Miranda Jarrett - The Golden Lord

The girl had done nothing at all worthy of his idiocy. Without a murmur, she’d gone along with his inane impulse to dine together. She’d made a brave best of his attempts at conversation, and she’d answered his questions as well as her poor battered head permitted. That bruise must have pained her abominably, yet she hadn’t complained once. She hadn’t been able to remember her own name, but she had recalled Jetty and Gus, which was far more than a self-centered dunderhead like himself could reasonably expect from any woman in her situation.

She had, in short, behaved as perfectly as any true lady would, with grace, charm and wit, and an astonishing degree of loveliness. At least he could be objective about that. In London he’d known scores of famous beauties—actresses, titled ladies, courtesans—who’d never have the kind of innate appeal this girl displayed with her braided hair, upturned eyes and, yes, even with that great violet blossom of a bruise on her temple.

So why, then, when all she’d done was to mistake him for what he wasn’t, had he turned on her like some raving Bedlamite?

He groaned and swore again. At least if he were in Bedlam, he’d be safely under lock and key, unable to offend the rest of the world.

He felt something bump against his leg and looked down to see Jetty beside him, panting happily just to be at his side. With a final halfhearted oath, Brant reached down to ruffle the dog’s ears.

“We broke the rules, didn’t we, old Jetty?” he said softly. “Claremont Hall’s always been for us bachelors alone. You know the arrangement, the same as I. No females permitted, not ever. You shouldn’t have found that young lady beneath those trees, and I shouldn’t have brought her back here, so I could make a right flaming ass of myself.”

The dog gave a sympathetic low growl in the back of his throat, turning to look toward the doorway and the approaching footsteps that he’d heard before Brant.

“Good lad,” murmured Brant as the knock finally came on the door. “You’ve saved me from doing it again before another witness. Isn’t that true, Tway?”

The small, pale man in the black suit and snuff wig only bowed slightly over the salver full of letters in his hands. “As you say, Your Grace.”

Brant smiled, oddly comforted by the man’s predictable reply. If anything at Claremont Hall would be unaffected by this young woman’s appearance, it would be Tway, his manservant, secretary, steward and unflaggingly loyal salvation for the last ten years of Brant’s life. His brothers made sport of Tway, noting how his colorless face must have been pinched from old tallow candles, or wagering over what disaster would befall Tway’s mouth if he ever actually smiled. Yet Brant never joined in their jests. Deep down he trusted Tway more than he did either of those same brothers, and with good reason, too. How could it be otherwise, when Tway was the one man alive who understood his shameful secret?

“Your correspondence, Your Grace,” continued Tway, raising the salver a fraction higher, as if the neatly piled letters were an offering. “Do you still wish to make your replies now, or shall I put them aside for tomorrow?”

“Now,” said Brant without hesitation, dropping into an armchair with Jetty settling at his feet. He’d forgotten that he’d set aside this time for business, but the task of answering the requests and queries would help shift his thoughts from the girl. The same easy comprehension of the patterns, percentages and probability that made him so successful at the gaming table had carried over into investing and speculation, even into ungentlemanly trade, and earned him the wealth to match his peerage. “I doubt that there’s anything in there that will improve with age like a wheel of cheese.”

“Very well, Your Grace.” Tway nodded, setting the tray on the desk. He reached for the first letter on the stack and held it open before him, the corners pinched daintily between his thumbs and forefingers. “This first is from Mr. Samuel Lippit of the Pennyworth Mines.”

“Doubtless, Lippit is unhappy about my suggestions for improving the mine.” The Welsh tin mine was one of Brant’s newer business ventures, an experiment that seemed likely to cost him dearly before it turned a profit. “He has always seemed disinclined to make such investments, regardless of the returns they will produce.”

“Precisely so, Your Grace,” agreed Tway. “Shall I commence?”

“Please.” Brant, his legs more comfortably before him as Tway began reading the letter aloud. This was how he and Tway conducted all his correspondence, from detailed arrangements regarding his investments to the most intimate billets-doux from lady friends in London. In the beginning, Brant had claimed a weakness of the eyes prevented him from reading and writing, but he was sure that Tway had long ago deciphered the truth for himself. Yet nothing was ever said between them on the subject, any more than there was further discussion about the nearby cottage that Brant had provided for Tway’s aged mother. It was, in Brant’s opinion, a quite perfect arrangement.

Now Brant closed his eyes to help concentrate on the words that Tway was reading and to compose the proper response to dictate, the way he’d done countless times before. But, instead of that well-organized response, the only thing that kept stubbornly drifting into his thoughts was the girl’s elfin face, the way her tip-turned eyes had glowed when she’d challenged him, how their expression had softened when she’d asked after his dogs, how she—blast it all, she did not belong there, or here, or anywhere else at Claremont Hall!

“Forgive me, Your Grace?” asked Tway, his pen stilled over the letter. “I do not believe I heard you properly, Your Grace.”

“You damned well heard more than enough,” said Brant in enough of a growl to make Jetty’s ear perk. “Have there been any replies to our inquiries about the young lady?”

The corners of Tway’s thin-lipped mouth turned down with disappointment. “No, Your Grace. Not yet. But I should expect some response by dawn.”

“You’re not blathering it all over the county, are you?” demanded Brant with concern. “She’s a lady, you know, not some circus wire dancer with her face pasted on broadsides to the walls of stableyards.”

“Of course, Your Grace,” answered Tway, his voice determinedly soothing. “I have supervised every inquiry myself, Your Grace.”

“Mind you, no interfering sheriffs or magistrates, either.” The girl had already suffered enough without becoming the centerpiece of some sort of county scandal. Hell, for all he knew she already was—a rebellious daughter, perhaps, or an eloping heiress. Anything was possible.

“No, Your Grace. The lady’s name shall remain untrammeled by the public.”

“Very good, Tway,” said Brant, taking another deep breath. “I am reassured.”

But he wasn’t, not at all. He had always considered himself the model English gentleman where ladies were concerned, endlessly polite yet coolly distant. He was a peer, a man of the world. Yet here he was, fussing over this girl and her welfare as if she truly mattered to him, and the harder he tried to stop, the more willfully his foolish brain seemed drawn back to her. And having his dinner brought to her bedside, pretending there was some sort of friendship or intimacy between them—what manner of nonsense had that been?

He really was behaving like a witless ninny, and though he stopped his fingers from drumming on the arm of his chair as soon as he realized he was doing it, he wasn’t fast enough to escape Tway’s notice.

“Her family shall be found, Your Grace,” Tway continued in that same calming tone that Brant, in his present humor, could only find infuriating. “You may be sure of that. And might I say, Your Grace, that I am certain her family will be much gratified by your concern for her welfare?”