For All Eternity Page 16

  Grinning like a tickled loon, he opened the moth-eaten bag and extracted something that looked like a bagpipe impaled by a long, twisted horn. Making it all the more curious was the cork dangling by a chain from what had to be a mouthpiece.

  Proudly waving his creation before them, his watery blue right eye shifting wildly between their faces while

  his drifting left one floated off the opposite direction, he crowed, “Well, what do you say? Damn impressive, eh?” “Er … how does it work?” the marquess quizzed, looking as he always did when faced with Brumbly’s inventions: bewildered.

  “Well you should ask. Well you should ask.” The viscount nodded vigorously, which sent his left eye coasting to the corner nearest his nose. The sight was distracting, to say the least.

  Smiling in a way that displayed a set of remarkably good teeth, he explained, “First you blow in here,” he stuck the mouthpiece between his lips and blew. When the bagpipelike bladder was fully inflated, he removed it from his mouth and plugged the mouthpiece with the cork. Looking giddy enough to giggle like a schoolgirl, he queried, “Ready?” At their nod he squeezed the bladder, producing a noise like a constipated cow with flatulence.

  “Ah.” His right eye rolled heavenward in ecstasy, while his left one stared at his companions. “Sings like an angel, eh?”

  The marquess slanted his son a look of suppressed hilarity. “Impressive,” he murmured. “Don’t you agree, Colin?”

  “Very impressive indeed,” Nicholas concurred, ready to choke on his laughter.

  The viscount grinned, visibly pleased with himself and their response. “Of course this end — ” he thumped the flaring brass horn end — “goes into the water to call the fish.” For once, both eyes were trained in the same direction. “Say. You’ve been going on about the Hawksbury fishing stream for years. What say you to taking the Sirena down there and testing it on Devonshire fish?” The marquess cleared his throat. “Ah, Brumbly. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  The viscount frowned for a beat, then resumed his grin. “By Jove! My tackle. Might as well catch a few while I’m at it.”

  Nicholas and his father exchanged a look of fond exasperation. “Er, no, Brumbly. I was referring to your daughter. You did remember to bring Minerva, didn’t you?” By his expression it was clear that his father had his doubts.

  “Minerva?” Brumbly looked momentarily nonplussed, then he slapped his stringy thigh and cackled. “Oh, yes. Of course. My Mayfly.”

  “Mayfly?” Nicholas didn’t dare to so much as glance at his father, certain they would both spill their hilarity. Leave it to Brumbly to nickname his daughter for an insect that just happened to be common fish food.

  “He calls Minerva ‘Mayfly’ because … well, why don’t you tell him yourself, Brumbly?” By his father’s choked tone, it was clear that he was one syllable away from howling with laughter.

  “What?” The viscount’s gaze, at least that of his right eye, shifted from the coach back to his hosts. “Oh, yes. Mayfly. Call her that because I used to make Mayfly flies from her hair when she was a babe. Tried it as an experiment, you see. Was curious to find out whether fish bite better for human hair or animal fur.”

  “And the results?” Nicholas squinted at the coach, attempting to catch a glimpse of the queerly nicknamed girl. It appeared to be empty. H-m-m. Perhaps Brumbly had lost her somewhere along the way.

  “The fish practically jumped on the hook. Used her hair until she was about three. Must have changed about then, because the fish no longer fancied it.” He cackled and jabbed Nicholas in the ribs. “Maybe you and Mayfly will spawn a fish fly babe, eh?”

  Now there was a disturbing notion, one that Nicholas had no intention of exploring. Clearing his throat uncomfortably, he changed the subject by inquiring, “Are you certain you didn’t leave your daughter at a posting inn? I don’t see her in the coach.”

  Brumbly seemed to consider the possibility, then turned to the vehicle bellowing, “Mayfly? You there, girl?” A second later a head topped by a crooked bonnet appeared at the window. The viscount waved. “Well, come along, then, girl. None of your dawdling.”

  Always mindful of his manners, Nicholas strode down the steps to greet the girl, pausing on the bottom one to await a footman to open the door. As he did so, her head popped down again.

  After waiting several moments, during which he didn’t dare speculate upon what she did in the coach, he frowned and glanced around. There was no one about save old Henry, who was either dead or frozen from shock. Apparently the Mayhews either had no footmen, or they had fallen off their perches during Brumbly’s mad dash.

  Or it could be that there was no room for them, he added, eyeing the fishing gear lashed to every available surface.

  Since the Hawksbury footmen were no doubt scrabbling to change from their work clothes into their livery, what with the guests arriving early, he had no choice but to act the part himself.

  “Miss Mayhew? May I assist you?” he called, fearful of what he might see should he neglect to warn her.

  The only response was an odd scraping sound.

  Taking that noise for a yes — after all, he was dealing with a Mayhew — he more wrestled than folded down the rusty steps. After mentally preparing himself to be greeted by oddness, Nicholas opened the door and peered inside.

  There, crawling about the filthy floor, muttering to herself, was whom he assumed to be Miss Mayhew. The instant she saw him her face flushed a hectic red, and she let out a braying laugh. “Dropped my w-worms w-w-when w-w-e s-stopped,” she stuttered, holding up one of the squirming creatures.

  Nicholas eyed the grime beneath her nails, wondering if she’d dug them up herself. Finding that notion almost as diverting as the dozen or so fishing flies dangling from her shabby bonnet, he somehow remembered himself enough to say, “I see. U-m-m. Perhaps I should send for a servant to attend them so you can freshen up.” The freshen up part was meant more as a hint than a solicitude.

  She looked as horrified as if he’d suggested setting the coach on fire with her still in it. “Oh, no. They c-can’t w-w-wait. It’s too h-hot in h-here. They s-s-shall die for c-certain!” She gave her head an emphatic shake, which sent her fly-festooned bonnet toppling from her head.

  Her hair, Nicholas noted with distaste, was as much in need of “freshening” as her clothes and hands. Indeed, judging from the greasy clumping of the pale, lank strands, it looked to have been last washed sometime during her father’s Mayfly experiment. And they wondered why the fish no longer fancied it?

  Refraining from grinning at his sardonic conclusion, he promised in a cordial, albeit tight voice, “If they do die, I shall see that you get new ones. Lovely plump ones.”

  She shook her head again. “These are lugworms from a s-secret s-s-strand near Formby. B-best b-bait in England there. P-Papa and I s-s-s-stopped on the w-w-way h-here to dig them out of the s-sand. W-we’re going to b-b-breed them at our b-bait farm.”

  “Your … er … bait farm?”

  She nodded as she plucked up another worm and dropped it into a creel full of wet sand. “W-we h-have the finest one in England.”

  “Indeed?”

  Thus prompted, she described her enterprise in detail, her stutter lessening in her rising excitement. As she spoke, Nicholas studied her features.

  Eyes, pale blue and watery, but lovely in both size and shape. Nose? Not exactly regrettable, though it was rather short and turned up at the end to be of his taste. Then, there was her mouth.

  He narrowed his eyes as he considered it. Nice lips. Yes, very nice indeed, though it was a pity about those protruding front teeth. As for her complexion, well, only one word came to mind: unfortunate. Whatever could she have been thinking to let it get so brown and speckled? He eyed her weak chin for a moment, then blinked and appraised her overall appearance.

  While she wasn’t what one would call pretty, she wasn’t the plainest miss he’d seen, either. No, not the plainest, he mused, taking i
n her stained gown, just the dirtiest.

  She was rattling on about artificial leech habitats when she abruptly fell silent. Looking as if she’d just hooked a shark, the enormous man-eating kind, she poked the worm nearest her hand. It didn’t move. She poked it again.

  Once, twice, thrice, her mouth flapped, then she wailed, “It’s dead! C-c-c-cooked in the h-h-heat!” Keening as if her heart were broken, she snatched up the stringy corpse and cradled it in her palm. “O-o-o-o! W-what a fine fish it w-w-would’ve c-c-c-caught.”

  Not certain whether to console the girl or ignore her outlandish eruption, Nicholas looked helplessly about for Brumbly. He was gone, as was his father. He sighed. Now what?

  Deciding it best to get her out of the coach and into someone else’s care, he suggested, “Perhaps we should gather up the rest of your, ah, breeding stock before it suffers a similar fate.”

  She broke off mid-keen. “W-w-we? You w-want to h-h-h-help?”

  He graced her with his most charming smile. “But of course. That is what gentlemen do, help ladies.”

  “W-w-well — ” She eyed him critically, as if deciding whether to trust him not to steal a worm or two for himself. After a beat she nodded. “All right. B-but only if you p-promise to b-b-be c-careful. Lugworms are s-s-sensitive c-creatures, you know.”

  Nicholas cast a long suffering glance skyward. Heaven save him from crazy fisherwomen and matchmaking mothers. When he’d sworn upon his life, she nodded again and stuck her head beneath the seat, calling in what he assumed to be some sort of worm language.

  Vowing to make short work of the worm-catching business, he leaned into the coach as far as his body would allow him. Instantly he lunged back out again, gasping for air. What in Hades was that smell? He exhaled forcefully through his nose, trying to expel the lingering foulness.

  Fish. Yes. Putrid fish. No doubt the mad pair of anglers had forgotten about a catch stowed somewhere in the vehicle, and it now rotted in the heat. As to why they hadn’t smelled it themselves and thus removed it, well, what could he say? They were Mayhews.

  Eager to be shot of this particular Mayhew, Nicholas held his breath and manfully charged forward again. Aha! A worm, slithering across the girl’s filthy hem. He dived forward to catch it … at the same time Miss Mayhew lurched back.

  Whap! Her posterior collided with his face.

  “Argh!” He tumbled backward — thump! — right onto his tailbone. For a long moment he lay sprawled across the bottom steps, too stunned to move.

  Miss Mayhew was the rotting fish.

  Chapter 12

  The Beast had told. She just knew it. Why else did the marchioness demand an audience?

  Sophie paused at the end of the hall, her stomach knotting as she gazed to where John stood stationed by her ladyship’s door. She wasn’t ready. Not yet. She needed a moment, well, maybe two or three, to prepare herself for her coming ordeal.

  Unfortunately, John’s vision was as strong as Miss Stewart’s was weak, and he promptly spied her standing there. Smiling as if hailing a long-lost sister, he gestured for her to approach.

  She ducked her head and feigned interest in her gown, pretending not to see him. How could he look so jolly … so very friendly? she wondered, plucking at her puffy sleeve. As footman to her ladyship, he surely knew who she was and what she’d done? How could he not? He was as much friend as servant to the marchioness, and thus as privy to her affairs as Miss Stewart.

  Sophie shifted her make-believe attention from her sleeve to her scalloped overskirt, her wonderment deepening into confusion as she remembered the equally bewildering conduct of the lady’s maid. Why, she’d looked nothing short of gay when she’d waltzed into the kitchen earlier and delivered her mistress’s summons. The way she twittered and flushed, you’d have thought she was a schoolgirl.

  A schoolgirl bedeviled by the keeping of a very big secret, Sophie amended, thinking of the bright, knowing glances the woman slanted her way. And as if all that weren’t enough to throw a body off balance, she had blithely charged her to don her best gown.

  Sophie considered her sea-green frock with its puckered bodice and lilac trim for a moment. After much thought she’d opted to wear not her best dress, but her favorite one; the one in which she’d always experienced the best of luck and had had the most excellent times. She’d worn it in hopes that its magic would prevail.

  “If I might be so bold, my dear, I must say that you look quite lovely this evening.”

  She glanced up in surprise to see John standing before her, gazing at her like a proud papa at his daughter’s coming-out. Though she was far from in a smiling mood, she appreciated his courtly compliment and thus forced her lips to curve up. “You are most gallant, sir.” Apparently her smile looked as strained as it felt, for he instantly sobered and took her hand in his. “Ah. Plagued by the nerves, are we?”

  She bit her trembling lip and nodded.

  He gave her hand a fortifying squeeze. “No need for it. Her ladyship is quite tame, I assure you. Hasn’t devoured a servant in years.” He grinned at his own jest.

  Sophie returned his gaze grimly, not at all cheered. Lady Beresford might not deal harshly with servants, but she, regretfully, wasn’t a mere servant. She was the girl who had jilted her son; the one responsible for disgracing him in front of the entire ton. And from what she’d heard tell about her ladyship, she was protective to the point of fierceness when it came to her sons. What the woman would do to her for wronging her precious Colin, well, she daren’t even imagine.

  Her panic mounting by the second, she continued to stare at John’s smiling face, her breath hitching in her fear. Oh, what she wouldn’t give to be just another servant, one whose only sin against the Somervilles was a badly swept floor or an indifferently scrubbed spoon.

  As she stared, his smile faded. Cupping her chin in his palm, he murmured, “Why, Sophie. My dearest girl. You truly are in a fright, aren’t you?”

  So compassionate, so full of genuine concern were both his voice and face that the fragile wall of her composure shattered and she blurted out, “Oh, John. Whatever shall I do? Pm in such trouble … such terrible, wicked trouble.”

  His eyebrows shot up at her words. “Terrible, wicked trouble? You? I find that rather impossible to believe. Whatever makes you think such a thing?”

  Miserably, she shook her head. Though she longed to confide in him and seek his sage advice, she didn’t dare. For she knew that despite his paternal fondness for her, his first loyalty lay with the Somervilles. He would hate her if she confessed to harming one of them, and at that moment she very much needed his friendship.

  “Come, come, now, girl. Speak up.”

  “It’s just that, well …” She shook her head again. “Why else would her ladyship demand to see me unless I’ve done something dreadful? You know as well as I that she hasn’t invited me, a mere maid-of-all-work, upstairs for a friendly tete-a-tete.”

  He chuckled softly and released her chin. “There are a great many reasons why a mistress might wish to speak with a servant, and not all of them bad. Indeed, I happen to know that you shall find the purpose of this interview pleasant to the extreme.”

  “But I — ” She broke off abruptly, blinking her surprise as his words penetrated her brain. “I shall?” The words came out in a squeak.

  He nodded. “Now, stop fretting and come along. We mustn’t keep Lady Beresford waiting any longer.”

  “But — “

  He shook his head and took her arm. Too astonished to object, she docilely allowed him to escort her down the hall. It wasn’t until they stopped before the marchioness’s door that she regained enough of her senses to whisper, “Will you at least give me a hint as to what this is all about?”

  The look he cast her mirrored Miss Stewart’s mirthful, knowing one. “Her ladyship’s business is for me to know and you to discover,” he retorted in a singsong voice. “But — “

  He put a finger to her lips to hush her. When she’d r
emained silent for several beats, he scratched on the door.

  “Enter!”

  Sophie frowned. Either the marchioness had a very deep voice, or the respondent was a man. The marquess perhaps?

  “Now, then, girl. Don’t forget to curtsy. And please do try to smile.” With that hasty instruction, John opened the door and announced her.

  It was more instinct from years of training than conscious thought that propelled Sophie into the room and down into an elegant curtsy. As she began to rise, taking care to keep her head modestly and correctly bowed, a frail female voice murmured, “Nicely done. Very nicely done. Don’t you agree, Colin?”

  The Beast. Sophie almost lost her precarious balance.

  “M-m-m, yes. Nice,” concurred a dry voice she knew so well.

  It was all she could do not to look up and shoot him a withering look. No doubt this interview was yet another of his cunningly plotted punishments.

  “Do have her move nearer, Miss Stewart. I should like a closer look,” the marchioness peevishly directed.

  “If you please, Miss Barton?” the lady’s maid relayed.

  Her gaze still lowered in respect, Sophie rose and did as charged. It wasn’t until she’d stopped in the center of the room that she ventured a surreptitious glance before her.

  More lounging than sitting in a chair by a tester bed, was Lyndhurst. Sophie couldn’t help but to stare through her lashes, astonished to see him, who was always so stiff and formal, in such a casual pose. Hateful cur! He looked as relaxed as she was tense.

  He also didn’t look so very big and ungainly, she reluctantly noted, not when he sat all loose-limbed like that. In fact, she found the sight of his long, athletic body rather … pleasing.

  Pleasing? Ha! She must have breathed too much of the Pixie’s cleaning solution to be having such outlandish delusions. Delusion or not, the Beast’s form intrigued her, and for the first time in their acquaintance she actually observed it.