Grace Burrowes - [Lonely Lords 05]

  Also by Grace Burrowes

  The Heir

  The Soldier

  The Virtuoso

  Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish

  Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal

  Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight

  Lady Eve’s Indiscretion

  The Courtship (novella)

  The Duke and His Duchess (novella)

  The Bridegroom Wore Plaid

  Mary Fran and Matthew (novella)

  Once Upon a Tartan

  Darius

  Nicholas

  Ethan

  Beckman

  Copyright © 2013 by Grace Burrowes

  Cover and internal design © 2013 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover design by The Killion Group

  Cover image © CURAphotography/Shutterstock.com

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Lonely Lords Family Tree

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To the farmers and the artists, without whom, we would all surely starve

  One

  “It’s time I rose from the dead.”

  The Dowager Marchioness of Warne eyed her guest placidly over her teacup, despite the impact of his words.

  Oh, to be thirty years younger—even twenty. “Is that wise, Gabriel? You never did get to the bottom of all that mischief in Spain.”

  Gabriel Wendover rose to his considerable height and paced to the window overlooking the back gardens. “Here’s my dilemma: my younger brother is one of few who can convincingly identify me. If I don’t emerge from my convalescence now, Aaron could well drink himself into oblivion, or engage in one too many duels, and then I’m an opportunistic poseur, trying to do battle with Prinny’s legal weasels.”

  “Surely your former fiancée could identify you.” Lady Warne enjoyed the view of her guest from the back almost as much as she did from the front. He was all lean, elegant muscle now, though two years ago he’d been at death’s door.

  “I’m not sure I’d trust Marjorie that far.” Gabriel turned away from his study of the flowers. “As Aaron’s wife, and the Marchioness of Hesketh, she now commands significant wealth and respect. If she’s simply the wife of a younger son, she gets a great deal less.”

  “But an adequate portion to survive on?”

  “Of course.” His features shuttered, and an idea popped into her ladyship’s mind.

  “Does this sudden urge to come out of the shadows have to do with a woman, Gabriel?”

  Not by the flicker of a dark eyelash did he betray any reaction to the question, and in his stillness, Lady Warne found a hint of confirmation that she’d guessed correctly.

  “Why would you suggest that?”

  She went to stand beside him, close enough that the afternoon sun revealed fatigue around his eyes and mouth. “Two years ago, you were done searching for justice, done trying to figure out who wished you dead. You took over stewarding Three Springs for me, and despite all odds to the contrary, you made it prosper. I thought you were content there and would finish out your days as plain Gabriel North, humble, if taciturn, land steward.”

  “Taciturn?”

  “Reserved.” And because he was less than half her age, she allowed herself a smidgen of fun at his expense. “Brooding.”

  “I was recovering from a mortal wound. This does not incline a man to a sanguine demeanor.” He fell silent. He was too dear a man, and she was too old not to wait him out. “My decision doesn’t have to do with a woman, but rather, with the absence of a woman.”

  He was lonely, and he’d been lonely when they’d met two years ago, though it appeared he was now becoming aware of this sorry state of affairs. And when Gabriel Wendover saw a problem, he must needs address it.

  “Surely, with your looks, you don’t lack for female company?”

  “And all my wit and charm?” He raised an eyebrow, and Lady Warne was put in mind of those ancient, rousing days when a man took by conquest and held by main strength. Gabriel would have prospered then, too—handily—and likely had his version of fun, bashing heads and bellowing war cries.

  “You’re as charming as you need to be,” she observed, “though you don’t prevaricate any better than my grandsons do.”

  His brilliant green eyes showed some emotion, humor perhaps, but so briefly that Lady Warne couldn’t be sure of what she’d seen.

  “As long as I turn my back on my birthright,” he said, “I am unable to marry, unable to even dally, really, because I’m living a lie.”

  Clearly, Gabriel had never moved about much in society. “Dallying men are supposed to lie. It’s part of the consideration due the ladies.”

  “Then I’ve lost the knack of dallying, if I ever had it.” He crossed his arms over his chest, a gesture that to her ladyship looked more defensive than stubborn. “I can’t risk that a woman close to me could become a victim of the same kind of violence that befell me, or see her used somehow as leverage against me.”

  “You’ve been brooding on this.”

  “Considering,” he allowed. “I cannot resign myself to watching Aaron fritter away the family fortune, much less fritter away his life, so Prinny can snatch up the rewards when escheat befalls the title. If I’m going to be dead, I’d rather die battling my enemies than of mortification at my younger brother’s moral collapse.”

  “He is young,” Lady Warne pointed out. Everybody was young to her these days. “Maybe he’ll come right if you give him a few more years.”

  “The longer I wait, the less credible any story of protracted delirium or lost memory becomes.”

  Gabriel was not merely lonely; he had fallen in love. The notion was startling and gratifying, and the only possible explanation for a radical departure from his well-laid, ridiculous plans of two years ago. “Maybe you were captured by gypsies and held as a prisoner until the gypsy princess fell in love with you and set you free.”

  His answering scowl was ferocious.

  “What have I said?”

  “Sara Hunt was known as the Gypsy Princess when she toured the Continent.”

  “She’s Sara Haddonfield now.” May God and a handsome grandson be thanked. “Married to my dear Beckman, and no longer a traveling musician playing for coin, or the lowly housekeeper raising her daughter at Three Springs. Beckman is arse over teakettle for his lady wife.”

  Gabriel flashed her a rare, precious smile. “My virgin ears.
Such language.”

  “Your ears are no more virgin than your… the rest of you. What can I do to help?” Because she would help, will he, nil he.

  “Ask your spies what they know about the goings-on at Hesketh,” Gabriel said. “I know of three duels Aaron’s been involved in over the past twelve months. I hear of particularly wicked house parties with his army cronies when his wife is up to Town, and Marjorie’s bills would finance a cavalry unit and their mounts. This makes no sense to me. Aaron was fun loving, not reckless, and he was raised as the spare. He should know how to go on better than this now that he’s Hesketh.”

  “Your papa’s death was unexpected, as was your so-called demise,” Lady Warne reminded him. “Men can misbehave badly when a title befalls them on short notice.”

  “So one hears.”

  “I’ll listen to the gossip, but you’re going to need allies if you intend to march off smartly to Hesketh and declare yourself alive and well.”

  “I can’t ask others to put their lives in jeopardy merely because I’m feeling possessive of my title.”

  “Not possessive, protective.”

  “Both. I have one other favor to ask of you.”

  “Anything.”

  He looked momentarily nonplussed by the immediacy of her answer, and that gave her satisfaction. The man had been alone too long, probably since before his injury in Spain.

  “I need a place to stay, somewhere nobody will think to look for me over the next week or so.” He was gazing out over the asters and chrysanthemums again, his expression distant. “I must dress the part if I’m to make a grand reentrance at Hesketh, and I want to do some loitering in low places before I go home.”

  “You want to make the rounds.” She looked him over, seeing the dusty boots, the threadbare morning coat, the cravat that sported not a hint of lace. “Gather intelligence. You are more than welcome to stay here, young man, but you’ll tell me what news you come across, and I’ll do likewise.”

  “My thanks, and my lady?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Be careful. Beckman, Nicholas, and the rest of your tribe of grandchildren would flay me where I stood did I bring harm to you.”

  “Having a little project is more likely to keep a woman of my age out of trouble, I’ll have you know. Now, if you want to restore your wardrobe, you will take my advice, for the tailors gossip as freely as the modistes.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Having made his request of her, he visibly relaxed, lounging back against the windowsill as they plotted and planned.

  Oh, to be thirty years younger. Even twenty.

  ***

  “You’ve eight commissions.”

  “Eight!?”

  How it gratified Tremaine to see the incredulity on Polonaise Hunt’s lovely face. “I accepted only eight, but I could have come away with twice that number.”

  The smile trying to break across Polly’s face dimmed. “Do they know the artist is female?”

  “They don’t care.” Which was the God’s honest truth, not that Tremaine would attempt to dissemble. “They don’t care that you may take three years to execute their various portraits; they don’t care that you’re going to bankrupt them for the privilege of waiting for you. All they care about is being able to crow that P. Hunt is under contract to them.”

  “Eight commissions.” Polly sank down on a red velvet settee and wrapped her arms around her trim middle. “Heavens.”

  “And, my dear”—though she wasn’t his dear; she was his late brother Reynard’s sister-by-marriage, nothing more—“your show sold out.” He appropriated the spot beside her on the sofa, contenting himself with physical proximity.

  “Sold…” Polly stared hard at the carpet, as if a pattern woven in red, gold, and cream wool required study. “People bought my paintings, just like that?”

  “They tried to bid on them. Next time, we’re having an auction.”

  “Next time.” Polly hunched forward, the look on her face suggesting she’d forgotten Tremaine and her eight commissions, and was instead seeing paintings and arranging her subjects.

  He touched her hand. “Does this call for a drink?”

  “Just a tot. Years in service at Three Springs leaves a woman with little head for spirits.”

  “I had a letter from Beckman today.” Tremaine brought her a balloon glass with the merest slosh of amber liquid in the bowl. Polly Hunt said what she meant and meant what she said. If she’d wanted a larger portion, she would have told him.

  “How fares my sister’s present spouse?” Polly took the drink and brought the glass to her nose, a facial feature that might be said to have character. Tremaine liked that nose, and liked her, more’s the pity. He’d liked her the first time he’d encountered her nearly six years ago, wearing a paint-spattered smock and an impatient expression.

  Dear Reynard had stashed both his wife and her younger sister in a rented flat in Vienna. The air had been frigid, the scent of boiled cabbage gaggingly thick, but all Tremaine had noticed was the dab of blue paint on Polly’s nose and the ferocious concentration she’d turned on her canvas within two minutes of meeting him.

  He resumed his place beside her. “Your sister is thriving in Beck’s care, the harvest was excellent, that peculiar wheat of Beck’s is coming along, and they’ve a crop of fall lambs from the Dorset rams.”

  “Lambs? Sara married a country squire, it seems.”

  “Who will tell anyone he meets that his wife’s sister is the renowned—and wealthy—portrait artist Polonaise Hunt.”

  “Wealthy.” Polly smiled softly, and Tremaine took a fortifying swallow of his drink. “How wealthy, Tremaine?”

  He named a figure that had Polly’s jaw dropping, then snapping shut.

  “I’ll need a solicitor,” she said, “and I want to set up a trust, for Allie.”

  He had not anticipated this, but he should have. “Sara and Beck provide for her very well, and the first person you should be looking after is yourself.”

  “I am Allie’s only aunt, the person with whom she shares artistic talent. The wealthy, famous, and all-that-other-nonsense-you-said P. Hunt can dote on her niece.” Polly wasn’t a tall woman, but when she rose, she had an imposing presence. Whereas her sister, Sara, was tall with flame-red hair and lithe curves, Polly was a smaller package, her hair a dark auburn and her curves—like her nose—more pronounced.

  “Allie is part of the reason I’ve scheduled your first commission down by Portsmouth,” Tremaine said, dodging the issue. Polly was Allemande’s aunt, and Tremaine was her uncle—he knew well the urge to spoil the girl.

  Polly leveled a stare at him that did not bode well for prevaricating males of any species. “A solicitor, Tremaine. The most shrewd, accomplished, expensive one you can find me.”

  He poured himself more brandy. Since he’d undertaken to act as agent for Polly’s art, Tremaine’s consumption of spirits had risen while his quotient of restful sleep had diminished. “Worth Kettering is your man, if he’ll have you.”

  She ceased her pacing near a small framed portrait of a dark-haired, dark-eyed young mother with a laughing infant on her lap. “Why wouldn’t he have me?”

  “He’s selective about his clients, and his firm is much in demand. I use him, but I have for years, and it suited him at the time to have an errant French comte wandering his offices.”

  “Half-French, half-Scottish,” Polly muttered. “This truly is a delightful painting, Tremaine. The brushwork is lovingly rendered, and the light wonderfully delicate. Will Mr. Kettering not take me on because I’m female, or because I’m an artist? Or will it be because I lack a title?”

  “I’ll write him. I think he will take you on.”

  She adjusted the angle of the frame minutely. “Why?”

  “Because you need him.” And Kettering had not a chivalrous streak, but a chivalrous quirk, such that Polly’s circumstances would appeal to him.

  “Because I’m wealthy,” she concluded
, stepping away from the portrait. “I need him because I’m wealthy. Tell me about my first commission.”

  Safer ground, and he hadn’t even had to maneuver her onto it. “It’s at Hesketh, which is only about a day’s ride from Three Springs, and thus close to Allie.”

  Polly turned velvety brown eyes on him, and Tremaine couldn’t help reaching out to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear. “For letting me start out near Allie, Sara, and Beck, thank you.”

  “I put Hesketh at the front of the line for another reason.” Besides the need to put some distance between himself and his talented client. “Aaron Wendover is a damned good-looking devil. You won’t have to flatter or artistically interpret his features to create something of significant aesthetic appeal.”

  Polly resumed studying the picture of mother and child. “And his lady?”

  “Also lovely, to the eye.”

  She shot him a peevish look. “Tell me the rest. An artist must capture more than a pretty face and a pretty gown.”

  Tremaine wished, not for the first time, that he had artistic talent himself, though it wasn’t some titled ninnyhammer he’d try to render on canvas.

  “You’re a scandalmonger, Polly Hunt. As bad as Beck’s grandmother, who sent all her wealthy friends to your showing, by the way.”

  “Then we must call on her when you take me up to Town to meet that solicitor,” Polly said. “I’ll write her a note as soon as I’ve choked down the miserable fare your cook inflicts on you. I swear, Tremaine, how you keep meat on those enormous bones of yours defies science.”

  “I am sated on the beauty of my female relations.”

  Polly smiled at that twaddle, clearly not at all impressed with supercilious flattery, and no doubt telling herself Tremaine was, after all, half-French.

  ***

  “It’s as if God took Reynard St. Michael,” Polly mused to her sister, “and formed his brother, Tremaine, into his opposite.”

  “Half brother.” Sara went about the Three Springs kitchen, collecting the detritus of one of Polly Hunt’s baking sprees. “And being Reynard’s opposite isn’t entirely a bad thing. I know Reynard was Allie’s papa, and we must always be grateful for her, but what, exactly, were my late husband’s good qualities?”