The Lonely Earl Page 3

  “Now, Betsy. Have you seen the gypsies this spring?” she asked in genuine curiosity.

  Zelle had succumbed by this time to all the forebodings her imagination could bring her. “Gypsies!”

  An uproar outside the inn distracted Faustina from the strong representations she was about to make to the Frenchwoman, and she looked from the window.

  The stable boys, and Faustina’s own groom, Combes, were gathered around the great oak tree that grew from one comer of the stableyard, its lower limbs spreading near the fence. They were laughing, their attention fixed on something above their heads.

  “A kitten up the tree,” guessed Joseph, but something in the quality of the laughter struck Faustina, and she hurried from the parlor.

  She followed Combes’s pointing finger and saw the object of the commotion. Zelle was right behind her, and uttered a piercing shriek into Faustina’s ear.

  “My lady!” she screeched, and made as though to swoon.

  “No time for that,” said Faustina tartly. “Just hold to your hysterics for a few moments, and then there will be plenty of time to indulge yourself.”

  Zelle swallowed quickly, and for the moment seemed calm enough. In the meantime, Faustina approached the foot of the tree as the men fell back. She looked up into the tree.

  The Lady Althea was perched on a limb well off the ground, seemingly calm enough. But Faustina read in the child’s eyes a certain fear when she looked at the ground below her, and she quickly closed her eyes as she clutched the limb beneath her.

  “Come, now, Althea. Is that your name?” Faustina said, having learned as much from Zelle. “I imagine you can have a lovely view over all the village from there, can’t you? I wish I could come up to sit beside you — that would be fun. But I can’t, and so I think perhaps you should come down now. See, here is poor Zelle, so upset because you didn’t tell her where you were going. I wonder why you chose this particular tree?”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but she understood the child to say, “The horses — I wanted to see them.”

  A quick glance at the stable showed Faustina at least the means of getting up the tree. The fence, then the stable roof. And a half-door in the stable through which one could, if one had a passion for the sight, see the gray horses of the stagecoach company, waiting for their next run.

  And once up the tree, Althea could not bring herself to descend. The limbs that had seemed such easy stepping-stones on the way up unaccountably moved out of reach once she had attained her goal. But she would not call for help.

  Faustina kept talking to her. “And now here comes Joseph to help you. I know you don’t need help, my dear,” Faustina lied convincingly, “but Joseph likes to climb, and you will give him the pleasure of coming up, won’t you?”

  So engrossed in her task was she that she was unaware of her surroundings. She had only one wish — to take away the lost look in the dark eyes looking down at her. Not until Joseph, swarming up the tree like a cat, had with flushed face taken Althea’s arms around his neck, and brought her down to the ground, did Faustina have leisure to attend to Zelle. What a stupid woman to have charge of a child, she thought. She framed a few telling words to transmit to the earl, if occasion arose. Now she must at least make sure Althea was restored to her governess. She took the child by the hand.

  Zelle, however, was nowhere to be seen. Betsy rolled her eyes significantly, and Faustina had no difficulty in understanding her message.

  The earl himself, on the perch of his phaeton, sat no more than a dozen feet away.

  Faustina had not seen Hugh Crale since his return. She was not prepared to see the long thin face, the dark hair touched with flecks of white. At thirty? Lines marked his face, from the comers of his piercing blue eyes down to the comers of his wide, sensitive mouth, the lips now turned tightly in.

  The face of a man — and not the boy she remembered.

  The small hand in hers clutched convulsively. She could think of nothing to say, either to the girl or to her father.

  At length the earl said, in a tone just short of insolent, “I collect I have the honor of addressing Miss Kennett?”

  Well, that put the seal on the way he wished their relationship to go. Formal, distant — well, she could be just as formal. She might be at a disadvantage, she thought, standing here in the stableyard of an inn, looking up at the man in his phaeton, but undaunted she said, “I am Miss Kennett. And I suppose you have come in search of your daughter. A wise move, I must say, considering the kind of protection you have given her.”

  Only the barest flicker of an eyebrow marked his reception of her words. “I must come to you to be instructed on my duty to my daughter, I see,” he said briefly. “The child is safe? I am sure of it, or you would have told me by now.”

  Hugh Crale gazed down at the woman looking angrily up at him. Little Faustina, he thought whimsically, who would have thought she would have grown up into a beauty? But not a compliant beauty, he thought, judging accurately the strength of her indignation with him. Well, hardly amusing. And he must be on his way — to anywhere, just so he was not alone in his own company.

  “Child, see that you obey Mademoiselle Deland better in the future,” he said shortly, and with a ceremonious lifting of his hat to Faustina, he wheeled his phaeton around in the smallest possible space and tooled out into the high street.

  Only after he was well out of sight did Zelle appear. “You must know,” she said to Faustina, not bothering to lower her voice, careless of Althea, “that my lord could not care any less about his daughter than, say, I would care about… that dog there. No, no. He has in mind her mother, and that he cannot bear.”

  After Zelle and a silent Althea had departed, Faustina followed Betsy Kyd into the cozy kitchen of the inn, where Faustina accepted hot coffee and a buttered roll.

  And some advice.

  “Best leave that alone,” advised Betsy. “I’ve got into the habit, you might say, Miss Faustina, of worrying about you, and I don’t see that you should fret yourself over that poor child. Sure I am that she is neglected, and sure I am too that all she wants — outside of the horses, that is — is to have her father look at her without that cold look in his eyes like a winter storm coming into Torquay. But that’s nothing you can do anything about, more’s the pity.”

  Faustina was wrapped in her own thoughts, and Betsy was not sure she had heard her. But then, Miss Faustina was always a strong-headed child, and she would have her own way in the end.

  “Now, tell me, Miss Faustina, what’s new at Kennett Chase?”

  “Well, my aunt Louisa is coming…” began Faustina, with mirth leaping suddenly in her eyes, and soon the two of them were comfortably engaged in a friendly gossip. But the thought of the child’s miserable eyes as she looked with a queer hunger at her father would not leave Faustina, not for a long time.

  Chapter 3

  Faustina determined that she would expunge Hugh Crale and his daughter once and for all from her thoughts. She had had a half-imagined feeling for him once — a feeling that she thought at the time was undying devotion. Now, upon maturer thought, she realized — so she told herself — that it was only her inborn and irritating feeling for the downtrodden.

  He had been oppressed by his stepmother, and while he had never said a word to her about it — in fact, had said very few to her on any subject — she had embroidered a halo around his dark head, made of equal parts of sympathy, confused adolescent hero worship, and simple lack of any other fixture to attach romance to.

  With little to feed on through the years, she had been able to forget Hugh Crale. She had toyed with the idea of marrying Mr. Denton, her first London season, but even though his vast wealth had much to recommend it, he himself did not. There was a baronet, and a viscount, and another one or two that she could not remember. Five in all, so Aunt Louisa had often told her, and she had found none to suit.

  She allowed Woods to take her shawl and relieve her of the parcels she had
bought after she had restored Althea to the hands of the foolish Zelle. It would be easy to erase the earl from her mind, she believed, for she had rarely met such an arrogant man. Gone was the Hugh of her childhood worship, the boy with gentle hands soothing the terrified larklet. Instead the man regarding her in the yard of the Green Man today was — she flung her small reticule peevishly onto the bed — odious!

  Luncheon was over, the next day, when she became aware of some untoward activity taking place. She hurried to join her father in his study, and found him peering out of the front window, looking onto the drive.

  “What is it?” she asked, hurrying across the room to his side. “My aunt, I suspect. Although I had not expected her until next week.”

  “Trust Louisa to set everything by the ears,” grumbled Lord Egmont. “It’s your aunt, all right — or else the grand cham of China. Look at that!”

  The sight that exacerbated the baron was unusual, at least for the driveway of Kennett Chase. It was a great lumbering closed traveling coach, maroon in color even to the great wheels. The spokes were picked out in gilt, as was also a thin line around the door panels. The lozenge on the door contained the Waverly arms. There was no doubt that Aunt Louisa had arrived.

  Behind Aunt Louisa’s coach, another carriage pulled up, this one piled high with boxes, from which a small face peered out, begging directions of Bone, who had already descended to assist the travelers. Faustina could hear little of the interview, but she understood his imperious gesture toward the stables.

  “Look at that!” repeated Egmont. “How many people in that coach, anyway? I wager that Louisa has pressed them all into comers — all to see to her comfort! No need to travel with such a great train as all this!”

  “Now, Papa,” chided Faustina. “But it does look,” she added with a touch of gloom, “as though she intended to stay for a time, doesn’t it?”

  Faustina hurried out to welcome her aunt, who had now been helped from the carriage by two females who had emerged first.

  “My dear aunt!” cried Faustina, adding other words of welcome that occurred to her. She saw quickly that her aunt had changed little since she had stayed with her in London. She appeared even prettier, if one did not look too closely at the tiniest of winkles at the comers of her eyes.

  “Dear Faustina!” she cried. “How lovely of you to have me here! And such a terrible ride! I had to stop overnight, you know, at dreadful inns. But I suppose they did their best!”

  “Really, Mama,” said the younger of the attending females, standing ready to help the dowager Lady Waverly up the three shallow steps to the front door of Kennett Chase. “They gave us every comfort. I found it quite exciting!”

  Julia Waverly’s bright eyes sparkled and she glanced at Faustina. Little enough excitement came her cousin’s way, thought Faustina, but she was spared any comment. Louisa spoke sharply. “Nonsense. What could be exciting about a stupid journey like this?”

  Egmont arrived on the doorstep, punctilious in outward courtesy to a visitor to his house. But the familiarity of long and not always amiable acquaintance proved too strong for him. “Why did you make the journey at all, Louisa?” he demanded bluntly. “I can’t imagine what could have led you to such disregard for your own comfort!”

  Louisa glanced sharply at her brother-in-law, suspecting malice, but the baron appeared calm, even cheerful, and she was never one to look below the surface. “I found London so stuffy, you know. I began positively to ache for the peace, the beauty of the rural countryside, the scenes of the shepherds, so quieting, you know.”

  Egmont pursued his thought doggedly. “But why didn’t you go to Beaufort? Your own home in the country should be restful enough. Don’t tell me you’ve sold those fine Dorset sheep of yours, and let the shepherds go?”

  After a prickling glance, Louisa chose to ignore him. “Faustina, my dear, you look ravishing. A trifle tired, but of course that is to be expected, dancing attendance on your father. You must not let him be selfish!”

  Daggers drawn! thought Faustina with ill-concealed dismay. There was to be no peace at Kennett Chase, at least for a while.

  “Ned is so prosy these days,” Louisa went on with an air of a gaiety that fooled no one. “Some stupid trouble at the customs. Why he doesn’t quit that dreary position, now that he’s succeeded to the title these two years past, I will never know. I vow he doesn’t listen to me.”

  “Why should he?” Egmont offered. “Best for a young man to have work to do that he likes. It’s all well enough to live on the land and manage the estates, but Ned’s father approved of what Ned is doing, and I must suppose that he had some sense.”

  “Whereas I don’t, I suppose?” said Aunt Louisa silkily. “I do know, I should hope, what is due to my son’s position. And if a mother doesn’t know best for her children—”

  “Dear Aunt,” interposed Faustina hurriedly, “I am sure you must be weary from your journey. How brave you are to endure it at all!” Was she doing it too brown? She rushed on before her aunt had time to answer. “Let me take you upstairs to freshen up.”

  Although Louisa had given no sign of flagging, she agreed to Faustina’s suggestion, at least as far as the entrance hall. Looking about her at the gilt girandoles flanking the ornately framed French mirror, the tapestry-covered small chairs lining one wall, the elegant black-and-white-tiled floor, she could find nothing amiss.

  Miss Bucknell made a belated appearance in the hall, and was taken by surprise by the entrance of the party from the carriage. She could not make her escape, and made the best of it, standing in the hallway in her round gown of excellent fabric and workmanship but subdued fashion.

  “Aunt, you must remember Miss Bucknell. She has come to be with me here at Kennett Chase.”

  After a moment Louisa said in a majestic fashion, “I am glad to see that my niece has settled down to a country life so well,” adding after a moment, “it’s as well to get settled early in life, I always say.”

  Egmont’s eyes kindled, and Faustina sent a speaking glance to Julia, who promptly said, “Mama, I perceive a small rent in the seam of your gown. Pray let me mend it at once, before it grows worse.”

  Instantly Louisa’s attention was diverted, and the party made its way upstairs. Faustina saw them settled — Sanders soothing her mistress, Julia receiving the brunt of her mother’s ill temper — before she descended to the lower floor. She found her parent in his study, pacing back and forth on his Turkey carpet. He turned when he heard her enter.

  “Faustina, that woman must go! I will not have her insult you every time she opens her mouth!”

  “Now, Papa,” soothed Faustina. It seemed to her she had been saying just those words in that tone of voice for days. “She doesn’t mean anything, I am sure. She simply must excuse herself for not getting me a husband when I was staying with her in London.”

  Egmont was silent for a moment. “Five offers you had,” he muttered. “Doesn’t she remember that?”

  “My dear Papa, I must suppose she listens only to what she wants to hear. What is more to the point, sir, if I may ask, is: what does she want with us? Julia must be” — she figured quickly in her head — “why, Julia’s nineteen!”

  He wheeled and stared at her. “The girl is still in the schoolroom!”

  “So she looks,” said his daughter. “But, my dear sir, she is only five years younger than I, and that must make her nineteen. She must come out this next season.”

  With a rare glint of humor, Egmont said, “Maybe she can nab one of your castoffs!”

  Faustina chuckled. “That would make my aunt furious!”

  The two of them were silent for a bit. Faustina appreciated her father’s instant championing of her, but she did hope he wouldn’t pursue it too far. It would be most uncomfortable to have him and Aunt Louisa dueling constantly. Egmont said, “I almost wish… Faustina, do you think cook could be induced to dress her meat, poorly, and… perhaps even have only three courses to our dinner?”


  Struck by the extent of her gourmet father’s sacrificial offer, Faustina cried, “You dislike her so much, Papa?”

  “No, I suppose we couldn’t do that. But mark my words, Louisa’s here for some dark purpose. Maybe she thinks we’ll take the girl so Louisa won’t have to bring her out. It’s bound to put a crimp in a flirt’s activities to have a grown daughter on the premises. I wager that is it! Well, Faustina, she might be company for you, and I leave that decision to you. If you wouldn’t mislike having the child, you must say so yourself.”

  Faustina hadn’t thought far enough ahead to make any solid conjectures about Aunt Louisa’s purpose. She had grown to know her aunt well enough during her two seasons in London, where her aunt had provided her with home and the entree of her name and her friends. Faustina had not been aware then of the neat distinction drawn by a lady of fashion between a niece — “daughter of my oldest sister, you know” — and a daughter whose age one could not disguise. This could explain Julia’s curiously juvenile attire, which took four years off the girl’s age, until she flashed one of those speaking glances, full of wisdom and a witty maturity. Faustina was quite sure that Julia’s mother had never seen one of those glances.

  Leaving her father to his melancholy reflections, she sent to the kitchen to consult with cook, and had a word with Bucky, and then climbed the stairs to her own room. Stopping at her aunt’s room, she raised her hand to tap on the door, and then decided that civility had reached its limits. She had seen her aunt settled, the competent Sanders in charge. Woods had been sent to provide any assistance required, and Faustina thought darkly that she would undoubtedly see all that she needed to see of her aunt in the days to come. The amount of baggage that required an additional coach boded ill for her hopes of a short visit.

  Faustina dropped her hand and slipped down the hall to her own rooms. As the daughter of the house, her rooms were spacious and as comfortable as one could wish. A large sitting room, and a most comfortable bedroom beyond, each with its own fireplace. Just now, in May, only the evenings were cool enough to render a fire in die grate a pleasure. Faustina crossed to the sitting-room windows and flung them wide. From here she could look across the lawns around the house, sloping down to where a small river wound around the foot of the raised ground upon which stood the manor house. The river’s course was marked by a winding, sinuous band of trees, like a dark streak of green painted across the landscape.