A Difficult Disguise (5 page)

“And here I was, wondering if my dear aunt was feeling at home in my house. It seems I shouldn’t have worried. The only question remaining is whether or not she will feel equally enamored with the height of fashion once it is installed in her bedchamber, for that is where those tables are going, you know. Will we have to get someone to carry them, do you suppose, or will they whistle to heel and follow us there?”

“But your aunt, Fletcher? How will she take this? She’ll be crushed that you don’t like it. Do you seriously believe you can redo the saloon without hurting her?”

“You’re questioning my ability to bring my aunt around to my way of thinking? Me? The man known far and wide for his soothing manner and velvet tongue? I’m aghast!” Fletcher raised his eyebrows challengingly. “I assume this question will be resolved with our usual wager?”

“Don’t be so cocksure of yourself, Fletch,” Beck warned. “Remember, I made a small fortune when Miss Denham opted to marry Vincent Mayhew.”

A small tic began to work in Fletcher’s cheek and Beck was instantly contrite. Although he knew the worst was over and Fletcher wished all that was wonderful for his friend, the Earl of Hawkhurst, the experience of not being able to win the woman he wanted was still too new for Beck to mention it to the man in a teasing way. “I’m sorry, Fletch.”

“Sorry?” Fletcher responded as if shocked by his friend’s apology. “What are you sorry about? If you’re referring to Christine, you should know that I am not harboring a bruised heart over the incident. She and Vincent were born to be together. I consider myself fortunate that I had some small part in bringing them to the altar. However, if you are sorry about the elephant feet, I am more than willing to accept your apology—and your wager. Only, please, do something about the saloon before I am reduced to tears and stamping my feet. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight, Beck, I am warning you now.”

“I’ll arrange for the saloon to be repainted immediately,” Beck promised, knowing Fletcher was angrier than he was pretending to be. How could his friend’s aunt have done such a thing? He had listened to her fanciful plans many times, but he had never seriously believed she would... “Good God, no! The music room.”

Once more Beck was off, with Fletcher following along behind at a leisurely pace. Beck rounded a corner in the hallway, nearly colliding with Lethbridge, who looked down on him from his superior height and intoned deeply, “I beg your pardon,” in that condescending way of his that always set Beck’s teeth on edge, before stepping aside to let the younger man pass.

“Mr. Belden, I have ordered a cold collation delivered to the morning room as soon as possible,” the butler continued, seeing his employer. “There will be a selection of local meats, breads, and fruits, of course, and I have taken the liberty of ordering a bottle up from the cellars by way of celebrating your safe return from the wars.”

“You’re too kind, Lethbridge. Always were,” Fletcher told the man, looking past him to watch Beck disappear into the music room, already knowing that the room was the same as he, Fletcher, had left it five years earlier. “Tell me, Lethbridge, do you know what plans my aunt has for the music room?”

Lethbridge’s chin lifted a fraction. “Suffice it to say, sir, that they were unfortunate, and best forgotten. We shall not be considering them.”

“We shan’t?” Fletcher repeated, his lips quivering at Lethbridge’s proprietorial tone. It seemed everyone believed they had a right to decide what was best for Lakeview. Everyone but him, that was. Feeling vaguely out of sorts once more, he tipped his head to one side and said, “You know something, Lethbridge? I think I should like the cold collation you described so beautifully served on the porch outside the music room—if that meets with your approval, of course.”

The butler’s pockmarked face, which bore mute witness to the fact that the man had survived a long-ago case of smallpox, flushed a deep red. Bowing, he said, “I shall see to it at once, sir,” and backed away, as if unable to trust himself to say more. He still managed to look more austere than servile, and made Fletcher feel as if he had just kicked a bear and had a lucky escape, thanks only to the generosity of the bear, who had graciously deigned not to eat him.

Beck joined him in the hallway, looking over his shoulder curiously at Lethbridge as the butler passed by him. Turning his attention to his employer, he asked, “What did you say to him, Fletch? The man looks slightly affronted, if I read his expression correctly. Can’t I leave you alone for a moment without you doing some sort of damage with that twisted humor of yours? Is there anyone here that you haven’t insulted?”

“Where do you want these things? Or are you going to just stand there, watching my back break?” came an aggrieved voice from the open doorway behind them. The two men turned to look at Billy, who was engaged in a Herculean contest with several heavy pieces of baggage, and apparently losing the struggle.

“Don’t tell me,” Beck said with a wave of one hand. “Let me guess. Could this be the cheeky groom? What did you say to set the lad against you?”

Fletcher shook his head as he watched the slim young lad trying to deal with the heavy baggage. The boy’s arrogance, unaccented speech, and rude station in life were infinitely jarring to Fletcher’s sense of order, and the scent of mystery he had sniffed at their first meeting returned with twice the force.

“Abominable little brat, isn’t he? Why, Beck, I did a horrible thing, of course,” Fletcher answered matter-of-factly. “Truly reprehensible. I asked him to come out into the rain to tend to my animals. Do you think a horsewhipping is good enough, or would you, Lethbridge, and most assuredly this young man like to make up a firing squad and have me shot at dawn?”

Beck went forward to assist the all-but-toppling groom, relieving him of the largest of the many pieces of baggage and heading for the staircase. “Follow me, young man,” he said, directing a condemning glare at his employer. “If that is all right with you, Mr. Belden?”

Fletcher bowed to his friend. “I am entirely at your command, Beck,” he said genially, “but it might be best if you asked young Master Smith here if it is agreeable to him, for opinions, usually unsolicited, seem to be his strongest suit. Master Smith?” he inquired, measuring the groom’s reaction with his intelligent gray gaze.

Billy adjusted her grip on one of the remaining cases and shrugged. “Suits me to a cow’s thumb,” she said, her voice so gruff Fletcher was tempted to ask if it was possible the groom was sickening for something after a single dose of warm rainwater. “Lord knows there’s enough out there for an army. What did you do—bring London with you?”

Fletcher watched in amused fascination as Beck’s eyes widened to show white all around the clear-blue irises that had prompted his mother to name him after the local dialect for a brook. Clearly even the outspoken Beck had been struck by the blatant disrespect the groom was showing the master of the house.

“Not that I won’t carry them all, and be thankful to do it,” Billy hastened to add, looking from one man to the other apprehensively, as if just realizing that she had crossed the line—again.

“That’s cursed good of you, Master Smith,” Fletcher told him, turning away to hide the delight he felt. This boy could prove very interesting. Just what he needed to clear his mind of London and the memories of Arabella that had struck him so forcefully as he stepped inside Lakeview—as well as the faint but lingering pain of his recent, unrewarding brush with romance.

Beck, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, as he had long ago learned to recognize when his friend was about to engage in a lark, waited for what was to come next.

He didn’t have long to wait.

“Beck,” Fletcher said, turning to saunter to the staircase, “once luncheon is over, would you please be so kind as to pack a few changes of clothes for me—nothing fancy, you understand. I do believe I should like to set out tomorrow at first light for an inspection of my land and a short tour of the Lake District itself. Not above a week, I should say. I’ve missed the lapwings, but there is still much to see. Pack no more than will fit comfortably behind a saddle.”

Knowing he was only asking the question his friend wished him to ask, Beck put forth fatalistically, “But you know I can’t ride along with you, Fletch, thanks to this cursed leg. Are you planning to go alone?”

“Alone, dear man? Good God, no. Who should pull off my boots if I were to go alone? Who should make up my bed beneath the stars if I don’t wish to sleep at some inferior inn? No, Beck, I shall take young Smith with me. Surely you knew that?”

“Me?” Billy exploded, dropping the case she had just succeeded in tucking beneath her arm. “You want me? Of all the cork-headed ideas I’ve ev—” Her voice halted abruptly and she clamped a hand to her mouth, aghast.

“You see, Beck?” Fletcher remarked silkily. “The lad is overjoyed—and belatedly lost for words. He shall make an admirable companion,” he said, turning to look levelly at Billy, “and we shall be able to get to know each other much, much better. Won’t we, Master Smith?”

Billy hung her head. “I imagine so, sir,” she whispered wretchedly, then brightened. “But I don’t ride, sir.”

Fletcher made a great business out of adjusting his lace shirt cuffs. “Then I suggest you learn, Master Smith. Leave the baggage where you’ve so conveniently dropped it and go posthaste to direct Hedge to give you a lesson this afternoon. Shall we both say a prayer that he is sober? I shouldn’t wish for you to show up outside tomorrow morning sitting backward on a pony.”

“Fletch, don’t you think—”

“No, Beck,” Fletcher cut off his friend, sending a silent warning with his eyes. “I don’t think; I know. I have a great need for a communion with nature only a few days spent riding the district on horseback can provide me. I have a vague notion of ridding my mind of the dissipations of town life, and as you cannot accompany me and as Hedge is out of the question, Billy here will do quite nicely.” He raised one eyebrow and looked down on the groom. “Are you still here? Shouldn’t your time be better spent learning how to ride? And cheer up. We shall have a splendid time, I’m convinced of it.”

“I know how to ride,” Billy muttered angrily. “Who’d hire a groom that couldn’t ride?”

“Who, indeed?” Fletcher answered, grateful the young lad wasn’t armed, or he’d be a dead man for sure. “It would be absurd, wouldn’t it? But I applaud your attack of honesty. What, ho?” He stepped past the groom to peer through the open doorway to the drive. “Speaking of absurdities, Beck, it would appear my aunt has returned to the bosom of her family and is now all aflutter to discover that I have arrived home in her absence. Bring that case back down here and leave it, please, my friend. I shouldn’t wish to greet the dear woman alone.”

Billy, with a grudging tug on her forelock that would have made Lethbridge’s starchy demeanor appear to be blatant toad-eating, made good her escape, leaving the case she had been carrying directly in the middle of the hallway, and directly in Fletcher’s path.

Fletcher watched Billy go, mentally toting up the groom’s size and subtracted another year from the age he’d believed his groom to be, before pushing the case to the side with one booted toe and holding out his arms to his aunt.

The woman, who was in the process of running full-tilt up the broad steps, calling her nephew’s name—her short stature and considerable girth combining with her penchant for filmy, flowing draperies immediately putting Fletcher in mind of an ungainly fishing boat in full sail—accidentally gifted Billy with a glancing blow, sending the slighter body careening into one thick round white post of the portico. Instantly contrite, Aunt Belleville turned back to minister to her victim, grabbing at the groom’s upper arm just as that abused person made to rise, causing Billy to topple completely to the ground.

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, are you all right, child?” Aunt Belleville inquired with deep concern, for she was always neck-high with deep concern for something or someone. “Here,” she said kindly, stepping directly and with her full weight onto Billy’s hand, “let me help you up.”

“He might manage it fairly well on his own, Aunt,” Fletcher suggested dryly, standing behind her, “once you remove your foot from his paw, of course.”

Aunt Belleville jumped back at once, exclaiming, “Oh, my! Did I do that? How could I have done that? I might have crippled the poor lamb for life. I only meant to help.”

Fletcher gently took hold of the old woman’s arm, watching as Billy got to her feet, rubbed at her hand, and took off for the safety of the stables, muttering under her breath. “Of course you did, Aunt. You haven’t an unkind bone in your body, and we all will swear to it, won’t we, Beck? Tell me, my dearest, these poor sick people you have been visiting. Neither of them is dead now, I trust.”

“Fletch,” Beck warned quietly, doing his best not to laugh as the three of them walked into the foyer just as Lethbridge, who had obviously heard the commotion and come to check on his ladylove, directed a housemaid to begin carrying the baggage to the master’s room.

Aunt Belleville was immediately diverted. “Your chamber, Fletcher,” she exclaimed, clutching his arm so tightly it put him in fear for the survival of his new jacket. “Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness, my goodness. But I didn’t know. How could I know? I couldn’t, could I? You never wrote, never let me know. It was only when I saw the coach that I knew—that I dared hope—and here you are, with us all at sixes and sevens. Yet what was I to do, what with Henry Dillworth breaking his foot in that fall and his wife just getting over her bilious attack and all but begging me to help her? But that is no excuse, is it, for family must always come first, and well I know it. I should have anticipated, that’s what I should have done. What a poor opinion you must have of me! Please forgive me, Fletcher, and brace yourself.”

“Brace myself, Aunt?” Fletcher echoed, aiding the woman as she divested herself of her half-dozen shawls in fear she might yet contrive to smother herself with one of them. “You have bad news for me?”

Aunt Belleville bit her lip, then plunged ahead, revealing dramatically, “Indeed I do, dearest. Your chamber is not ready for you.”