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Chapter Seven

Z eke waited with barely contained impatience for Lady Christine Hastings and her cousin, James, to board his rented carriage and vacate the premises.

No sooner did the earl cross the threshold into the gleaming marble foyer than Zeke pounced. “What the devil do you mean blithely announcing my engagement to that—”

“You’ll watch your tongue, Ezekiel Thurgood, if you know what’s good for you.”

Zeke frowned at his grandfather’s menacing tone. It almost sounded as if he was angry—with him . “Perhaps we should continue this discussion in the upper parlor.”

The earl grunted his assent, and led the way.

The upstairs parlor was masculine, intimate, and as snoop-proof as they were likely to get in a house full of nosy servants. It boasted a well-stocked liquor cabinet, too.

Lord knew Zeke needed a drink now, if he ever had.

Once safely ensconced behind a closed and locked door, the earl set about retrieving the brandy decanter. Zeke turned up the two wall lamps flanking the lone, narrow window, bathing the room in yellow light. The window he left closed. Voices carried.

Not until they sat in two oversized armchairs, full snifters in hand and the brandy decanter in easy reach, did the earl broach his grievance.

“I asked you to leave it alone. I told you I’d give you the answers you sought in good time. Five months and change—that’s all we needed. Now, all may be lost.”

Zeke’s temper flared, but he kept his response measured. “It sounds as if you’re blaming me for the fact your Kit was discovered hiding out under your roof.”

“In a word, yes.”

Zeke drummed his fingers on his knee. Narrowed his eyes. “Precisely how is it my fault?”

“Did you, or did you not, go to White’s this afternoon, and run your mouth about a certain boy in my employ, named Kit, who seemed oddly out of place?”

Zeke ran a finger under his cravat. The damned thing was a nuisance in the summer months. “I admit to doing so. Will you own the provocation?”

The earl’s jaw tightened. He took a large swallow of brandy before replying.

“I will, damn my eyes. Kitty asked me repeatedly to stop taunting you, clever, intuitive girl that she is, but I listened too late. If I’d heeded her warning, and kept her hidden, specifically from your view, none of this would’ve happened. I just thought…I hoped… Never mind.”

His broad shoulders sagged and he looked like a man utterly defeated.

Zeke could only remember seeing him like this once—after discovering his father died in a gaming hell.

He scrubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. “Grandfather, who is she? Perhaps we should start there, and work our way to tonight’s events.”

“She’s Lady Christine Hastings, affectionately Lady Kitty, daughter of the deceased Lord Charles Hastings, granddaughter of the more recently deceased eighth Baron of Maidstone, Lord Christian Hastings.

He and I served together in the Crimean War.

I considered him one of my closest friends, a man to whom I owe my life. ”

“I knew I recognized that name.”

“What with one thing and another, I hadn’t seen much of him these last years.” He shrugged, his familiar blue eyes distant, as if he looked into the past. “Time passes, you lose touch, but you never forget. Not with a history like ours.”

He took a long drink, and Zeke followed suit.

“At any rate, some six months ago, Kitty showed up on my doorstep, a royal mess. Penniless, wearing a dirt-crusted mourning gown. Lord only knows how she made it here. What she’d had to endure.

” The earl chuckled softly. “God bless her, she’s got spunk.

She made it to London from Maidstone County with nothing but the clothes on her back. ”

“How did you know she wasn’t some con artist, intent on fleecing you?”

“I’d been half expecting her. Several months earlier, Christian had written to tell me he was dying. He expressed concern over his granddaughter’s safety upon his demise. He asked me to assist her should the need arise. That and her eyes.”

“Her eyes?”

“The last time I saw him he showed me a picture of his late wife. She had beautiful, exotic eyes. Christian called them tiger eyes. Kitty inherited them.”

Zeke’s turn to grunt. “Did your friend give any indication as to why—” He broke off. He didn’t know what to call the chit. “Lady Hastings might need your assistance?”

The earl nodded. “Christian no longer trusted James. Said he recognized James’s growing antipathy toward him and Kitty only after he’d filed the documents making him his heir and Kitty’s legal guardian.

What with Christian’s declining health, and the slow wheels of bureaucracy, he had no hope of undoing what had been done.

Now I’ve met the man, I can’t help but agree.

The ninth Baron of Maidstone’s not to be trusted with our Kitty. The bloke actually hopes to marry her.”

“You’re not making sense. If the baron dislikes her so much, why shackle himself to her for all eternity?”

“Good question. One to which I have no answer. I do know a man can do a lot of damage to a woman once she’s legally bound to him.”

“And vice versa,” Zeke said under his breath.

The earl’s eyes went glacial. “This is no time for flippancy. Now listen up, because we haven’t much time.”

Before Zeke could ask after the time crunch, the earl went on.

“As her guardian, James has the upper hand. He could feasibly force marriage on her, and I do mean force. Legally, we’d have no recourse.

The bloodlines are far enough removed, James being a descendent of Christian’s half-brother.

Which leaves only Kitty’s unwillingness to marry him blocking his plans, and for the right amount of blunt, some clergyman can be persuaded to turn a blind eye to a maid’s reluctance. ”

“I don’t see the dire aspect here, my lord. Her guardian’s not intending to toss her out on her ear. He wishes to marry her. Marriages of convenience happen every day. What makes this one so heinous?”

“If the baron believed James to be a danger to Kitty, then I believe it. Then there’s the obvious.”

Zeke cocked his head in a silent query.

“She fears the man.”

“She told you this?”

The earl scowled. “She didn’t need to spell it out for me. She fled in the middle of the night, for God’s sake. She’s a lady, born and bred, yet she dressed as a servant boy, giving up her freedom, her femininity, her life, for what was to be a year if I hadn’t mucked things up. A year, Ezekiel!”

He smashed his fist into his thigh. “I ask you, would a lady go to such extremes if doing so wasn’t an absolute necessity?”

“I take your meaning.”

“Now the bastard has found her, thanks to me.” He set his empty snifter aside and dropped his head in his hands.

Zeke had bristled at his grandfather’s accusatory tone. But seeing the old man assume responsibility didn’t sit right, either.

“Mark my words. Without our swift intervention, James will force Kitty to marry him, by hook or by crook.”

“Enter my betrothal.” Zeke downed the remaining brandy in his glass.

The earl straightened, staring over his steepled fingers at Zeke. “I can’t make you do it.”

Zeke’s eyes bugged. “Make me? By God I have no intention of marrying the chit. Until an hour ago I knew her only as an annoying boy—”

“She knew you didn’t like her,” the earl groused.

Zeke frowned at the earl. “If I have to hear I didn’t like him one more time…”

“Her,” his grandfather corrected.

“You don’t say?”

The abundant swell of breasts visible beneath the high-necked bodice of her black gown when she’d descended the stairs tonight had thrown Zeke. How she’d kept those curves hidden, heaven only knew.

The earl gave him a sly smile. “Rather pretty, isn’t she?”

Zeke rolled his eyes. “I didn’t notice.” Her fac e, he silently added. “I was rather more concerned with the evening’s events.”

He ticked items off his fingers. “Discovering we’ve been harboring a runaway.

My recent betrothal to said runaway. Your brilliant suggestion all concerned parties adjourn to Chissington Hall for the foreseeable future.

Which brings to mind a question. If you dislike the man so much, why on earth the exodus to Derbyshire in the morning like we’re one big, happy family, by the by? ”

“Simple. It was all I could conjure on short notice to keep watch over Kitty. Her guardian can hardly hope to ravish the girl under the Earl of Claybourne’s roof. At any rate, I’m surprised you heard the stipulation.”

“Why? I’m not deaf.”

The earl raised his brows. “I thought perhaps you’d stopped listening, as you took no part in the discussion after confirming your engagement.”

“I do apologize for my apparent lapse in manners.”

He sniffed. “I planned to insist he allow Kitty to remain here ’til producing proof positive of his guardianship, when you piped up with that nonsense about providing a chaperone.”

Zeke made a silent bid for patience. “I thought he’d make good on his threat to summon the magistrate. By the by, what makes you believe the scamp will make good on his promise to deliver Lady Hastings in the morning?”

“I set up a sort of safeguard.”

“In other words, you sent a footman after them to spy.”

“Quite right.”

Zeke allowed himself a slight smile. He knew the old man well.

“If you ask me, it seems like much ado about nothing. All of it: Kitty pretending to be a boy’ our so-called engagement; this idea of holing up together in the country.

You don’t even have concrete proof she’s in danger. Perhaps she’s just prone to hysterics.”

His grandfather shot Zeke a disgusted look. “I suppose her grandfather was as well?”

Before Zeke could formulate a reply, the earl threw his hands in the air.

“I don’t know why I bothered discussing this with you.

You clearly have no interest in involving yourself in the matter.

You may leave. Or stay in London. Or do whatever it is you do.

It’s my honor in question, not yours, after all. ”

Zeke felt the noose tightening. “Not so fast, if you please. Perhaps if we put our heads together, we can arrive at a mutually agreeable plan to help her.”

The earl picked up his empty snifter to scrutinize the contents or lack thereof. “Such as?”

Zeke refilled both their glasses. “We could secret her away again.”

“And have the authorities questioning us? And bring censure down on the Claybourne name? Not bloody likely.”

“We could buy him off.”

“I think not.”

“Why not?”

“He strikes me as one rather set on winning. Also, my intuition tells me this is about more than money. I’m not sure.” His grandfather shook his head in frustration.

“Very well.” Zeke rolled the snifter in his palms. “What do you suggest? Something other than me marrying the girl, if you please.”

“I will have to do it,” the earl stated after a pregnant pause.

Zeke froze. “Excuse me?”

“If you won’t step in and shoulder the responsibility, and Lord knows I have no right to ask—regardless of the fact you drew the hounds—then I shall do it.

It’s the least I can do for my dear departed friend.

” He nodded once, as if his mind was made up.

“Now, if you’ll excise me? I must prepare for an extended stay in Derbyshire. ” He heaved himself out of his chair.

“Just. One. Minute,” Zeke ground out.

With well-played reluctance, his grandfather dropped back into his seat. “Yes?”

“Perhaps there’s another way.”

“I really don’t see—”

Zeke cut the earl off with a look. “We shall proceed down this crooked path you laid, the caveat being the lady knows from the start the engagement is temporary.”

“I see.”

“You see,” Zeke said flatly. “Does that mean this is agreeable to you, sir?”

“That depends. How shall we accomplish breaking-off the engagement? I don’t want Kitty’s name dragged through the mud.”

Of course. Kitty was the only one involved, after all. “Dear, sweet Kitty will, of course, call things off, after which I will depart for parts unknown to lick my wounds.”

He regarded Zeke down the length of his nose. “You must be convincing.”

Zeke parted his arms in an of course gesture.

“You understand this will require your presence. No haring off on a moment’s notice. Not until Kitty meets the legal requirements to thumb her nose at her cousin. In other words, not for at least six months. At least.”

Six months?

he must have made a face, because the earl scoffed. “If you’re going to be disagreeable—”

“Grandfather?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t push your luck. I said I’d do it. Do it I shall. Now I need you to understand something.”

“What is that?”

“I’m doing this for you, old man. No one else.

” He stared at the earl, willing him to understand.

“I…” How to phrase this? “Earlier, the things you said. I got the impression you don’t know”—no, that wasn’t quite right—“that you perhaps question, er…that is, due to my long forays from home these past years—”

“Ezekiel? I love you, too. And your willingness to do this for me means more than you can possibly know.”

A feeling of conviction, of doing exactly the right thing for exactly the right reason filled him. At the same time, the incessant clamor inside him pressing him to move, to act, to run, was at once blessedly quiet. It felt good.

Some fifteen years ago, his grandfather had stepped in to care for his brother and him when their father opted out sans notice.

Now fate, in the form of one Lady Kitty Hastings, had handed Zeke a means to repay his grandfather.

Something other than his usual shoring-up of the family’s now over-flowing coffers.

How hard could it be, pretending to be betrothed? Child’s play. Six months? A wink of an eye. Half a year from now, it would be spring. Who knows, maybe he’d stay in England for the season. Maybe even find a wife. Right now, anything seemed possible.

“We’re to Derbyshire in the morning, then?” He pressed up from the chair.

The earl rubbed his chin. “Yes, although I fear the newly named Baron of Maidstone will make this difficult.”

Zeke dropped back in his seat. “How so?”

“M’ boy, you’re asking the wrong question.”

“Which is?”

“How are we going to thwart him?”