The Notorious Countess

Fox straightened. He squinted and said, ‘Do not concern yourself. While saving a lady—an invalid grandmother—from a cutpurse, the thief bit you. He was taken to Newgate and sentenced to death.’ Then his eyes twinkled. ‘Or maybe just tell the truth.’ His voice turned poetic, he took in a breath and put a palm to his chest. ‘A woman driven mad by passion.’

‘She is just mad.’ Andrew shook his head. ‘Fingernails like talons and...three mirrors.’ The sight of the dishevelled woman begging his pardon from three angles had been rather like a bad dream.

‘I might take you up on the offer to meet her.’ Fox looked the ceiling. ‘To see if you tell the truth.’

‘Oh, by all means, please do. The two of you should get on quite well together.’ He shook his head. That night he’d felt he’d been in a room with a marauding animal. In the beginning, Sophia’s vigour had grown with his own, but then he’d had to calm her when she’d realised what she’d done to him. He’d spent an hour reassuring her that it did not hurt—all the while it did hurt. He’d not wanted a repeat of such an encounter. The one time he had let himself be swept away by passion, it had turned on him. His father had been right that the encounter with Sophia would make Andrew a man. He’d felt one from that night forward, though perhaps not in the way his father had intended.

‘You really must learn to experience life.’ Foxworthy’s throat rumbled with a fluttery burst of smug disapproval.

‘Ha,’ Andrew grumbled, pulling his coat from the desktop and hooking a hand over the back of a chair. He slid the seat to the front of the desk. He sat, and both hands gripped his coat, but he didn’t don it. ‘I see you dancing on clouds one moment. The next you are wallowing on the floor in a drunken heap because of the fickle nature of your heart. You think to be in love and say she is the one for you for ever, and then she falls into your arms and you can’t bear her. Next you distance yourself and hurt her. Or she returns to her husband and forgets you—in which case you cannot get her name off your lips.’

‘It’s all worth it.’ Fox sniffed.

Andrew snorted. ‘The next time you are knocking on my door at midnight wanting to hide due to a jealous husband or you’re gasping tears of despair because this month’s one and only true love has not fallen at your feet, I will remind you, But it’s all worth it, and kick you out on your arse.’

Fox straightened tall, his chin up. ‘I visit your house because I wish to play cards with you. Sometimes I am a bit melancholy due to the fickleness of women. Or sometimes I may have had a misadventure. But I am not hiding.’

‘You wish to sleep without worry of someone bursting into your house to kill you. You learned nothing from your father.’

Fox’s eyes narrowed. ‘And you learned nothing from yours.’

A cannon blast of thoughts plunged into Andrew’s head and mixed with a powder keg of emotion. Andrew clenched his fist, tightened his stance and locked eyes with Fox. Neither moved.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Fox said, raising hands, palms out. ‘You know I meant nothing by that.’

Slowly, with the precision of climbing backwards from a cliff edge, Andrew calmed himself. He would not let anger overtake him. Even when he had throttled Fox, Andrew knew he’d not really been in a fury, but acting in the only manner Fox listened to.

Andrew squelched the emotion and controlled himself. Fox did not consider his actions or his speech before doing either. His cousin never saw the rashness of any behaviour. He likely would have been killed long before if not for Andrew’s intervention.

‘Fox. Tread softly.’ Andrew spoke in a controlled voice.

Fox examined Andrew’s eyes, and then stepped back, raising a palm. ‘I meant nothing by it. You know that. So your father had one little misstep in life.’ He shrugged. ‘He was better to us than my father ever was. I did not mean to speak ill of him. I have mourned him more than I would my own father.’

The familiar pang of grief touched Andrew’s chest, but anger tempered it. He wasn’t furious at his father any longer, but Fox was another matter. He continued to cause disruption in other people’s lives by acting on his desires. Constantly, Fox either broke someone’s heart or his own, and he always landed on Andrew’s doorstep. But within a few days, his cousin’s melancholy would fade and he’d be in love again, for what it was worth.

Fox sighed, but then his eyes sparked and his lips turned up. ‘It saddens me to see you dying on the vine.’

Andrew blinked. ‘Dying on the vine? No. If I need to see the rightness of my actions I only have to look at you. You’re the one landing in an overripe mess on the ground.’

‘Sadly, I think you may have a point.’ Fox turned his back. ‘I may have erred. Caused irretrievable damage to a young woman.’

‘You’ve done that countless times.’

‘But this time...’ His shoulders heaved from the breath he took. ‘I fear she was of too gentle a nature. Too delicate. And I worry that she will not recover.’ Fox turned to Andrew. ‘I have received a post from her friend telling me of the woman’s deep sadness. I fear... I fear she might take her life.’

‘You cannot be serious.’

‘I am, very.’

‘Then you must inform her family so they can take care she is not overwrought too extremely.’ He moved forward. He would make sure Fox did not shirk his duty.

‘I can’t. She does not live with them. She’s a pathetic little thing. Companion. Survives in her lady’s shadow. Never gets to go about. The other women jest about her. Call her a spinster. I thought to show her some compassion and make her realise how beautiful she is on the inside. Instead, she became quite infatuated with me. When I told her I did not love her, I thought she understood. But it’s said she is quite despondent. I fear seeing her again. It will only increase her misery.’

‘Seeing you does increase mine. But you must make sure she does not do something even more foolish than she already has.’

‘If I promise—’ Fox put a hand across his heart ‘—that I will take more care in the future, will you please check on her to see that she is recovering? Ascertain she will get over me. Just give her one of those same talks you give me about what a disaster I am.’

‘I cannot visit a lady’s residence in such a way. It is unthinkable.’

Fox regained his easy posture. ‘You can with Tilly. She’s a companion and her mistress will be away tonight. I can send her a note asking her to be at the servants’ entrance for a private message from me. She will do it.’

Andrew shook his head. ‘I cannot let the poor woman expect someone she loves and then tell her you will not be there.’

‘If anyone can convince her that I am a waste of her tears, it is you. You’ve recited the words to me so many times that you should certainly be able to recall them again.’

‘You must do this yourself.’

‘No. It will only increase her agony,’ he pleaded. ‘She will believe someone else telling her that I am not the one to lose her heart over. I have tried. She did not listen. And you can make certain she will not do something foolish like take her own life.’

‘We will find someone else to do it.’

‘You are the only one. There is no one else. If word were to get out and her reputation tarnished while she is so fragile, it would be too much. You must help me this one time. And I promise, I will mend my ways.’

* * *

Beatrice moved from the carriage on to the town house steps, then to the threshold. The door opened before her and she glided inside—until her dress stopped moving, jerking her to a stop. Turning, she snapped the silken hem of her skirt loose from the edge of the open door and heard the rip.

‘I would have corrected that for you,’ her brother’s butler intoned with a voice that could have rasped from a long-dead ghost. If one looked closer, most of Arthur’s appearance would have done well on a spirit, except for his height and posture.

‘I cannot wait all day,’ Beatrice grumbled to Arthur, but she stayed at the doorway, and dared him with her face.

‘I must beg pardon. It’s my age, you see. I’m slow.’ His face revealed no expression. ‘Forgetful. It is hard to remember how a person should act.’

‘Nonsense,’ she muttered. Then she appraised him. ‘How old are you?’

‘One hundred and three—in butler years.’

The maid stopped behind them, carrying Beatrice’s reticule, her book and her favourite woollen wrap that she only used in the carriage, because it was quite tattered, but so comforting.

‘And what is that in people years?’ Beatrice asked the butler.

‘I cannot remember.’

‘Arthur—’

‘It’s Arturo.’

‘No, it isn’t.’