Christian, the stable hand and her only friend at the house, had always found this immensely funny. He got along famously with the beast and often took it on long walks in the fields.
Mirabelle had attempted to befriend it as well, bringing it scraps and choice bones from the kitchen. But nothing seemed to work.
As she climbed the steps, the dog lunged and snapped, missing her by a good two feet, but making her jump all the same.
“Ungrateful wretch,” she muttered as she pushed open the front doors and made a mental note to have Christian put the animal elsewhere while she was in residence.
She wasn’t surprised to find no one available in the foyer or any of the immediate surrounding rooms to help her with her luggage. Her uncle’s staff was every bit as disinterested in their work as the Haldon staff was proud of theirs.
She’d heard one or two of Benton’s more democratic residents refer to Baron Eppersly as “a great champion of the downtrodden.” In truth, her uncle’s propensity for employing the old, the infirm and—primarily—the disreputable, had nothing to do with generosity and everything to do with cold calculation. A body in dire need of food and shelter was unlikely to voice complaint over the trifling matters of irregular pay and a few careless swats of a beefy hand.
Fear, however, was a long way from gratitude, and desperation hardly qualified as a skill. As a result, most of the skeletal staff at the house spent the majority of their time either begrudgingly seeing to the baron’s demands or doing nothing at all.
“There she is!”
Mirabelle jumped at the deep bellow that echoed from the top of the stairs, but as it was one of the few voices she didn’t fear at her uncle’s home, she turned to greet its source with a smile.
On any other occasion, Mirabelle might have made a concerted effort to avoid the likes of Mr. Cunningham. The man was loud, coarse, and outrageously crude. He also, for reasons that eluded her, invariably smelled overwhelmingly of vinegar and bad cabbage.
And wasn’t it a sad statement of her predicament, she thought, that she should be relieved to see him now? But then, in comparison to the rest of the guests, Mr. Cunningham was very nearly good company. For all his repulsive habits, he was a good-natured sort. She might have even
gone so far as to call him jolly. He’d never been one to carelessly toss cruel insults in her direction, and he’d always had the manners to at least keep his hands to himself.
“Mirabelle, my girl,” he bellowed, and as always, ignored the fact that she had long ago reached an age where it was no longer appropriate for him to use her given name. “Good to see you! Good to see you!”
As the sound and smell of him drew closer, she took an instinctive step back, and wondered, not for the first time, why anyone who spoke with enough volume to wake the dead would find it necessary to always repeat himself.
“It’s good to see you as well, Mr. Cunningham. Are you headed out?”
“No, no. Not feeling quite the thing, you know. Not quite the thing.”
“I’m sorry to hear of it,” she said with at least some level of sincerity. “Nothing too serious, I hope?”
“Not at all. Not at all. Touch of the ague, I think. Deuced time to come down with it.”
“It is,” she replied, because she felt as if she ought to say something. “Can I do anything for you?”
“Well, since you asked, my girl—would you send someone up with a bit of broth? I rang the bell, but no one came. Not a soul!”
She’d have been surprised to learn someone had. The odds of a functioning bell pull outside her uncle’s bedchamber and study were slim. The odds of a servant troubling themselves to answer a bell that had originated outside her uncle’s bedchamber or study were slim to none. And the odds of both events occurring at once were non ex is tent.
“I’ll see to it, but just the broth? Isn’t there anything else you’d like?”
“Well, I wouldn’t object to the broth being carried up by the blonde maid with the generous bosom.” He brought his hands up to cup in front of his own appreciative chest.
“Wouldn’t object a bit. Sight like that would perk any man up, eh?”
His face lit up, and in a way that had Mirabelle taking another step in retreat. She knew that expression.
“Perk a man up! Right up!” He laughed boisterously at his own joke, sending a cabbage-soaked breath in her direction. “Don’t you get it, girl?”
“I do,” she gasped.
“Not that I’d be able to do much more than stand to attention, mind you,” he admitted over a lingering chuckle. “Or that she’d pay one jot of notice if I did, not with the likes of Lord Thurston in residence. I did hear right, didn’t I, girl? Thurston will be joining us?”
“Yes. Unless he falls off his horse and breaks his neck on the way over,” she added, and with just enough hopefulness to have him chortling.
“I’ve caught sight of his lordship once or twice at Tatter-sall’s. Deuced good-looking man—the rotter—don’t tell me you wouldn’t care for a bit of what he could offer.”
“Only if the bit is his head, and it’s offered on a platter.”
“Oh-ho, I don’t believe it. Don’t believe a word of it. You may be able to fool others, girl, but not me. Known you since you were knee-high, haven’t I? Practically an uncle!”
“If only,” she murmured. If she had to have an embarrassing uncle, she’d have preferred this one. “I’d wager the baron would trade me for that roan mare you’re always bragging about.”
“My Gertie? Trade my only child for a mere niece?” He shook his head. “Wouldn’t make any sense. Any sense at all. And she throws fillies besides—doubt you’d be as accommodating.”
“Sadly, I do lack that particular skill.”
“Well, you’ve the look of a woman who’ll bear strong sons, and that’s nothing to thumb your nose at. Nothing at
all.” He leaned forward, squinting his eyes. “Why aren’t you married yet? Must be nearing twenty by now.”
She was stunned into silence for a moment before breaking into laughter.
“Bless you, Uncle Cunningham.”
She left him to discover if a certain blonde maid wouldn’t mind a bit of harmless ogling.
As it happened, the maid in question was only too delighted at the chance to be ogled, and Mirabelle wondered if the pert young woman would be ending the evening a bauble or a few coins wealthier. Not her concern, she told herself, and hardly the most scandalous thing to have happened at a house party—particularly when said party was hosted by her uncle. She put it aside and focused on digging up a few maids and footmen to clean and air out a room for their last-minute guest, Lord Thurston.
They finished just in time. She was coming down the steps, her arms full of the old linens, and a grumbling maid trailing behind her, when a knock sounded at the front door. Since the maid didn’t offer to answer the summons, Mirabelle handed over her burden and instructions to see the linens laundered—which she rather doubted would happen—and saw to the door herself.
Though she’d spent the whole of the morning preparing for his arrival, seeing Whit standing on the steps of her uncle’s home made her heart jump painfully. Feeling near to panic, she envisioned slamming the door and locking it behind her. If she’d thought for a moment that such an act might induce him to leave, she would have done it without compunction. But he’d only find another way in. Pity Christian had already removed the dog. That might have at least slowed him down.
Steeling herself for what was to come, she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders.“Whittaker.”
He frowned at her. “Why are you opening the door?”
“Because I was here. Of course, if I’d known it was you, I wouldn’t have bothered.”
She wanted to be angry. She
was
angry, but over and beyond that she was terribly, terribly afraid. Because nothing covers fear quite so well as anger, she focused on that.
She held the door open and stepped aside. “Are you coming in or not?”
He stayed where he was, his blue eyes searching. “Is that the way it’s to be, then?”
“If you insist of going through with your ridiculous mission.”
Say no. Please, please, please say you’ve changed your mind.
“Very well.” He stepped around her. “Then play the proper hostess, won’t you, darling, and have someone see to my bags?”
She closed the door behind him. “It’d be my pleasure. I know just the hole—very deep, very muddy.”
“Who is it, girl?” The baron’s booming voice echoed down the hall from his study.
She couldn’t help but wince at his appalling manners, but she absolutely refused to acknowledge Whit’s questioning expression. Denial was one of the last tactics available to her, and she’d every intention of putting it to good use.
“It’s Lord Thurston, Uncle!”
“You bring a fart catcher, Thurston?”
Whit’s only reaction was a raised eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“He means a valet,” she muttered and felt the heat of embarrassment flood her cheeks. It might be mortifying, she reminded herself, but it wasn’t catastrophic. Yet.
“Yes, I know what he means.” Whit turned toward Eppersly’s voice. “As it happens, I come unattended!”
“Good! No room!”
“I’m sure what ever arrangements can be made will be more than adequate.”
“Good!” There was a brief flash of thinning brown hair in the doorway. “Show him up, girl! What’s the matter with you?”
“Is he always so charming?” Whit inquired when her uncle’s head had once again disappeared into the study.
“You can hardly blame him, sneaking your way in as you have.” It needled, tremendously, to speak in defense of her uncle, but it was easier than apologizing for him.
“He could have said no,” Whit pointed out. “I sent an acceptance last night, and the estates aren’t more than five minutes’ ride from each other.”
She didn’t have a single believable rebuttal to that statement, so she ignored it instead and headed up the stairs. “You can carry your own luggage or you can wait for it. The staff is busy with other things at the moment.”
He hefted his bag and caught up with her in the middle of the staircase. “Is the house short of staff, then?”
“Ask my uncle,” she suggested, knowing full well he couldn’t do so without insulting the baron.
She led him to a room at the very back of the hall. It was separated from the other guests by a storage room and two linen closets, but it was the best the house had to offer, its amenities disdained by the other guests only because they found the extra walk disagreeable. She opened the door and stepped inside, pleased to find the worst of the mildew smell had aired out.
“The doors there lead to a private balcony.” One that she was relatively certain wouldn’t collapse under his weight. “There’s a bureau there for your things.” She’d made certain all the drawers opened first. “We’re having some difficulties with the bell pulls, I’m afraid. If you need something”—Get it yourself, she thought—“you’ll have to hunt up a maid or footman.”
“Mirabelle—” He reached for her, but she sidestepped his grasp and opened the door.
“Dinner is served at half past eight,” she informed him, and left with the fondest wish that he’d remain in his room for the remainder of the party. Or at least until dinner.
M
irabelle spent the remainder of the day alternating between putting fires out in the kitchen—mostly figuratively speaking, but with one small literal exception—and answering an endless line of summons from her uncle.
“Fetch me the case of port from the cellar. I don’t want those thieving excuses for footmen going anywhere near it alone.”
“Mr. Hartsinger likes fresh linen in his room. See it’s done before he arrives.”
“Change your gown. You’re a disgrace.”
“Why aren’t you welcoming my guests, girl? Think I brought you home to sit on your fat arse all day?”
The fact that the baron felt qualified to be the judge of anyone else’s physical appearance had never failed to astonish her. He was the single most corpulent individual of her acquaintance. The man was, in a word,
round
—not oblong, not a bit thicker ’round the middle and tapered at the ends. No, when his arms were at his sides, he made a nearly perfect circle, with only the slight protrusions that were his head and feet to throw off the illusion.
The head itself—and that was how she thought of it, as “the head”—was large and rapidly becoming hairless, and his nose was smashed flat against his face so that he looked like a
ball with beady blue eyes and very fat lips. His feet were short and so small that she always had the impression—and the hope—they might give out under his weight and send him toppling over at any moment.
Sadly, that much desired event had yet to occur, and Mirabelle could only console herself with the knowledge that her obnoxious and inconveniently well-coordinated uncle kept her busy enough to leave little time for worrying over the additional guest in the house.
Mostly.
It helped that all the guests appeared to be occupied in their rooms at present—unpacking, she supposed, or writing missives to wives and sweethearts, informing them of their safe arrival. Mirabelle suspected there’d be a wife or two disappointed with the news.
But there would be no separating Whit from the others at dinner—not that she couldn’t try. She sent a maid with an offer to have his meal brought to his room and when that failed, she sent maids with the offer to bring meals to every other member of the house. Only Mr. Cunningham agreed to the arrangement.
So in a matter of hours, Mirabelle found herself sitting at the dinner table with some of the most disgusting human beings in En gland…and Whit.
Dinners at Baron Eppersly’s house were casual affairs. Very, very casual affairs.
So casual, in fact, that one might even go so far as to call them slovenly. Mirabelle personally felt they resembled nothing quite so much as a voracious pack of slobbering hyenas scrambling over dead prey. She’d never actually seen a hyena, mind you, but she’d read of them in books, and she rather thought the group fit the description.
Beyond the revolting sight of grown men eating without the slightest regard to etiquette—for heaven’s sake, why did her uncle insist on the good silver if he was determined to
use his fingers as fork, spoon, and knife?—Mirabelle also dreaded the start of dinner because it appeared to be a silent signal for the men to begin drinking in earnest.