Wicked Wyckerly (8 page)

Better to consider his own predicament. Now that his hiding place had been revealed, all London would know his whereabouts. He had to return and face the music. And the bailiffs. And the creditors. And whoever in hell had planned to make him look suicidal.

Had Bibley really thought Fitz would take the escape his fraudulent death offered? Possibly. Fitz had had a great-uncle return from the dead once. It had been a source of much amusement over the dinner table when Tobias Wyckerly had returned from years in darkest Africa to find his supposed widow married to another man. But surely Bibley would not have gone against Fitz’s express wishes—unless he’d felt pressured by unforeseen circumstances.

Geoff’s ambitious branch of the family had taught his cousin to appreciate an extravagant lifestyle. Had Geoff decided to add a title to his wealth by taking advantage of Bibley’s suggestion of fraud?

In any case, Miss Merriweather would retrieve her young relations much easier without a Wicked Wyckerly tarnishing her reputation.

9

“Fitz is a gallant blade of the first order,” the marchioness murmured in Abigail’s ear as she poured the tea, “but like so many younger sons of society, his pockets are to let.”

Abigail didn’t care about pockets or blades. Aside from learning of her incredible fortune, she was still reeling from learning that her handsome, elegant guest was on familiar terms with a
marchioness
. Had she known Mr. Wyckerly was actually a respectable part of the London
ton
, she would never have been able to stutter a word in his presence. And she’d asked him to pick her strawberries!

Mr. Wyckerly—or Danecroft, or whoever he was—had refused to sit down in his filthy clothes and had made his excuses earlier, abandoning her to this elegant lady’s machinations. Abby supposed she deserved to be abandoned, but she stupidly missed his reassuring bows and gallantries that eased communication between the lady and her own simple self. Mostly, she needed his charm and presence to shield her while she contemplated the enormity of what the lady had told her. She needed time to think things through. She didn’t respond well to surprises.

Inheritance? Her father’s distant cousin had remembered
her
?

“Are you certain that I was named in the will?” she asked tentatively, because too much weighed on the answer, and she could not afford to be backward. “Isn’t it more likely he remembered my father, and it would go to Tommy?”

“No,” the lady said firmly. “The amount was specifically set aside for females of the family. I regret that we were not introduced earlier.”

Abby’s heart thudded in her chest. Surely a thousand pounds would allow her to hire a solicitor? She didn’t care about society’s seasons or new wardrobes. She was country born and bred, with no training for the beau monde. All she wanted was to reclaim the children.

The possibility that she might have to
marry
some stranger before she could have the children terrified her. Surely, that wouldn’t be necessary now?

She didn’t know how to express her doubts to the self-confident woman complacently occupying her dull front room. The marchioness had sweeping dark eyebrows that rose and fell with her volatile temper. She wore her rich chestnut hair in an elegant chignon pinned with what appeared to be small sapphires. Her blue eyes smiled, so she did not seem unfriendly, although Abby detected a hint of sadness in their depths.

She thought the lady might have character, but the marchioness disguised it well with city mannerisms, sipping her tea and haughtily observing her surroundings.

“Mr. Wyckerly has been helpful,” Abby said, returning to their earlier topic, defending him for no reason except that she didn’t know what else to say. He’d waded into a
pigsty
after his daughter. She didn’t know many men who would do that.

The marchioness’s rouged lips curved and a soft chuckle escaped them. “He is that. The dinner-table stories I’ll tell of the
ton
’s most charming Corinthian consorting with pigs will be well worth the journey. Fitz’s survival has depended on his being helpful to the right people. I must remember to call him Danecroft, although it’s hard to. His father and brother were such dull clods, they should have buried the title with them.”

“Title?” Abigail felt like a parrot. Perhaps too many surprises at once had bludgeoned her wits.

“Earl of Danecroft, m’dear.” The grand lady looked on her with a dash of pity for her rural ignorance. “He’s just come rather suddenly into his family’s bankrupt estate. But enough of him. We must get to know each other better so I can judge the best gentlemen for you to meet.”

An
earl
. She’d let an earl muck about in her pigsty. She’d given him what amounted to a storage shed to sleep in these last few nights! An earl’s daughter had been bathing in her kitchen. Abigail wondered if she could excuse herself to go bash her head against a wall, but she decided it was not her fault if an earl had decided to make a fool of her by arriving incognito. From the start, she’d known he was a deceiving charmer, so she wasn’t a complete idiot. Only a partial one.

“Is marriage my only choice?” she finally found the wit to ask. “Couldn’t I just consult a solicitor?”

The marchioness frowned and tapped her teacup impatiently. “I gather from your letters that your main concern is retrieving the children, is it not?”

Abigail nodded.

“Then unless we can find evidence that your father’s executor or the children’s guardians are incompetent, you must prove that the children will have the proper guidance of a man before there is any possibility whatsoever of reclaiming them. It’s how the world works.”

The lady was right, of course. And honest, which gave her hope that she might trust her. The lady had arrived in a carriage with a crest, unlike deceptive Mr. Wyckerly, who’d been thrown off a mail coach. She knew about Abigail’s letters to the marquess. She knew Mr. Wyckerly—Lord Danecroft—and he knew her. Abby couldn’t find anything to distrust except her own remarkable good fortune. And if the lady could help her reclaim the children, how could she not do everything within her power to do so? Wasn’t this exactly what she’d prayed would happen—that a wealthy, titled person would come to her aid?

“Of course, we will have my man of business investigate the children’s circumstances,” Lady Belden continued, “but in the meantime, you should prepare yourself for a battle. It helps to have powerful allies, and all the better if they’re men. For that, we will need to spruce you up.”

The lady observed Abigail with a critical eye until Abby was ready to squirm in her seat. She didn’t know whether she liked the marchioness. She was simply attempting to digest her abrupt change in circumstance. She had spent her entire life in Chalkwick Abbey. She did not know how to go about elsewhere. And the thought of trusting this stranger to teach her . . .

“Good bosom. You must display it to better effect,” the marchioness announced. “Your hair is all wrong, but I’ll have my hairdresser fashion it for you. With the proper headdress, no one will notice the unsuitable color. You’re well past the ingenue stage, so I think we can dismiss white and dress you in colors,” she said with all the power and authority of an aristocrat. “You’ll do just fine.”

Abigail didn’t want to do fine. She didn’t want to go to London. But recalling Tommy’s pleas, she knew she would do whatever it took to make her siblings happy again. She straightened her shoulders and sipped her tea as if she were in perfect agreement.

She would faint dead away when she reached the privacy of her room.

“You will do splendidly in London,” Fitz said with false joviality as maids scurried to and fro, packing Miss Merry’s bags under the curt commands of the marchioness in the upper hall.

Even standing there in shock, Miss Merry managed to bleed him with her glare. “I trust all London isn’t filled with lying earls, then. I have an unfortunate tendency to believe people are who they say they are.”

“I didn’t lie to you,” he protested. “I’ve been an earl for less than a week. And I’m dashed uncomfortable with it.”

She relented enough to scan the kitchen doorway for some sign of Penelope, who had grown miraculously quiet after screaming foul curses during yet another bath.

“I’m sorry for the loss of your family,” she said. “I know how difficult that is. I hope you find someone suitable to look after your daughter. She deserves a good home.”

Fitz would rather she bled him with glares than twist a knife in his heart as she was doing now. “I have no choice but to take her to London with me while I straighten out the gossip mill. It might be convenient to be dead, and perhaps my heir and tenants might wish it so, but contrary to your belief, I do not lie.”

She nodded absently. “Lies of omission don’t count in your world, I suppose. Do you have any relations who might help you with Penelope?”

He snorted and tapped his thigh impatiently. She was the most annoying prig of a female. “If you demand complete and open honesty, then I must point out to you that Penelope is the result of an illicit liaison and won’t be welcome in the homes of what few relations might still claim me as family.”

“Her mother . . . ?” his prim hostess inquired without any sign of condemnation for his wayward youth.

“Was an actress who married well and moved to the Continent,” he said more sharply than he’d intended. It was still hard to believe he’d ever been so young and desperate as to believe in love when all evidence was to the contrary. “Penny has never known her.”

“That’s her mother’s loss, then,” Miss Merry said in apparent disapproval of Penny’s mother. “If I had a choice, I would be happy to look after her, but for now it seems my future lies in hands other than my own.”

He ought to despise her rural bluntness. He certainly resented her backing out of their agreement for her to take Penny while he claimed his stallion. But had he been she, he would have done the same. They were in accord on one point—the children had to come first. “You give me hope that there are other sane, sensible women who will think the same as you. I don’t believe I’m qualified to cope with Penelope on my own.” And he hadn’t the funds to hire anyone. He hid his desperation behind a smile.

The marchioness swept down the stairs, trailing a maid, a groom, and her carriage driver carrying bandboxes and trunks. “Most of these clothes are outdated and will have to go to your maids later, but they’re good quality and will suffice for now. If we leave immediately, we can be in Oxford before dark and in London by tomorrow. Fitz, are you traveling with us?”

He’d rather be gnawed to death by rabbits. Nevertheless, he bowed gallantly. “If you would be so gracious as to accept our company, I would be delighted.”

“
Our
company?” Although she was half a head shorter than he, Isabell managed to convey the impression of looking disapprovingly down on him. She’d seen Penelope earlier but had no reason to recognize her.

The patter of little feet arrived just in time. Fitz grinned and turned to the imp racing down the corridor, green eyes wide with interest. Her hair had been braided while still wet, but already the unruly forelock was escaping. He didn’t know where Abigail’s efficient servants kept finding new clothes for her, but Penelope was now properly garbed in pretty cloth slippers that matched her spring green muslin. She even wore a frilly petticoat and a lacy white scarf that would no doubt be smudged with snot and her luncheon within the hour.

“My lady, my daughter, Penelope. Can you make a curtsy, Penny?”

He nearly crowed with pride when she performed a perfectly correct bob of respect.

“I want to go with Miss Abby,” the pestilence demanded the instant she stood straight again. She was a Wyckerly—staying silent wasn’t in her nature. Fitz lifted his eyebrow to the dowager but didn’t voice the challenge.

“As my niece says, this just gets interestinger and interestinger.” The marchioness glanced from Fitz to Penny, confirming the likeness, and shook her head in disapproval. “I thought you smarter than that. Oh well, come along, then, we will be a merry party.”

Feeling as if he rode to his doom by returning to London, where Newgate and creditors awaited, Fitz lifted Penny to his shoulder and followed the ladies out to the oversized berlin.

He glanced at Miss Merriweather, who appeared to be doing her best imitation of a doorlatch. He’d rather hear her laughing with joy at her newfound fortune. Instead, she looked pale and frozen. And still she bussed her weeping maid on the cheek, quietly gave instructions to her cook, and climbed into the berlin without a word of protest.

He wanted to growl and tell her that she needn’t listen to Isabell if she didn’t want to go to London. But Miss Merry’s unusual timidity wasn’t any of his business.

He had approximately a day and a half to figure out how to hire a solicitor without money, and dodge bailiffs and Newgate until he could sell his stud, while taking care of a six-year-old diva.

When all was said and done, being dead held a certain peaceful appeal.

Late the following day, the berlin rumbled down London’s Oxford Street and turned into an older section just outside of Mayfair where once elegant townhomes now appeared to lean tiredly against one another. A sedan chair carrying an old woman wearing the powdered wig of another era plodded slowly in front of the weary horses.

All the way through town, Abigail had gawked at the tall buildings they passed. They’d traversed streets packed with carriages, wagons, scurrying servants, and idle gentlemen. She’d seen monumental edifices she was certain would have encompassed all of Chalkwick Abbey. Holding Penelope in her lap, she pressed her face to the window just like the child. Penny clung to her doll, and a book she’d taken from the nursery, but she’d not once looked at either.

The lumbering coach maneuvered down a street no wider than an alley, and Abby covered Penny’s ears as a street urchin shook his fist and cursed a leaking fish wagon. When the carriage halted in front of a narrow brick house with blank, dark windows, she glanced over at Mr. Wyckerly—
Lord Danecroft
. He looked exceedingly elegant in his cutaway coat, pantaloons, Hessians, and tall city hat. She should have known he was an earl just from his attire. But the earl wasn’t looking very happy to be home.

No housekeepers had hung lanterns out the windows in this dark neighborhood. No mourning wreath adorned the house’s faded front door, and no knocker indicated the family was at home. A precariously leaning rail scarcely protected passersby from falling down the stairway to the kitchen. Leaves and other debris littered the filthy stairs up to the main floor. Penelope still looked fascinated.

“No bailiffs on the doorstep,” the marchioness said gaily. “Talk to Lord Quentin first, Fitz. He was bemoaning your demise and castigating himself for not aiding you sooner.”

The new earl appeared surprised to hear that, but he nodded silently, all his gallant charm submerged in this crash with reality.

Abigail wanted to catch his sleeve and urge him to go home with them, to a place filled with light and servants and warmth, but he was an impoverished earl who needed to marry great wealth, and she was a nobody. She knew better than to plant her hopes for the future on him, but she hated the idea of never seeing him again.