Lottie waved her hand irritably. “His usual breakfast.”
“Oh.” Beatrice frowned. “Then why—?”
“He said not a word to me the entire time! Instead, he busied himself reading his correspondence and muttering over the scandal sheets. And mark this—he left the room without bidding me good-bye. And when he came back in a minute later, do you know what he did?”
“I haven’t a clue.”
“He walked to the sideboard, picked up another piece of toast, and strode right by me again without speaking!”
“Ah.” Beatrice winced. “Perhaps he had important business on his mind.”
Lottie arched one eyebrow. “Or perhaps he’s simply a fool.”
Beatrice wasn’t certain what to say to that, so for a moment she was silent. Both ladies perambulated slowly through the crowded room and stopped with silent consensus before a side table entirely covered in gilded putti.
“That,” Lottie said with consideration, “is the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“’Tis, isn’t it? It’s almost as if the maker had a morbid dislike of side tables.” Beatrice tilted her head, examining the table. “I went to visit Jeremy yesterday.”
“How is he?”
“Not well.” She felt Lottie’s swift glance. “It’s very important that we pass Mr. Wheaton’s bill. The soldiers who would benefit from this bill are many—perhaps thousands of men, and some of those men served under Jeremy. He cares so passionately about the bill. I know that it would do him immeasurable good if the veterans got a better pension.”
“I’m sure it would, dear. I’m sure it would,” Lottie said gently.
“He simply . . .” Beatrice had to pause a moment and swallow before she could continue; then she said more steadily, “He simply needs a reason to… to live, Lottie. I worry for him, I do.”
“Of course you do.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Oates leave him in that room by himself for far too long at a time.” Beatrice shook her head. The Oateses’ reaction to their son’s horrific injuries when he returned home had long been a source of concern for her. “They’ve given up on him, I think.”
“I’m sorry, dear.”
“They looked at him when he returned,” Beatrice whispered, “and it was as if he were already dead. As if he meant nothing to them unless he was entirely whole and well. They’ve now turned to Jeremy’s brother, Alfred, and treat him as if he is the heir instead of Jeremy.”
Beatrice looked at her friend, and this time she couldn’t keep the tears from swimming in her eyes. “And that horrible Frances Cunningham! I still get angry when I think how she threw him over when he returned. It’s so shameful.”
“Pity, isn’t it, that no one condemned her for her heartlessness,” Lottie said thoughtfully. “But then he had lost his legs and wasn’t expected to live.”
“She could’ve at least waited until he was out of the sickroom,” Beatrice muttered darkly. “And she’s married now. Did you know? To a baronet.”
“A fat, old baronet,” Lottie said with satisfaction. “Or so I’ve heard. Perhaps she got her just deserts after all.”
“Humph.” Beatrice stared a moment at the putti. The one on the corner of the table nearest her looked remarkably like a fat old man with digestive troubles. Perhaps Frances Cunningham had gotten what she’d deserved. “But you understand, don’t you, how important it is that this bill is passed now—not a year or two hence?”
“Yes, I do.” Lottie linked her arm with Beatrice’s, and they began to stroll again. “You are so good. Much better than me.”
“You want this bill passed as well.”
“But my interest is theoretical.” A faint smile curved Lottie’s wide mouth. “I think it only just that men who have served for years in sometimes deplorable conditions have a fair compensation. You, dear Beatrice, believe with a passion. You feel for those wretched creatures, almost as much as you feel for Jeremy.”
“Perhaps,” Beatrice said. “But in the end, it’s Jeremy that I feel the most for.”
“Exactly. Which is why I am so concerned.”
“Whatever about?”
Lottie halted and took her hands. “I don’t want you to be disappointed . . .”
Beatrice turned her face to the side, but even so, she could not escape the end of Lottie’s sentence.
“. . . if the bill is not passed in time.”
Chapter Five
Well, Longsword did not like this turn of events one wit, but a bargain once struck with the Goblin King is very hard to break. Thus he was compelled to work for the Goblin King, and that is a dirty job, indeed; I can tell you! He never saw the sun, he never heard laughter, and he never felt a cool breeze against his cheek, for the Goblin Kingdom, as you may have heard, is a horrible place. But the worst part for Longsword was the knowledge that the master he served and the things he did were an affront to God and Heaven itself.
Because of this, every year Longsword would go to his master, lower himself to one knee, and beg to be relieved of his horrible servitude.
And every year the Goblin King refused to let Longsword go….
—from Longsword
“Ridiculous that I can’t touch any of the Blanchard monies,” Reynaud growled a day later. He paced the little sitting room from fireplace to window, feeling like a wild wolf caged. “How am I to pay my lawyers without funds?”
“You can hardly blame Uncle Reggie for being reluctant to pay for his own ouster,” Miss Corning said. She sat serenely by the small fire, sipping some of her infernal tea.
“Ha! If he thinks that’ll stop me, he’ll be sorely disappointed,” Reynaud retorted. “I have a petition before parliament to form a special committee to look into my case.”
Miss Corning set her teacup down carefully. “Already? I had no idea.”
Reynaud snorted. “If it were tomorrow, it’d not be soon enough for me. Once I prove my identity, they cannot keep the title from me.”
Miss Corning frowned, fiddling with her teacup.
Reynaud’s brows snapped together. “You don’t believe me?”
“It’s just… What if . . .” She shook her head slowly.
“What if what?”
“What if he says that you are mad?” she asked all in a rush, and looked up at him.
Reynaud stared. Insanity was one of the few reasons a man might be passed over for a title. “Do you have information that he will?”
“It was just something he said in passing.” She ducked her head, hiding her gray eyes from him.
Reynaud scowled, wondering what her uncle had actually said. He felt cold sweat start at the small of his back. You’ll never be a proper Englishman again, the goblins in his mind chittered. You’ll never belong. Reynaud balled his hands, fighting the voices.
“Do you feel well?” Miss Corning asked.
“Fine,” Reynaud snapped. “I’m fine.”
Her gray eyes looked troubled. “Perhaps if I talk to Uncle Reggie, he’d be willing to lend you some of his money for new clothes and such.”
“My money,” Reynaud growled.
She was throwing him a bone, and they both knew it. Damn her uncle to hell. He parted the curtain to peer out. Three stories below, a carriage lurked in front of the town house. Probably one of St. Aubyn’s political allies come to call.
“Yes, well, your money or Uncle Reggie’s money, the fact remains that he is the one in control of it,” Miss Corning observed. “It wouldn’t hurt your case to be more civil to him, especially since you’re staying in his house.”
“My house. I have every right to live in my house, and I’ll be damned before I crawl to that man.” Reynaud let the curtain drop.
Miss Corning rolled her eyes. “I didn’t say crawl, I said be more—”
“Civil, I know.” He stalked toward her. She was looking remarkably pretty this morning in a green frock that offset the pale rose of her cheeks and made her eyes sparkle like diamonds. “The only one I’m interes
ted in being ‘civil’ to is you.”
She paused, her tea dish halfway to her lips, and eyed him warily. Good. She took him far too much for granted as it was. They were in a room alone, for God’s sake, and he’d spent the last seven years in a society where the relations between a man and a woman were much more fundamental. In fact—
But his thoughts were interrupted by a footman appearing at the door. “You have a visitor, my lord.”
And the man stepped aside to reveal a vision. An elderly lady stood there, her back ramrod straight, her snowy white hair pulled into a severe knot at the crown of her head, her piercing blue eyes already narrowed in disapproval. Reynaud hadn’t seen her in seven years, and for a moment he feared he would lose his self-possession. He knew tears—awful unmanly tears—were near the surface.
Then she spoke. “Tiens! Such an ’orrible growth of ’air upon your face, nephew! I am quite repulsed. Is this, then, what gentlemen in the Colonies wear? I do not believe it; no, I do not!”
He went to her and took her hands, kissing her tenderly on the cheek despite her mutter of disgust. “I am glad to see you, Tante Cristelle.”
“Tcha! I do not think you can see at all with this ’air.” She reached a blue-veined hand to brush the hair falling into his face. Her touch, unlike her words, was gentle. Then her hand dropped. “And who is this child here? Have you lost so much of civilization that you closet yourself alone with a female in a respectable house?”
Reynaud turned, amused, to see that Miss Corning had jumped up from her chair and was eyeing Tante Cristelle warily. “This is a cousin of mine, Miss Beatrice Corning. Miss Corning, my aunt, Miss Cristelle Molyneux.”
Miss Corning curtsied as Tante Cristelle employed her looking glass and said, “I do not remember a cousin called Corning in my sister’s family.”
“I’m Lord Blanchard’s niece,” Miss Corning said.
Tante Cristelle’s eyes darkened. “C’est ridicule! My nephew doesn’t have a niece, only a nephew, and he not yet ten years of age.”
Reynaud cleared his throat, feeling like laughing for the first time since he’d set foot on English soil. “She means the present Earl of Blanchard, Tante.”
The old lady sniffed. “The pretender to the title. I see.”
Miss Corning looked cautious. “Um… perhaps I can bring up some tea?”
Reynaud would’ve preferred coffee or brandy, but since Miss Corning seemed to be fixated on tea, he merely nodded. She glided from the room, and he watched her go.
“That one is very pretty,” Tante Cristelle observed. “Not beautiful, but she ’as an air of grace about her.”
“Indeed.” Reynaud looked at his aunt. “You mentioned my sister. Is she well?”
“You don’t know?” Her brows snapped together in disapproval. “Did you not ask?”
“I have asked,” Reynaud replied as he ushered her to a chair. “But no one knows her as well as you do, Tante.”
“Humph,” said Tante Cristelle as she primly lowered herself to a chair. “Then I will tell you. You know your sister was widowed shortly after your… disappearance.”
Reynaud nodded. “So Miss Corning has told me.” He’d gone to look out the window again. London hadn’t changed much since his absence, but everything else had.
Everything.
“Bon,” Tante Cristelle said. “Then last year she married a rustic, a man from the Colony of New England. His name is Samuel Hartley.”
“That I’d heard as well,” he replied.
Strange to think that Emeline was now married to a man Reynaud had known in the army—a Colonial. Once again he felt that nauseating sense that his world was in motion, past and present conflicting, warring for his soul.
Tante Cristelle continued. “She ’as taken herself to live with her husband far, far overseas in the city of Boston. I do not know if such an action was wise on her part, but you know your sister. She can be quite the stubborn mule when she wishes.”
“And my nephew, Daniel?”
“Petite Daniel is fine and strong. Naturally his mother took him to live with her in America.”
Reynaud contemplated that. Ironic that he was now farther from his sister than he’d been before he’d sailed for England. Would he have delayed his return had he known she was in New England? He wasn’t sure. The need to regain his former life—his lands and title—had driven him for seven long years. Had in fact kept him alive and sane during the endless days and nights of his captivity. Nothing, not even the love for a sister, could keep him from his goal.
“Where have you been, Reynaud?” Tante Cristelle asked softly.
He shook his head, closing his eyes. How could he tell her, this gently bred aristocrat, what had been done to him?
After a moment he heard her sigh. “Bien. There is no need to speak of it if you do not wish.”
At that, he turned around. Tante Cristelle was watching him patiently. She was the elder sister of his late mother. Both women had grown up in Paris and had immigrated to England on his mother’s marriage. Tante Cristelle was in her seventh decade, but her snapping blue eyes were sharp, her mind one of the clearest he’d ever known.
“I intend to get my title back, Tante,” he said.
She nodded once. “Naturalement.”
“I have petitioned parliament to form a special committee to hear my case. When it is convened, I will have to appear before the committee in Westminster and plead my case. The current earl will present his side at the same time.”
Tante sniffed. “This usurper will not let go of his stolen title so easily, eh?”
“No,” Reynaud said grimly. “He’ll hold it for as long as he can, I’m sure. And he may ask to retain the title on the grounds that I’m mad.”
“Mad?” The old lady’s thin eyebrows rose.
Reynaud looked away. “I was delirious with fever when I arrived. I’m afraid there was a roomful of people to witness me raving like a lunatic.”
“And is that all?”
Reynaud grimaced uncomfortably. “There was an… incident yesterday. I was shot at—”
“Mon dieu!”
He waved away her concern. “It was nothing terrible. But I forgot myself somehow. I thought I was on the battlefield again.”
Silence.
Then Tante Cristelle drew breath. “Ah. Unfortunate. We will need good solicitors and men of business to combat the usurper.”
Reynaud looked up, hope making him feel suddenly weak. “Then you’ll help me.”
“Mais oui.” Tante Cristelle scowled. “And did you think otherwise?”
Reynaud helped her stand, feeling the fragile bones of her arm beneath his hand. “No, but it has been a very long time since I’ve had an ally.”
She shook her skirts into order. “We must plan a campaign, I think. I shall seek out these men of law, for I have maintained the estate of le petite Daniel whilst he sojourned in the Colonies and thus have many contacts. And you, you shall shave.”
“Shave?” Reynaud’s eyebrows shot up in amusement.
Tante Cristelle nodded sharply. “But of course, shave, and also you will need the new clothing, the proper wig, and the elegant shoes. For you must regain the aspect of the so-boring English milord, must you not? Thusly we shall confound our enemies with your very placidity.”
Reynaud clenched his jaw. He hated to ask, but he forced himself to. “I have no monies, Tante.”
She nodded, unsurprised. “I will lend you what you need, and when you become the earl again, you shall pay me back, yes?”
“Yes. Of course.” Reynaud bowed over her hand. “I cannot tell you, Tante, how relieved I am that you are on my side.”
“Tcha!” The old woman made a dismissive sound. “You have not lost your charm, I see, underneath that forest upon your face. But mark you this, nephew: a shave and a haircut are only part of what you’ll need to transform yourself into the respectable English gentleman.”
Reynaud frowned. “What else do you think
I need? Name it and I’ll buy it.”
“Ah, but this is a thing not to be bought. For this you will need all your charm.” She turned at the door and looked him in the eye, her gaze level and solemn. “A wife is what you need. An English wife of good family. For what man can be mad with a sweet, not-too-pretty wife by his side? Obtain a chit such as this and you will be halfway to regaining your title.”
THE NEXT MORNING dawned bright and sunny. After making her toilet, Beatrice decided to consult with Cook. She was descending the stairs to the front hall when she heard male voices.
Beatrice halted at the landing and looked over the rail to the hall below. There stood the butler, two footmen, and a gentleman she did not know but who looked—at least from the back—somehow familiar. She continued down the stairs slowly, eyeing the man. He wore a freshly powdered white wig and a black coat of a very fine cut, embroidered about the cuffs in silver and green thread. The butler was saying something to him, but the stranger must’ve sensed her stare. He turned.
And she froze on the stairs.
It was Lord Hope—but a Lord Hope transformed. Gone was the thick beard. His jaw was freshly shaven, revealing his square chin and the hard planes of his cheeks. He must’ve cut his hair very close to his head, for the wig he wore was beautifully curled and powdered and fit him excellently. Beneath the black velvet of his coat, his waistcoat was silver and green brocade, and lace fell at his wrists. He was the very epitome of a fine London gentleman, and Beatrice might have felt a pang of regret for the man she’d nursed for the last week had it not been for two things. First, from his left ear, the black iron cross still dangled, primitive and uncivilized next to the perfection of his white wig. And second, the three tattooed birds still circled his right eye, as permanent as the ebony color of the eye itself.
He wore the trappings of civilization, but no one but a fool would mistake them for anything but a thin veneer covering the savage beneath.
He bowed to her, one leg extended, his arm sweeping down sardonically. “Miss Corning.”
“Lord Hope.” She’d regained some of her self-possession and now finished her descent of the stairs. “You’ve undergone a most remarkable change.”