UNCHAPERONED!

And then—directly in front of his eyes, like a lowly caterpillar shedding its cocoon—Elinor Dalrymple metamorphosed into the most glorious painted lady he had ever been privileged to see!

He could feel his body responding to the stimuli of Elly’s appearance, to the sweet violet scent of her hair as it billowed in the breeze off the Channel, to the moist sweetness of her mouth as she smiled up at him with all the guileless invitation of a first-time strumpet.

Her hands on her hips, her entire stance daring him to speak, he heard her say, “Well, John, do you still believe we are in no need of a chaperone?”

The little tart! She was baiting him, deliberately urging him to commit an action that could be seen as nothing less than a marriage-mandatory compromise of her reputation. He’d like to slap her silly. He’d like to grab her by the shoulders and—and kiss her until she begged for mercy!

Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty books. She has won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for her historical romances set in the Regency era, and also writes contemporary romances for Silhouette and Harlequin Books.

The Dubious Miss Dalrymple
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“HAVE YOU HEARD the news?”

Lord Blakestone lowered his newspaper to glare overtop it at the excited young man who had dared to intrude on his peace. Heaven knew he got precious little of it these days. “I read the news when I require an infusion of knowledge, Hopwood,” he told the fellow in crushing tones meant to depress this increasing familiarity that was fast making Boodle’s coffee room too common for words. “If I wished the day’s happenings bellowed at me, I would sit in my own house and let my wife’s dear, beloved mother natter me to death.”

Hopwood was instantly cast down, but he was by no means to be counted out. He’d come directly from Bond Street, where tongues had been wagging nineteen to the dozen, and he’d be damned for a dolt if he was going to allow this chance to elevate his consequence here at Boodle’s—a club he had stumbled into because of his parentage, and not his own standing or even inclination—to be stomped on by a pompous blowfish like Blakestone. “But—but I just heard. It’s the most incredible thing! Lord Hythe is dead!”

Blakestone tossed his newspaper to the floor in an untidy heap, grumbling something about the servants being reminded to take better care when pressing the pages so that they would refold themselves automatically when the dratted thing was no longer required.

After venting his spleen on both the hapless newspaper and the overworked Boodle’s servants (who were undoubtedly at that moment boiling coins somewhere in the bowels of the club so that the members should not have to smudge themselves by handling dirty money), he looked up at Hopwood and inquired shortly: “I don’t believe it. Wythe? Wythe’s dead?”

Hopwood shook his head vigorously. As audiences went, Blakestone appeared to be a poor choice. “No, no. Not Wythe. Hythe.”

“Don’t correct your betters, you miserable scamp. I say, Freddie!” Lord Blakestone called to Lord Godfrey, who had just entered the coffee room. “Have you heard the latest? Dreadful news. Wythe is dead.”

“No!” Lord Godfrey ejaculated, pressing a hand to his chest, as if to be sure his own heart was still ticking along normally. He and Wythe were much of the same age. “How did it happen?”

Lord Blakestone waved an arm imperiously, summoning a servant and ordering another, freshly pressed, newspaper. “Damned if I know, old man. What do I look like, Freddie? A bleeding newsboy? Ask this puppy here. He seems to be hot to spread the gossip. Finally!” he groused, snapping the freshly pressed newspaper out of the servant’s hand. “Took you twelve seconds too long, my fine fellow. You’ll never get ahead in life lollygagging, y’know.”

Lord Godfrey turned to Hopwood, who was leaning against a heavy mahogany table and most probably wondering what he had done to deserve membership to a snake pit such as Boodle’s. “Corny says to ask you, whoever you are. So? Well, speak up, young man. What happened to Wythe? I saw him just last week at Tatt’s, full of piss and vinegar as ever. Dead, you say? How’d it happen? Apoplexy? He was getting on, wasn’t he—at least ten years my senior, I’m sure.”

“Five your junior,” Lord Blakestone corrected heartlessly, turning the page to check on the latest news of Napoleon Bonaparte’s bloodletting on the Continent. “You’re looking pale, Freddie. It’s all that running about you do with that warbler from Covent Garden. Not seemly in a man your age—nor smart, now that I think about it. Best sit down before you join Wythe below ground.”

Hopwood felt an almost overwhelming urge to pull at his hair and scream, or possibly even throw something—Lord Blakestone’s dusty wig was the first object that came to mind. “Not Wythe, sir—Hythe. He was young, in his prime. I was just taking the air on Bond Street when I heard the news. He was lost overboard from his yacht in a storm or something. Near Folkestone, I think.”

Lord Godfrey subsided into a burgundy leather wing chair, glaring impotently at Lord Blakestone, his agitated brain taking in information only as it pertained to him. “A yacht? I didn’t know Wythe could afford to keep a yacht.” As he couldn’t show any real anger toward Lord Blakestone, whose social connections were considerably powerful, he directed his fury at a man who could no longer hurt him. “Y’know what—bloody stingy, that’s what Wythe was. A yacht! Never took me up on the thing.”

Goaded, or so he felt, past all bearing, Hopwood opened his mouth and shouted—just as a half dozen worse-for-liquor gentlemen sitting in the dirty end of the room exploded in mirth over some joke or other: “Not Wythe, you feather-witted old nincompoops! Hythe! Hythe!”

While neither Lord Blakestone nor Lord Godfrey paid so much as a jot of attention to the red-faced young man bellowing ridiculousness within four feet of their ears, they were attracted to the sounds of merriment across the room, and immediately longed to join in the fun. Looking back and forth to each other across the table that separated their matching burgundy leather wing chairs, the two lords scrambled to their feet, knowing their gossip would be a sure entry to the group.

As they walked toward the small gathering of gentlemen, they called out in unison, “Have you heard? It’s all over town. It’s the strangest thing. Wythe’s dead!”

“Not Wythe, you paper-skulled asses. Hythe! Alastair Lowell, Fourteenth Earl of Hythe, and a damned fine gentleman.” Hopwood pushed the discarded newspaper to the floor and collapsed into Lord Blakestone’s abandoned chair, giving up the fight. “Oh, what does it matter anyway?” he soothed himself. “The fellow’s still dead, ain’t he?”

A MEMORIAL SERVICE was held three weeks later at Seashadow, the Hythe seat in Kent, with several of the late Earl’s friends making the trip down from London in the fine spring weather to pay their respects—although it was rather awkward that there was no body to neatly inter in the family mausoleum.

“His bright light lies asleep with the fishes,” the vicar had intoned gravely upon mounting the steps to the lectern, these depressing words heralding an hour-long sermon that went on to graphically describe the water fate of Alastair Lowell’s earthly remains until a none too discreet cough from Miss Elinor Dalrymple—sister of the new Earl—caused the man to reel in his tongue just as he was about to utter the words “putrid flesh” for a seventh time.

The number of fashionable young ladies of quality (as well as a colorful spattering of beautiful but not quite so eligible women) among the mourners would have cheered Alastair Lowell no end had he been privileged to see them—and so said his friends as they paid their respects to the new Earl and his solemn-faced sister before hastily departing the crepe-hung chapel for some decidedly more cheerful atmosphere.

“Made a muff of it,” Leslie Dalrymple, the new Earl, said tragically, watching from the portico as the last traveling coach pulled out of the yard, leaving him to deal with a dining room piled to the chandeliers with uneaten food. “Ain’t congenial, y’know. Never were.”

“Nonsense, darling,” Elinor Dalrymple consoled her brother, patting his thin cheek. “You were all that is gracious, and your eulogy, although understandably brief, as you had never met our cousin, was everything it could be. The late Earl, rest his soul, merely attracted those of his own, irresponsible ilk—considering that it is rumored our departed cousin was deep in his cups the night of his fatal accident. Doubtless they’re all off now to carouse far into the night, toasting their fallen friend and otherwise debauching themselves.”

Leslie shook his blonde, shaggy head, dismissing her assumption that he blamed himself for his guests’ hasty departure. “Not me, Elly. You. You’re the one routed them—what with your starchy ways. Scared them off, that’s what you did. Besides, black does not become you. Don’t understand it, as you’re blonde and all, but there it is. I do wish you wouldn’t persist in wearing such dark colors.”

Elinor looked up at her brother, who, although three years her junior, stood a full foot higher than she. “Thank you, Leslie,” she rejoined calmly, slipping her arm through his. “You have truly made my day. Now, would you be so kind as to join me in the dining room? I wouldn’t wish for all that food to go to waste.”

The pair entered the house to see that the Biggs family, clad in their Sunday finery, was lined up at attention in the enormous three-story-high hall, obviously in preparation of meeting the late Earl’s mourners.

Nine heads turned toward the doorway as Leslie and Elinor stepped across the threshold; nine necks craned forward to look past their masters for the horde of diners about to push their knees beneath the late Earl’s table and eat their heads off; nine pairs of sky-blue eyes widened as Elinor closed the door firmly on the spring sunshine, and nine mouths split into wide, anticipatory grins as their new mistress announced that the Biggses would just have to discover some way to dispose of the bound-to-be-ample remnants of the funeral feast.

Billie Biggs shifted Baby Willie, her youngest, on her hip and took one step forward. “Chased ’em off, did ya?” she asked in her deep, booming voice that reached all the way up to the rafters. “Good for you, missy. Never saw a sorrier-lookin’ bunch in m’life. They’d have ate us out of house an’ home before we knew which way to look. Come on, children—best get outta those duds afore ya ruin ’em.”

Each Biggs child obediently stepped forward in turn, to either bow or drop curtsies to the Dalrymples before leaving the hall.

Little Georgie, who helped his father in the kitchens (and the eldest at eighteen, though definitely not the brightest), tugged at his forelock and bowed his immense frame low, saying only, “Daft sort of party,” before shuffling toward the scullery—his mother’s absentminded cuff across the top of his head hurrying him on his way.

Lily, sixteen, a very pretty girl who served as upstairs maid, made an elaborate curtsey to Leslie—ignoring Elinor’s presence—and headed for the staircase, her skirts twitching side to side as provocatively as she dared allow in her mother’s presence.

Fifteen-year-old Harry, who worked in the stables, approached the Dalrymples and offered his condolences in a polite voice before passing behind them and through the front door, intent upon returning to the stable yard to check on a mare ready to drop her foal.

Elinor, whose new shoes were pinching her unmercifully, resigned herself to accepting the mumbled condolences of Iris, aged ten, Rosie, eight and one-half, and Bobby, a five-year-old cherub whose tumbling curls and intelligent eyes had, at first sight, prompted Elinor to believe Billie Biggs had played her husband, Big George, false at least once.

Finally, with Billie shooing the younger children in front of her with her immense white apron while reminding the Dalrymples to hurry to the table before the food got cold, the hall was emptied of all but Elinor and her brother.

“Lovely people,” Leslie said, waving to Baby Willie as the child dangled backwards over his mother’s shoulder, all ten fingers stuck in his wet mouth. “So kind, so caring.”

Elinor looked at her brother askance. “Leslie,” she intoned coldly, “the Biggses are not our house guests. They are the sum total of the late Earl’s idea of a servant force on this estate—other than the farm laborers and such. Big George cooks because Billie can’t boil water without burning it—although he told me the other day that it suits him fine anyway because she keeps a neat house and can make babies. Harry is a good worker, but Little George is a complete loss. Lily is ripe to seduce anything in long pants, while Rosie, Bobby, and Baby Willie are too young to do much more than eat their heads off and take up space—although I must admit Iris shows promise.”

Leslie was immediately apprehensive. “You don’t mean to turn them off, do you, Elly?”

Elinor shook her head and sighed. “No, Leslie,” she soothed wearily, “I don’t mean to turn them off. Truthfully, the estate was running quite smoothly when we arrived, so I see no need to change anything. It’s just—it’s just that it’s so depressing. I have nothing to do, Leslie. That boisterous woman and her gaggle of children have made me totally superfluous!”

Leslie was immediately all concern—for himself. “You—you wouldn’t leave me, Elly, would you? I mean, I depend on you terribly—always have. Besides, you promised Papa you’d always take care of me.” His green dreamer’s eyes brightened as a thought hit him. “Tell you what, Elly. You can be in charge of my studio. That should keep you busy. I promise to be as messy as possible.”

Elinor looked up at her brother, sure she could see a betraying tear in the corner of his left eye, and her heart softened. At three and twenty, she had long ago resigned herself to caring for her younger brother.

“Of course I would never leave you, darling,” she assured him, patting his hand. “Where would I go? I was just being silly—thinking only of myself. I should be jumping through hoops at our good fortune, not complaining that fate has made us wealthy and comfortable. Three weeks ago I didn’t know where our next quarter’s rent was coming from—and today you are the Fifteenth Earl of Hythe, and so deep in the pocket, we shall never have to concern ourselves about money again. I shall just have to educate myself in the pastimes of the idle rich, that’s all.”

Leslie smiled, his fears banished. “That’s settled then,” he pronounced happily, secure once more in the comfortable cotton wool his sister had kept him in for as long as he could remember. “Shall we go in to luncheon? I want to get back to my studio before the light leaves me.” Walking three paces ahead of his sister, who only shook her head in resigned good humor as she brought up the rear, Leslie began to expound on his latest project—a painting of a spotted dog, as viewed by a flea—all thoughts of the late Earl and his flighty cronies forgotten.

VISITORS TO THE SEAPORT city of Folkestone, when not worried about Bonaparte’s threats of imminent invasion from the French coastline that was so close it was often visible with the naked eye, could amuse themselves by taking walking tours along the Leas, a grassy expanse on the top of the cliff that looked upon the Strait of Dover, or, on less balmy days, by strolling the wooded paths on the face of the cliff and the Undercliffe.

Few people, however, chose to walk much beyond the quaint and irregular streets of the oldest section of town to the most remote, windswept beach, and the odd, derelict cottage that huddled against the base of the cliff. There were stories about this cottage—blood-chilling stories told late at night to visitors as they sat in cozy inn parlors, rubbing mugs of mulled ale between their hands.

It seemed that a giant lived in the cottage, an immense, growling ogre who—if anyone were ever so foolish as to approach him—would crack that poor unfortunate’s skull like an eggshell with his great club as soon as look at him! The good people of Folkestone cut a wide path around the Ogre of the Undercliffe, and even the military, customs officers, revenue men, and smugglers showed no interest in routing the ogre from his lair.

The cottage was small, but with high ceilings—probably to better accommodate the ogre’s great height—and was most likely composed of a single, irregularly shaped room that served as kitchen, sitting room, and bedroom. The ocean served as the ogre’s privy. Although even the most modest cottages in Folkestone boasted milky-paned glass windows, the ogre’s three small windows were hung with oiled rags and black paper, so that no one could even boast of actually having seen inside the darkened cottage. They only knew it was a place they would rather not ever find themselves near on a moonless night.

It was to this unnatural darkness that the man awoke, at first only for a few moments, his mind unclear, his body racked with pain and fever, before slipping once more into a merciful oblivion where the smell of dog and sweat and damp and old meat could not find him.

The man had dreams as he lay on the hard cot, dreams that included a gigantic, hovering beast who could only be the Gatekeeper of Hell; although why the Gatekeeper of Hell would be feeding him snail tea in barley water was for the moment past his power’s of comprehension.

As time went on—be it hours or days or weeks, the man did not know—the most annoying thing about his current position was the grating sound of an unoiled wheel that seemed to be constantly in motion. In the end, it was just this sound that brought the man to full consciousness, and he propped his weak body up on one elbow to squint through the darkness in search of the source of the sound.

“That explains the smell of dog,” he pronounced blankly, looking at last to the crooked fireplace and the antiquated dogspit that was cut into the wall beside the stones. As the dog ran inside the wheel, chasing a pitifully small marrow bone that hung suspended just out of reach, the spit in the fireplace turned, allowing the unrecognizable joint of meat to cook evenly over the fire, basting in its own juices.

The man sniffed at the air tentatively a time or two, trying to recognize the meat by its smell, then looked to the slowly trotting canine. “Not a close relative, I trust?” he asked the mutt facetiously before collapsing once more onto the hard cot.

He hurt like the very devil, from the top of his pounding head to the tip of his toes, but the pain told him that he was alive, and he supposed he should be grateful for small favors. He coughed, and that action brought on more pain in his chest and throat. “Dog sick,” he said, not bothering to excuse himself to the mutt.

Lifting a hand to his face, he touched a considerable growth of beard, which told him that he had been in the cottage a long time—although how he had gotten here, he could not remember. As a matter of fact, the last thing he did remember was taking the air on the deck of his yacht, the Lark, as it lay at anchor just off Folkestone.

Before setting sail he had endured a rather boring, if profitable, evening onshore at cards, his three casually met companions having proved to be as dull-witted at faro as they were in the art of conversation, so that it had not bothered him overmuch that he had pushed away from the table the big winner, leaving the other gentlemen to commiserate with one another over their collective run of bad luck.

Walking to the rail as the yacht headed out to sea, he had spent a few idle moments trying to make out the mist-softened shoreline in the still dark sky of early morning before turning in—his reminiscences stopped there as the full realization of what had happened finally hit him.

“I was pushed!” he shouted—startling the underfed hound into ceasing his endless walk on the wheel. “I was conked on the noggin like some wretch set upon by a press gang—and then tossed overboard as if I were so much garbage! I can even remember the feel of the water closing over my head! God’s teeth, but I’d give half my fortune to know which one of the filthy bastards did it!”

He turned on the cot, forcing his bare feet to find purchase on the uneven packed-dirt floor of the cottage, and rose, nearly toppling backward as his physical weakness threatened to overcome his resolve to get himself back to civilization as fast as possible so that he could shoot somebody.

Only then did he realize that he was naked as a jaybird, with his clothing nowhere in sight. He stood in the dim light cast by the small fire, his rumpled blonde hair and fuzzy beard glowing golden in the glow, searching out the dim corners of the small cottage for any sign of his belongings.

A sense of urgency overcame him, giving him new strength. He had to be gone, had to seek help, had to discover who had pushed him—and why. Stumbling to one of the rag-covered windows, he ripped the material away and looked out across a rocky beach to where the surf was pounding against the shore. He looked back at the interior of the cottage, which hadn’t been improved by the addition of a little daylight and fresh air.

Where was he? The place was a hovel; there was no other word for it. This was no Kentish farmer’s cottage. It was too close to the sea, for one thing. Could some fisherman have plucked him from the Channel? No, there were no nets drying outside in the sun, no harbor from which to launch a boat. He swallowed hard. He had to be in a smuggler’s hideaway. It was the only answer.

“Probably holding me for ransom,” he thought aloud, the pounding in his head threatening to send him back to the cot to mewl like a wounded sheep. “I wonder how much an Earl brings on the open market these days. Damn your shaky legs, Alastair Lowell, you’ve got to find something to wear and get the blazes out of here before the baddies get back!”

Just as Alastair was becoming desperate enough to consider draping himself in the tattered blanket that had covered him, the door to the hovel burst open. A wide shaft of sunlight sliced through the cottage, nearly blinding him, to be followed by a sudden and nearly total eclipse as the doorway was filled with the largest man he had ever seen.

“Hell’s Gatekeeper!” Alastair breathed incredulously, involuntarily backing up until the edge of the cot caught him behind the knees and he sat down, covering his nakedness with the blanket. He knew he hadn’t led the most exemplary of lives, but had he really merited this?

The giant advanced into the room, his huge head tipped inquisitively to one side as he looked at his guest, before his attention was distracted by something near the fireplace. He turned slowly toward the fireplace and growled deep in his throat. The dog, which had been curled up asleep at the bottom of the wheel, leapt to his feet and began running as fast as he could, the singed joint on the spit spinning about so rapidly that hot meat juice flew off it to sizzle against the stones of the hearth.

The giant grumbled in satisfaction, turning his attention once more to his guest. Advancing toward Alastair, he reached into his pocket and withdrew a greasy piece of much-folded paper and extended it to the smaller man.

“For me?” Alastair asked, hating the slight tremor in his voice. “You want me to read this?” The ogre nodded. “All right,” the Earl said, gingerly accepting the scrap of paper. He looked up into the larger man’s face, searching for some sign of intelligence. “I’m going to have to get up now, and move closer to the window to get some light. Is that all right with you? Good.”

Alastair, the tattered blanket wrapped about his muscular frame like a toga, moved slowly toward the small window—doing his utmost not to make any disaster-causing sudden movements. “I’m Alastair Lowell, by the by,” he said, making what he hoped was idle conversation as he unfolded the paper. “I’m the Earl of Hythe—which should not be too far from here, unless I somehow ended up on the wrong side of the Channel. Parlez vous français, friend ogre? No? Well, that’s some small relief. All right, let me see what this says.”

He read for a few moments, then looked up at the giant, who was hovering just a mite too close for comfort. “Hugo, is it?”

The giant nodded vigorously, a large smile cracking his face to expose a childish, gap-toothed grin. He slammed one hamlike fist against his barrel chest and growled low in his throat as if repeating his name.

“Uh-huh,” Alastair said dryly. “Obviously Hugo. And this letter was written by your mother—dictated from her deathbed, actually, to someone who wrote it for her. How touching.” He lowered his head to read the remainder of the short note. “Good God!” he exclaimed, looking up at Hugo, then down at the note once more. “Cut out your tongue? I can’t believe it. Why in bloody hell would anybody want to—”

Hugo’s left hand came down heavily on Alastair’s shoulder, nearly buckling the Earl’s knees. “Aaarrgh,” the giant groaned, opening his cavernous mouth to let Alastair view the damage for himself.

“Yes, indeed,” the Earl concluded quickly, trying not to gag, “it’s gone, all right. My condolences. Your mother says you’re a good boy, Hugo, and that I should be nice to you. You’re seven feet tall if you’re an inch, old man. I’d like to meet the fellow who wouldn’t be nice to you. Besides, unless I miss my guess, you saved my life.”

Nodding his head several times, Hugo stepped back to begin an elaborate pantomime Alastair believed was meant to depict Hugo’s daring rescue at sea. As the performance took some time, and the Earl was beginning to feel slightly giddy from being on his feet so long, it wasn’t too many minutes before Alastair could feel the small room begin to swirl in front of his eyes.

The giant, apparently sensing Alastair’s imminent collapse, broke off his performance to scoop the smaller man into his arms and lay him gently on the cot. His movements swift and economical, he had a meal of meat, thin broth, and boiled potatoes in front of Alastair before another ten minutes had passed, and he fed this to the patient from his own spoon, grumbling compliments for every bite of stringy meat Alastair swallowed.

Later, after watching Hugo wash the plates in a bucket of seawater he had carried into the cottage, and while the spit dog hungrily wolfed down the remnants of the meal, Alastair, his strength at last beginning to return, began a fact-finding conversation with his nurse-savior.

“How long have I been here, Hugo?” he asked as the giant unearthed the Earl’s clothing from a small chest near the hearth.

Hugo held up three fingers.

“Three days? No, my beard is too long for that. Three weeks?” Hugo nodded his head in agreement. “Good God—the whole world must think me dead! Hugo—do you have a newspaper?”

The giant looked puzzled for a moment, then removed one gigantic wooden clog and pulled out the folded layers of newspaper that served as a cushion for his feet. Alastair accepted it gingerly, unfolding it with the tips of his fingers to see that the newspaper was six months out-of-date.

“Thank you, friend, but I fear I need something more recent than this,” he said politely, quickly returning the paper, which Hugo replaced inside the clog. “We’ll need money. Did I have any money with me? I should have—I was a big winner, as I recall, and hadn’t as yet gone to my cabin to change out of my evening dress. But no, doubtless the man who hit me made sure to empty my pockets before dumping me overboard—why else would he bother with the exercise at all? I should have known that at least one of them would prove to be a poor loser. Good Lord, Hugo, I think I’m babbling.”

Within moments Hugo had laid a considerable sum of money in Alastair’s lap, amazing the Earl with his honesty. The man couldn’t have spent so much as a single copper on himself the whole time the Earl was unconscious. But, relieved as he was to see the money, it also seemed to eliminate his disgruntled gambling companions as possible suspects in his “murder.”

Counting out a hundred pounds, Alastair handed it to Hugo, who refused to take it. “Here, here, man, don’t be silly. I owe you my life. Besides, I want you to go into the nearest town and buy every newspaper you can find. Where am I anyway, Hugo? East or west of Folkestone? West? Good. That means I can’t be more than a stone’s toss from Hythe—and Seashadow. That fits my plan exactly—did I fail to mention that I have a small plan building in my head? Tell me, my large friend, would you like to be a part of it?”

“Aaarrgh!” Hugo agreed, clapping his hands.

“Good for you, Hugo, and welcome aboard! All right, let’s get down to cases. I’ll need some clothes—nothing too fancy, just a shirt and breeches, and perhaps a vest and hat. Oh, yes, I’ll need smallclothes and shoes as well. The salt water has made my own clothes unwearable, even if you were so kind as to wash them. Do you think you can take care of that for me? Of course you can. You’re very intelligent, aren’t you, Hugo? Your mother said you are.”

Hugo’s gap-toothed grin was curiously touching.

“I’ll need paper, and pen and ink, of course,” Alastair added, thinking aloud. “I should think I’ll want to get word to that Captain Wiggins fellow in the War Office that I’m still alive. He may prove useful. But I don’t think I would wish the knowledge of my survival to go beyond him for the moment.” He looked across the room at Hugo, then smiled. “Not much fear of that, is there?” he joked darkly, and Hugo’s grin appeared once more.

“Yes,” Alastair said, smiling genuinely for the first time since waking to find himself in the cottage, “this could prove to be extremely interesting.”

CHAPTER ONE

THE KENTISH COAST had long been considered the gateway to England, an island empire whose six thousand miles of coastline were its best defense as well as its greatest weakness.

The Romans had landed along the Kentish coast, followed by the Germanic tribes that were united under Egbert, the “First King of the English.” Alfred the Great, England’s first great patron of learning, was sandwiched somewhere between Egbert and William the Conqueror, followed by the Plantagenets, the Tudors, the Stuarts, the terrible, tiresome, homegrown Cromwell, and finally, the House of Hanover and its current monarch, George III.

The king, blind and most decidedly mad, was not aware that his profligate, pleasure-seeking son had been named Regent, which was probably a good thing, for the knowledge just might have proven to be the death of poor “Farmer George”—but that is another story. More important was the fact that another adventurous soul was once again contemplating the Kentish coast with hungry eyes.

Napoleon Bonaparte, ruler of all Europe, had amassed the Grande Armée, his forces surpassing the ancient armies of Alexander, Caesar, Darius, and even Attila. He had set his greedy sights on England early in his campaign to conquer the world, although pressing matters on the Peninsula and to the east (where the Russians and their beastly winter had proved disastrous to the Little Colonel) had kept him tolerably busy and unable to launch his ships across the Channel. This did not mean that the English became complacent, believing themselves invincible to attack from the French coast.

Quite the contrary.

Martello Towers, an ambitious string of lookout posts built on high ground from Hythe to Eastbourne, were still kept munitioned and manned by vigilant soldiers of His Majesty’s forces. Dressed in their fine red jackets, the soldiers stood at the high, slitted windows of the grey stone cylindrical towers, their glasses trained on the sea twenty-four stupefying hours a day. In their zeal to protect their shores, the English had even dug the Royal Military Canal between Rye and Appledore, optimistically believing that it would give them an extra line of defense from the Froggies.

Five great seaports—called the Cinque Ports—lined the southeast coast, at Hastings, Dover, Sandwich, Romney, and Hythe, with the towns of Rye and Winchelsea vying with them for prominence, and these too had garrisons of soldiers at the ready.

All this vigilance, all this preparedness, the Peninsula Campaign, and the Russian winter—added to the fact that the Strait of Dover, also referred to as “England’s Moat,” was not known for its easy navigability—had proved sufficient in keeping Bonaparte from launching his soldiers from Boulogne or Calais.

It was not, alas, sufficient in preventing inventive English smugglers from accumulating small fortunes plying their trade from Margate to Bournemouth, almost without intervention.

Using long-forgotten sea lanes, the smugglers, known as the “Gentlemen,” did a roaring trade in untaxed medicine, rope, spices, brass nails, bridal ribbons, brandy, silk—even tennis balls. So widespread was the smuggling, and so accomplished were the Gentlemen, that even the Comptroller of the Foreign Post Office sanctioned the practice, as it brought French newspapers and war intelligence reports to the island with greater speed and reliability than any other, more conventional methods.

But, the Comptroller’s protestations to one side, there were the Customs House officers to be considered. The smugglers may have been helping the war effort in some backhanded way, but they were also making the customs and revenue officers a redundant laughingstock, as the flow of contraband into England was fast outstripping the amount of legal, taxable cargo landed on the docks.

Many customs officers, loyal and hardworking, employed the King’s men in forays against the smugglers. Many more did not. A few slit throats, a few bludgeoned heads—these were ample inducement for most customs officers to keep their noses tucked safely in their ale mugs on moonless nights, when the Gentlemen were apt to be out and about. Besides enhancing the possibility of living to a ripe old age, turning one’s head was a good way for customs officers to increase their meager salaries, for the smugglers were known to be extremely generous to those who were good to them.

Popular sentiment as well was on the side of the Gentlemen, whose daring at sea demanded admiration—and supplied the locals with a wide variety of necessities and luxuries without the bother of the recipients having to pay tax on the goods.

As late as July of 1805, Lord Holland, during a Parliamentary Debate, conceded that: “It is impossible to prevent smuggling…. All that the Legislature can do is to compromise with a crime which, whatever laws may be made to constitute it a high offence, the mind of man can never conceive as at all equalling in turpitude those acts which are breaches of clear, moral virtues.”

All in all, it would be easy to believe that a, for the most part, comfortable bargain had been struck between the Gentlemen and the rest of the populate, but that was not the case. As the war dragged along, the unpaid taxes on contraband goods were, by their very absence, depleting the national treasury and war coffers, making the customs officers the butt of scathing lectures from their superiors in London.

The coastal forces, made up mostly of young men who had joined the military for the fun—the “dash” of the thing—only to be denied the clash of battle with the French, were itching to do battle with anyone. The Gentlemen and their nocturnal escapades were just the thing to liven up the soldiers’ humdrum existence.

But most important, the Gentlemen, who were extremely profit-oriented, were lamentably not the most loyal of the King’s subjects. Contraband was contraband, and money was money, no matter whose hand had held it last. Along with the spices and brandy and silk, there was many a French spy transported across England’s Moat, carrying secrets that could conceivably bring down the empire.

All this had served to complicate the Gentlemen’s position, and by 1813 the many small dabblers in the art of smuggling had called it a day, and the majority of the contraband was brought to the shores by highly organized, extremely unlovely gangs of cutthroats, villains, and sundry other souls not averse to committing crimes “equalling in turpitude those acts which are breaches of clear, moral virtues.”

THERE WAS A LONG, uncomfortable silence in the main drawing room of Seashadow, broken only by the light snoring of the napping Mrs. Biggs, whose impressed services as vigilant chaperone of Elinor Dalrymple’s reputation left much to be desired.

“That was a most edifying dissertation, Lieutenant Fishbourne—even if the bits about Cromwell and the Regent did not necessarily relate to the Kentish coast. But it begs me now that you have concluded—you have concluded, haven’t you?—to ask how all this pertains to me,” Elinor Dalrymple inquired wearily as she poured the young man a second cup of tea—for his lengthy, dry-as-dust dissertation on the history of England and smuggling must surely have caused him to become quite parched. “Or should I say—how does all of this pertain to Seashadow? Surely you haven’t had reports of smuggling or spying along our beaches?”

Lieutenant Jason Fishbourne, attached to the Preventive Service by the Admiralty and stationed these past eighteen months in the port of Hythe, leaned forward across the low serving table to utter confidentially, “Have you ever heard of the Hawkhurst Gang, Miss Dalrymple?”

Elly’s voice lowered as well, one slim white hand going to her throat protectively, as if she expected it to be sliced from ear to ear at any moment. “The Hawkhurst Gang? But they are located near Rye, aren’t they—if, indeed, that terrible gang is still in existence.”

The Lieutenant sat back, smiling, as he was convinced he had made his point. “There are many gangs about, Miss Dalrymple,” he intoned gravely. “Each one more bloodthirsty and ruthless than the next, I’m afraid. And yes, madam, I do suspect that one of them is operating in this area—very much so in this area.”

Elly swallowed hard. Smugglers operating near Seashadow? Spies? And she had been walking the beach every day—sometimes even at dusk. Why, she could have stumbled upon a clutch of them at any time!

“What—what do you wish for us to do?” she asked the Lieutenant, who now commanded her complete attention. “We have only been here a few weeks, since just before the memorial service for the late Earl, as a matter of fact, but we intend to be contributing members of the community. I, in fact, have been searching for a project to occupy my time. Could I serve as a lookout of sorts, do you suppose?”

“Indeed, no, madam, I should not dream of putting you in any danger.” Lieutenant Fishbourne rose to his not inconsiderable height, smoothing down his uniform over his trim, fit body before donning his gloves. “I ask nothing of you—your King asks nothing of you—save that you report any strangers to the area and any goings on that appear peculiar. You and the Earl are not to involve yourselves directly in any way, of course. I only felt it fair to warn you about the shore, so that neither of you is inadvertently taken as one of the Gentlemen by my men, who on occasion will be, with your kind permission, patrolling the area at night.”

“I would not think to take on the daunting project of trying to capture an entire band of smugglers, Lieutenant. But if, as you suggest, there could be a spy—or even spies—operating near Seashadow, it would be my duty to do my utmost to capture him—or them!”

“Miss Dalrymple,” the Lieutenant reiterated, “we have everything well in hand. Please, ma’am, do not involve yourself. If anything should happen to you because of my visit, I should never forgive myself. If you see anyone acting suspiciously, just have one of your servants summon me.”

Reluctantly nodding her agreement, Elly escorted the Lieutenant to the door, past Lily, who was making a great fuss out of dusting a gleaming brass candlestick as she watched the handsome tall, blonde officer.

Before the man could retrieve his hat from the table, the young girl had snatched it up, dusting it thoroughly before handing it to him with a smile and a wink. “There you go, you lovely man,” Lily cooed sweetly. “Oh, you are a tall one, aren’t you? Drop in any time,” she added with a wink before Elly pointedly cleared her throat and the young girl scooted for the safety of the kitchens.

“She belonged to the late Earl,” Elly explained, only to amend hastily, “That is, she was a servant in the household when my brother and I came to Seashadow. She’s been given her head too much, I daresay, and I have not as yet had time to instruct her in the proper behavior of staff.”

The Lieutenant shook his head. “There’s no need to explain, madam. I’ve heard the late Earl was a bit of a runabout, but I’m sure you and the current Earl will set it all to rights.” He looked around the large foyer, his faded green eyes taking on a hint that could almost be termed envy. “This is a lovely establishment. It would be a grievous sin to have it less than perfect.” He brightened, smiling down at Elly. “But if your brother the Earl is anything like his gracious sister, I’m sure there is no worry of Seashadow succumbing to the vagaries of poor husbandry.”

Knowing that her younger brother was at that moment in the west wing billiard room, blocking out a mural depicting the evolution of an apple from first juicy bite to bared core, Elly smiled enigmatically, allowing the Lieutenant to comfort himself with his own visions of the new Earl, and waved the man on his way.

Once the door was closed behind him, Elly stood staring sightlessly at the heavy crystal chandelier that hung over the flower arrangement atop the large round table in the middle of the spacious foyer. “Smugglers and spies,” she intoned gravely, her curiously slanted brown eyes narrowing. “Carrying intelligence to Bonaparte so that he can kill more of our young men. Young men like my poor love, Robert—cut down before they’ve had a chance to live, to marry, to have sons.” She raised her chin in determination. “Well, they won’t be doing it from Seashadow. Not if I have anything to say about it!”

ALASTAIR LOWELL stood lost in a pleasant daydream on the small hill, gazing across the rocks and sand toward his ancestral home, watching as the sun danced on the mellow pink brick and reflected against the mullioned windows.

Seashadow was particularly lovely in the spring of the year. It was almost as lovely as it was in the summer, or the fall, or the winter. “Face it, man, you’re in danger of becoming dotty about the place. Being near to death—not to mention the weeks spent in friend Hugo’s airless hovel—have given you a new appreciation for those things you have taken for granted much too long.”

He turned toward the water, smiling indulgently as he watched Hugo at play on the shore, chasing a painted lady—one of the thousands of butterflies that spanned the Mediterranean to cross the Channel each spring and make landfall on the edge of Kent. Dear Hugo. Whatever would he have done without him?

“I would have been breakfast for some sea creature, that’s what I would have done,” he reminded himself, his grey eyes narrowed and taking on hints of polished steel. “I mustn’t allow my joy in being alive to distract me from the reason behind that joy—my near murder.”

He turned back toward Seashadow, rubbing a hand reflectively across his bearded chin. He still found it difficult to believe that a new Earl had been installed in his family home, a fact he had discovered during his first clandestine meeting with Billie Biggs—once that devoted woman had finished thoroughly dampening his shirtfront with tears of joy over his lucky escape from drowning. His eyes narrowed. “So now I have a logical suspect. I hope you’re enjoying yourself, Leslie Dalrymple, Earl of Hythe, eating my food and drinking my wine—for if Wiggins’s and my plan goes well, you are very soon going to be booted out of my house and then hung up by your murdering neck!”

“Eeeeek!”

“Aaaarrgh!”

What a commotion! What a to-do! What high-pitched, unbridled hysteria!

“What in bloody hell? Hugo!” It all happened so quickly that Alastair was taken off guard, his hand automatically moving to his waist, and the sword that wasn’t there. All he had was his cane, and he raised the thing over his head menacingly, vowing to do his best with the tools at hand, for obviously there was murder taking place just out of sight along the beach.

Cursing under his breath, he began to run down the hill toward the shore, the shifting sands beneath his feet nearly bringing him to grief more than once before he cannoned into Hugo—who had been running toward him at full tilt—and was thrown violently backward against the ground, his wind knocked out of him, his senses rattled.

Air returned painfully to his starving lungs and he took it in in deep, hurtful gulps. There were several painted ladies hovering over him, swirling about in circles like bright yellow stars. No, they were stars, brilliant five-pointed objects that hurt his eyes. But that was impossible, for it was just past noon. There couldn’t be any stars.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, slowly becoming aware of a shadow that had fallen over the land. Hugo. The man’s enormous head blocked out the sun, the butterflies, and the circling stars.

“Aaarrgh,” Hugo moaned, his hamlike hands inspecting Alastair from head to foot for signs of damage.

Suddenly a parasol, built more for beauty than for combat, came crashing down on Hugo’s back, once, twice, three times, before splintering into a mass of painted sticks, pink satin, and lace.

“Unhand that man, you brute!” a woman’s raised voice demanded imperiously. “Isn’t it enough that you accost helpless females—must you now compound your villainy by trying to pick this poor fellow’s pockets? Away with you, you cad, or it will be much the worst for you!”

Alastair struggled to sit up, trying his best not to succumb to the near fit of hilarity brought on by both Hugo’s frantic expression and the outrageousness of the unknown female’s accusations. This proved extremely difficult, as Hugo, who was obviously thoroughly cowed, had buried his face against the Earl’s chest, seeking sanctuary. “I say, Hugo, leave off, do, else you’re going to crush the life out of me,” Alastair pleaded, trying to push the man to one side.

“You—you know this brute?” the woman asked, dropping the ruined parasol onto the sand, clearly astonished. “I came upon him as I rounded the small cliff over there. I thought he was a smuggler going to…but he must actually have been afraid of me…which is above everything silly, for he is four times my size…and then I took him for a robber when he was only trying to help you? This is all most confusing. I don’t understand.”

“That makes the two of us a matched set, madam, for I am likewise confused,” Alastair replied, prudently reaching for his cane before attempting to rise and get his first good look at the woman who had so daringly defended him against Hugo.

She was a young woman of medium height, slightly built in her rather spinsterish grey gown, her fair hair scraped back ruthlessly beneath her bonnet so that she looked, to his eyes, like drawings he’d seen of recently scalped colonials. Her huge brown eyes were curiously slanted—probably a result of her skin-stretching hair-style. She looked, and acted, like somebody’s keeper, and he immediately pitied her “keepee.”

“When last I saw friend Hugo here, for that is his name,” Alastair continued, “he was amusing himself chasing a painted lady.”

“I beg your pardon,” the female said crushingly. “I have not insulted you, sirrah! Just because I am on the beach without a chaperone is no reason to—”

Alastair hastened to correct her misinterpretation. “A painted lady is but another name for a butterfly, madam—the two-winged variety, that is,” he said, rising to his knees as Hugo put a hand under each of his arms and hauled his master ungainly to his feet. “Ah, there we are, almost as good as new. Thank you, Hugo,” he said, having been righted satisfactorily. “Now, perhaps we might try to make some sense out of these past few minutes.”

“I knew that,” the woman said in a small voice.

“You knew what?” he asked, bemused by the slight blush that had crept, unwanted, onto her cheeks.

“I knew about painted ladies—that is, about butterflies,” she stammered, looking at him as if she had never seen a man up close before. “Are you sure you are quite all right? That was quite a blow you took.” Her voice trailed off as a humanizing grin softened her features. “You—you must have bounced at least three times,” she added, belatedly trying to disguise the grin with one gloved hand. “Oh, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t see any levity in this, should I?”

Alastair made to push the kneeling, still-quavering Hugo—who reminded him of an elephant cowering in fear of a mouse—away from his leg. “Oh, I don’t know, madam. If we can’t discover the levity in this scene, I should think we are beyond redemption.” He held out his hand. “I am John Bates, by the way.”

She looked at his outstretched hand, then pointedly ignored it, all her starch back in her posture. “I am Elinor Dalrymple, sister of Leslie Dalrymple, Earl of Hythe—on whose lands you, Mr. Bates, are trespassing. May I ask your business at Seashadow?”

“Aargg, ummff, aaah!”

“Yes, yes, Hugo, I quite agree with you. I shall tell the lady. Don’t excite yourself,” Alastair soothed, patting the giant’s head as he tried desperately to gather his thoughts, and control his anger. Who was this unlovely chit to dare ask his business upon his own land?

Why, the only reason she was still here rather than rotting in some damp jail—her and her miserable, conniving brother—was due to his charity in not demanding they be arrested the moment he’d first learned of their usurpation of his lands and title. No, he corrected himself, that wasn’t quite true. It had been Geoffrey Wiggins’s idea (conveyed in a hurried meeting between the two men) to continue the deception Alastair had first planned while still recuperating in Hugo’s hovel—and the romance of the thing was fast losing its allure.

“You know what he’s saying?” Elly asked, clearly surprised, as she peeped around Alastair to get a better look at Hugo.

“By and large, Miss Dalrymple, by and large. Hugo doesn’t plague one with a lot of idle chitchat, having lost his tongue in some way too terrible to tell. However, if you should wish for him to show you the wound, I’m sure he would be delighted to satisfy your—”

“That won’t be necessary,” Elly cut in quickly. “But you—you understand him, poor fellow?”

“Now who are you calling a poor fellow, I wonder? But never mind. I shall answer your question the best I can. Yes, Hugo and I have, by way of his most articulate grunts and some acting out of intent, learned some basic communication. For instance, I am sure Hugo is devastated at having frightened you—nearly as devastated as he is by his fear of you. Please wave and smile to him, if you will. I should like for him to feel secure enough to leave go his death grip on my leg, for it is just regaining its strength from the wound it lately suffered on the Peninsula.”

“You were on the Peninsula?” Elly asked, dutifully smiling and waving to Hugo before returning her gaze to Alastair. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“And how should you, madam?” Alastair asked, intrigued by her quick about-face. She seemed almost caring. “Tell me, is your brother the Earl in residence? I wished to thank him for renting me the cottage, but all I have seen thus far, other than your delightful presence, of course, was a slightly vacuous-looking youth walking the beach earlier, collecting seaweed for only the good Lord knows what purpose.”

He watched as Miss Dalrymple blushed yet again, and had the uncomfortable feeling that he had just struck a nerve. “That vacuous-looking youth, as you termed him, Mr. Bates” —she shot at him in some heat— “is the Earl of Hythe—and I should thank you to have the goodness to keep your boorish opinions to yourself.” So saying, she turned on her heels, about to flounce off, he was sure, in high dudgeon.

She had taken only three steps when—again, as he was sure she would—she turned back, her slightly pointed chin thrust out, to exclaim, “What do you mean, sir—you wish to thank my brother for the use of the cottage? What cottage? Where?”

As Hugo had been distracted by another gaily colored painted lady and was lumbering down the beach in pursuit of the gracefully gliding butterfly, Alastair felt free to spew the remainder of his lies just as he and Wiggins had practiced them. “Why, madam, I thought you knew. After all, it was your brother who agreed to lend me the cottage on the estate while I recuperate from my wounds. It’s the cottage just to the east of here—slightly inland, and with a lovely thatched roof. Hugo and I have been quite comfortable there for over a month now, although this is my first venture so far from my bed. But you still appear confused, Miss Dalrymple—and you shouldn’t frown so, it will cause lines in your forehead.”

“Never mind my forehead, if you please!” Elly shot back, bending down to retrieve her ruined parasol. “Wait a minute!” she said as she straightened. “Over a month ago, you say? Why, that must have been the late Earl. Of course! You rented the cottage from the late Earl! That’s why Leslie and I weren’t aware of it.”

“The Earl is dead? I have been out of touch, haven’t I?” Alastair bowed deeply from the waist. “My condolences on your loss, madam.”

“None are required, Mr. Bates,” Elly answered distractedly, clearly still trying to absorb his news. “I never knew the horrible man, I’m happy to say.”

Alastair longed to take Elinor Dalrymple’s slim throat in his hands and crush the life out of her. Smiling through gritted teeth, he responded, “Then may I offer my congratulations to your brother and yourself, for surely the two of you have fallen into one of the deepest gravy boats in all England. The late Earl was known, after all, for his great wealth.”

“That’s not all the late Earl was known for,” Elly said, sniffing. “He was a profligate, useless drain on society, if half the stories I have heard are to be believed. If you wish to talk about painted ladies, you should have been here for his memorial service. There were more butterflies at Seashadow that day than this, if you take my meaning.”

This time Alastair could not suppress a grin. “Lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth, was there? There’s many a man who would relish such a send-off. Was there a redhead among them? I’d heard the late Earl had quite a ravishing redhead in keeping.”

Elly’s spine stiffened once more, most probably, Alastair supposed, more in self-censure at her own loose tongue than at his daring response to her indiscreet chatter. “Be that as it may be, if he leased a returning veteran a cottage in which to recuperate, he did at least one good deed in his wasted lifetime, and I shall not take this one vestige of goodness from his memory by refusing to honor his wishes.”

“You are kindness itself, Miss Dalrymple,” Alastair cooed, longing to throttle her.

“The sea air will doubtless be salutary to your wounds,” she continued. “As a matter of fact—as a small way of showing you Seashadow’s hospitality—may I tell my brother that you are to join us this evening for dinner?”

Alastair smiled, succeeding in splitting the three-week growth of beard so that his even white teeth sparkled in the sunlight. “Madam,” he said sincerely, “I should be delighted!”

THE EVENING WAS comfortably cool, with a slight breeze coming off the sea as Elly stood just outside the French doors watching the sea birds as they circled the beach. Raising a hand to her throat, she adjusted the cameo that hung from a thin ivory ribbon, wondering if jewelry—even such simple jewelry—was proper during her supposed time of mourning for her cousin, the late Earl.

“Oh, pooh,” she said, allowing her hand to drop to her side, where it found occupation smoothing the skirt of her silver-grey gown. “What does it matter anyway, now that you’ve been so stupid as to express your true feelings about the man to a relative stranger—a relative stranger you have invited to dinner, and then dressed yourself up like some man-hungry spinster at her last prayers?”

She should have invited Lieutenant Fishbourne to join them as well, considering the fact that his warning to her was the main reason she had invited John Bates to dine. “Report any strangers to the area and any goings-on that appear peculiar,” the Lieutenant had cautioned her, and Elly had every intention of reporting John Bates and Hugo to the Lieutenant just as soon as she was sure if they were smugglers or spies. She only needed to squeeze a bit more pertinent information from Mr. John Bates so that she wouldn’t disgrace herself by turning in an innocent man.

“John Bates couldn’t be innocent,” she told herself reassuringly, hearing the brass door knocker bang loudly in the foyer, announcing her dinner guest’s arrival. “Nobody that handsome—or forward—could possibly be innocent.”

Stepping into the drawing room, she looked around to see that Leslie, who had been dutifully sitting in the blue satin striped chair when she had left the room, was nowhere to be found. “Leslie?” she hissed, looking about desperately as she heard footsteps approaching the room. “Leslie! You promised! Where are you?”

“Lose something?” a voice inquired from behind her just as she was peeking through the fronds of a towering fern in hopes of discovering her brother hiding behind it.

Straightening, Elly pasted on a deliberate smile and turned to greet her guest. “Lose something?” she repeated blankly. “Why, yes, I seem to have misplaced, um, my knitting. Mrs. Biggs, our housekeeper, appears to delight in hiding it from me.”

“You don’t knit, Elly. Never could, without making a botch of the thing.”

Elly swung about, to see Leslie down on all fours behind the settee. “Leslie!” she gritted under her breath. “Get up at once. What are you doing down there?”

Leslie Dalrymple, Earl of Hythe, rose clumsily to his feet, his pale blonde hair falling forward over his high forehead, his knees and hands dusty. “I was sitting quite nicely, just as you instructed, Elly, when a breeze from the doorway sent the loveliest dust bunny scurrying across the floor. See!” he demanded, holding up a greyish round ball of dust. “I think it’s just the thing to complete my arrangement of Everyday Things, don’t you?”

Elly didn’t know whether to hit her brother or hug him. He looked so dear, standing there holding his dust bunny as if it were the greatest treasure on God’s green earth, yet he was making the worst possible impression on John Bates. John Bates! Elly whirled to face her handsome guest, daring him with her eyes to say one word—one single, solitary word against her beloved brother.

Her fears, at least for the moment, proved groundless. John Bates, who had indeed witnessed all that had just transpired, only advanced across the width of the Aubusson carpet, his golden hair and beard glinting in the candlelight, his cane in his left hand as he favored his left leg, his right hand outstretched in greeting.

“My Lord Hythe, it is a distinct pleasure to meet you,” he said, his tone earnest even to Elly’s doubting ears. “I wish to thank you for agreeing to honor the rental arrangement made between the late Earl and myself. And, oh yes, please allow me to offer you condolences on your loss.”

Leslie looked down on the dust bunny. “But I didn’t lose it. See, I have it right here.”

“Mr. Bates is referring to our libertine cousin Alastair’s untimely death,” Elly corrected sweetly even as she glared at John Bates. He already knew how she felt about her late cousin. Why was he persisting in bringing it up again and again? Anyone would think they had killed the stupid man, for pity’s sake!

The dust bunny disappeared into Leslie’s coat pocket as he took John’s hand, wincing at the older man’s firm grip. “A strong one, aren’t you? Oh, you meant m’cousin, of course. Please excuse Elly. M’sister’s taken a pet against him for some reason, ever since his mourners wouldn’t stay to tea after the service, as a matter of fact. Rather poor sporting of her to my way of thinking, as the fellow’s dead, ain’t he—leaving the two of us as rich as Croesus into the bargain.”

“Leslie, please,” Elly begged quietly, steering the two men toward the settee and seating herself in the blue satin chair.

But Leslie was oblivious to his sister’s pleading. Seating himself comfortably, one long, skinny leg crossed over the other, he informed his guest, “I have been considering composing a picture to honor the late Earl and his accomplishments—only, I can’t seem to find that he actually accomplished anything, except a few things best not remembered. I’m an artist, you understand.”

“You wish to do a portrait?” Alastair asked, to Elly’s mind, a bit intensely.

Leslie waved his thin, artistic hands dismissingly. “No, no. Never a portrait. That’s so mundane—so ordinary. No, I wish to execute a chronicle of Alastair’s life, with symbols. For instance,” he expanded, thrilled to have found a new audience for his ideas, “if I were to do Henry the Eighth, I should include a bloody ax, a joint of meat, weeping angels, a view of the Tower—you understand?”

“What a unique concept, my lord,” Alastair complimented, his eyes shifting so that he was looking straight at Elly, who shivered under his penetrating, assessing grey gaze.

What was he looking at? she wondered. And why did she have the uncomfortable feeling that John Bates could prove to be a very dangerous man?

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS STARING at Elinor Dalrymple; he knew he was, but he couldn’t help himself. Alastair had come to Seashadow to unmask the new Earl as his attacker. It had seemed so simple, so straight-forward—in a backhanded sort of way. But Leslie Dalrymple, bless his paper skull, wouldn’t harm a fly—even if he knew how. Alastair wasn’t so bent on revenge that he couldn’t see that.

Unfortunately, he told himself as Mrs. Biggs called them to the dinner table, that left only the sister, Elinor, to take Leslie’s place as suspect. Offering Elinor his arm to escort her in to dinner, and throwing a stern look at Mrs. Biggs, who so forgot herself as to begin a clumsy curtsey as he moved past (after she had done so well earlier when he had first arrived at the door), Alastair knew he had to rethink his deductions.

A man, after all, did not accuse another man of attempted murder without a wheelbarrow full of irrefutable evidence. Wasn’t the desire to accumulate evidence what had brought him, under an assumed identity, to Seashadow in the first place? But a man—at least any man who considered himself to be a gentleman—never accused a lady of anything.

Once he had helped Elinor to her seat and taken his own chair across from her, Alastair resumed staring at her, knowing he was dangerously close to being indiscreet, but unable to help himself. A woman! It had never occurred to him that his attacker could be a woman. Oh, certainly she had employed someone to actually perform the dirty deed—to conk him on the head and send him to a watery grave—but that didn’t make her any less guilty, did it?

This was going to take some getting used to, Alastair decided, deliberately smiling at Elinor Dalrymple, as if enchanted by her spinsterish charms and idly wondering if her small, shell-like ears really fit so snugly against the sides of her head or if her ruthlessly pulled-back hair had anything to do with it. He watched her spine straighten as it had on the beach and this time recognized the action as the proud, stiff-necked posture of one who has had more than a nodding acquaintance with poverty.

And with a brother like Leslie to support her, he considered thoughtfully, is it any wonder the two of them had been purse-pinched? He doubted he had to look much further for a motive.

“Do I have a smut on my nose?”

Alastair blinked, his attention caught by the question in Elinor’s voice, although he hadn’t quite comprehended what she had said, his attention still concentrated on her blonde hair as he tried to imagine her as she would look with it soft and loose against her high-cheeked face. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re staring, Mr. Bates,” she pointed out needlessly. “I wondered if there was something wrong with me that has put you off your food. You haven’t even touched your meal, and Big George has really outdone himself with the veal.”

“Yes, indeed, I have—” Alastair had always relished Big George’s way with veal—so much so that he nearly gave himself away, only catching himself in time to amend his conversation by ending, “always enjoyed a veal. Big George, you say? Is there also, perchance, a Little George running about somewhere?”

Leslie Dalrymple, his mouth full of veal, answered. “Little Georgie, actually, even though he’s past eighteen and fully grown. He doesn’t cook, though—big George won’t let him, at least, according to Mrs. Biggs, not since he set the capons on fire. Little Georgie just helps. Biggs is their name. You already met Mrs. Biggs, our housekeeper. Big George is her husband.”

“Making Little Georgie their son,” Elinor completed hastily. “It is as logical as it is boring, Leslie, my dear, and before you launch into a dissertation on all the other little Biggses running tame about Seashadow, I suggest a change of subject. Perhaps our guest would rather discuss something more worldly than our servant situation.” Leaning forward slightly, she went on encouragingly, “You served with Wellington perhaps, Mr. Bates? What battles were you in, exactly—and when?”

Alastair was amazed at the obvious intensity of her interest. He suddenly felt like a prisoner in the dock, undergoing a detailed cross-examination bent on exposing his guilt in some heinous crime. “Well, actually, madam, I didn’t see much action before—”

Leslie stuck out his bottom lip petulantly and interrupted, “Who cares, Elly? I wanted to tell Mr. Bates about Rosie.” He brightened slightly, looking to his sister. “I’m going to paint her, you know.”

“Yes, dearest, I do know,” Elinor said, reaching over to pat her brother’s hand. “Rosie will be a wonderful subject, once she cuts her second teeth. Now, why don’t you try some of those lovely peas?”

Alastair watched, bemused, as Leslie obediently picked up his fork and began to eat. Oh yes, there was no question as to just who was in charge here. Elinor Dalrymple of the flat ears, scraped-back hair, and miserable disposition—sitting at her brother’s right hand—was the real Earl of Hythe in all but name. Wait until he ran this one past Wiggins!

“Mr. Bates?”

Alastair looked across the table at Elinor, his grey eyes deliberately wide, his expression purposely guileless. If he had decided nothing else, he had decided that this woman was intelligent—which also made her dangerous. “Yes, Miss Dalrymple?”

“You were telling us about your time with Wellington,” she prompted, accepting a small serving of candied yams from the hovering Mrs. Biggs. “From the left, Mrs. Biggs. You serve from the left.”

“Do yer wants ’em or not, missy?” Mrs. Biggs challenged, glaring at Alastair as if begging his permission to dump the bowl on Elinor’s head. “Right, left. What does it matter? I’ve got Baby Willie crying in the kitchen, afraid of that horsey-faced brute, Hugo, and that lazy, good-for-nothin’ Lily nowheres ter be found.”

“Baby Willie’s crying?” Leslie exclaimed, hopping from his seat so quickly, the chair nearly toppled behind him. “We can’t have that, Elly, now can we?” He reached up to pull the large linen serviette from his shirt collar, where he had obediently tucked it after dripping soup on his neckcloth. “I know. I’ll make him a crow from this serviette—of course, it will be white rather than black, but then, that just adds to the romance of the thing, doesn’t it? I can use these peas for eyes,” he went on excitedly, filling his hand with the green vegetable before heading for the kitchens. “It will be famous, I vow it will! Here I come, Baby Willie! Caw! Caw!”

“Leslie, come back here—” Elinor began as Alastair hid a grin behind his own serviette. “Oh, what’s the use? It’s like speaking to the wind.”

His sense of the ridiculous overcoming his good manners, Alastair threw back his head and laughed aloud for a moment before sobering and apologizing almost meekly, “I’m sorry, Miss Dalrymple. I am but a lowly soldier sitting at an Earl’s table. I really shall have to cultivate more elegance of mind. But you have to own it, Miss Dalrymple—your brother is most amusing.”

Her brown eyes turned as black and forbidding as an angry sea. “You think he’s an utter addlepate, don’t you, Mr. Bates?” she accused hotly. “Well, perhaps he is, but Leslie is my addlepate, and I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself!”

Alastair waved his hands in front of his face, as if to ward off her accusations. “No, no, Miss Dalrymple, please don’t fly into the treetops. I meant nothing by it, really I didn’t. Besides, you are wrong. Your brother is not an addlepate. He’s rich, madam, which makes him a delightful eccentric. Only a poor man is an addlepate.”

There was a commotion in the kitchens that reached into the dining room, turning the heads of both its occupants toward the baize door just as Hugo exploded into the room, Leslie on his arm. “Elly, look! A giant. A Titan! Isn’t it above everything famous!”

Leslie turned delighted eyes to Alastair, who felt himself rapidly wilting beneath Elinor’s white-hot glare. He had brought Hugo along with him because he couldn’t feel right leaving him alone in the cottage. He’d had no idea the man’s presence would cause either Baby Willie’s tears or Leslie’s euphoria.

“Is he really yours?” Leslie went on in accents of rapture. “Mrs. Biggs says he is. Do you think I could borrow him? I’ve just had the happy notion of painting him—for comparison, you understand—alongside of Baby Willie, if that poor dear will ever stop crying. Hugo’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Aaahh,” Hugo crooned softly, accepting the compliment most graciously by picking Leslie up by the coat collar with one hand and placing a smacking wet kiss on his lordship’s thin cheek.

Elinor leapt to her feet. “You brute! You put my brother down this instant!”

“Aaarrrggh!”

Feeling as if he had just stepped unawares into a Covent Garden farce, Alastair rose as well, ordering, “Don’t growl, Hugo. It isn’t polite. And put his lordship down; I think he’s having a spot of trouble getting his breath.”

“Dear me!” Leslie gulped, nervously smoothing his neckcloth as he gazed up at the giant. “He is a strong fellow, isn’t he? But not to worry, Elly, I’m convinced that Hugo and I will become fast friends. Won’t we, Hugo?”

The giant grinned, showing the gap between his teeth—the sight of which immediately transported Leslie into another bout of ecstasy—and gently patted the young man’s blonde head. “Glugg, glugg,” he crooned affectionately.

“That is it!” Elinor exclaimed, the high pitch of her voice clearly indicating that she was about to fly into the boughs. Alastair privately commended her restraint, for he should surely have exploded long ago had he been so pressed. “Leslie, excuse yourself,” she ordered in a voice that brooked no opposition, and her brother meekly left the room, turning only once, to wave goodbye to Hugo.

She then turned to Alastair and said coldly, “Mr. Bates, as you are living on the estate, we shall doubtless be forced to deal with each other from time to time—at least until I can have my brother’s solicitor make other arrangements for you. But for the moment, sir, I ask nothing from you other than that you retrieve your cane, whistle this brute to heel, and remove yourself from these premises at once!”

Alastair, who had grown heartily sick of Hugo’s attempts at the culinary arts over the past weeks, eyed the veal hungrily before giving in to the inevitable. The evening had been a shambles from odd beginning to even odder end. But, knowing that tomorrow was another day, he wisely motioned to Hugo, and the two of them headed for the door.

They had just stepped onto the porch—the heavy oak door slamming behind them, obviously propelled by the gentle hand of their hostess—when an insistent “psst, psst” came from the bushes.

“Who’s there?” Alastair whispered, looking about in the darkness as Hugo growled deep in his chest.

The bushes rustled behind them, and out stepped Lily Biggs, her hips undulating wildly as she approached, as if she were trying to navigate her way across a mound of feather pillows. “G’evenin’, yer lordship,” she crooned, batting her eyelashes at her master. “Mum told me yer was back, but I didn’t believe it. She says I’m not ter say nuthin’ about knowin’ yer neither, or else I’ll get my backside switched.”

“Your mother is a very wise woman, Lily,” Alastair said, idly inspecting the impressive cleavage revealed by the snug white peasant blouse and wondering just when it was that the once angular young girl had developed the soft, enticing body of a woman. Had it really been that long since he’d visited his smallest, yet favorite, estate? “You won’t betray me, will you, my little darling?”

With a toss of her head, Lily’s long, dark hair re-settled itself on her snowy white shoulders as she stood toe to toe with Alastair, her firm young breasts pressed invitingly against his chest. Reaching up with both hands to smooth his neckcloth, she grinned and purred, “And what would be in it fer little Lily, d’yer suppose, iffen she was ter do as yer says? I love yer beard, yer lordship,” she continued, lightly stroking his face. “It’s so golden—like the sun or somethin’—and so fuzzy.”

Now, here was a dilemma to tax the brain of the wise Solomon himself. Alastair had been without a willing woman for more than a month—quite possibly a new personal record he wouldn’t wish bruited about among his acquaintances. It would be nice having an unattached, willing female so close to hand—although he supposed he could just as easily import one from the city if he so wished.

Besides, Alastair had known this child since her birth, and would never do anything to betray Billie Biggs’s faith in him. But at the same time—could he trust this willful child to keep his secret if he insulted her by turning down what she was so obviously offering?

“Lily, I—” he began at last, not really knowing what he was going to say, just as the oak door swung open in a rush and he looked toward it, praying it was Mrs. Biggs come to his rescue.

But, alas, just as it had been with the veal he’d hoped to enjoy, he wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“Here, Mr. Bates, you forgot your—oh, good Lord!” Elinor exclaimed, her arm halting in the action of tossing Alastair’s curly-brimmed beaver at him. “Oh, this is beyond anything low!” The beaver came winging toward him, to be deftly snatched out of the air by Hugo, who then sat the undersized thing atop his own oversized head. “You lech! Let go of that poor, innocent girl this instant!”

“Miss Dalrymple,” Alastair began hastily, silently cursing his continuing run of bad luck, “this isn’t what you think. Let me endeavour to explain.”

He turned toward the doorway, slapping Lily’s greedy hands away as he tried to explain. “Leave go, Lily, for God’s sake,” he hissed angrily. “Don’t make this any worse than it is.” He looked up into his hostess’s angry face. “Miss Dalrymple—please listen to me!”

“Listen to you? Listen to you!” Elinor exploded, grabbing hold of Lily’s elbow and yanking her up the steps and into the foyer. “I have two eyes, don’t I, Mr. Bates? There is nothing you can say that could possibly erase the evidence my own eyes have delivered. You may be a veteran, but you are no gentleman. Kindly keep to your cottage until I speak to my brother’s solicitor—and don’t try to approach this house or any of its inhabitants again. Do you hear me?”

“I should think they heard you in Dover, madam,” Alastair replied tightly, his pride stung. “And once again, Miss Dalrymple, I bid you good night. It has truly been an experience.” Feeling he had gotten in the last word, he then limped off into the night, Hugo, as Elinor Dalrymple had so imperiously ordered, at his heels.

“HERE THEY COME! I can see the bow of the boat hitting against the waves, turning them white. They’re about to land.”

“Quietly, your lordship, quietly,” Captain Geoffrey Wiggins admonished in a fierce whisper. “There are three of us and twenty-five of them. I don’t much like the odds.”

Alastair pushed his prone frame more closely against the body-sized hollow he had dug in the sand, kicking out his left foot as some hungry insect feasted on his ankle bone.

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