The Songbird's Seduction (9 page)

Once it might have been a prime example of Georgian architecture. No longer. It looked like pensioners’ apartments. Or a not-particularly-well-funded charity hospital. A pea gravel drive sprouting tufts of grass arced in front of a slightly skewed front portico. From roof to base, dark streaks defaced the stone façade, marking places where the drain spouts had long ago come undone. A few of the upper windows were shuttered and, as evinced by the ivy growing across the planks, had been for some time. On the gabled eastern end, a pile of branches adorned the chimney top, home to a stork.

And yet, despite all that, the warm light glowing in the tall, front-facing windows and the incongruous pot of brilliant red
geraniums sitting at the bottom of the steps leading up to the porch made it seem somehow inviting.

He pushed open the gate and closed it behind him, stepping over the water-filled ruts in the drive on his way up to the house. At the front door, he looked for a doorbell and, finding none, lifted the heavy knocker, letting it fall just as a wet, tailless cat slipped by him and shot through the four-inch opening under the front window.

From the other side of the door he heard the muffled sound of voices, one raised in question, another answering. The edge of the lace curtain covering the window moved, fell back into place, the door in front of him opened, and there
she
stood.

He gaped at her. She looked entirely respectable today, having traded the low-cut blue dress for a serviceable white blouse and dark gray skirt, a plain linen apron stretched taut around slender hips, her gleaming brown hair tied in a soft knot at the nape of her neck. A few curls trailed down to caress a rosy cheek. Behind her, the tailless cat sat on a threadbare Oriental carpet in a central hall and eyed him unblinkingly.

She tipped her head, her gaze traveling deliberately up and down his length. She didn’t look at all surprised. In fact, she looked quite sanguine, as though she’d expected to open the door and find him dripping on her doorstep. She smiled, a roguish curve of her lips, one brow arching above her shining hazel eyes. Humor. He’d
known
she couldn’t hold a serious thought.

“Don’t tell me,” she finally said. “It was the wrong pen.”

“What? No.”

She set a hand on her hip. “No? Then you’ve come for your jacket. I’ll just—”

“Jacket? No. No, I didn’t even know you were here.”

She laughed, a pretty, infectious sound. “Now, that’s just plain silly. Why else would you be here?”

The question struck him as bizarrely apt. He stared at her,
confused, a condition into which this young lady seemed to all-too-easily reduce him. “What are you doing here?”

“I live here.”

“That’s impossible. You can’t be—”

“
Tch-tch-tch
.” She silenced him, making a metronome of her index finger. “It is and I can. The question better asked is why are you following me?”

“I tell you, I had no idea you lived here.” The idea that she thought him capable of imposing himself on her in such a manner took him aback. “I wasn’t following you.”

She gave an unladylike snort. “Oh, aye. You just happened to show up here, twenty miles from London, the day after you ripped the seam of my dress open. Tell me another.”

“Tell you another what?” With each passing second he felt more and more discombobulated. “And that was an accident.”

If he’d believed in sorcery, he would have thought someone had put a spell on him, one that had caused his placid, well-ordered, and well-arranged life to tumble into pandemonium. And the sorceress would probably be her. No, he thought,
undoubtedly
it would be her.

He tried gathering his dignity. “I assure you, er, miss, er . . .”

“Eastlake,” she supplied. “Lucy Eastlake.”

“I assure you, Miss Eastlake, I would never insult a young woman in such a manner.”

The warmth faded from her extraordinary eyes. He had the distinct impression that until this moment she hadn’t realized such behavior would be considered offensive.

“Oh. Well, then, why are you here?” An unpleasant idea seemed to occur to her for she suddenly frowned. “You’re not from the phone company, are you?”

“Phone company? No. I have come to see—”

“Lucy?” A genteel female voice called from deeper within the house a second before an elderly woman in an oilcloth coat appeared
in the hallway, stomping mud off her rubberized boots. She was rail thin, with a long, sharp-featured face and deep-set blue eyes, soft white hair floating in a nimbus about her head. “Who is that you’re talking to, dear? We saw a man coming up the drive and so I came directly. It isn’t fair you always have to—”

She stopped abruptly and stared.

He took a chance. “Miss Litton?”

Her eyes went round, her head snapping up on her slender, crepe-hung neck like a startled grouse, setting the wattle swinging. “Oh,” she said, then, “Oh,” and then what sounded like, “Tom,” and then her eyelids fluttered shut.

He caught her before she hit the ground.

“In here.” The girl, Lucy, pushed open the hall door and stood back, ushering Ptolemy into a front parlor. Once inside, he gently laid the old woman on a divan that had seen better days while Lucy jerked a bouquet of fall asters from the vase standing on a nearby table and dunked the end of her apron into the water. He stepped back as she knelt down beside the unconscious woman and gently dabbed at her brow.

The elderly lady stirred. Her eyelids fluttered open. “What happened?”

“It’s all right, dear,” Lucy said, relaxing back on her heels. “You just had a bit of a start.”

“I thought I’d seen—”

“Is someone here?” another female voice demanded from somewhere deeper in the interior of the house. “Lavinia thought a man was at the front door.” An elderly dumpling of a woman, her retroussé nose turned up from her double chin, appeared in the doorway. She stopped short upon seeing him. “You’re not from the phone company, are you?”

“No,” Lucy answered. She waved a hand in his direction. “This is the fellow I was telling you about, the one whose pen I nipped the other night.”

“Good heavens!” The plump woman puffed out her cheeks like a disgruntled bull terrier and started into the room. “I realize that you young people follow a different set of standards today, but still! To stalk a young lady to her home—” She stopped abruptly, having spied the reclining figure of the other old lady. “What’s wrong with Livie?”

“I had a bit of a startle, is all. Quite silly,” the woman on the divan replied. “I’m quite all right now.”

“She fainted,” Lucy explained. “She took one look at this fellow, called out ‘Tom!’ and fainted dead away.” She turned her green-gold eyes on him. “Your name isn’t Tom, is it?”

“No, it’s Ptolemy Archibald Grant.”

“Truly?” she sounded unconvinced. “Well, you don’t look like a Ptolemy. Does anyone actually call you that?”

“Yes. But most people call me
Mister
Grant,” he said quellingly.

She was not to be quelled. “Grant?” She laughed. “I should say not. People will mistake you for some sort of endowment. Maybe Archibald? No . . .” She snapped her fingers. “I have it:
Archie
.”

“No one calls me—”

“Anyway, Aunt Lavinia spotted Archie here and fell into a swoon. Quite elegantly done, too,” she said approvingly.

“Thank you. I thought I’d seen a ghost but, of course, now that I really look at this young man, whoever he is . . .” A sudden, unwelcome thought occurred to her and she motioned Lucy closer. “We’ve paid the phone bill this month, haven’t we?”

“Yes, dear. It’s quite all right. I’m not sure what Archie is doing here but doubtless given adequate time he will inform us.” She turned her head and gazed at him encouragingly.

“I have been
trying
to do so.”

She didn’t seem to take offense at his tone. She looked quite entertained, her hazel eyes sparkling and a smile threatening.

“No one told me as we was expecting company this afternoon.” A red-haired, teenaged girl with magnificently protruding ears had at some point joined their number. “Unless . . . You from the phone company?”

“
No
.”

“Oh. Well, whoever you be, you’re dripping all over the carpet which means I’ll be on me knees sponging it all up, doesn’t it?”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry don’t—”

“Polly,” Bernice admonished. “Mr. Grant is our guest.”

“Guest? Should I make some sandwiches?” The prospect appeared to delight her.

“Well, dear,” Bernice said. “I’m not sure that would—”

“That would be lovely,” Lavinia announced, struggling into an upright position.

“And I’ll bring tea, too. Back in a jiff,” the girl promised and bustled back out of the room.

“What is a ‘jiff’?” he asked, intrigued. He’d picked up a bit of slang here and there from his students, and found their variations on what was often ancient argot fascinating. Sometimes he wondered why he studied civilizations in far-off countries when there was such a vast wealth of cultural curiosities amongst his own countrymen.

“Jiff,” Lucy repeated as though doing so would stir his knowledge of the word. It didn’t. “You know, make it snappy, shake a leg, get cracking.” She grinned at his befuddlement. “
Hurry
.”

“Ah!” Enlightenment dawned. “
Hurry
.”

“Exactly.”

“Enough is enough. Who are you, young man? And what are you doing here?” Bernice, who did not share their interest in this linguistic curiosity, demanded.

“Yes, what are you doing here, Archie?” Lucy asked.

“I have come,” he said very carefully, very patiently, “at the behest of my grandfather, Lord Barton. He has asked me to—”

“Your
grandfather
! Of course!” the woman named Lavinia exclaimed. “How could you be anyone else? You look the very image of him.”

The girl’s face lit with comprehension. “Aha! You said ‘John’ not ‘Tom.’ ”

“So
you
are what John Barton looked like,” the dumpling-like lady exclaimed. “Well, small wonder Lavini—”

“
Bernice
.” At Lavinia’s mortified utterance, the other woman fell silent.

Lavinia cleared her throat. “You were saying, young man?”

Based on admittedly short experience, he figured he had between five and eight seconds before something else siderailed the gathered company’s attention. Taking the metaphorical bull by the horns, he stepped forward and handed Lavinia the letter of introduction his grandfather had sent with him.

“This will explain.”

Lavinia looked about. “Do we have a letter opener around somewhere?”

“Yes,” Lucy said and, taking the envelope, ripped off the top of it, blew into the pocket, and withdrew the folded sheets from inside along with an additional smaller envelope addressed to Bernard DuPaul, Junior. “Here.”

Lavinia took the sheet and opened it, quickly reading over his grandfather’s cribbed scrawl. Emotions rippled across her countenance: anticipation, tenderness, surprise, disappointment, and finally uncertainty.

“What does it say?” the girl prompted.

“He says he is unable to make the trip to France.” She looked up, her eyes shadowed with worry. “Is he very ill?”

“Not in the least,” Ptolemy reassured her. “He has had a recurrence of gout in his foot and cannot tolerate any weight on it.”

“That’s all?” Lucy said, clearly surprised, and not in a good way.

“Lucy!”

“I’m sorry. But you have to admit it’s rather disappointing. After fifty years he writes to tell you he has
gout?
I should write back and tell him to go
—
”

“No, of course, that’s not all he said,” Lavinia broke in, her gaze still on the letter. “He writes that he is relinquishing his portion of the rubies. He says he hasn’t any need of them and instead wants me to have his share.”

“He does?” Lucy exclaimed, her face clearing. “Well, I call that awfully spiffing of the old boy!”

“Lucy!” Lavinia scolded, but in a way that told Ptolemy she had uttered the girl’s name in just such a tone many, many times before and anticipated having to do so many, many more times in the future.

“I’m sorry, Aunt Lavinia.” She didn’t look in the least sorry. She looked unrepentantly winsome.

But Lavinia was not attending. “I’m not sure we ought to accept such generosity.”

“Oh, yes, you ought,” Lucy said without hesitation. “And at once, before he changes his mind.” She swung toward Ptolemy. “
Is
he likely to change his mind, do you think? I mean, is there any chance of his forgetting he made the offer? He isn’t gone off batty or something, is he?”

“
Lucy
,” Bernice said severely. “I am sure I do not know what that term means but I do know that I have repeatedly asked you not to use street argot.”

“Sorry,” she said yet again and then turned to him. “He isn’t, is he?”

“Not at all. He is in complete possession of his faculties. And finances.”

She turned to her aunt. “Well, there you have it. He doesn’t need it, he wants you to have it, and I am sure it would be selfish to disappoint the old darling by refusing.”

He started.
The old darling
? To his knowledge no one had ever been moved to call his grandfather an “old darling.”