Patricia Rice (9 page)

“Marry,” she said with what he detected as a hint of
spite. “Let your wife worry about the present while you fret over a
future that hasn’t happened yet.”

The nursery door softly opened and closed, leaving him alone with the two helpless babes. How the
devil
had he gotten himself into this?

Marilee, he remembered. He was doing this for his sister—who was probably rolling around heaven, laughing at his predicament.

He peered suspiciously out the window to see if any angel feathers floated by. Marilee had always enjoyed a good joke.

***

Beatrice hid in her room until she heard Mr. Warwick
greet James and the front door opening and closing. He behaved as if he
were quite at home.

She couldn’t believe she’d fallen asleep in the same room with him.

Her cheeks burned, and she wouldn’t look in the
mirror as she shook out her fresh skirt and petticoats and prepared to
face the questioning eyes of her household. She would simply pretend
nothing had happened.

Nothing
had
happened, she
reassured herself. They’d merely taken turns walking the floor with
Bitsy until the babe had fallen asleep. Beatrice couldn’t precisely
remember when that was. Perhaps she’d fallen asleep first. And Mr.
Warwick had laid the babe down and rested his eyes. That must have been
it. Nothing to be ashamed of. She had more pressing matters to consider.

Such as quarter-day’s fast approach. Did she dare
send Mr. Warwick into Cheltenham to sell the epergne? He must certainly
surmise the precarious state of her finances by now. Of course, with her
luck, he’d no doubt sell the silver, abscond with the funds, and leave
her with his children.

Maybe not. Whatever else she might think of him, he
treated the children with tenderness and fretted over them with the care
of an anxious parent.

Dragging herself down the wide marble staircase, she
didn’t see any sign of James, the wretch. She supposed he was hiding in
the kitchen, giggling with the maids over last night’s escapades. She
really had to make him go into Cheltenham for her. She simply didn’t
have what it took to haggle with shopkeepers.

She entered her father’s study prepared to ring the
bell and remind James of his duty. Instead, she stopped dead at the
sight of Mr. Warwick sitting at her father’s desk, his feet propped on
the wide surface, an account book on his knees, while he scribbled notes
with a metal-nibbed pen. She’d thought her father a large man, but the
nape of Mr. Warwick’s neck towered over the chair’s back, and his booted
feet dwarfed the desk.

He glanced up at her entrance, grunted something that might have been a greeting, and returned to scribbling notes.

Flabbergasted, she merely stood there, staring. Was
she supposed to meekly retreat to her parlor as she had done when her
father was preoccupied?

By all the saints, this was
her
house. He couldn’t force her to leave. “What are you doing?” That really should have sounded like a demand instead of a squeak.

He impatiently set his pen aside. “Tallying income per tenant. You have only two who seem to pay regularly.”

“Mr. Farmingham and the Dubbinses,” she responded
promptly. She might not be able to read account books, but she knew who
paid regularly.

“Overton says your best acreage is in the valley.
I’m suggesting you enclose those fields and lease them out to Farmingham
and Dubbins.”

“I can’t pay for fencing,” she protested, amazed she
could say anything at all. Mr. Warwick sat there like a statue of a
Greek god framed in the sunlight pouring through the windows behind him.

If she remembered correctly, Greek gods tended to do rather capricious and quite frequently evil things.

“Let your tenants wall off the fields as they work.”
He looked up from his notes as if daring her to defy him. “It’s to
their profit to keep the sheep out.”

He had a square-cut jaw and a chiseled chin that
stuck out much too far for her comfort. The little dent in it would be
appealing if he’d only smile. Instead, it looked as if he was clenching
his teeth waiting for her reply.

“Where will the sheep graze?” she asked, hating herself for her ignorance and her lack of protest.

Before he could answer, the front door knocker
rapped. He looked at her expectantly, but she wasn’t about to let him
off the hook. “James can get it.”

He swung his feet down from the desk as if suddenly
realizing a gentleman should rise upon the entrance of a lady, though he
didn’t rise. “I sent James into Cheltenham.”

Anger seared her cheeks. She wanted to shake the complacent look off this man’s face. “Why?”

How
would have been a better question. James never did as told.

The knocker rapped again, and feet pattered in the hallway as one of the maids hastened to answer it.

“You didn’t give me your cash books, so I didn’t
know how much capital you had to advance your tenants for seed. I sent
James to obtain an accounting from the bank he said your father used.
Perhaps there are funds you don’t know about.”

The voices outside the door grew louder, and his gaze shifted to the entrance.

Beatrice stepped away just as the door flew open to
admit a stout matron in a tartan silk gown and an emerald green turban.
The newcomer’s gaze faltered in surprise at the sight of the man at the
desk, but she recovered quickly.

“Beatrice, dear!” the apparition exclaimed, holding
out her arms. “How good to see you again. Has it been perfectly ghastly
these last months? I hurried here just as soon as I could.”

“Aunt Constance!” Beatrice barely got out the words before her great-aunt swept her into a powdered embrace.

“You poor, dear child, left alone to fend for
yourself all this time.” She kissed Bea’s cheeks and led her
affectionately toward a sofa. “Had I thought your father so careless as
to pop off like that without warning, I never would have gone so far
from home. It’s quite unconscionable for men to die so young. Whatever
do they expect us to do?”

She hugged Bea and settled her onto the cushions, as if Beatrice were her guest instead of the other way around.

As Mac rose from behind the desk, the whirlwind of
silk and scent swung around eagerly. “And who have we here, my dear? You
did not write me of any expectations. You know, given your
circumstances, you really shouldn’t have to wait until your year of
mourning is up. A husband is just what you need right now.”

If the power of humiliation could only lead to
invisibility, Beatrice would disappear from the face of the earth
forever. Mac’s look of horror must nearly match her own. “Oh, no, Aunt
Constance,” she corrected hastily. “This is Mr. Warwick. He’s helping me
to understand Papa’s account books. Mr. Warwick, this is Lady Taubee,
my great-aunt Constance. She has been traveling on the Continent.”

Composing his features, Mr. Warwick nodded tightly
and looked as if he would flee out the window if given half a chance.
Her aunt often had that effect on people.

Gazing in awe at her aunt’s resplendent attire, Bea
shuddered in anticipation. She’d wished for her company, but she tended
to forget between visits that her aunt’s taste reflected a far different
world from her own.

“My, my, you are a fine figure of a man,” the older
lady said admiringly. “Did Coventry send you to help out? Are you
related to the Gloucestershire Warwicks?”

Beatrice could almost swear that red flushed his
cheekbones, but he merely stood stiff and unyielding and answered
without inflection, “No, my lady.” Turning to Beatrice, he bent his neck
enough to acknowledge her. “I’ll leave you to your visitor, Miss
Cavendish, and see myself out.”

“The sheep,” Bea called after him. “You haven’t told me—”

“I’ll handle it.” With a warning in his tone, he stalked away.

“Oh, my. Is he an American? Such fine, broad
shoulders! And fiery eyes!” Constance swirled to admire her niece. “And
you look so fetching, dear. No wonder he can’t keep his eyes off you.”

Beatrice stifled an inward groan. She remembered all
too vividly her aunt’s blatant attempts at matchmaking when Beatrice
was but a shy seventeen.

“If he looks at me at all, it is to see if he has
ground my bones to ashes yet,” Bea complained. “He thinks I’m an addled
fool. Have you just come from London? How did you arrive so early?”

Rising from the sofa, Beatrice steered her aunt from
the subject and the study. Her mother’s aunt was everything she would
never be, but as long as she wasn’t the current object of her managing
ways, she was delighted to have her company.

“Missy! Missy!” A boyish voice rang out as they stepped into the hall.

How did the child consistently escape the nursery?

Attempting to climb the banister with one arm still
in a sling, Buddy lost his grip in his excitement and landed flat on his
rear end, narrowly missing the first stair.

As her aunt’s eyes widened in astonishment and Buddy
began to wail, Beatrice’s heart sank to her feet. She could already
hear the cogs whirling in her aunt’s overactive brain—children, a
widower, and her poor, unmarried niece.

She might as well be seventeen again.

***

Mac strode toward the cottage, mentally locating the
children’s bags, while attempting to formulate a plan of escape. Any
woman wealthy enough to know Coventry, travel the continent, and
recognize his mother’s Warwick relations must travel in high circles. He
didn’t fool himself into hoping the right noble Sebastian, Viscount
Simmons, hadn’t screamed his recriminations all the way to the queen.
All London would be rife with rumor. She had only to write the earl....
He had to hide the children elsewhere.

Where? How? He didn’t know if Cunningham had stocked the
Virginian
yet. He couldn’t very well throw the children on board in the captain’s
care and let it set sail. They needed, at minimum, a proper nursemaid
to look after them, as last night’s incident with Bitsy had proven.

Even if he could find a nanny, he wasn’t at all
certain that he could smuggle the children onto his father’s ship. If
the viscount had a single brain in his head, he would have someone
watching the
Virginian.

Mac would be much better off waiting for the
completion of the clipper no one but he and Cunningham knew about. He’d
never have a chance to oversee the final fittings now, but he’d be
content if he could just lock the children on board and set sail
immediately.

But he couldn’t even reach London. He’d had the
hired post chaise returned to its owner, and stealing Miss C’s horses
would not be wise, even if he could manage two babes on horseback, which
he couldn’t.

Besides, he’d promised Miss Cavendish he’d help her, and he didn’t take promises lightly.

“Mac! Whoa! Over here. I’ve been looking for you.”

A young man in a top hat riding a stylish gelding
hailed him from the cottage drive, and Mac groaned. The brother of Lord
Something-or-other, whom he’d met last night at the inn. He must have
been drunk last night to introduce himself to the bloody aristocracy.

“I’ve come to see those hounds you told me about.
I’ve a hunting box less than a day’s ride from here, and my gamekeeper
swears Cavendish has the best hounds in the field. Do you think Miss
Cavendish could be persuaded to part with a few?”

Mac would sell the whole howling pack if they were
his, but they weren’t. And he couldn’t go back to the house to ask. The
devil must be laughing up his sleeve by now.

“The hounds are out past the stable,” he called back. “But Miss Cavendish has company. Take a look, and I’ll ask her later.”

Instead of riding his prancing steed toward the
stable, the young lordling swung down from his saddle and waited for Mac
to catch up. Lean and elegant, he looked the type to court a lady like
Miss C. He probably knew how to spout poetry, when to flourish flowers,
and which damned flowers to flourish.

“I heard Lady Tawdry came through town. I don’t
suppose you could persuade fair Bea to introduce me? I’ve heard her aunt
is one of the finest raconteurs in all England.”

Lady Tawdry?
Mac’s eyebrows
sailed upward, and the younger man flushed. Carstairs, Mac remembered.
Maximus Daventry Carstairs, Dav for short, impoverished younger son or
some such.

“Lady Constance Taubee,” Carstairs corrected
apologetically. “The woman is a living legend. Outlived three husbands,
sailed the world, uncovered mummies in Cairo, and danced with Fiji
islanders, I understand. She only visits England because of Bea.”

And the damned woman had chosen this moment to
return. Mac kept the sentiment to himself. “She’s just arrived. I
imagine Miss Cavendish is settling her in.”

Carstairs groaned. “I’d go to the door and leave my
card, but Bea won’t receive me. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven me for
calling her a long Meg when I was but a lad of nine. She was twelve at
the time, and had the most glorious red braids. I didn’t know how else
to catch her attention.”

Reluctantly, Mac grinned at the admission. Carstairs was young, but not as toplofty as some of his peers.

“When was that, last year? She’s probably over it by now.”

“Very funny. Just because I’m cursed with this
youthful mug doesn’t mean I’m still in leading strings. She’s held that
grudge for sixteen years.”

Sixteen years?
The wide-eyed, lovely Miss C was—twelve plus sixteen and not married? Not possible. Were all the men around here blind as bats?

“I can’t imagine she even remembers it,” Mac
answered gruffly. He’d thought her proud and stiff-necked until last
night. Now... It didn’t matter. Promises or not, the children’s safety
came first. He had to round them up and run.

Oddly enough, part of him didn’t really want to leave.

“I’m not in the least bit tired, dearest Bea,” Lady
Taubee assured her as she settled into a parlor chair. “Let me take my
tea while you tell me all.”