Nancy Warren: British Bad Boys

I want to thank Carol Buckland, Sharon Dennison, and Lynn Miller for their generous help in explaining documentary filmmaking. If I made any mistakes or took artistic license, I hope you’ll forgive me.

Thanks to my editor at Kensington, Kate Duffy, for coming up with the idea for British Bad Boys and editing the manuscript with her usual brilliance.

Most of all, thanks to all the wonderful people in England who helped with the research of this book whether they knew they were doing so or not. A lot of castles, stately homes and, yes, pubs had to be visited in the writing of this book.

Thanks to my family, both in England and here in North America, especially my stalwart traveling companions, Rick, James, and Emma. You are the best.

“The public loo in the riding stable’s broken again, your lordship. And the head gardener says that if the rabble from the adventure playground stamp on his peonies once more, he won’t be responsible for the consequences.”

George Hartley sighed and sipped the tea his butler served-along with the bad news-from a Derby cup and saucer decorated with the family coat of arms. Despite his suggestions that he’d be happy with a pottery mug from IKEA, the staff were unbending. He might think that being the nineteenth earl of Ponsford was more of a cross to bear than a cause for celebration, but it seemed he was pretty much alone in the household with that opinion. He sipped the tea and found it strong and fortifying. “Another broken toilet. Excellent,” he said with only the slightest hint of sarcasm. “Any good news, Wiggins?”

“An inquiry for a society wedding. If you call that good news,” the butler said in a doom-laden tone.

Actually, a wedding was good news. Very good news. Every corporate event and private celebration, every tourist who paid their eight pounds fifty to tour his ancestral home meant more of a chance to hang on to Hart House, the estate that had been in his family for half a millennium. Earls of Ponsford had brought the property through wars, revolutions, and political intrigue. George wasn’t about to lose the place to death duties and taxes.

But he almost thought he’d rather face war, revolution, and political intrigue than the long face of the man who’d been the family butler for three generations.

“You know, Wiggins, you should have been the earl. You’re much better at it.”

“I know you enjoy your little jokes, sir, but what about the loo?”

“Ah, yes. Right. The loo.” George turned his back on the large-screen monitor where he’d been designing vacation cottages he didn’t have the money to build. “What the bloody hell did Father mean letting me study architecture? I should have been a plumber or an electrician or something useful.”

One hundred and eighty-two staff depended on the estate for their livelihoods. Twenty-two acres of gardens, rolling lawns, woodlands, and streams needed tending. Another thousand acres were farmed. The small village existed mainly because of the estate.

George carried the burden of it all, along with a debt to the bank that kept him wakeful on many a night.

There were days when he wished he could give in, chuck it all, sell the old pile with its history, pedigree, priceless heirlooms, and its problems, and move to a loft in Manhattan. No, not Manhattan. Somewhere much newer, where nobody gave a toss about royalty, nobility, or antiquity. Los Angeles perhaps. Or Sydney. The daydream began to take beguiling shape as he imagined beaches populated by sun-kissed girls in bikinis, warm, blue water to swim in, and nobody expecting a bachelor of thirty-two to act as caretaker to an old girl who was nearing five hundred years old, and showing her age.

“Has anybody tried to rejig the loo? Seems to me we had some luck once with a bent hairclip and some chewing gum.”

“One of the volunteer docents discovered water gushing out the bottom of the fixture, sir. She had the sense to turn off the water.”

“Right. So it’s a job for the plumber, then. Who do we usually use?”

“Phillip Chumley, sir. So long as you catch him before the pub opens.”

“And afterward?”

Wiggins merely shook his head slowly. “More tea, sir?”

“Great. The local plumber’s a drunk.” He heaved a sigh. “In London I know a dozen good plumbers.” The things he missed in London didn’t bear thinking about. Plumbers were the least of it. His father’s death had brought him down here less than a year ago, and grief and duty kept him here. Hart House was only two hours from London by train but it was worlds away to George.

“It would cost a great deal to bring one out here, though, wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose. All right. See if you can dig out this Chumley’s number. I’ll give him a ring.”

“And the peonies?”

Peonies and toilets. The life of the titled nobility was an enviable one indeed. “I’ll speak to the gardener. Perhaps we can put up a fence between the adventure playground and the garden.”

“That would rather spoil the view of the peonies, your lordship.”

“Well, maybe he can move his blessed peonies.”

“Yes, sir.”

George had been as unsuccessful at stomping out the your lordships and sirs spilling from his butler’s mouth as he had been at getting his tea in a simple mug. Some days he wondered if he could possibly pull this old estate back into the black when he couldn’t manage to change the habits of his own staff. “Please tell me you’ve got some good news.”

“I don’t know that it’s good news, your lordship, but there is a young woman to see you.”

“Really? Is she pretty? That would be good news.” His fantasy about sun-kissed girls in tiny bikinis hadn’t quite left him.

“I couldn’t say, sir. She is an American.”

“A tourist?” He did get them sometimes, stopping in to say hey after touring his house. Far too many young girls from places like Cincinnati and Chicago had seen Colin Firth in some poofy costume on television and decided they’d like to bag a titled Englishman. Usually, the staff took care of them.

“A documentary filmmaker.”

George leapt to his feet. “Why didn’t you say so sooner? Have you left her waiting all this time?” As he spoke, he found a navy blazer and tugged it on over his sweater. Wiggins tried to help him into it but he shrugged the man off. “It’s really important we impress this woman, Wiggins. She works for a production company that’s going to make a series of programs about-well, I forget what it’s about. But the important thing is, there’s a nice fat location fee involved, which God knows we could use to pay drunken plumbers. In addition, I should think the publicity in America would bring in more tourists and more revenue.”

There was a tiny flicker of emotion across Wiggins’s face, and George knew, as though he’d read the man’s mind, that he was thinking back to the good old days, when this had been more of a prestigious estate than a tourist stop. “I will take you to her at once.”

“No, no. Don’t bother. I’ll find her myself.”

Maxine Larraby stared around herself at the opulent décor of the morning drawing room, or whatever this overstuffed museum of a room was called. It was red. That was all she knew. Far too red. God, if they filmed in here her documentary would be mistaken for one of those medical ones where they stuck a camera inside the body. Inside Hart House could be confused with This is Your Pancreas.