Regency Rogues: A Winter's Night: The Winterley Scandal / The Governess Heiress

‘Let the boy settle in before you put him to work again, Horry.’ Aunt Barbara emerged from the study behind him and greeted Colm with a kiss and a quick hug that made him blink and return it with a feeling he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought. ‘Not that I’m not delighted to see you as well, dear. Your uncle has been longing for a sympathetic ear to pour his tale of woe into all morning and I would dearly like to get some of this mist and murk in my sketchbook before the sun breaks through. So you are doubly welcome.’

Colm cast a look at the dreary townscape outside and raised an eyebrow at the unconventional Duchess to say there was little chance of that happening quickly.

‘It seems unlikely now, but I don’t have much interest in old books at the best of times and I’d forgotten how unreal London looks in the fog,’ she admitted with a longing glance out of the window. Colm wondered once again how two people with such different interests could be so devoted to one another. ‘That’s enough of our woes, have you breakfasted, my boy?’ she added, although it was nearly noon.

‘Some time ago, Auntie dear,’ he told her with a grin and she just smiled placidly and told him not to be disrespectful to his poor old aunt. Since his late Uncle Augustus once had him beaten for just speaking in his presence, this was a vast improvement on his last stay at Linaire House already.

‘Then go on up and settle yourself in before your uncle puts you to work. He forgets how ill you were this summer and will answer to me and your sister Nell if he wears you out with his wrong shades of leather and the best way to arrange his musty old books. Then there’s whatever real business you must sort out for us.’

‘This is real business,’ Uncle Horace protested, but shot Colm a concerned look and told him unpacking the undamaged books could wait until tomorrow.

Not quite sure he wanted a day of leisure when his thoughts were still so full of Winterleys, Colm went upstairs to unpack his bag before his uncle’s valet could do it for him, then went downstairs again to find his uncle and see if he had forgotten he had given him the day off yet.

‘Glad you’re here at last, m’boy,’ the Duke of Linaire muttered vaguely.

‘It’s good to be back. Is all well with the books I sent on?’

‘Yes, yes, you did a good job. High time someone rescued that fine collection from Derneley, but I should never have sent you there. Barbara says I should be ashamed of myself for making you keep that disguise you’ve worn for so long.’

‘Lord Derneley didn’t look directly at me once he realised I was wounded at Waterloo and have the scars to prove it. I doubt he’d recognise Carter as your nephew if we happen to meet by chance.’

‘Hah! Man’s a buffoon; doesn’t deserve what you and the other brave lads did to keep him safe in his bed. Not that it will be his bed for much longer if the rumours are true.’

Colm doubted it was officially his right now, but he didn’t want to think about that selfish peer or his empty-headed lady any more. ‘He certainly doesn’t know how to treat fine books. Some are nearly beyond repair.’

His Grace shook his greying head and looked pained. ‘I read your lists as they came in and warned the bookbinders what to expect. Disgraceful, that’s what it is and I had a good mind to drop my price to compensate for all the work that will have to be done in order to get them back to scratch.’

‘I suspect your money is already spent.’

‘Aye, and I shook hands on the deal; Barbara says she’s coming with me if I negotiate for more than a child’s primer from now on, but my word is my bond and I can’t go back on it, can I?’

‘No, even if your money goes the same way as the rest,’ Colm replied and his uncle’s one extravagance was dwarfed by Derneley’s complete set.

‘At least those fine volumes are safe now and I can’t wait to see them set out in good order in their new home. Barbara says I must wait for the plasterers and carpenters to finish before I ship any back to Linaire, though.’

When someone managed to distract the Duchess from her paints for the odd hour she was one of the most rational women Colm had come across. He didn’t blame her for refusing to give up the joy and purpose of her life to run the vast houses her husband had inherited last year. If he had a wife himself, he wouldn’t want her to give up her interests to devote herself to him either. Not that he could afford one, but his aunt and uncle’s marriage was bigger than the usual society match and no wonder they sacrificed so much to make it happen. How wrong to visualise the wife he couldn’t have as dark haired and possessed of a pair of fine green-blue eyes and the warmly irresistible smile Miss Winterley saved for best. She wouldn’t have him if he had stayed the rich grandson of a duke instead of a barely solvent ex-army officer and it was high time he forgot her.

‘Nearly forgot to give you this, Colm.’ His uncle interrupted his thoughts, offering him a tightly sealed letter. ‘Farenze’s man brought it here with your real name on. Thought you wouldn’t want it sent on to Derneley House.’

‘No indeed, thank you,’ he replied as he eyed the crisply folded letter with his lordship’s seal stamped emphatically in the wax and wondered how he’d given himself away. Did he look like his father? Colm wondered, a little bit horrified by the idea and it was too long since he last saw him to know. The Derneleys hadn’t seen through Mr Carter’s plain old clothes to Lord Chris’s son underneath so perhaps he didn’t, but they would never truly look at a servant. A shrewd man like the Viscount might have seen Hancourt traits in him, but the idea felt disturbing.

‘Do you mind if I read this right away, your Grace?’

‘No more of that, lad. Be obliged if you’d call me Uncle Horace. When someone your Graces me, I still think they’re talking to my father or Gus. Makes me shudder if you want the truth.’

‘Me, too,’ Colm admitted.

‘Both tyrants, but they’re dead now,’ said the Sixth Duke with a furtive look round as if to make sure. ‘Had the devil of a job persuading Barbara to marry me because of them and she’s been the making of me. You should find yourself a fine girl with a mind of her own to make you happy after all you went through in Spain and Belgium.’

‘I doubt if I could persuade her to see past my father’s scandal and my empty pockets.’

‘Nonsense, a lady of character will see what a fine fellow you are and never mind the rest.’

The only lady of character he wanted to know that dearly was uniquely designed not to be able to see past who he was, so Colm shook his head, then turned Lord Farenze’s letter over as if that might tell him what the man had to say to Lord Chris’s son without him having to open it. Stay away from my daughter you lying rogue? His heart sank at the idea she knew who he really was and still played the game of pretending he was Carter. Had she and Miss Revereux laughed together about his credulity after their misadventure? Stop torturing yourself and read the confounded thing, his inner officer ordered impatiently.

‘Go and read it before you wear it out, lad. Oh, and your Aunt Barbara has sent for a tailor; he’s to wait on you today so he’ll probably be here soon. Don’t argue, my boy, Barb says she can’t endure dining with a nephew dressed like a curate much more than a week. The man’s to send his bill to me, so don’t argue about that either. Consider it a uniform if you won’t accept it as a gift to my nephew.’

‘I had to pay for my uniform,’ Colm objected half-heartedly.

‘Then take a few decent clothes in the spirit we offer them,’ his uncle said wearily. ‘Dashed if I ever came across anyone as poker-backed as you are.

‘Thank you then, it will be a relief not to worry about paying my tailor,’ Colm said and wished it was really a joke as he wandered upstairs, past his bedchamber and the chance of meeting that tailor before he’d had chance to put Mr Hancourt back together, then up more stairs to the bare rooms where the last Duke grudgingly housed him and Nell until they were old enough for school.

It looked the same as ever; no need to make it bright and comfortable for children his uncle and aunt didn’t have. Colm wondered fleetingly if he might be Duke of Linaire himself one day if Uncle Maurice’s wife kept producing daughters. It wasn’t a prospect he relished, even if he and Nell would have half a dozen old-fashioned homes to choose from. He liked the Duke and the Duchess and would rather have the modest house and a wife to make it a home he had dreamed of when trying to sleep on a bare mountainside or as he and his men were waiting for battle.

Colm went to the governess’s desk and extracted a penknife to slip under Lord Farenze’s seal. He should have known the man was too shrewd to take anyone at face value, but what did the Viscount want? He’d best read the letter instead of staring at it as if it might bite. Addressed in a bold, impatient hand, it was a masterpiece of distant politeness. They had matters to discuss arising from certain documents delivered to Lord Farenze. Since his lordship now knew who Colm was, they probably did as well. Tempted to wait until he had new clothes and looked a little more gentlemanly, Colm limped up to his room and wrote out an offer to call on his lordship tomorrow morning instead.

Chapter Nine (#ulink_0ad269a3-3601-589b-9bf1-e89be4e80f3b)

‘Mr Carter, my lord,’ the Viscount’s stately butler announced Colm solemnly the next day.

‘Come in, Carter, and bring burgundy, please, Oakham,’ Lord Farenze said as if it was quite normal to offer his good wine to a humble clerk.

‘Good morning, my lord,’ Colm said quietly.

‘Don’t stand in the corner like a nervous sheepdog, man, take a seat,’ his host ordered him impatiently.

‘Thank you, my lord,’ Colm said and did as he was bid.

‘Should I feel rebuked by your faux humility?’

‘Of course not, my lord. What right has Mr Carter to correct the manners of his elders and betters?’

‘Oh, touché; you learnt more than you want to admit in your old employment.’

‘Old employment, my lord? What work could a humble clerk do to teach him to be bold?’

‘Recently healed scars and a halt in a man’s step are all too common since Waterloo, so pretending the whole business was nothing to do with you attracts attention rather than deflecting it, Hancourt and you will have to resume your true identity under your uncle’s roof, won’t you?’

‘Did my uncle give me away somehow?’

‘No, your father did. You are the spit of him at the same age,’ the Viscount said dourly, as if he was trying not to hold it against him.

‘Barring the scars, I suppose?’ Colm said, wondering how he felt about being so like his father and what conclusions this man had made about him on the strength of his outward appearance.

‘Your hair is a shade darker and you’re leaner and perhaps taller, but that could be due to you leading an active life before you were injured.’

‘I wouldn’t know whether I look like him or not; there are no portraits of my father left at Linaire House and I don’t really remember what he looked like.’