Brave New Earl Read online

  Benjamin walked a bit closer.

  “If you will go away.”

  “But I came up to help you look for toys for Geoffrey.” It was an increasing delight to tease her. There was something so charming about the look she got, which said she knew precisely what he was up to and refused to stoop to acknowledge it. And yet she couldn’t help but react.

  “I haven’t found any.”

  “Only a hoard of finery.” Benjamin walked along the row of trunks and glanced inside them. He rummaged through one at the end and pulled out a child’s tunic and breeches in deep-blue velvet. “What about this?”

  “Just like a chocolate box,” said Miss Saunders.

  “What?”

  She half shrugged, which had a tantalizing effect on her gown. “Geoffrey would never wear that.”

  “Perhaps if I told him it was an ancient horseman’s garb.”

  “I don’t think he’d believe you. And if he did, he’d be bound to spoil the velvet.”

  “I suppose you’re right.” Benjamin replaced the small garments and picked up a satin coat. “I think I remember my grandfather wearing something like this, with lots of lace at his shirtfront. Perhaps it was this very coat.” He held it up and looked closer. “I’m not sure. He died when I was around Geoffrey’s age.” He smiled at his disheveled companion. “Grandpapa didn’t care much for change at the last. Or for what people thought of his appearance. He wore what he liked.” Geoffrey would have appreciated that attitude, Benjamin thought. “He had a dueling scar across his cheek.” His hand went to his own face to demonstrate. “A bit puckered and quite frightening, as I recall. They don’t seem to go together—all this frippery and bloody sword work.”

  “I imagine gentlemen took off their coats when dueling,” replied Miss Saunders.

  Benjamin laughed.

  “You should try it on,” she added in an odd tone.

  He looked at her, hands clutching the brocade bodice to keep it from sliding off, a beam of sunlight shining through the uninhibited glory of her hair. Holding her gaze, Benjamin slowly took off his coat. “No wigs,” he said. “I draw the line there.”

  “I haven’t found any,” she answered breathily.

  He donned the bright satin garment. It fit well enough, only a little tight in the shoulders. It felt strange to have wide skirts around his legs. He made an elaborate bow. “Pon rep, my lady, I am so pleased to see you. I hope I find you in better health?”

  “What do you mean, better?”

  Benjamin straightened. “I’ve been concerned about you since—”

  “I’m fine,” she interrupted. “My…outburst in the library was quite uncharacteristic, I assure you. It won’t happen again.”

  “No apology is necessary.”

  “I wasn’t apologizing.” Coppery glints snapped in the depths of her eyes. “Only informing you that all is well.”

  He didn’t believe her, though he couldn’t have said why. Her bearing and expression were calm, her manner quelling. Clearly, she didn’t want to talk about the bout of weeping, and he had no right to press her. Why should he wish to? “I don’t know how ladies moved about in those gowns.” He indicated the sweep of peach brocade trailing over the floorboards.

  “With stately elegance,” she replied.

  “That is to say, very slowly. Have you seen the sort of shoes they wore? Teetering along on four-inch heels must have made it hard to run away.”

  “From what?” she asked with a quizzical glance.

  “Anything.” Benjamin had spoken randomly. All his attention was on her, leaving his tongue unsupervised. “Bears.”

  “Bears?” She laughed.

  It was a delightful sound. Benjamin realized he hadn’t heard it nearly often enough. Irresistibly drawn, he stepped closer. “Or impertinent admirers.”

  “The gentlemen wore heels, too,” Miss Saunders said. “So it would have been an equal race, mincing along the cobblestones in a satin-draped procession.”

  She looked up at him, still smiling. Her eyes were suffused with warmth now, her lips a little parted, and Benjamin couldn’t help himself. He moved closer still and kissed her.

  Just a brush of his mouth on hers, an errant impulse. He pulled back at once.

  She leaned forward and returned the favor, as if purely in the spirit of experiment. Benjamin felt a startling shudder of desire.

  In the next moment, she’d twined her arms around his neck, and they were kissing as if their lives depended on it. He buried his fingers in her hair, as he’d been longing to do for days. It sprang free and tumbled over his hands, a glorious profusion of curls. Hairpins rained onto the attic floor.

  She kissed with sheer inexperienced enthusiasm. One of the open trunks pressed against the back of Benjamin’s legs, and he nearly lost his balance and fell in. Her borrowed dress fell off one shoulder, revealing more of her underclothes. He was so tempted to help it along to the floor.

  Then she pulled back and blinked at him, her eyes wide, dark pools. Her arms dropped to her sides. She took a step away, and another. “Oh.”

  The small sound was a breath, a worry, an astonishment. Benjamin struggled with his arousal, glad now of the long, concealing coat.

  Miss Saunders put her hands to her wild crown of hair. The lovely lines of her body were outlined in peach brocade and sunlight. “Oh dear.”

  “I could help pin it up, if you like.” Benjamin bent and gathered a handful of hairpins.

  “No, you couldn’t.”

  He gave her the pins. “I have a deft hand,” he said.

  “My hair is beyond deftness. It has to be wrestled into submission.”

  He nearly lost his careful control at the phrase and the thoughts it elicited. “I have strong fingers.”

  Miss Saunders flushed from her cheeks, down her neck, and across her half covered bosom.

  She was delectable, Benjamin thought, so very alluring. She was also an unprotected young lady and a guest in his house. He’d very nearly crossed the line here, and he wanted to, desperately, still. He had to leave before he did. He reached for his coat. Miss Saunders moved when he did. Not a flinch, he decided, but a demonstration of uncertainty.

  Benjamin snagged his coat. Rapidly, he shed the antique satin garment and resumed his own. He turned, reluctantly, and spotted a small white face peering from behind a broken cabinet near the stairway. “Geoffrey?”

  His son darted from hiding and scurried down the stairs. Benjamin knew there was no catching him.

  “He looked angry,” said Miss Saunders, her tone subdued.

  “Only curious, I think.” In fact, Benjamin couldn’t have defined his son’s expression, seen so fleetingly. The boy had surely witnessed the kissing. There was nothing to be done about that, and nothing useful to say just now. Was he required to explain it to him? Benjamin found he couldn’t imagine that conversation.

  As he walked to the steps and down into the inhabited parts of the house, he realized that he’d never spoken to his son about his deceased mother. Not one word. He had no idea what Geoffrey thought about Alice. Or knew about her, beyond the portrait in the library.

  Part of him argued that this was best. He hadn’t burdened a child with the weight of his grief. Should Geoffrey have heard him rail against the cruelty of fate? Seen him pound the desk drunkenly and weep?

  But another part wondered how he’d let his life grind to a halt. And so many responsibilities lapse.

  When she was certain she was alone again, Jean’s knees gave way, and she sank onto one of the closed trunks in a welter of peach brocade. One sleeve of the gown fell off her shoulder. She didn’t notice. She simply reverberated, body and mind, with the aftermath of those kisses. She’d never felt anything like that.

  She wasn’t a complete novice. She’d been kissed before. More than once, actually. Gentlemen would
flirt and seize their chances, and she’d allowed a few of them to take minor liberties. When she felt curious, or temporarily beguiled. But she’d never been tempted beyond a fumbling embrace or two—those empty bits of nothing compared to what had just occurred. Jean put her hands to her blazing cheeks.

  Everyone expected her to marry, of course. Her birth was genteel, and she had a tidy little fortune. But marriage meant putting her person, and her money, under another’s power. Jean couldn’t contemplate such a step without a shudder.

  And so she moved from hostess to hostess, shedding complications with the changing scenes. The next time an importunate gentleman looked for her, she was gone. By the time they met again, the incident was long past, its lack of consequence obvious. None of these beaus had followed her about the country to press their suits. None had made her head spin. How could fingers running through her hair turn her weak with desire?

  But Geoffrey had seen! She’d come here to save him, not dally with his father. What had the boy thought of their embrace? He’d certainly scowled. Hadn’t he? She couldn’t be certain now.

  Jean’s hands shook as she changed into her own gown and tidied up the trunks. Alone in the dim, cavernous space, she could admit that she would very much like to kiss Lord Furness again. Even though that was probably a very bad idea.

  She returned to her bedchamber, expecting every minute to see Geoffrey peering reproachfully around a corner. She reached safety without encountering anyone, however. “Tab?” she called as she closed the door behind her. A kitten seemed just the thing right now.

  There was no response, and no sign of the little animal.

  “Have you disappeared into your mysterious hiding place again?” She sighed and let it go. He’d emerge eventually to use the sand box and eat the food still in his bowl.

  But he didn’t.

  The day passed. Not ready to face Lord Furness, Jean wrote several letters and read for a while. When Tab didn’t reappear, she searched the room again, with no more success than the last time. Finally, when dinnertime loomed, she went downstairs to inquire.

  “He was there when I made up the room this morning,” said a young housemaid. She smiled. “He likes to pounce on the sheets when I shake them out.”

  “You’re sure he didn’t get out when you left?” asked Jean.

  “No, miss. I was careful.”

  Jean continued along the lower corridor to the kitchen, busy with preparations for the meal. Everyone there disavowed any knowledge of Tab. Overhearing, Mrs. McGinnis came out of her room and said the same. The cook, impatient at the interruption of her work, sniffed. “I’d look to young Master Geoffrey. When things go missing in this house, it’s usually him.”

  Jean took this as prejudice. She walked through the lower floors of the house, calling softly for Tab, but got no response. Finally, she climbed the stairs to the nursery and asked her question there.

  “I haven’t seen him, miss,” said Lily the nursery maid, who sat at a worktable with a pile of mending. “Have you seen Miss Saunders’s kitten, Geoffrey?”

  The boy, making a tower with wooden blocks on the floor before the fire, didn’t look up.

  A sound escaped the blanket tepee. It sounded remarkably like a mew.

  “What was that?” asked Jean.

  It came again, muffled but unmistakable. Jean walked over to the improvised tepee and pulled back a flap. A closed basket sat inside, the source of the mewing. One of Tab’s paws poked through a narrow opening in the fibers. Quickly, Jean bent, opened the basket, and lifted Tab out. She straightened with the kitten in her arms.

  Geoffrey hit out at his construction, knocking the blocks helter-skelter over the floor. One hit the fire screen and bounced back to strike his knee. He showed no reaction.

  Lily sprang up. “Lord a’ mercy, what have you been up to?”

  “I wanted to play with him,” mumbled Geoffrey sullenly.

  “But you weren’t playing with him,” Jean said. She couldn’t keep the emotion out of her voice. “You shut him up in a prison and left him.”

  Geoffrey stuck out his tongue at her.

  “Geoffrey!” Lily came to stand over him, hands on hips. She didn’t present a particularly authoritative figure. “Beg pardon at once. You told a lie, too. You know what Tom said about—”

  “Didn’t! Didn’t speak!” The boy jumped up. “This is my house. The kitten was born near here. It should belong to me, not her.” He ran from the room.

  Lily sighed. She looked quite dispirited. “Sorry, miss.”

  “I spoke too sharply to him.” The kitten clawed at Jean’s hand. “I’m going to take Tab back to my room.” She carried the squirming animal downstairs, feeling remorseful. She should have moderated her tone with Geoffrey; he was very young. But the truth was, she would never react well to the thought of creatures shut in small spaces.

  Tab visited his sand box, dug into his food bowl with gusto, and retired to the window seat for a thorough wash. When Jean went down to dinner soon after, she used the key that had been lying on the mantelpiece and locked her bedchamber door.

  Word of Tab’s kidnapping and retrieval had reached her companions. “I’m glad your kitten has been found,” said Lord Macklin as they sat down to dinner.

  “And sorry that Geoffrey took him,” said Lord Furness. “He is confined to quarters and will apologize to you tomorrow.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is. He’d been told the cat was yours.”

  “Perhaps, you know, after he saw us in the attic…” Jean faltered under his uncle’s interested gaze.

  Lord Furness spoke self-consciously. “There was nothing wrong with that. From Geoffrey’s point of view.”

  “Nor from mine,” said Jean.

  Their eyes met. The look was nearly as intimate as the kiss.

  “And what of yours, Benjamin?” said Lord Macklin.

  Their host blinked, turned to the older man. “My…?”

  “Your point of view. We’ve heard about Geoffrey’s. And Miss Saunders’s. What about yours?”

  For a moment, Jean thought he knew about the kiss. Then she saw he was only teasing, from the hints he’d picked up.

  “I agree with Miss Saunders,” said Lord Furness, gazing at her again.

  “You share her opinion that there was nothing wrong with…it?” his uncle replied. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

  “Wholeheartedly.”

  “And should it recur?”

  Lord Furness’s eyes, which remained fixed on Jean, glinted with amusement and something more. “I shall live in hope,” he said.

  Jean couldn’t stop the flush that warmed her cheeks, or the thrill that went with it. She could, however, change the subject. “Have you seen any more of your friend, Lord Macklin?”

  “My friend?”

  “The one you were surprised to meet in the village. Who’s such a creature of London.”

  “Ah.” The older man accepted her diversion with a smile. “I have, in fact. She’s settled here for some weeks. For a rest.”

  “From the rigors of society?” Jean asked. “The season hasn’t even started.”

  Lord Macklin shook his head. “She has taxing…work.”

  “What sort of work?” asked Jean, intrigued by this unusual piece of information. Ladies from London who were friends with an earl didn’t usually have employment.

  “Who is this?” asked Lord Furness at the same moment.

  “A friend I was surprised to see in Somerset, as Miss Saunders said.”

  “I hope she doesn’t expect formal calls,” said their host, reverting to his earliest crusty manner. “Or entertainment.”

  Something about the last word appeared to amuse his uncle very much. “She does not. She’s known for a charming lack of formality. And she’s here quite privately
, on a repairing lease. She doesn’t want attention.”

  “Surely we could exchange visits,” Jean said, even more interested in this mysterious figure.

  “No,” said Lord Furness. “The neighborhood would take it as a signal that their society is welcome here and…erupt into a flurry of calls and invitations.”

  “Like a volcano?” Jean found the image, and his uncharacteristic agitation, amusing.

  His uncle calmed him with a gesture. “As I said, she’s here for a rest. She doesn’t want to see you either.”

  Lord Furness blinked, nonplussed. Jean laughed.

  Through the rest of dinner, she tried to discover more, but Lord Macklin was an old hand at evading questions he didn’t wish to answer. He revealed nothing significant.

  • • •

  When Benjamin sent for Geoffrey the next morning, to discuss his transgression and arrange for the official apology, the boy was nowhere to be found. He’d apparently sneaked out of his bedroom in the night, after Lily was asleep. As no doors or windows had been unbolted, he had to be in the house, but a search turned up no sign of him. Even Tom couldn’t find him, which he thought odd. “Reckoned I knew all his hidey-holes,” the lad said.

  Benjamin organized a more systematic sweep of the house, beginning at the bottom and working up, but the dearth of staff made this a slow process. By noon, he’d begun to worry. Had Geoffrey gotten outside? Standing in the empty front hall, Benjamin reviewed the possibilities. No, not without leaving the exit he’d used open. Benjamin had been an inquisitive child here himself; there were no secret passages or escape tunnels at Furness Hall.

  Miss Saunders came through the doors to the reception room. “Still no sign?”

  Benjamin shook his head.

  “I shouldn’t have scolded him,” she said, practically wringing her hands.

  She reviewed the story of Tab’s release, as she’d done more than once, despite Benjamin’s reassurances. She was overly concerned about a sharp remark, as he was just a bit weary of telling her. Benjamin headed for the stairs. He felt better when he kept moving.

  He walked an upper corridor, wondering what to do next. There was nowhere else to look. Every box and trunk in the attic had been opened and examined under his supervision. They’d peered under beds and behind sofas. They’d shaken each drapery and ransacked every cabinet. Perhaps his son, like cats, could walk through walls.