The Unscrupulous Uncle, page 2
Damon Alexander Fairbourne, ninth Earl of Devlin, glared at the missive in his hand. Triple disasters had struck his estate, requiring his immediate personal attention.
He shivered. Though he had sold out eight months earlier, he had not yet visited Somerset, preferring to address other business first – like assuring the succession; he had pushed his luck far enough. Thus he had accepted invitations to several winter house parties and was now immersed in the London Season. It allowed him to forget his other reason for avoiding Devlin Court. Too many ghosts lived there, for everyone he had loved was gone.
Peter’s image floated before his eyes as it had done so often since Vimeiro, blotting out the sight of his study. How could he live without so basic a part of himself? After all this time it was still an unanswered question.
But the letter would not disappear.
“Tell Tucker we will leave immediately,” he ordered the butler, who had been silently awaiting instructions near the door.
“Yes, my lord.”
He scrawled a note to the Marquess of Tardale, postponing the meeting they had arranged for the following morning and crying off his plans to escort Lady Hermione to the theater. Two days to Devlin, three to address its problems – he should return in a sennight. Hermione would understand.
Lady Hermione Smythe.
His face softened as he thought of the beauty he had chosen to be his bride. Tall and slender, with blonde hair and green eyes, she sent chills tumbling down his spine whenever she entered a room. Hermione would drive away the ghosts. The prospect of a week apart was daunting, confirming the wisdom of his plans. She would preside over Devlin Court with the same graciousness his mother and grandmother had showed. His tenants would welcome a mistress who could share their concerns. She would fit perfectly into his life, offering conversation or loving silence according to his mood, her sweet temper guaranteed to make his home the sanctuary it had been in his youth.
But it would do no good to dwell on their upcoming separation. He reread the letter from his steward. Troubles never came singly or even simply. One of the cottages had burned to the ground, injuring the tenant and killing his eldest son. Already the family was behind with the spring planting. To make matters worse, a mysterious illness was sweeping the county’s dairy herds, promising bad times for the cheesemakers. Both problems would impact his rents. And the unrest that had plagued England for some years – most recently in the form of the corn riots – had now broken out in the village, as grumbling over dwindling incomes and rising prices turned to violence.
Damon sighed. He should have gone home earlier. Hastings was an excellent steward, but he had been left in sole charge of the estate since the previous earl’s death. It was too big a burden.
Damon considered settling his betrothal immediately so he need not rush back to town, but reluctantly abandoned the idea. Managing the trip with only one overnight stop was already questionable. If he delayed any longer, he would require two. And it might take hours to track her down. She was probably making calls or shopping. It was what ladies were expected to do when in town, and Hermione always conformed to expectations.
“I will leave immediately,” he informed Tucker as his batman-turned-valet adjusted his jacket. “Pack enough for a week, then follow in the carriage.”
“Of course, my lord,” replied Tucker with a grin. “Don’t you fret none. ’T’won’t be the first time we up and left in a hurry.”
Damon’s eyes narrowed as he pushed memory past the years to which Tucker referred, past the disillusionment of war and the devastation of death, to another departure. That had been his last visit home.
Home. His mouth tasted metallic, and he swallowed convulsively. He and Peter had bought colors in the spring of 1808, determined to counter Napoleon’s move into Portugal. It had been Peter’s idea, of course. He had been army-mad since escaping leading strings. That was all that had saved Damon’s sanity after Vimeiro. If he had led his closest friend to death, he could not have lived with himself.
Their fathers had protested, but the boys were fired with idealism and an age-old drive to test their mettle on the field of combat. Next to that, the argument that heirs should not endanger their lives did not sway them. After all, a good friend had died while hunting. When the boys remained adamant, Damon’s father had accepted defeat, mouthing all the appropriate words, though his disapproving expression belied most of them. Lord Braxton had eschewed pretense, condemning them both for willful disobedience, and even threatening to disinherit Peter if he persisted in this folly – an empty threat, as they all knew, for the estate was entailed to the eldest son. Peter hadn’t enjoyed the rift, but he understood his parent, having inherited his own passionate nature from his sire. He listened and agreed with many of Lord Braxton’s points, but the remonstrations changed nothing. The boys had been of age.
Lord Braxton’s diatribe had hurt Damon nearly as much as Peter. The baron was his godfather and was as beloved as his father. That had made Peter’s death even harder to bear. Damon had always been the steady, rational one of the pair, expected to protect Peter and prevent rash behavior.
“Master Peter would chastise you for avoiding home for so long,” observed Tucker, their long acquaintance under the most trying of circumstances allowing him to speak as a friend and advisor rather than a servant.
“There is no one there to care,” responded Damon sadly. “My parents are gone, as are his. His sister married some years ago. I don’t even know where she lives now. Under the circumstances, Peter would understand my reluctance.”
“Maybe so, but you still have to live with yourself. If nothing else, you can decide what changes must be made before you marry.”
Damon’s brows shot up. He had never considered the question, but Tucker had a point. The house had been untenanted for years. Was it ready to receive the new countess?
Chapter Two
Damon’s curricle threaded the gates of Devlin Court and snaked through the deer park, topping the rise that offered a spectacular view of the house. His vision blurred. The Court was one of the most beautiful estates in England. Nestled in a valley against a backdrop of forested hills, the Palladian facade added by his grandfather glowed in the warmth of the setting sun. Behind that new front sprawled the Court. Originally built in the E-shape that paid homage to Elizabeth – who had bestowed both land and title on the first earl – it had since been enclosed and enlarged into a sprawling maze of wings and courtyards.
But the sight did not explain his moistened eyes. Nor did his eight-year absence. He had known how it would be. Peter was everywhere – racing at breakneck speed along the stream that traced the valley floor; dodging behind trees in uncounted games; gracefully clearing walls and ditches on his favorite black horse. Damon cleared his throat in a futile effort to choke back a sob. For years he had struggled to banish his agony by thrusting all emotion from his life. It was disheartening to learn that he had failed.
Drawing off the road, he tethered the horses and walked briskly into the woods. What a splendid figure he cut! Major Lord Devlin, hero of the Peninsular campaign, a man who looked death and carnage in the face without flinching. Yet he could not even enter his estate dry-eyed!
“Go away!” he shouted at Peter’s lingering image. That quirky black eyebrow raised in silent laughter, but Peter complied.
Other ghosts immediately crowded close – his stern but loving father; his warm, compassionate mother, whose advice and help had extricated him from countless scrapes; Lord Braxton had been as stern as his own father, though more tolerant of his godson than of Peter; Lady Braxton was another he could turn to, particularly with problems he didn’t care to confess at home.
Even Catherine glared at him, blaming him for not protecting Peter from the perils of war. After all, Damon was the elder. He knew better how to go on in the world. And he was always the practical one. Peter had fluttered from interest to interest with butterfly quickness, shedding trouble like a snake shed its skin – and with as little memory of the event. Not that Peter had been a shallow man, merely one filled with joie de vivre. It was that quality that had countered Damon’s innate sobriety and stultifying common sense, injecting a warmth into his life that had also died at Vimeiro. In like manner, Damon’s practicality had kept Peter anchored firmly to the earth. They had been opposites, but of the same coin, one man who happened to occupy two bodies.
But such thinking was pointless. Peter was gone. Damon was left with only his own harsh self, untempered by Peter’s enthusiasm. These days, he acted only out of duty – to see the war to its conclusion; to marry and secure the succession; to address the problems plaguing his estate. Straightening abruptly, he strode back to his curricle. He was the Earl of Devlin, sole survivor of two once-vibrant families. It was time to start acting like an earl. He would not think of Peter again. It was the only way to carry on.
“Welcome home, my lord,” said Wendell when Damon appeared at the door.
“You look well,” he replied, though he was shocked at how much older the butler appeared. Doing a quick calculation, he realized that the man was now in his late sixties. Could he still perform his duties? And what of the rest of the staff? Both the housekeeper and the head groom had been the same age as the butler.
But he could hardly pension off everyone the moment he returned. And Hermione would have her own ideas about servants. Tucker was right. There would have to be changes.
“Robbie will bring up hot water. He is new since you were last here.” Wendell gestured to a liveried lad, who looked sixteen.
“But well trained, I am sure.”
“Your luggage—”
“Will be along shortly. Send Tucker up when he arrives. And a bath.”
Damon headed for his room but halted at the split in the stairs to gaze at his father’s portrait. The eighth earl looked little like his son, a shock of black hair topping a long face. Only his tawny eyes glowed with kinship, even more alike now that Damon had banished all gaiety from his own. That feline stare seemed accusatory today, and Damon’s cheeks burned.
His father’s teachings had always centered on the duty he owed to his title. Damon had been an only child, the next in line a third cousin who lived in America. Thus Damon must guard against all peril lest the earldom pass to unworthy hands. He had lived with that reality from birth, and it had fueled his father’s opposition to buying colors. Damon’s dereliction of duty had meant a painful parting despite the conciliatory words. If the eighth earl had lived, Damon’s safe return would have brushed all that aside. Instead, pain clouded his memories.
“Forgive me, Papa,” he mouthed silently. “Your fears were well founded, yet my own point was also valid. If I had stayed, Peter would still have gone and would still have died, and I would have lived forever with the conviction that I could have saved him had I been there.” He laughed mirthlessly. “But how stupid that is! I would not have known. Had I stayed, I would have been on the yacht that day. Perhaps fate protected me by sending me to war. But enough of the past. I am alive so everything will be all right. And I will marry soon, probably at midsummer. You would have liked her, Papa, for she is very like Mama – golden, beautiful, and loving.”
His sire’s expression remained stony. Nothing had really changed. And why was he talking to a portrait? He was becoming eccentric. Already he spoke with too many ghosts. It was nearly as bad as talking to trees, which absurdity had got the King locked in a padded room.
Damon quickly mounted the rest of the stairs and was turning left when movement drew his attention to the right. Robbie was entering his father’s room. His room now, Damon admitted as the finality of his position registered. He must step into his sire’s shoes, and taking over the earl’s suite was the opening move. Yet it seemed almost blasphemous.
Drawing in a deep breath, he marched down the right-hand corridor.
* * * *
Damon sat at his father’s desk, listening to the steward’s droning voice. The library looked strange from this perspective. Instead of his usual sight of the fourth and sixth earls – whose frowning countenances had added the disapproval of all his ancestors to his father’s lectures – he now saw books, globes, and a view of the formal gardens and lake. He thrust down the thought that the hill beyond the lake shielded his eyes from the Bristol Channel, wherein lay the bones of his family.
Hastings was detailing estate problems – and there were plenty. The disasters that had summoned him from London were merely the most pressing. “Devlin is not alone in either village unrest or in losing cattle. You should discuss the situation with other landowners, starting with Lord Braxton. He lost his entire dairy herd.”
“I had not planned to call,” protested Damon, wanting to never set foot there again. If the ghosts at Devlin had nearly broken him, those at Ridgway House were guaranteed to do so. “There is no one there I know.”
“Not even Miss Catherine?” asked the steward in amazement, before recalling his place and snapping his mouth closed. “Forgive me, my lord. I understood that the previous baron’s family was close to your own, but she is considerably younger than you.”
“I thought she married seven years ago.” Shock nearly paralyzed Damon’s voice.
“Married? I heard of no such plans, but then I was new to this position when you left, and met the previous baron only once before his own death. We did not discuss his family.”
“You are sure that she is still there?”
“Yes, though she does not go about in society.”
Damon returned to the business at hand, but his mind raced. What could have happened? He could not imagine her crying off. Had her beau died before her mourning period ended? Yet surely she would have looked about for another suitor. She would never wear the willow.
He fought past the haze that had engulfed his brain after Peter’s death, forcing himself to remember. The pain had not even begun to dull when word reached him that his parents and Peter’s had been lost in a sailing accident. It had been the last straw for his reason. He had no memory of the days that had followed and had never asked Tucker for the details, but a fortnight later he was on a ship headed for England, with a broken arm and the sort of bruises one acquired in a fight. Also aboard were the army’s top officers.
Sir Arthur Wellesley had trounced the French at Vimeiro, capturing their entire force. It should have freed Portugal and driven the invaders from much of Spain, but the arrival of his superiors – Sir Harry Burrand and Sir Hew Dalrymple – guaranteed a protracted struggle. In a move of utter stupidity, the two had negotiated the Convention of Cintra, allowing the French Army to return intact to France, where it was immediately reposted to the Peninsula. Burrand, Dalrymple, and Wellesley were recalled to face courts-martial, but the damage had been done.
Aboard ship, Damon was only peripherally aware of their presence. Still in a fog of grief and despair, his thoughts had focused on the substantial legal business engendered by his accession and on Catherine, whose situation was uncertain after the loss of her family. But he never traveled beyond London, getting caught up in the courts-martial proceedings. Though only a low-ranking officer, he had fought under Wellesley, receiving a field promotion for his efforts. His convenient presence in London demanded that he be called as a witness. By the time Wellesley was exonerated, there was no reason to go home, for Damon had encountered the new Lord Braxton at Brooks’s.
They’d exchanged condolences on family tragedy and congratulations on their respective accessions.
“What will Miss Catherine do now?” Damon asked. “Peter was worried about her future.”
“And with good reason,” agreed Lord Braxton. “But you need not concern yourself, my lord. She will be wed next summer. The betrothal was arranged a sennight before my brother died.”
This was news to Damon, though Peter could not have heard before Vimeiro, and Damon would have seen none of his friend’s letters afterward. “Who is the gentleman?”
“I doubt you know Roderick, my lord. He is a younger son of Sir Arthur Graham, who visited Somerset on business after you had left for Portugal. I met him at the funeral. He seems to be all that is proper, and my brother had already agreed to the connection. He is at home in Yorkshire now, for Catherine is still devastated by the loss of her family.”
“Of course,” agreed Damon, recognizing the understatement.
Now he nodded at whatever Hastings was suggesting. What had happened? And why was she avoiding society? There was only one way to find out – call at Ridgway House and ask her.
Promise me, Damon. If anything happens to me, you will look after Catherine. But he had not. He had failed to carry out a sacred vow. By ignoring Devlin Court, he had not learned that Catherine’s future remained unsettled. Guilt flogged him, joining the ghosts that already berated him.
I’m sorry, Peter! Somehow, I will make up for my negligence.
* * * *
“Peckland claims that Mrs. Newman has a putrid sore throat,” groused Lady Braxton, biting into a scone. “I don’t know why he has to bother me with tenant problems. Handling such things is his job.”
Catherine mentally shrugged. Her aunt had never grasped that the lady of the manor was expected to look after the welfare of the tenants. Peckland usually brought problems to Catherine. Why not this time?
Lady Braxton finished her scone and sighed. “You will have to see the woman, I suppose. Take her a basket.”
“Gladly.”
“But don’t give her anything valuable. It only encourages excess sensibility. Peasants should never succumb to so trifling an ailment. They are too lazy already.”
Biting back a scathing rejoinder, Catherine left to execute this latest commission. It did no good to brangle with relatives who could so easily make her life miserable. But there were times that silence was difficult.
