Somerville Farce (6 page)

That idyllic dream, the one that had a lot
to do with Trixy hovering on the edge of some candlelit ballroom
just as a rich, handsome peer of the realm strolled into the room,
spied her, and immediately fell to his knees at her satin slippers,
prostrate with adoration, had disappeared in a puff of smoke as she
came to know Myles Somerville for what he was—and for what he
wasn’t.

He was, in a word, a crook. He wasn’t, in a
few more words, a very loving father. As a matter of fact, he
couldn’t even trouble himself to learn to tell Eugenie and Helena
apart, an achievement that, thanks to their extreme likeness to one
another, was not to be sniffed at, yet one a person would think a
loving parent could master.

Within a week of their remove from Dorset to
the metropolis, Trixy had all but decided that Myles planned to use
his daughters, whom he had not visited above once or twice a year
until they reached the age of eighteen, in order to line his own
pockets—a not unusual ploy of fathers, but one that she could not
find commendable.

Why, the man hadn’t even possessed the
intelligence to realize that his daughters could bring a fair price
in the Marriage Mart of society. Had he never heard of the
beautiful Gunning sisters and their amazing triumphs—never mind
that one of them had eventually suffered an untimely end as a
result of sipping arsenic to maintain her beautiful pale
complexion?

Oh, no. He had harbored no plan to present
Eugenie and Helena, had made no effort to replenish their badly
depleted wardrobes or introduce them to eligible young gentlemen—a
fact that quickly put paid to Trixy’s own dreams of having herself
discovered by a rich, handsome peer. Heavens, no. Myles Somerville
hadn’t planned on expending any of his blunt on anything as risky,
as hit-or-miss, as the Marriage Mart.

Myles Somerville, Trixy had discovered only
a week ago by the simple if not entirely praiseworthy process of
applying one keen ear to a crack in the door between the hall and
the sitting room while Somerville carried on negotiations with a
particularly oily-looking gentleman, had come to London fully
intending to sell his daughters to the highest cash bidder, without
a word about marriage entering the conversation!

The duke’s arrival in town had effectively
spiked Somerville’s guns—an unlooked-for circumstance that Trixy
had viewed at the time as a gift from Above—and Somerville had
ignominiously stripped the town house of every portable asset,
whether his or rented, and absconded, leaving his penniless girls
to fend for themselves.

That last part, the bit about leaving his
girls penniless, had tempered Trixy’s elation at waving Somerville
on his way out of their lives, so that she had ended by considering
the Duke of Glynde’s unknowing intervention as a mixed
blessing.

Without funds, without prospects—without
talent or great intellect—and with only their stunning beauty to
aid them, it had appeared as if Eugenie and Helena would still end
up being sold to the highest bidder, the only difference being
that, with Myles Somerville effectively out of the way, they had
eliminated the middleman.

Even worse, with Somerville gone, and with
no one else to fend for them, it appeared as if it would be left to
Beatrice Stourbridge to become that middleman—a terribly depressing
thought.

Trixy’s green eyes narrowed as she
remembered something else she disliked about Myles Somerville. He
had left his daughters behind, defenseless, to face the Duke of
Glynde’s revenge. She would have pointed that particular cowardice
out to the man himself, only she couldn’t be sure that he might not
then have taken his girls with him—most probably to sell them to an
oily Irishman rather than an oily Englishman.

As it was, she had, quite unwillingly,
become the chief defender of the girls’ safety and honor, a
daunting project given the fact that she had never been to London
before, knew no one, and had no idea how to go on.

Trixy’s face lost its pinched look as she
recalled the events of the previous night, a comedy of errors that
she had first become aware of as she had stumbled over Lacy’s
trussed-up body in the dark parlor on her way back from the
kitchen, where she had been dozing over the table, her worries for
the girls taking a momentary break as she had succumbed to a
well-deserved nap.

Lacy had yet to fully forgive her for not
unstuffing her handkerchief-muted mouth, but Trixy had known she
would be courting disaster if the maid were free to scream, and had
simply left the woman on the floor while she crept to her own room
and unearthed her father’s pistol. After that, it had been a simple
matter to train that same pistol at the intruders—inept boys that
they were—while a plan tumbled willy-nilly into her head.

And so far, she congratulated herself as she
turned into the west wing of the truly magnificent Glynde country
home, that plan had been ticking along quite nicely, with all the
little pieces beginning to drop into place.

It had been no great gamble to rely on the
duke’s sense of honor, for any man who sought to revenge himself on
the reprehensible Myles Somerville had certainly earned her vote!
She harbored no real fears that the duke would set the girls and
herself out on the road, any more than she could bring herself to
believe the man would do them bodily harm in order to protect his
rascally young brother.

Not, she reasoned, unerringly heading for
the bedchamber where Eugenie and Helena lay napping, that she truly
expected the duke to marry either of the girls—especially now that
she had met him. If the poor man were ever to do murder, marriage
to either one of the girls should be just the thing to push him to
it. She had only put forth the idea in order to keep William and
Andrew in line, having astutely judged the boys as dyed-in-the-wool
romantics.

All she really wanted for the girls was some
sort of income, and perhaps a small Season in London—surely nothing
beyond the power of the overwhelmingly wealthy Duke of Glynde to
arrange. That, and the allowance she had demanded for herself.

Her chin tilted upward as she reaffirmed her
resolve to get herself out of this pickle with enough money to put
a firm period to her days as paid companion—and if it was scraping
very close to blackmail, well, what of it? She refused to allow her
conscience to prick her on the subject.

Opening the door to the large, beautifully
decorated bedchamber that housed her charges, she stepped inside to
see Lacy still busily engaged in unpacking the girls’ worn but
perfectly matched belongings—the same ones Lacy had painstakingly
packed into trunks while Trixy had held the boys at gunpoint.

“And were ye seein’ his worship, missy?”
Lacy asked, turning to look at Trixy. “He was as mad as a Methodist
at an Irish wake, I’ll be thinkin’, to hear wot his featherbrained
brother and his Friday-faced ruffian friend done.”

Trixy collapsed gratefully into a nearby
chair, kicking off her slippers and then wiggling her bare toes in
ecstasy. “His grace took it all rather well, Lacy—although for a
moment there I thought he was going to choke the life out of poor
young Lord William,” she told the maid, resting her weary head
against the back of the chair. She laughed shortly in reminiscence.
“As a matter of fact, I think the man was relieved to hear some
sort of bad news from the boy, since he seemed to expect some. And
to think, Lacy, that I’ve believed it difficult to ride herd on
young girls. At least they don’t abduct young boys, do they?”

“And his worship agreed ter yer plans?” Lacy
asked, stuffing the last set of matching gowns into the wardrobe.
“He’s goin’ ter wed my darlin’ little Eugenie?”

Trixy rolled her eyes. “He hasn’t even met
your darling little Eugenie, Lacy. Give the poor man time to get
used to the idea that he has two eligible unattached females under
his roof before you ask him to make a choice between them.”

“And will I be gettin’ to stay with
m’darlin’?” Lacy might not have been the brightest woman on earth,
but she was well aware that the fate of one single Irish lady’s
maid would not be weighing heavily over his grace’s head at the
moment, what with him dealing with Trixy Stourbridge’s demands.

Trixy laughed out loud as she looked across
the room to the large bed where two sleeping blond heads could be
seen peeping above the coverlet, two most angelic faces, beautiful
in repose. “The duke may be a powerful man, but I don’t think even
he is strong enough to separate Eugenie from you, Lacy. I know I
should never even attempt such a cruel division. For one thing,
Eugenie’s resultant vocal protests would most probably lift the
roof right off this great house.” She rose, stooping to pick up her
shoes. “Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to my own room to
unpack before dinner is served. We’ll eat in here, I believe.”

The maid nodded, turning back to the trunks,
where she nearly upended her short, round body as she dug in the
bottom of the larger one to retrieve the Misses Somerville’s jean
half-boots, her fears now settled so that she felt no qualms at not
offering to help Trixy—who was, after all, naught but a slightly
higher-placed servant—with her unpacking. “I’ll give ye a holler
when the vittles get here.”

Trixy rubbed at her stiff neck. “You do
that, Lacy,” she said, shaking her head as she fairly dragged
herself out of the room. What had she expected? she asked herself—a
hug, a pat on the head, a simple “thank you, miss”? In the two
years she had known Lacy and the girls, she had acted the
protector, the budget stretcher, the—for lack of a better
word—parent. Nobody thought to thank her—they just assumed she
would take care of everything. Parenthood, she decided firmly, was
a thankless job.

As she stood in the center of the small
chamber she had allocated for herself, Trixy sighed, realizing that
she was being poor-spirited. She didn’t need any thanks, and most
probably would have been embarrassed to hear them. She wanted only
what was fair. She wanted her independence.

Smiling as she remembered the stunned look
on the Duke of Glynde’s face as she had told him the conditions for
her silence, Trixy refused to acknowledge the niggling doubt deep
in her breast that what she was doing was absolutely fair.

H
arry stared into
the bottom of his wineglass, trying to figure out just when it was
that he had lost control of his life. Could he trace it back to the
moment he had first heard the name Myles Somerville and learned
that the man had bilked his late father out of some thirty thousand
pounds? Or had it been that certain hour two weeks previously, when
he had learned that this same Myles Somerville had taken up
residence in London, and had decided to go after the man, with
murder on his mind?

Could that have been the decisive moment—the
turning point—the terrible, anticipated transgression that had,
through its own selfish motive of revenge, stripped him of his
control over his destiny?

Was he only experiencing the retribution of
some higher authority who had decreed that Harry Townsend, sinner,
should learn to repent for his evil thoughts having to do with
taking dead aim at Myles Somerville’s chest and then blowing a
clean hole right through it?

Glynde sniffed audibly, then downed the
remainder of his wine. He doubted it. He doubted it highly. No, to
be absolutely precise about the thing, the reins of destiny had
been wrenched from his hands long ago—the moment his parents had
decided to further ensure the Glynde line into the next generation
by means of the production of a second son.

William. His brother.

How Harry loved him.

How Harry longed to submerge the boy in
boiling oil.

How could Willie have done this to him?

Pinch entered the study quietly and refilled
his employer’s glass before, as he watched the duke out of the
corner of one eye, he laid another log on the fire and tiptoed back
out of the room.

Harry belatedly grunted his thanks to the
man and picked up the glass, holding it against the firelight to
watch as the burgundy seemed to burn from a small fire within
itself. He’d be good and drunk soon, if he could just keep
drinking. Drunk enough to forget William’s earlier explanations
that had seemed to have a lot to do with blaming Andrew Carlisle
for all their troubles and very little to do with laying any of the
credit for this latest debacle at his own door.

Andrew, that born-to-be-hanged scoundrel,
had manfully taken on the blame once all had been explained, an
occurrence that hadn’t surprised Harry, as he knew that the boys
would do anything to help each other, and since it was not Harry’s
place to punish Andrew—which, considering Glynde’s mood, was a very
good thing for Andrew—his confession did nothing more than blunt
the sharp edge of the duke’s anger.