Page 2 of Lady Graceless (A Series of Senseless Complications #2)

A Remote Estate in the Yorkshire Dales, 1802

G race Nicolet, second eldest daughter of the Duke of Pelham, threw a roll across the dining table toward her father’s head. The duke had just joked, as he often liked to do, that he’d be rid of them all at his earliest convenience and would not even allow them home for Christmas.

As always when this threat was floated, Patience remarked that he’d have no choice but to let them in because she would break down the doors with a hatchet. Grace, for her part, was in the habit of hurling a roll in his direction.

She could not work out why she never hit him with it, though. Her rolls always seemed to go astray and they often hit a footman instead. It was not as if the footmen minded it, she knew they laid bets on who would be hit, but she would like to know why her aim was so terrible, even when she threw it right at him.

Or at least, where she thought he’d been. People and things had a habit of moving this way or that.

This time it had been Charlie struck with her floury missile, and he snorted over it.

“Wide of the mark as always, Gracie,” the duke said with a laugh. “I do not even bother to flinch or duck when you take aim.”

“Maybe you should practice throwing rolls, Grace?” her youngest sister suggested. “I have been practicing my sewing and it has got ever so much better. I sewed for an entire ten minutes today and only stabbed myself three times.”

“I will keep that in mind, Valor,” Grace said. What she did not say was that she had practiced. She could not understand how other people were so skilled at such things. How did other people manage it when that odd feeling came over them and everything moved this way and that, and their eyes could not keep up with where everything was? She sometimes ended on the floor at those moments. Most of the time though, she just went through the world a little tipped over and unbalanced.

It was a fault made worse by her name. Why had she been named Grace? It was the worst possible name she could have been given. She lived in a dread that she would be noticed as clumsy in Town, and then people would laugh because of her name. Mrs. Wenchel had once remarked that it was ironic.

Grace had no wish to be ironic!

The dessert course had come out and with it her father’s bottle of port. Lady Marchfield would be shocked to her shoes that they stayed at table with her father as he drank. Their aunt had told them in no uncertain terms that it was not done. Ladies were meant to retire while gentlemen might take a reasonably sized glass of port for a reasonable amount of time before rejoining the ladies in the drawing room.

There were several problems with that theory, as Lady Marchfield had seen for herself. One, the duke never stuck to anything reasonable, two, he did not like to get drunk alone, and three, he got far more drunk whenever he was left alone.

He sipped his port contentedly and gazed down the table at his daughters. “I received two letters today,” he said, “one was from our Felicity.”

“Oh, what does she say, Papa?” Patience asked.

“She says she is wildly happy, I am sure,” Verity said.

Winsome turned to her. “How would you know? You are not there. She might be wildly unhappy for all we know of it.”

“Do not say so, Winsome,” Serenity said. “I could just cry to think of it.”

“She’s perfectly happy,” the duke said. “She says Stratton is a brick and she’s got his temperamental viscount in hand. Hah! I knew she’d take Sir Pineapple by the throat and shake some rationality into him.”

“Papa, Felicity told you backward and forwards that you are not to call her father-in-law Sir Pineapple anymore,” Patience said.

“And I don’t, to his face,” the duke said jovially. “In any case, she and Stratton come to Town to assist Grace. Or assist me, more like it, in getting her out of the house. Then I’ll be down to just five feminine setbacks—my dream is within reach!”

The duke was roundly jeered at over the notion and everybody found it very amusing.

“Who was the second letter from, Papa?” Grace asked.

“The second letter,” the duke said, taking a long draught of port. “That’s where things take a rather grim turn. As much as I tell my diabolical sister I do not want to hear from her, it does not put her off. That polecat has been sticking her nose into henhouses that are not her own again.”

Valor laughed hysterically over the idea and whispered to her constant companion, a stuffed rabbit named Mrs. Wendover, to inform her that Lady Marchfield was a polecat.

“What has she done?” Winsome asked. “Can we stop her?”

“Lady Misery continues her quest to get a butler into my house,” the duke said.

This struck everyone rather hard. Grace noticed the footmen had both gone rather wide-eyed. Mrs. Right, their housekeeper, ruled the roost. The staff looked to her as their leader and they were all very comfortable. Nobody wished to have a butler, least of all Mrs. Right.

And then when they thought of the butler Lady Marchfield had installed last season! Nobody would soon forget Mr. Sykes-Wycliff, running from the house, hysterically shouting at the duke. Why would Lady Marchfield even try it again?

“Mrs. Right shall be very put out,” Grace said.

“I trust Mrs. Right will eject the newest specimen with all haste,” the duke said, “just like the last one.”

“Perhaps she could even stop him from getting in at all,” Winsome said. “Our Mrs. Right is ever so clever at running rings round our aunt.”

“He’s already in,” the duke said, downing his port. “Apparently, my sister has had the nerve to open my house and install a butler in it before I have even arrived. Who let her in? That is what I’d like to know.”

This, Grace thought, was a check in the endless game of chess between the duke and Lady Marchfield. Her aunt had decided the easiest way to gain her point was to get it before the duke had a chance to make his own move.

“His name, according to Lady Misery, is Harold Button,” the duke said. “Mr. Button, if you can believe anybody goes round publicly advertising such a name, has been until now the butler for some dowager or other in Somerset. Mr. Button spent years in a deadly quiet house, that dowager has since kicked off, and now he looks forward to the vivacity of working for a family with so many young people.”

“ Vivacity ?” Winsome asked as if that were the most bizarre quality a person could look for.

“Yes, so she says. God only knows what she’s told this poor fellow about us.” The duke snorted. “If I know my sister, Mr. Button will be expecting a parade of staid and purse-lipped individuals. The jest is on him!”

“I bet she hasn’t told him anything about Mrs. Right,” Valor said, collapsing in giggles.

Grace agreed. Mr. Button would never have taken the position if he’d known that Mrs. Right would shortly drive him out of it. Mr. Sykes-Wycliff had found that out.

That fellow had been led to understand that the duke liked to softly knock on a person’s door in the middle of the night and then clobber them when they opened it.

He’d also believed the story of the duke’s annual servants’ hunt where the staff ran round the moors and he chased them on foot and shot at them. Supposedly, the year before, a young footman had been hit, still walked with a limp, and currently lived with his mother. Mr. Sykes-Wycliff had believed all of it, though it was nonsense.

Anybody who knew the duke was aware that he was a very sound sleeper but for his snoring and shouts, and he did no creeping round the house in the night whatsoever. As for the servants’ hunt, if such a thing were ever tried out, the duke would be on horseback, as he was not a very great walker.

Mr. Sykes-Wycliff did not know the duke well enough to perceive these facts. He’d believed everything Mrs. Right told him and had experienced a complete breakdown of the mind, just like Mr. Herring had, all those years ago.

Grace could not imagine what the new butler would be told, but she was certain Mrs. Right would think of something. They were all very comfortable living without a butler, especially the duke, as he trusted Mrs. Right implicitly. She understood his ways and was not forever fanning herself over them.

Further, they’d all agreed that it was a kindness to any incoming butler to be driven mad and driven out, so he might land himself in a house where he was truly needed.

“Now my girls,” the duke said, “this time we make the trip to Town without the uncomfortable company of your miserable aunt. I suspect things will go a deal more smoothly than they did last time.”

All of the duke’s daughters nodded in agreement, though they all secretly wondered if that could be true. The nearest town of moderate size from their estate was only an hour away, and yet none of their trips there had ever gone smoothly.

“Valor,” the duke said to his youngest daughter, “this time round, no more hiding away in linen closets at the inns. It was very inconvenient last time to notice you were missing and have to backtrack an hour. Several times, if I recall rightly.”

Valor shrugged. “It was Mrs. Wendover’s idea. I said , Mrs. Wendover, we shouldn’t do it. She said, we have to do it because traveling is scary.”

Grace pressed her lips together to stop from laughing. Valor’s stuffed rabbit served a whole host of purposes, one of which was to be blamed for any crimes Valor might have committed. And why not? Mrs. Wendover did not mind if anybody was cross with her or if she were to be punished with no dessert.

“You can tell Mrs. Wendover that idea is firmly off the table,” the duke said.

“I’ll try, Papa,” Valor said. “But we all know Mrs. Wendover is guilty of stubbornness. Even the vicar says so.”

“He said you were guilty of stubbornness, Valor,” Winsome pointed out. “On account of claiming one of the ten commandments is too strict.”

Valor lifted her chin in defiance. “There are times when something must be stolen. It cannot be helped.”

Grace well knew Valor meant that biscuits must be stolen at every opportunity. The poor vicar did not know what the girl intended to steal. He was a nervous sort of person and his imagination had seemed to run wild on the subject. Grace had more than once seen the vicar surreptitiously scanning the altar to assure himself that the accoutrements of his calling were still there whenever Valor Nicolet was nearby.

“Will we stop at the same places we did last time, Papa?” Serenity asked. “Everyone knows how sensitive I am to other people’s moods, and I did feel very deeply in my heart that some of the innkeepers were rather distressed by our visit.”

“Oh yes,” Winsome said. “Remember the fellow who shouted at us as we pulled out of the yard?”

Verity snorted. “Never again! He shouted never again.”

“It was on account of Papa asking for things that did not exist,” Patience said. “Remember, Papa? You would ask for brocabbage pie and say it was a Yorkshire staple, and then they’d all run round trying to figure out what it was, and then you’d tell them you just made the whole thing up.”

They all laughed heartily at those fond memories.

“I can’t say I won’t trot out the brocabbage pie gambit on occasion, as it is amusing,” the duke said. “People will really believe anything. But this time, we take a different route. I am determined that you shall see a thing you never saw in your lives. It is something your sainted mother was very fond of and something that not every person ever gets to see.”

This stirred up a vast amount of speculation, but the duke would not give up his secret.

Grace was delighted. She had thought the real excitement would be in London. Now the adventure was to start as they made their journey there, whatever it might be. Her father was really a dear to think of it.

*

Miles Delatore, Viscount Dashlend, eldest and only son to the Earl of Gravesend, very quietly breathed a sigh of relief. They’d been adrift for two days and, finally, land had been spotted. A strong current was funneling them into a bay.

He was very quiet about the sigh, as he did not wish his only crewman, known in the wider world as his valet, Moreau, to perceive that he’d ever been less than confident of their survival. He had been less than confident, though.

They’d set off on Tuesday for some deep-sea fishing on his twenty-two-foot sloop, The Marquessa . He’d designed and helped build the boat with his own two hands and he’d taken her far out of sight of land dozens of times. This time, though, his luck had run out. A sudden squall had come up and hit them hard.

It had been a terrific effort to simply hold on and avoid being thrown from the boat. That would have been the end, as nobody who’d been thrown off a boat in a squall had much hope of getting back on it again. Waves and currents were a devilish thing, and they were not things even a strong swimmer could overpower. Boat and swimmer would drift ever farther apart until the swimmer was forced to realize they were doomed.

His earl would have cursed him to hell and back if he left the world in such a stupid manner without leaving an heir behind him. It would not be so much for missing his son’s company as it would be knowing the earldom would pass to Miles’ cousin.

Rupert Burdock, Baron Montclave, was all sorts of things at once—dull, snide, untrustworthy, a schemer, a climber, and not someone who would be sorry to hear Miles was dead.

Miles had thought he might sail out of the squall or at least keep the sloop from going broadside, but the wind had shredded his sail like a razor through paper. They had been buffeted about in all directions, waves crashing over their heads, and Miles bailing the water out as fast as he could. His valet, on the other hand, had wrapped himself around the mast and shouted that God must let him live as it was not his fault that Lord Dashlend was “un idiot extraordinaire.”

How The Marquessa did not go over he still did not know, though he supposed it must have been a divine intervention. He was kept alive for something, though he could not think what. He led a sporting life, going from one thing to the next—sailing, boxing, fencing, hunting, jockeying his own horse at the races—he was usually in motion. It was endlessly entertaining, but he did not suppose he was a very important player in God’s grand plan.

Perhaps God had been intent on keeping his high-strung valet alive, though that seemed even less likely. Moreau’s contributions to the world were keeping Miles’ clothes immaculate and complaining about the awfulness of the English. When he complained too much about the English, Miles suggested he ought to go back to France. Then, quite suddenly, the French were awful too. Moreau’s sport of choice was complaining, and he always played at the top of his game.

Perhaps the likeliest reason God had seen fit to save them was the Lord could not countenance Baron Montclave becoming the next earl.

When the squall moved on and the water becalmed, the real recriminations from his valet had begun. Miles had spent the past two days bobbing on a windless sea and ignoring the ever-present question of why he’d not built a boat that could carry a spare sail. That question was looked at backward and forward, usually ending with a disgusted sigh. Then Moreau’s eyes would inevitably drift to the ale cask and note that Miles had brought very little food and not enough drink.

As the excursion was just meant to be a casual afternoon at sea, the only drink on board was ale, and his valet had been verging on drunk most of the time.

Just now, Moreau stood at the bow, looking longingly at the stony beach they drifted toward. There were breakers to be got through, but they had made it.

“What is it will happen when we go into those waves?” Moreau asked.

“I cannot be sure,” Miles said.

“Mon Dieu, why did Moreau think the captain of the ship would be sure? I drink the last of the ale, as it may be the last I ever drink! What an ending for Moreau! Drinking terrible English ale instead of superior French wine! Une injustice!”

Miles did not answer but found those ideas rather rich. He was slowly dying for lack of anything to drink as his valet had drunk most of the ale already. If Moreau thought it was so terrible he might have left more of it in the cask.

They approached ever closer to the waves. They were large rollers that did not break early, which worked in his favor. With any luck, the sloop would coast into shore until the keel scraped the bottom.

Moreau finished the last of the ale and staggered to the port side of the boat. “Moreau abandons this cursed vessel and swims to shore! He does not go down with the ship!”

With that, his valet went over the side and disappeared into the waves.

Miles had no time to look behind him to see what his drunken valet was doing. He kept the tiller steady and steered The Marquessa up and down the rollers. On the last trough, he felt the familiar scraping under his keel that slowed the boat. As the sloop ran aground, he abandoned ship himself as the boat would soon go over.

He jumped off the starboard side and swam under the mast just as it slapped down on the water. The waves pushed him clear of it. He crawled his way out of the water, the surf mercilessly hammering him on the head, and stood up on the rocky shore.

Moreau came tumbling in and lay like a banked fish gasping for air. The Marquessa was on its side and being pushed back and forth by the waves as they came in and then receded.

The sun was out though. He was alive, his drunken valet was also mysteriously alive. All in all, things could have been worse.

The boat had come in very close to shore and Miles waded out for the bowline. There was no pier to secure it to, but he would make do by looping it round a boulder on the beach.

Once that operation was completed, with no help from his valet whatsoever, Miles began to think about which direction they ought to walk to find civilization.

*

Mrs. Right had been the duke’s housekeeper for these past twenty years, ever since her husband had breathed his last and she was forced to sell their little shop and find a way to sustain herself. She had been determined to tuck away the money from the sale of the shop to fund her retirement. She was young and she was a strong specimen of a woman—she would work while she was able.

As a matron who was well used to running a household, she was hired on in the duke’s house. She was meant to be what the duke had named a second in charge, deferring to the current housekeeper at that time, Mrs. Kendall.

That lady suffered from some sort of nervous condition and was often not able to attend to her duties.

Mrs. Kendall was too much affected by the duke’s original way of going on, combined with the lonely remoteness of the house. She was forever taking to her bed on account of it. One day, a cousin came and collected her, as he had become concerned over the letters she wrote hinting about wandering out to the moors to be lost forever. Mrs. Right was speedily promoted and had run the house ever since.

Acting as housekeeper was a pleasant way to maintain oneself. She quickly fell to adoring the duke’s children as they came on the scene and she had respected the duchess, who let her get on with her work. She even developed a soft spot for the duke, despite his eccentricities. When the duchess died, Mrs. Right had become the children’s de facto mother, the person they ran to with any and all difficulties. Her loyalty to her girls and the duke ran deep, and heaven help the mistaken person who inconvenienced any one of them.

The only thing not so comfortable in the whole situation was being bossed about by a butler.

She’d managed that problem though. Mr. Herring had been driven out years ago and there had never been a replacement hired.

Then last season, Lady Marchfield had been determined that a duke must have a butler in his London house and had installed Mr. Sykes-Wycliff. She’d driven him out too, and in the process nearly driven Lady Marchfield mad.

Mrs. Right had been certain Lady Marchfield would have learned her lesson.

She had miscalculated, though. She had been informed that a certain Mr. Harold Button was already installed in the house in Grosvenor Square.

Well, Mr. Button was on the verge of learning a thing or two about tangling with Mrs. Agnes Right. Like those before him, he would rue the day he thought to boss her about. In fact, like one of those before him, she might enact what she’d privately named the “Herring Gambit.” It had worked marvelously on that very first butler and it would work again.

As the carriage jostled along a lonely road on its way to London, Valor said, “Mrs. Right, you will convince Mr. Button that he ought not be our butler? The last butler was scary—he was mad all the time.”

“Do not you worry, you dear little mite. Mr. Button is about to be convinced right down to his shoes.”