with heiresses in these parts, neither.”

Rosamund struggled against an absurd desire to laugh.

Diccon sniffed. “That, my good woman, is quite obvious. What are you about to keep my lady standing like this?”

Rosamund silenced Diccon with a glance. On impulse, she said, “Is any of the family at home?”

“Lady Jacqueline deVere is here, ma’am,” the housekeeper said grudgingly.

“Will you send in my card and inquire if Lady Jacqueline will receive me?”

Rosamund wasn’t sure whether Griffin’s sister would remember her from her earlier visit, but perhaps she might at least recognize the name.

After another long wait, the housekeeper returned. “This way.”

The woman sent a series of sharp-eyed looks at them over her shoulder as she led them through the bowels of the house.

Rosamund shot an amused glance at Tibby and called ahead, “When will your master be back?”

“Don’t come home till dark most days,” was the reply. “Thursday nights, he dines with the vicar, so it’ll be even later than that tonight.”

The vicar?
Oblivious of Rosamund’s surprise, the housekeeper halted and gestured toward an opened door. “Here we are, then.”

Without another word, Peggy stumped away.

The housekeeper hadn’t bothered to announce them. Rosamund and Tibby hesitated on the threshold.

A lady perhaps a year or two younger than Rosamund rose from the escritoire by the window and came forward to greet them. Her gown was drab and ill-fitted, and she had a strange, loping gait to her walk that made her appear all arms and legs. Her hair was jet black with a riotous curl to it, just like Griffin’s. Her complexion was unfashionably brown.

Rosamund saw a clear challenge to dressing the girl and grooming her into a graceful debutante. That was all to the good. She relished a challenge.

On the positive side, despite her unconventional looks, there was something very taking about Lady Jacqueline. The openness of her expression and the lanky vigor of her movements endeared her at once.

“Oh, Lady Rosamund, yes!” the girl said, throwing out a hand in an all-encompassing gesture of welcome. “Do come in. I remember you from that time you came to stay. You will laugh when I tell you that at first I thought that you were an angel walking among us. I was so frightened! I thought you’d come to take me up to Heaven to be with my mama. Which was rather optimistic of me, as it turns out. My brother calls me a Hell-born babe.” She gave a low, throaty laugh. “How do you do?”

If she’d not been accustomed to dealing with Cecily’s startling utterances, Rosamund might have been thrown into confusion by this. Instead, she said, “Please, call me Rosamund. I’m so happy to renew our acquaintance.”

She introduced Tibby and noted with approval that Jacqueline was equally friendly toward her companion. Nothing set up Rosamund’s hackles more than young ladies who thought their stations gave them license to be rude to people they considered beneath them.

Griffin’s sister said, “Oh, and you must call me Jacks. Everyone does.”

Rosamund regarded her thoughtfully. “Do you mind if I call you Jacqueline? It is such an elegant name.”

“Doesn’t suit me at all, does it?” said Jacqueline. “I’m no beauty like you.”

“You are charming,” said Rosamund. “You have just returned home, I take it?”

“Yes, thank goodness! I was staying in Bath with the Warringtons. Do you know them?” Jacqueline rolled her eyes. “The stuffiest people! And
Bath,
you know. You can’t ride there—well, not properly. And the place crawls with invalids and fashionable ladies who are forever imagining they’ve contracted some mysterious complaint or other. And they want to tell you
all
the details. As if an illness makes them more interesting!”

Rosamund laughed. “How horrid for you. When you come to London, you will find far more to entertain you than in Bath, I assure you.”

The girl’s brow wrinkled. “London?”

Oh, dear.
Griffin hadn’t told her yet. Hurriedly, Rosamund said, “Perhaps I have it wrong. Do not regard it.”

But Jacqueline wasn’t listening. “So that’s why! I
knew
there was something in the wind.” Her heavy eyebrows drew together. “He’s going to try to marry me off, isn’t he?”

She spoke in a tone of such indignation that Rosamund was startled. “Is that such a bad thing?” She made a gesture of apology. “Forgive me, but most young ladies—”

“Griffin doesn’t care for what most ladies do.” Jacqueline shot to her feet. Her face was flushed—not with anger, as Rosamund had first thought. The sheen of tears glittered in those gray eyes, and her lips quivered slightly. “He wants to be rid of me. I am too much trouble and I’ve made a mess of everything and he wants me gone. Why do you think he packed me off to Bath?”

“That is not true!” Rosamund rose to her feet also, feeling like a witless wretch for upsetting the girl. “Pray, believe me. I
know
that is not true.”

She didn’t
know
anything of the kind, of course, but she couldn’t let Jacqueline work herself up into this state. Good God, she’d never dreamed the news would upset Jacqueline so.

“But…” The girl’s eyes widened. “He has told you about me?” The shocked betrayal in her tone confused Rosamund. What did she think Griffin had told her? A little bitterly, she reflected that Jacqueline need have no concerns in that quarter. Griffin never confided in her about anything.