The Earl Returns Read online

  Hodgson shook his head. “He shouldn’t feel guilty. There was nothing he could have done. He was outmanned and outgunned. If he’d tried to resist, he’d just have gotten too many good men killed.”

  “And the others?” Miranda suddenly realized that her question had fallen into silence. No one else in the room was speaking. They were all staring instead, and Aunt Fanny looked as if she were considering a swoon.

  “Perhaps you would both care to step into the library?” Merton suggested. “It’s a trifle more private.” He led them away and closed the door on the shocked stares. Dick and the girl didn’t even seem to notice that he was in the room with them, but he was too curious to make himself leave.

  “The others?” Miranda asked again, but more hesitantly, as if she knew the answer.

  Hodgson just shook his head.

  “That’s what we were told, but we kept hoping. They finally wrote to tell us you had been released, but we couldn’t find out where you had gone. Papa is staying in London so he can badger the Admiralty Office, and the Foreign Office, and any other office he can find. Mama is with him, of course. They’ll be so happy to see you.” She suddenly stopped and put her hands to her cheeks, as if she had just realized something dreadful. She had. “Dick, our letters… we wrote—Mama, Papa, and I—we all wrote. About Elspeth and Billy. Did you ever get the letters? Do you know what happened?”

  Hodgson nodded. “The letters came, lass. It was one thing the English navy managed to get right—they got those letters to me, eventually. That’s why I didn’t go back to Boston after Tom here got me free. I just couldn’t face it without them.”

  She gripped his hands. “We were told that it was over in a moment, Dick. They couldn’t have suffered.”

  He nodded, and gripped her hands in return. Eventually, he turned to look at Merton. “My wife and son, Tom. I told you they were dead. They were run over by a drunken carter while I was trapped in your bloody navy.”

  Merton just nodded and put out a hand to grip his friend’s shoulder.

  “Taking in sewing. My wife was taking in sewing,” said Hodgson, his mouth twisting with bitterness. “She would never have needed to do that if I had been there. I should have been there. And I would have been there if…”

  They all sat in silence. Then Hodgson looked up and shook his head as if to shake off the memories. “Where are my manners? Miranda, this fellow is Tom Wortham, who was my shipmate on the Ulysses, and who turns out to be the Earl of Merton. Tom, this is Miranda Rokeby, whose father owns the ship I was sailing on.”

  Miranda looked disconcerted to hear that Tom was an earl, disconcerted and also somewhat disapproving. A trifle defiantly, she said, “And Dick Hodgson is a man my parents are proud to call friend.”

  “As am I, Miss Rokeby.” Merton smiled at her. She looked quite adorable as she leaped to deflect any possible slight to Hodgson. “We are partners, in fact.”

  Hodgson nodded and smiled. “We’re setting up as shipbuilders. Tom has some ideas about how to make a ship faster, and I have some ideas about how to make her safer. Together, we may come up with something.”

  Miranda looked at Merton in some surprise. “I thought it would be considered disgraceful for an earl to be involved with something as useful as shipbuilding.”

  He grinned. “It is. But then, as my family will tell you, I seem to spend my life doing disgraceful things that bring shame and humiliation on the family. I cannot seem to help myself.”

  She smiled at him then.

  Yes, he was definitely glad that his grandmother had arranged this house party. For more reasons than one.

  Hodgson wanted to be alone for a while, so Merton gave Miss Rokeby his arm as they walked back to the drawing room. He had been right about her eyes—there were flecks of gold in the brown. And she was just the right height for him, not one of those tiny little dolls who always made him feel grotesquely huge. If he took Miss Rokeby in his arms, her cheek would rest quite nicely on his shoulder. He would only need to bend down a few inches to reach her mouth. It was a very attractive mouth, nicely shaped, generous. He realized he was starting to bend down to her and caught himself up. Not now. Not yet.

  As they reached the drawing room, he was about to reassure her that she need not feel embarrassed by her enthusiastic greeting earlier. Then he realized that she had drawn herself up proudly and prepared a gracious smile to offer the others. A smile twitched at his lips. If anyone was going to show embarrassment, it wasn’t going to be Miss Rokeby.

  Several small groups had formed, and all turned to the door when they entered. Her friend, the prim and proper one from the shore, was tucked between a pinch-faced lady in a dark green dress and turban and a young fop in a scarlet waistcoat. They seemed about to head straight for Miss Rokeby, so Merton steered her instead to his grandmother, who was enthroned on a settee that provided her with a clear view of the entire room. That lady, now nearly eighty, was still slim and elegant, her white hair dressed becomingly and the lace fichu above her gray silk gown standing up in a flattering ruche about her neck. Next to her, Aunt Arabella had her fan over her mouth, so she was probably pouring poisonous comments about everyone into Grandmama’s ear. She never had understood that by doing so she simply confirmed Grandmama in her dislike of her daughter-in-law.

  “Grandmama, I assume you have already met Miss Rokeby?”

  “Of course she has,” snapped Arabella. “Since you couldn’t be bothered to be present to greet your guests, someone had to.”

  The elderly lady sighed and smiled courteously at Miranda. “Good evening once again, my dear. I see you have met my grandson, and I gather we have all witnessed something of a reunion.”

  “Yes, indeed, Lady Merton. My parents will be so pleased to find Mr. Hodgson alive and well. My father has for years been plaguing our government and yours to find out what happened to him and to the other men who were seized from our ships.”

  Arabella sniffed. “All this fuss about men who were nothing but deserters. They should be grateful they were given the opportunity to serve their country instead of being hanged.”

  Miranda snapped around to look at her angrily. “Except that, in this case, they were not deserters and it was not their own country they were being forced to serve.”

  She looked furious enough to do Arabella violence. Merton had no real objection to that, but it would probably upset his grandmother, so he felt obliged to speak. “One might question the use of the phrase ‘given the opportunity’ when one is given no choice in the matter. And as we all know, officers were not always scrupulously careful about whom they pressed into service.” He was pleased to see Arabella recall what had happened to him and fan herself vigorously in an effort to hide her discomfiture.

  While this exchange had been going on, Lady Merton had quietly signaled to the pinch-faced lady in green, who now appeared, Miranda’s friend in tow.

  “Ah, Merton,” said his grandmother, “allow me to present to you Lady Carraby and her daughter, Miss Saunders. This is my grandson, the Earl of Merton.” She beamed as if she had accomplished something extraordinary in making the introduction.

  Merton bowed politely, wondering if he was missing something here.

  “I declare, Lord Merton, your grandmother has been singing your praises so loudly that my daughter and I have been longing to make your acquaintance.” Lady Carraby managed to wield her fan with one hand, push Lydia forward with the other, and emit a painful trill of laughter all at once.

  “I am sure those praises have been greatly exaggerated, Miss Carraby. You must make allowances for the fondness of a grandparent.” Merton smiled, he hoped gently, at Miss Carraby. She was staring at him like a terrified doe, making him feel like some hulking brute.

  “Aunt Fanny, Lydia, it is all so amazing,” said Miranda, reaching out and taking her cousin’s hands. “Not only is Dick Hodgson alive, but he and Lord Merton were on the same ship, and now they are in business together to build ships.”

&n
bsp; Arabella drew in her breath with a hiss. “Merton, you shame your family enough by going into trade at all, no less with an uncouth American. Must you make things even worse by announcing that fact to all and sundry?”

  “Do you know, I have always wondered what makes one person part of all and another part of sundry,” said Miranda, turning around slowly to face Arabella with a rather frightening smile. “Now, when a shop says it carries sundries, one assumes one could purchase such items as needles and threads there. Would a person belong amongst the sundries if he had a sharp tongue, for example? Or if he pricked one’s curiosity?”

  Merton grinned and decided to join in. “Perhaps someone could be considered similar to a spool of thread if he had secrets that begged to be unraveled.”

  Miranda rewarded his contribution with a delighted smile.

  Lady Carraby’s fan was now moving at breakneck speed. “Miranda, I need to speak with you,” she said. “Please come with me. Now.” She turned and stalked off.

  Miranda, looking not at all cowed, smiled politely and said, “Please excuse me, Lady Merton, Mrs. Wortham, Lord Merton.” She dropped a small curtsey and followed in her aunt’s wake.

  Lydia simply dropped a curtsey and hurried after them.

  Lady Merton glared at Mrs. Wortham. “Arabella, you have the manners of a fishwife and the sense of a squid.”

  Arabella looked affronted. “Am I to placate that little chit who has no more notion of the fitness of things than to go throwing herself at a common sailor?”

  Merton grinned wolfishly at her. “Curious, is it not? Some people are actually pleased when they find out that friends—or relations—thought to be dead are actually alive.” His aunt flushed unbecomingly, but held her tongue, and he continued. “However, I fear you mistake Grandmama’s distress. It is the departure of Miss Saunders that she regrets. Am I wrong, Grandmama, in thinking that you and Lady Carraby are hoping to promote a match between me and Miss Saunders?”

  Lady Merton held her head up but did not look at him. “She is a very sweet child of excellent family. Any man of sense would see that she would make an ideal wife.”

  “But as we all know, I am completely lacking in sense.”

  “And we also know you have no sense of the fitness of things, of what is owing to your title,” burst in Arabella. Lady Merton looked at her daughter-in-law coldly, but not coldly enough to stem the tide. “You know it’s true, everyone knows it’s true. Just look at the way you allow that Hodgson fellow to call you by your first name. You treat him as if he were our equal, for heaven’s sake!”

  “No, Aunt, I would never think of him as your equal. He is far superior to you or your son.” Merton spoke very carefully. “I do not think you would wish me to enumerate the ways in which you all fall short.”

  Arabella gave a small cry, jumped to her feet, and hurried from the room.

  “Oh, my dear. Really, you should not distress her that way.” His grandmother shook her head as she looked after Arabella. Then she turned to face him and took his hand. “I try to understand, truly I do, and if this were a perfect world, men would be judged for their merits. But it is not perfect. It is, however, the world we live in, the world you must come to terms with sooner or later.”

  Merton shook his head gently. “And you think that marriage to a timid little mouse would change me?”

  Lady Merton patted his hand. “Just give yourself a chance to know Miss Saunders. She seems a bit shy, but her reputation and background are irreproachable. Such a wife at your side would greatly ease your return to society.”

  Merton looked at his grandmother with exasperated fondness. He knew she was trying to do what was best for him, but how could he explain that he cared nothing for the acceptance of the society that was so important to her? That a “sweet child” like Miss Saunders was the worst possible kind of wife for him? He would terrify her—she was already afraid of him and they had not even spoken to each other. He needed a wife who would stand up to him, stand beside him as an equal, a partner.

  Someone like Miss Rokeby.

  Then a thought struck him. Miss Rokeby was Miss Saunders’ cousin. The two of them were likely to be together quite frequently.

  “Very well, Grandmama. I will try to spend some time with Miss Saunders,” he said with a smile. After all, it would be difficult to become better acquainted with Miss Saunders without at the same time becoming better acquainted with Miss Rokeby.

  *

  It was close to midnight when Pamela slipped down the stairs. She moved so silently that she would not have been noticed by any of the servants even if there had been any still awake. It was one of Merton’s peculiarities that his servants were allowed to retire at ten unless he was hosting an evening party or ball, something that almost never occurred. House guests who were up later than that were expected to fend for themselves. It was one of Merton’s more bourgeois peculiarities to worry about the servants, thought Pamela with contempt. However, it provided a surprising amount of privacy in the hours of darkness so no one would know that she felt the somewhat humiliating need to investigate the whereabouts of her father and her husband.

  When she turned into the corridor leading to the rear of Schotten Hall, she could see that the door to the library was ajar and light was spilling out. She came close enough to see inside without being seen, and was relieved to see the two men within. She pushed the door all the way open and walked in.

  Her husband lay half on, half off a couch in an ungainly sprawl, his coat off, his waistcoat undone, and his cravat hanging limply. His mouth was hanging open and he was snoring. She looked at him in disgust and turned to the other occupant of the room. Her father was not quite so disheveled, and he was still conscious, sitting up in a chair and cradling a glass of brandy. On the table next to him was a decanter of brandy that still held enough for a small glass. He was, she judged, in his maudlin stage.

  “My pretty Pammy,” he said. “What brings you here at this hour of the night? Worried about your poor old dad?”

  “You’re drunk,” she said.

  Browne considered, and then nodded. “Yes, I am. I am drunk.”

  “You and my esteemed husband appear to agree on your preferred solution to all problems.”

  Browne contemplated his son-in-law sourly. “I almost feel sorry for the poor sod. Humiliating, that’s what it is, coming back to a place where you thought you were lord and master, where you should be lord and master, and seeing someone in your place. Don’t know why he does it, except his bitch of a mother insists. Never learned how to say no to her.” He turned to his daughter. “And you. Can’t be easy for you either. Why do you do it?”

  “Why, Papa, you know this is Mr. Wortham’s childhood home. He is always eager to revisit old memories. And his mama can always be counted on to keep those memories alive in his thoughts.”

  “Do not play sweet and innocent with me, Puss. I know you, none better. You are not here to make this sot you married happy.” He shook his head sadly. “We had it all planned for you to be the countess. And you made a fine, elegant one. Phaugh! It turns my stomach to see that hulking oaf lording it here after the way he treated you.”

  Pamela could not keep a grimace of distaste from her face and burst out, “He has no sense of refinement. Look what he has done to my house. He removed all my improvements and made it hopelessly old-fashioned just to spite me.” Then she pulled herself up and smiled. “Well, we shall see who rules here in the end. A hulking oaf is precisely what he is, and an oaf is unlikely to make old bones.”

  Browne blinked and tried to focus clearly enough to read her expression. “You know something? Yes, you do, you know something.” He smiled. “That’s my girl. You know something.”

  “I know nothing.” She narrowed her eyes. “And if there is anything to know, I do not wish to know it.”

  A crafty gleam came into Browne’s eyes as he nodded thoughtfully. “If anything is to be done, it had best be done soon. Plain to see he’s tak
en with that American chit and he’s fool enough to marry her and get a dozen brats on her in no time. Who’s to stop it? You? Me?”

  “Nonsense,” she snapped. “His grandmother will never allow him to marry a nobody like that. She has too much pride.” She pointed at her husband. “You had best wake up a footman to get him to bed. If you try to do it yourself, you will both fall down the stairs and break your necks. And I need Edgar alive—we both do, if we are to have any hope of my becoming a countess.”

  She stepped into the hall without bothering to close the study door behind her. She did not see Edgar open his eyes and look after her. She would have been surprised to see that he appeared remarkably clear-eyed.

  Chapter Five

  The newcomer was a whip of a man, not big but wiry. His hair was dark, his skin bronzed like that of a seaman, his face narrow and pinched, with an old scar down one side of it. He looked the sort no one wished to cross. The innkeeper at the Star Inn in Alfriston showed him to a room with wariness rather than welcome. The newcomer looked around, then poked the bed. It looked clean enough, and there was enough coal for a fire to warm the room should the evening turn chill. He nodded his acceptance.

  “Will you be staying long?” The innkeeper was not truly certain that he wanted the business.

  The newcomer shrugged. “It may be a few nights, it may be longer. I am not sure how long my business will take.”

  The innkeeper would have preferred a more definite answer, but was not inclined to press. “There’s rabbit stew if you’ll be wanting a meal.”

  The newcomer nodded again and all but swept the innkeeper out as he moved to close the door. Then he moved over to the window and took the note from his jacket. He had read it often enough, but now read it once more.

  “Meet me in the garden shed on Monday night, after midnight.”

  The tone had not changed. It was still a peremptory order.

  The tone rankled. Arrogant, that’s what it was. All those people who think their birth makes them better than anyone else. No need to use even ordinary politeness. Entitled to order him around as if he were nothing.