An Improper Aristocrat

Chione sighed and hefted Olivia a little higher on her shoulder. She’d endured a maelstrom of emotions today, and now it seemed they were all coalesced into a heavy weight upon her soul. The scarab, she thought. It had to be that damned scarab.

She had barely set one foot in the door before she found herself enveloped in Mrs Ferguson’s arms, the housekeeper’s heavy rolling pin poking her in the side. For one, long, blessed moment, she leaned into the embrace. All she wanted was to just collapse, sobbing, into the older woman’s arms, and not only because of the handle digging into her ribs.

‘What did you mean to do—make the man a pie?’ Lord Treyford asked the housekeeper with a nod at her weapon of choice.

‘Wouldna be the first heathen I beat the fear of God into with this,’ Mrs Ferguson answered, releasing Chione to brandish her rolling pin high.

‘Speaking of heathens, that is my man, Aswan,’ Lord Treyford said, waving a hand at the man standing watch near the door.

He bowed, and Chione’s skin prickled. She handed the still-sleeping child to the housekeeper. It had been a long time since she had seen an Egyptian face. ‘With you be peace and God’s blessing,’ she said in Arabic.

He bowed low, but did not answer. He looked to the earl. ‘Effendi, we should go now.’

They had everything ready for a quick escape. Will’s sturdy Charlemagne had already been hitched to the pony cart. He was the last left; the other horses had been sold to finance Richard’s trip to Egypt. Her heart heavy, Chione tried to ignore the empty stables, the stale atmosphere.

Would the house look as forlorn, when those men did not find the treasure they had come for? Would they destroy the place in revenge? Steal away Grandfather’s collections as a substitute? Or, God forbid, set the house ablaze in their anger?

She stiffened her spine and raised her chin. Let them. All of her valuables were right here. And tonight, they were under one man’s protection. She looked for the earl and found him watching her. Inexplicably, she felt her spirits lift.

‘Can you drive the cart?’ he asked her. ‘Aswan and I will ride.’

She nodded. He put his hands on her waist to lift her up to the seat, and Chione felt her hard-fought-for composure slip. She waited for him to release her, but his large grip lingered. One heartbeat. Two. Three. A swirling flood of warmth and unfamiliar pleasure flowed from his hands. It filled her, weighed her down, slowed her reactions, and very nearly stopped her mental processes altogether.

With difficulty she broke the contact, moving away from his touch, berating herself as she settled on the seat and took up the reins. Could nothing—not grief, danger or exhaustion—temper her inappropriate reactions to the man?

She turned to watch as old Eli helped Will and Mrs. Ferguson into the back of the cart and found that, yes—something could. Shock, in fact, proved most effective. ‘Who is that?’ she gasped. An injured man lay in the front of the cart, curled on to a makeshift pallet.

‘Watchman,’ Lord Treyford said tersely. ‘His fellow came to alert us when they spotted the intruders lurking about. We found him out cold. Eli has seen to him.’

She stared as he took the lead of the village hack Aswan led forward. ‘A watchman? Then you were expecting trouble?’ The accusation hung unspoken in the air.

‘No, not exactly,’ he bit out, swinging up and into the saddle. He spoke again and the timbre of his voice crept even lower than his usual rumble. ‘I promised Richard that I would bring you the scarab. When he begged me to, I promised to protect you. But truly, I thought it to be a dying man’s fancy. Not for a moment did I believe that any danger connected with the thing wouldn’t be left behind in Egypt. I never imagined the sort of trouble we’ve seen tonight.’

He made a grand sweep of his arm, indicating the stable, the wounded man, the cart packed full of her dishevelled family. ‘I expected to come here and find Richard’s spinster sister facing a civilised problem: a neglectful landlord, investments in want of managing, a house in need of shoring up. Not a girl barely out of the schoolroom, grubby children, flirtatious dogs and village gossip. Definitely not a hysterical tirade, secret passages and a narrow escape from armed intruders in the night!’

His mount, sensing his ire, began a restless dance. Seemingly without effort, he controlled it, bending it to his will even as he continued his tirade. ‘The answer to your question is “No”. Thanks in part to everyone leaving me in the dark—no, I was not expecting trouble. In fact, you have only Aswan, who had the foresight to suggest a lookout, to thank for our presence here tonight.’ He glared at her from the back of his horse and finished with a grumble. ‘Not that we were much use, in any case.’

Chione should have been insulted. She stared at his flashing blue eyes, his big frame emanating pride, anger and chagrin, and she was once more reminded of the exaggerated characters in her novels. The Earl of Treyford was prickly, harsh and bossy. He was also clearly angry with himself for not anticipating tonight’s events and honest enough to admit that it was his servant’s precaution that had saved the day—or night.

Though he might be the last to admit it, Lord Treyford was a man of honour. And she was not so easily subjugated as a restless mount.

Clearing her throat, she met his defiant gaze squarely. ‘Then I extend my most heartfelt thanks to Aswan, my lord,’ she said with all sincerity, ‘for I am very glad that you are here.’

Her conciliatory tone mollified Trey, but only for a moment. In the next instant, he grew suspicious. In his experience women used that tone when they wanted something. Her wants did not concern him, only his own needs.

Unfortunately, he became less sure just what they were with every passing moment. Guilt and frustration gnawed at him, and he resented the hell out of it. He had years of experience behind him, decades of avoiding people and the tangled messes they made of their lives. And look what one day in the Latimer chit’s presence had brought him to.

‘Let’s move,’ he said as Aswan opened the door wide enough to get the cart out. ‘Will says the track through the wood will bring us out on to the coast road. From there we’ll go straight to the inn.’

Cautiously, they set out. The forest lay in silence; the few noises of their passage were the only discernible sounds. The coastal path was deserted as well, leaving Trey no distraction from the uncomfortable weight of his own thoughts.

There was no escaping the truth. He hadn’t taken the situation seriously, had not considered that something like this might happen. The thought of that girl, those children and what might have been was unbearable.

Damn it—he was tired of being kept in the dark! What did everyone but him know about that wretched scarab? What was it about the cursed thing that could possibly have stirred these bandits to follow it halfway around the world? He didn’t know, but he was damned sure going to find out.

To that end, and to the hopeful thought that the sooner he dealt with these sneak thieves, the sooner he could shake the Devonshire dust from his boots, Trey left his ragtag group in the care of the disconcerted innkeeper and turned his horse’s head back the way they had just come. Fortunately, the first watchman had not been idle. He had a half-dozen men gathered, and though they were armed only with cudgels and pitchforks and one battered French cavalry pistol, they were eager enough. Trey gave them a terse set of instructions and they set out again for Oakwood Court.

But it was to no avail. The intruders were gone, leaving behind only a thoroughly searched house and a flattened juniper bush below the open window of Miss Latimer’s chamber.

The taste of frustration was not one Trey was overly familiar with. Now he found it had a sour flavour that he did not care for at all, especially when he’d spent the last four-and-twenty hours having it forced down his gullet. So he was in a foul mood as he took to the saddle for what—his third trip today?—back to the little village of Wembury. Aswan wisely kept his own counsel and without a murmur took possession of the horses as they dismounted once again in the inn’s courtyard.

The innkeeper, Mr Drake, had evidently been awaiting their arrival. Trey eyed the man with a bit of distaste; he found him rather dandified for a proprietor of a backwoods inn.

‘Lord Treyford, your…guests have all been accommodated. I must warn you, though, that the boy has been put on a cot in your room.’

‘Thank you,’ Trey answered. ‘Of course, you will apply all of their expenses to my account.’

‘Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I had wondered…’

Trey was sure he had. In fact, he was sure that the whole village would be wondering by morning. But that was the least of his worries. Was he going to have to wait until morning to get some answers? ‘Are they all abed, then?’ he asked.

‘Aye, they are.’ The man leaned in close. ‘Had you any luck, sir?’

‘Only the ill sort.’

‘Bad news, that is, my lord.’ He shot Trey a wry look. ‘Today all the good citizens of Wembury will be a-twitter with the gossip. Tonight they’ll be wide-eyed in their beds, sure that they will be the ruffians’ next victims.’ Sighing, the innkeeper shook his head. ‘Every rusty blunderbuss in the county will be hauled out of storage, just like in those hungry, restless months after the war. Back then, old Jeremiah Martin shot his own brother in the arse, thinking he was a run-down Peninsular veteran come to steal his prized hog. We’ll be damned lucky if no one is killed.’

Drake heaved another sigh, then slapped a hand down on the counter, startling Trey. ‘Well, then, my lord, I’ve an extremely nice brandy laid out in the private parlour, should you like a nip before you retire.’

Trey hesitated only a moment. It was obvious that Mr Drake was not averse to a little soporific gossip. Suddenly, despite his usual scruples, Trey discovered he might not be averse, either. He needed answers, and he might finally begin to ask the right questions if he had a better understanding of the situation. And tired though he was, somehow retiring to a chamber with Will—and no doubt the dog—held little appeal.

The private parlour was more elegantly done up than one would expect, and the brandy was indeed very fine. Trey leaned back into the comfortably stuffed chair. ‘I would like to think that discretion is one of the services my money will buy, Mr Drake.’

‘Certainly.’ He returned Trey’s look with a sober one of his own. ‘In this case, however, my discretion is of no use to you. The men who rode with you tonight, they will talk.’

Drake held up the decanter and, at Trey’s nod, poured them each a second drink.

‘Gossip, superstition, unlikely tales of the supernatural, and the mysterious,’ Drake said as he settled back into his chair, ‘they are all an integral part of the atmosphere here. The locals thrive on it, repeat it and embellish it.’ With a lift of his chin he indicated the floors above. ‘Your friends, they are favourites, both in the locals’ hearts and in their whispered conversations.’

‘But what the hell is a wealthy shipping merchant like Mervyn Latimer doing setting up his family here?’ Trey nodded his head towards the ceiling. ‘Shouldn’t the lot of them be living in Plymouth, close to the shipping offices?’

Drake sighed and took a drink. ‘Mervyn is a man who likes his privacy. Not easy to come by when you are famous twice over. In addition…’ he leaned closer and lowered his voice ‘…there are rumours that the young lady has dealt with her share of snobbery.’

Trey raised a brow in question.

‘It’s her foreign blood, I suppose, although if you ask me it’s a damned shame. A lovelier girl you couldn’t ask to meet, in every way. But you know how dreadful people can be to an outsider. Here, in a smaller society, it is easier for her.’

‘Not to mention that here the people are more needful of her grandfather’s money?’