Authors: Charis Michaels
He was not, she thought,
unpleasant
to look at. If not traditionally handsome, then certainly he was compelling in a weary-warrior-left-out-in-the-sun-too-long sort of way.
Piety wondered if he was a warrior.
Or if he was weary.
She wondered how he came to be so very tan.
He could be a reclusive, asthmatic father of eight for all she knew, but it appeared that he lived alone. It appeared there wasn’t even a staff. Only the boy, Joseph. If so, another stroke of good luck to counter all the bad.
“I have no plans to move out until the sale,” he said, oblivious to her scrutiny. He stepped down again. “You cannot move in. Not for an extra ten pounds. Not for any amount. Unless you intend to buy my house, too.”
Now he was one step above her, looking down.
She stared up, shading her eyes from the sun. “I’ve come with a new deal,” she said softly. He was so close. There was no need to shout.
“The answer will remain no.”
“But you haven’t even heard my offer.”
He sighed. “Make no mistake, Miss Grey. This house will be put up for sale next week. Prospective buyers will visit. House agents will tour. Creditors will appraise. None of this can happen, you understand, with
you
installed in a bedroom, or elsewhere—with you anywhere at all.”
She rose to the same step. “Forget the bit about me letting a room or moving in at all. Of course you are correct, it would be wildly inappropriate for me to share this house with you, and I understand how disinclined you are to accommodate me. Instead,” she stoked up her smile, “what I really want is use of the passage.”
“What?”
Piety worked to replenish her patience. “My house is rustic and out of date,” she explained, “but I
can
live there. I am not afraid of a little dust or damp.” Behind her, Tiny cleared her throat dramatically, making the sounds of strangled shock, but Piety ignored her.
“It’s not what I had planned,” she went on, “but it will do. What will not do, however, is the stairs.”
Trevor nodded. He swore. He turned away. She heard him mutter words to the wall: “I don’t want to know. I do
not
want to know.” He turned back. “
What
about the stairs?”
Piety shook her head with remorse. “Rotted through.” She gestured heavily. “Apparently, there was a leak, and the damage nearly crumbled the entire stairwell from the first floor to the next.”
“Why not use the servants’ stairs?”
“Fire,” she said simply. It was the truth. Unbelievable, but true. The situation required no embellishment.
“If there are no stairs,” he asked slowly, incredulously, “how did you find yourself on the second floor and able to make your way through the so-called passage and into my house?”
“Oh, there is scaffolding,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “It will do for now, but it is tenuous at best.” She looked calmly down the street. “And it would never support the weight of carpenters.”
“Carpenters? What is your intention for carpenters?”
“What do you think? The will restore the house. They will access the upper floors by using
your
stairs, and
our
passage.”
“You intend to trail through my house with carpenters?”
“I cannot allow renovations on the upper floors to be postponed until a new staircase is put up. Workmen, supplies, furnishings, they all must be conveyed up. Every room
must
see improvement right away. Not to mention, I, myself, will be settling in. Unpacking. Bringing in tapestry, carpets, art. I’ll need access as well.”
He drew breath to tell her an obvious,
No,
but she rushed on. “My new offer is this: Lease me access to the passage and permission to slip in a back door of your house, up your stairs, and through the passage when I need to reach my upper floors.
That
is what I want.” She drew breath to finish. “It is a fraction of what I paid for, but essential to what I need.”
He hesitated only a fraction of a second. “No.”
Piety screamed internally but pressed on. “Did you hear the bit about the back door? We wouldn’t be traipsing through the main hall.”
“
Absolutely
no.”
She tried again. “You will find that I am perfectly willing to work around the business of your daily life. I’ll forestall access for the carpenters until any time you name. Myself as well. We’ll all stay away. An hour or two each day to get to the top, that’s all we’ll really need.”
“And what of my sale?” he said, leaning on the banister. “I’m advertising the house as vacant and available to buy. I ask you, Miss Grey, how will this arrangement appear? With your team of workmen trooping up and down the stairs? With you, dragging carpets through the kitchen door?
“Unbelievable,” he answered for her. “And strange. And gossip-inducing. Not to mention, it would emphasize the fact that the second floor conceals a giant hole in the masonry and a phantom closet.”
“It’s a passage.”
“It’s yet another problem that I must solve.”
“Yes, I see your point. What if I forestall the workmen for a time, and I restrict the use of the passage to myself alone? In the evenings? So I may settle into the upstairs. So I may unpack.”
“You coming and going is worse than the workmen.”
Piety raised one eyebrow. “I’m sorry, my lord, that you find me so unpleasant.”
“It is merely your proposal that I find offensive,” he said, running his hand through his hair and looking at the sky.
“Not a proposal, a settlement. Paid in full. For a fraction of what I may actually receive.”
“Paid in folly,” he countered, “if the payment even exists.”
“But my money is gone, just the same. As you will see.” She took a shallow breath. Her composure was slipping; her smile was barely in place. “Your lordship, please. You are making this unpleasant when it does not have to be.”
He narrowed his eyes, studying her. She felt his slow perusal of her face. For better or for worse, she let her smile slip and allowed some of her weariness to show. But would he see her resolve? Her determination or desperation?
She opened her mouth to say more, but he cut in, his voice low and even. “Have your solicitor be in touch.” He backed toward the door. “Mine will review the documents. Some concession may be made. I cannot imagine what, because there is no circumstance wherein I will become involved in sharing a
hidden trap door
with you or with your workmen. If so much as an insect from your property scurries into my music room . . . ”
She was about to simply tell him about her mother. And the money. About her need to insinuate herself into this house and this street. Instead, she was cut off by footsteps, padding up behind them. Piety bit her tongue and turned around.
It was a woman, thin and straight-backed, her steps careful and tentative. She admitted herself through the front gate as if stepping into a morgue.
The earl groaned. “Good God, what now?”
“Good morning, my lord,” the woman said nervously, her voice soft with humility. “I apologize for disturbing you. My name is Miss Jocelyn Breedlowe, and my employer, the Marchioness Frinfrock, is your neighbor directly across the street.” She gestured weakly to the towering mansion behind her.
The earl looked at the property and waited.
Piety did the opposite. She smiled broadly and descended the steps to extend a hand.
“So pleased to meet you, Miss Breedlowe. I am Piety Grey, and this is my maid, Tiny.” The woman shook Piety’s hand awkwardly and glanced to Falcondale, unsure.
Piety continued, “We are from America.”
The other woman smiled cautiously, nodding.
“From New York City,” Piety went on, “but we have relocated here. To Henrietta Place.” She gestured broadly, indicating the street. “And I’ve bought the house next to the earl. Number twenty-two.”
“How do you do?” the new woman managed. “Are you . . . will you . . . Has your family had the privilege of meeting the earl?”
Piety considered this a moment and defaulted to honesty. “I have moved to London alone, Miss Breedlowe. My father was lost to pneumonia in the autumn of last year. My mother has started a new life with a new husband. And this,” she indicated the street again, “
this
is my new life.”
Miss Breedlowe made a strangled sound.
The earl appeared beside Piety, suddenly animated. “Miss Grey,” he told the startled Miss Breedlowe, “was just explaining that she and I may be required to work together. To work
closely
together. To see repairs made to a wall shared by our two properties.”
The older woman blinked. She stared at Piety and back at the earl. She looked over her shoulder at the house of her employer. She coughed.
Piety shot the earl a disgusted look and weighed her choices. Well, she could hardly leave it at that. He was trying to scare them both away. He insinuated an impending scandal where there need not be. Not if they were mindful. Not if a handful of influential people could be made to see.
Miss Breedlowe clasped her hands before her, clearly trying to understand. She repeated the earl’s last words. “Work together?”
“Would you believe that the stairs in my new home are sorely damaged?” Piety raised her eyebrows.
“I hope you do not mean unsafe?”
“Gravely unsafe, I’m afraid.” Piety confirmed her words, following with a quick rendition of the stairs and scaffolding and the rot.
“You know, my intention was to become acquainted with all of the neighbors—it’s why I’ve called upon the earl—and I should like to meet your marchioness as well. My situation is unconventional, to say the least, but it is not wrong-minded.” Piety slid a glance at the earl. “It is not
bad
.
“Do you think,” she continued, “that I might call on her ladyship and explain?”
“Well . . . ” Miss Breedlowe seemed at a loss for words.
Piety forged on. “I haven’t had the time to order cards, so may I impose on you to implore her? I can call whenever it suits her, including, well, including right now.”
The other woman nodded and cleared her throat. “Might I suggest you wait for an invitation from her ladyship? Likely, she will wish to
summon
you.”
“Lovely, but this is even better.” Piety clapped her hands together. “I’ll wait for her summons. Thank you, Miss Breedlowe.”
The woman’s face turned red, and she nodded but then looked at the earl. “I beg your pardon, Lord Falcondale?” she asked.
“Yes?” he answered, although his tone said,
please—no.
“Forgive me,” she continued, “but the purpose of my . . . that is, the reason I approached you and the young lady was to—” She cleared her throat. “Lady Frinfrock wishes to extend one or two neighborly suggestions regarding the care of your flower boxes.” The woman cringed. “If you would be so obliged.”
“My what?” He grabbed the back of his neck. “No. Wait. Do not answer that.”
“I never wished to intrude on your business with the young lady,” she said.
“I have absolutely no business with the young lady.” He glared at Piety. “But you may tell the marchioness that the flowers should be the least of her worries. Oh, and the planters are only going to get worse.”
With that, he turned and climbed the steps, entered the house, and slammed the heavy door behind him.
T
he summons from Lady Frinfrock was not long in coming. A uniformed butler rapped upon Piety’s door within an hour and escorted her and Tiny across the street.
Miss Breedlowe waited in the vestibule. “How good of you to come,” she said, her smile thin. “Her ladyship will receive you in the library.”
Piety nodded, trailing behind her lead.
This is the future of
my
house,
she thought, taking in the gleaming marble floors and golden fixtures, both reflecting the glow of a dozen fresh candles.
Although perhaps a little less fussy,
she amended, noting the lace doilies and elaborate porcelain figurines crowding every surface.
And less dark.
Heavy, velvet draperies sagged in folds and rosettes from the windows.
And less coddled smelling.
Their procession took a sharp right turn at a marble statue of a koi, and Miss Breedlowe sped up, shooting Piety another inscrutable look.
“What is it?” whispered Piety.
She shook her head and shrugged. “I apologize in advance.”
Piety wanted to laugh. “If you grew up sitting audience for my mother, Miss Breedlowe, you would not worry on our behalf. We are not afraid, are we, Tiny?”
“Did you see the statue of that big, fat fish?” Tiny asked, marveling at the scrolled molding around the ceiling.
Piety smiled. “You see, not scared at all.”
They came to a stop at the end of the hall where the butler waited to announce them. “Her Ladyship, the Marchioness Frinfrock.” He intoned the introduction with emphasis and swung open one side of a towering double door. “Your guests, my lady,” he said to the room beyond the doors.
Piety, who had been forcing a smile all day, suddenly had the very real urge to giggle. It was all so formal and earnest. Beside her, Tiny ran a hand over the chair rail, checking for dust. Miss Breedlowe seemed frozen in place. Piety gently nudged her in the direction of the door.
The room was a library in the truest sense—an homage to books, to quiet study, to solitude. Spindly furniture crowded a grate; a drinks table hid in a dark corner; a massive desk weighed down the far wall. The desk reminded Piety of her father’s, and she was halfway to it, anxious to run an appreciative hand over the smooth mahogany, before she realized that it was occupied.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, snatching her hand back. She smiled at the short, stout woman behind the desk. “Hello.”
Silently, the old woman stared back.
This was the marchioness? But she was so little. And old. And entirely out of sorts. Although, how regal she endeavored to look.
Piety cast a questioning glace back at Miss Breedlowe, who hovered near the door.