Page 6 of Runaway Countess (Those Wild Whitbys #2)

Chapter Six

T he sight of Kendrick at the front door to Lord Beeston’s lodgings on Church Street was more than welcome. Sebastian had not been looking forward to facing the angry bear alone.

Hugo Kendrick, on the other hand, did not look pleased to see him. He did not look pleased by anything. He was huddled in his long dark coat beneath the narrow porch, raindrops bouncing from the brim of his hat.

“There you are,” he said gruffly. “What the devil’s going on? He won’t let anyone in.”

Sebastian made a deep bow, letting icy rain trickle down the back of his neck. “Lord Kendrick, what an honour to see you again so soon,” he pronounced in his very best country gentleman accent.

The flash of a grin cut through Kendrick’s sour demeanour. For a moment, he looked like himself again – the Master Hugo of old with whom Sebastian had performed many a piece of childhood mischief. “Ah, cut that out, Sebastian. Call me Lord Kendrick again and I’ll twist your ear off. I’ve just had the displeasure of meeting Mr Fitzherbert Smythe, so as you can imagine, I’m in no mood for games.”

“Mr Smythe was here?”

Hugo pulled off his gloves and blew on his fingers to warm them. “Beeston refused him admittance, too. Doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“He’ll see me.” Sebastian rapped on the door. It was answered by the frail little man who oversaw the lodging rooms, and who – fortunately, for Lord Beeston – was quite deaf.

“Good evening, Mr Cox!” Sebastian bellowed. Hugo winced and took a sideways step away from him.

Mr Cox shook his head gloomily and let Sebastian in. He tried to close the door in Kendrick’s face, but Kendrick shouldered through regardless.

“He’s with me,” said Sebastian, leaning close to the old man’s ear. “A friend.”

“His lordship doesn’t want him!”

“Look.” Sebastian put his arm around Kendrick’s damp shoulders and thumped him on the chest. “He’s going to get Beeston out of Plymouth. Savvy?”

Mr Cox’s habitual gloom lifted a little. He stood aside.

“Thought that might ease things along,” Sebastian remarked quietly to Hugo as they ascended the stairs.

They felt the icy draught before they reached Lord Beeston’s door.

“Good lord,” said Hugo. “Do all you sailors suffer when you’re too comfortable?”

Sebastian knocked three times on the door, beating a sharp rhythm, and opened it while the angry bellow from within was only partly through.

“I want – no – visitors!”

Sebastian regretted removing his coat. Every window in the room stood wide open. A process which must have taken Beeston quite some time, for he was hunched over his shiny new cane in the centre of the room, both hands clutching it, face a gargoyle’s mask of anger and pain.

Business as usual, then.

“ Good lord ,” Hugo repeated, under his breath, and raced past Sebastian to offer Beeston a hand. Sebastian caught his arm at the last moment.

“He doesn’t want help,” he said.

Beeston stumbled onto his knee. A groan of agony hissed from his clenched teeth. He was a young man – only two years Sebastian’s senior, at four-and-twenty – but days like these, when the pain was bad and his temper worse, etched centuries onto his gaunt face.

“Evening, my lord,” said Sebastian, strolling past him to the cabinet in the corner which boasted an impressive array of tinctures, potions, and liniments in glass bottles. “Rather blustery, isn’t it?”

“Who the hell is this?” asked Beeston, jerking his head towards Hugo. Sebastian unstoppered the bottle of laudanum and turned about with a beaming smile.

“It’s my pleasure to introduce Viscount Kendrick, my lord. Kendrick, this is the Earl of Beeston. He’s charmed to meet you, not that you can tell.”

Hugo was watching Beeston the way he might watch a wounded fox cornered by his dogs. His arm still stood ready to offer support, but he made no further move towards the man.

Beeston’s hand tightened on the cane. He rose to standing again, progress painfully slow. It seemed he’d given up on the uncomfortable wooden prosthesis; his left trouser leg hung empty from halfway down the thigh. “I want no bloody visitors, Whitby.”

“And the visitors don’t want you either, my lord, given you’ve turned this room into the Arctic Circle.”

“Leave the windows,” Beeston gasped. He began the slow, stumbling limp towards his chair, using the cane as a crutch. “The air. Cold. Better than the damned fug that woman left me in.”

“Nurse Pickett? You’ve driven her off too, I’m afraid.”

“Good.” Beeston dropped himself into his chair. His face paled, but he let out no sound of pain. “She was useless.”

“Astonishing how useless every nurse in Plymouth has been, isn’t it.” Sebastian measured out a spoonful of laudanum. “Here. Take the edge off.”

Beeston all but snarled at him. “No. None of that. It muddies my thoughts.”

Sebastian paused a moment. “The fever’s back, is it?”

“No.” Beeston grinned – a terrible skull-like grin that bared all his teeth. “Wish it was. I was better off lost in those bloody dreams.”

Sebastian poured the laudanum carefully back into the bottle. He was experiencing something of a hallucinatory vision himself.

Jennifer Cartwright, in her satin slippers and pretty blue gown, letting this hollow-eyed wreck of a man kiss her soft hand.

Jennifer Cartwright, adorned in some of the flimsier segments of her makeshift rope, the rosy blush of her bare skin turning blue from cold, waiting for Lord Beeston to haul himself to her bed. Terror in her eyes.

He set the bottle down again before he smashed it.

“This is ridiculous,” said Hugo, striding past Beeston and ignoring his grunt of warning. “I’m closing the windows.”

Beeston made as if to rise and stop him, but the pain tightened his jaw and forced him back down. He jerked his chin towards Hugo. “You were supposed to bring me a bride, Whitby. This one doesn’t look much like her portrait.”

“But you must admit he’s terribly pretty,” said Sebastian. Hugo glanced over his shoulder, a warning spark lit in his black eyes, and swung the last window shut.

Even in the aftermath of the gale, the sickroom was acrid with turpentine.

“Bit of bad news on the marital front, my lord,” said Sebastian, swinging his leg over the chair opposite Beeston. “The lady is – ah – indisposed.”

Lord Beeston didn’t even flinch. “Can’t blame her. So that’s what that worm Smythe was shouting about outside.” He jerked his chin at Hugo. “Make yourself at home, then, Lord Kendrick. Whitby does, as you see.”

“Kendrick’s an old friend of mine,” said Sebastian. “He’s offered to help get you home.”

“I wouldn’t need help if your father had kept his word,” Beeston snapped. Kendrick took a seat near Sebastian and removed his hat, shaking off the raindrops.

“I must offer my sincerest apologies on Mr Horace Whitby’s behalf,” he said. Sebastian held in a whistle of admiration. Hugo, the old rascal, sounded every bit as pleasant and polite as he did on any of his morning calls at Whitby Manor. “Let me offer you my services in place of his. I can certainly arrange things better than our dear Sebastian.” He flashed that old rival’s grin in Sebastian’s direction.

Beeston grunted and cut his eyes from Sebastian to Hugo. “He doesn’t know what he’s offering, does he?”

“I’ve left out the finer details,” Sebastian admitted.

Beeston eased himself back in his chair, the cords in his neck standing out. “Let’s not disappoint your friend by telling him the whole story, eh?”

He sounded almost kind. But he was not being kind. He was making a threat.

Hugo shot Sebastian a sharp look, but continued speaking to Beeston in his light-hearted visiting tone. “Captain Whitby tells me you’ve had a bit of financial trouble. I’ll gladly stand you any cash his father owes –”

Beeston let out a harsh bark of laughter. “Unless you have a property the size of Whitby Manor itself burning a hole in your pocket, my lord, I doubt you’ll be glad to do anything of the sort.”

Hugo was silent. Sebastian couldn’t read his face. That man had always been a master of disguising his true thoughts. Explained how he’d always got away with murder as a boy, while Sebastian was left to shoulder the blame.

“My men arrive tonight, thank god,” said Beeston. “They’d’ve been here a damn sight sooner if they’d not had to stop off for the special licence which is now, presumably, useless.”

“Not useless.” Sebastian did not have Hugo’s talents. He felt nothing but revulsion – for Beeston and his temper, for his father and his profligacy, for the thought of Miss Cartwright’s future with this beast of a man – and it showed. “Miss Cartwright has had a minor bout of nerves. Perfectly natural.”

Beeston’s dark brows lowered. “Miss Cartwright has, no doubt, heard some rumour of my present situation. And very likely the girl has no intention of making good her uncle’s promise.” He clenched a fist and rapped it against the heavy lump of bandages beneath his trouser leg. “And I do not blame her. I’d run away from myself, if I could.”

“Beeston, you haven’t even written to her.” Gall rose hot and sour in Sebastian’s throat. “She doesn’t know you. She’s scared – rightly so. What inducements have you given her to marry you?”

“Inducements?” Beeston repeated. He looked almost amused. “She’s getting a title, Whitby. She’s getting a castle. She’ll be presented at Court. You do know who she is, don’t you? What stock she comes from? She has a half sister who is actually married to –”

Sebastian pushed himself to his feet. “A greengrocer,” he snapped, “who no doubt is a perfectly pleasant fellow, and a companion of whom her sister is glad.”

His chest burned. He turned to the window, unable to keep the rage from his face.

What kind of monster was Fitzherbert Smythe, to sell off his niece to such a man?

What kind of monster was Beeston, to accept – and at a premium, too?

Sebastian should have been knotting the stockings together beside her, not trying to convince her to return.

He wished more than ever that the wretched bullet had struck him instead.

“Sebastian,” murmured Hugo. Sebastian swallowed and returned to Lord Beeston.

“My lord, why not write her a letter? Send her a gift? Perhaps – perhaps spruce up your chambers a little to make them welcoming, should she gather her nerves in time for the wedding. Light a fire. Smile.”

Beeston cocked a cruel eyebrow. “Smile?” he repeated, dangerously soft.

“The girl is scared,” said Sebastian. “You have the power to calm her. Treat her gently, my lord. Show her some kindness.”

“Oh, get out of here, Whitby. What will you do next – spout poetry at me?” Beeston waved his hand irritably, as though Sebastian were a fly he wished he could swat. “Tell Smythe that I expect the girl delivered without further delay. Snivelling or otherwise. It doesn’t matter to me. In the meantime,” he turned to Kendrick, “you seem a fellow with more sense about you than Whitby. I want to get out of this hellhole. More importantly, I want to look Horace Whitby in the eye when I squeeze my money back out of him. Have you any means of getting me on the road? This blasted leg won’t let me sit upright for longer than an hour.”

“Of course,” said Hugo pleasantly. “I’ll give you use of my personal coach. We will make you as comfortable as we can.” He glanced at Sebastian. “And I’ll send Whitby on ahead to the manor to make sure everything is prepared for your arrival. You’ll find the Whitby family’s hospitality unmatched, I’m sure.”

By the time they had taken their leave, Sebastian had almost quelled the burning desire to give Beeston a second gory wound to complain about.

Almost .

Hugo Kendrick frowned up at sky, still divulging itself of a depressing quantity of rain. “I’ll see to the logistics,” he said. “We’ll leave tomorrow, if Beeston’s men arrive in good time – and assuming he isn’t delayed by signing a marriage certificate. My mother’s taken up rooms not far from here, Sebastian. I know she’d be happy if you stopped in to dine with us.”

“Can’t,” said Sebastian, thinking of Jenny, alone in that dirty little room above the pub. “Got a few bits to sort out myself.”

Hugo’s hand shot out, locking onto Sebastian’s arm. Sebastian forced himself to meet his old friend’s eyes.

Kendrick looked tired. There were lines etched into the corners of his dark eyes, a downturn to the corners of his mouth which once had grinned too gladly and too often.

His voice, though, was sharp and uncompromising. “You haven’t seduced that girl, have you, Sebastian?”

Sebastian wrenched his arm out of Kendrick’s grasp. “No! Give me some credit. You think I want to make Beeston’s temper any worse than it already is?”

Kendrick returned his hand to his coat pocket, frowning. “Point taken. Lord knows we’ve enough of a task ahead, convincing that tyrannical fellow to give your father some leeway on his debt.” He frowned up at the window of Beeston’s room, where no light was shining despite the evening drawing in. “I’ll do what I can, Sebastian, but…”

“I know.” Sebastian shrugged deeper into his own coat, battered thin though the leather was.

He recalled the scent of gunpowder, the sound of men shouting in rage and fear. The creaking of a mast as it tore in half.

The crack of a pistol. One second in which the world teetered on the brink of a future – or annihilation.

And a scream which was not his.

The one generous thing Beeston had ever done in his miserable life, and Sebastian was the unlucky sod on the receiving end of it.

“I’ll find a new nurse for the journey,” he said. “There must be at least one left in Plymouth. And once we’re home…”

He stopped. How to say the rest? He hadn’t seen the sunlight on the sandstone walls of Whitby Manor in two years.

Each time he left, he was eager to depart. Each time he returned, he found himself changed. His sisters a year or two older. His father more stooped, his mother growing plump. His old friends – Hugo, for example – worn by cares that they kept out of their letters.

Home was the rocking of a hammock. Home was the salt air and the dawn breaking over a foreign port.

Hugo gave him a wry grin. “I know,” he said. And though he couldn’t possibly understand, not really, it felt as though he did. “Let’s get there first, and hope that things look brighter back at the manor.”

He turned his collar to the wind and strode out across the street, splashing through the puddles in the cobblestones.

Sebastian did the same, turning downhill instead of up, back towards the harbour and its less respectable buildings.

Back towards Jennifer Cartwright.