Vexing The Viscount (7 page)

“War is a messy business. An assassin’s dagger has fewer needs,” Brumley suggested.

“Very forward-thinking of you.” The Scot raised his mug in approval. “But that requires a hand close to the king being willing to wield the blade. Your wife’s connections put ye in the royal circle, near enough to do the deed. If ye felt yourself equal to it, we might keep the lion’s share of the Roman hoard
and
earn the gratitude of the true king by dispatching the usurper. But to kill a king, even a false one, is no light matter.” Alistair leaned forward and skewered Brumley with a searching look. “Is it in ye, man?”

Brumley’s gaze dropped to the worm-eaten table.

“Never ye mind,” Alistair said. Even a weak ally was better than none. “We’ll see if we can search out the truth of Rutland’s Roman coins. If we can manage to slip that treasure out from under the whelp, we’ll have done well enough by James Stuart. Besides, I’ve another idea or two yet.”

And another unhappy English lord besides Brumley whom Alistair judged ripe to entice into his web.

“Your pardon, milord.” Avery, the estate’s aging butler, leaned over the lip of the pit as far as his arthritic back would allow. “Your new…partner has arrived. She awaits your pleasure in the parlor.”

Lucian drew his bare forearm over his sweaty brow. He and Percy, the stable lad, had managed to move a good bit of earth since breakfast. Now he’d reached a level where he must lay aside his shovel and rely on a small whisk broom lest they destroy a delicate artifact with the sharp edges of their spades.

“She’s here? I thought she was sending an agent.” He shrugged on his discarded shirt before turning back to the boy who was digging with him. “Keep working with the broom, Percy. If you find something, don’t try to remove it. Just brush the dirt away and I’ll be back directly.”

Lucian climbed the ladder out of the excavation pit and strode toward his father’s manor house. From this distance, the shoddy roof and neglected gardens weren’t as readily apparent. Montford had suffered over the past years not from lack of care, but lack of funds. There simply wasn’t enough left after meeting their basic needs to put into new roof tiles or roses.

But that would change. Lucian would see to it. Montford would be his someday, and even though he wasn’t Englishborn,
enough English blood flowed in his veins for him to feel pride of place.

He’d been born in Italy, his mother’s homeland. His first memories were of sun-drenched palazzos and the fecund smell of warm Tuscan earth. He loved the gentle hills and the round little donkey his grandfather let him ride whenever he could catch the stubborn thing. When his English father came into the earldom and insisted they return to claim his lands, Lucian was excited about traveling to the distant British isle.

But his mother had hated the chunky gray stone of Montford after the warm ocher marble of his grandfather’s graceful villa. She missed the golden quality of light in her homeland. And the damp English weather settled in her delicate Mediterranean chest. Within a short spate of months, Lucian and his father buried her under a leaden English sky.

About the same time his father lost his fortune.

Lucian sometimes liked to imagine that his Italian roots would save them yet. Not only was his grandfather’s miserly stipend keeping them afloat at present, but the ancient Roman relics Lucian had discovered were Montford’s future. The meandering stones poking through the turf at the far end of the meadow had proved to be the capitals of buried upright Doric columns. They were also proof the Italians were here long before his English forebears. His father traced his lineage back only to the Norman conquest. Lucian wondered if he might somehow be connected by a much longer bloodline on his mother’s side to the Romans who settled Londinium.

And he dreamed of resurrecting the glory of Montford, raising the standard higher than it had ever flown before.

Now, thanks to Blanche, he had access to the funds that would make it all happen.

And other things might happen as well. He’d unearthed
a nearly intact statuette of Faunus, the goat-god known as Pan in Greek tradition, that morning. The tip of the figure’s erect penis had broken off, probably a millennium ago, but what remained of the organ was still amusingly outsized. Lucian thought Blanche would enjoy the naughtiness of it and perhaps be willing to exchange even more than kissing lessons for it.

Just the thought of the exotic Blanche set Lucian’s groin aching. For a moment, he wondered if he should take time to change his shirt, but he hated the idea of keeping such an exquisite creature waiting. Besides, she must have known he’d be hard at work and certainly wasn’t expecting to see her this morning. She was supposed to send an agent, after all. Surely she’d forgive a grubby collar and a bit of honest sweat.

The truth was, he could barely restrain himself from breaking into a run at the thought that she was near.

He hurried to the parlor and found her standing, facing away from the door, gazing out the tall Palladian windows at the overgrown garden. Light-wreathed and ethereal, the golden curls spilling down her back made her seem more angel than temptress. Last night he’d wondered about the color of her hair beneath her powdered wig, just as he’d puzzled over the color of her eyes behind the plumed mask. Her scent and the satin feel of her skin were enough to torment his sleep all night. Once she turned to face him, he’d have even more to fuel his dreams.

“Blanche,” he said simply, loving the liquid sound of her name as it poured over his tongue.

“No, milord. Mlle La Tour rarely rises before noon. I, however, am quite rested and ready to start work.” She turned to face him.

“Daisy Drake.”

“Lucian Beaumont,” she returned smoothly. “Now that we have settled the issue of our identities, we can begin. As
you can see, I’ve brought the investment you required of Mlle La Tour.”

She waggled her fingers toward a small chest resting on the glass-smooth walnut of the refectory table in the corner. Lucian desperately needed the funds, but he didn’t see how he could accept them by Daisy Drake’s hand.

“Hold a moment.” Now that he thought about it, he chided himself for imagining for an instant that she was Blanche.

Daisy Drake was a good head shorter than the courtesan, and once she spoke, her clipped English bore no resemblance to Blanche’s lilting French. And though the dress she was wearing hugged her form—an exceedingly pleasant arrangement of curves, even though they belonged to Miss Drake instead of Blanche—the gown was the plainest of muslin, a fabric no courtesan would dream of wearing. It had been merely a trick of the light in the parlor that was responsible for his mistake.

That and a longing to see Blanche again that bordered on obsession.

“I didn’t agree to your being here,” he said.

“Really? Then you’ll have to discuss that with Mlle La Tour’s agent. Oh, wait! That would be me.” Daisy folded her hands, fig-leaf fashion.

A deceptively innocent gesture, he thought.

“Blanche has requested that I represent her in this matter,” the infuriating chit explained.

“How on God’s earth do you know a French courtesan?” he demanded.

“Through my great-aunt, Isabella Haversham,” Daisy said sweetly. “Both Blanche and I are staying at Lady Wexford’s home for the Season.”

Of course.
He’d totally forgotten the connection between the houses of Wexford and Drake. It was a tenuous,
by-marriage sort of relationship, the kind maintained only by people who genuinely liked one another, since no actual blood tie bound them.

Daisy Drake in residence certainly explained how Lady Wexford heard about his project so quickly. Daisy probably put her up to inviting him to that blasted ball, probably urged Blanche to—No, Blanche was not the sort who could be cajoled into doing anything if it didn’t please her. She was too strong-minded for that.

Blanche had no idea of the enmity between Lucian’s father and all things Drake, else she’d never have chosen Daisy as her unlikely representative.

“Clearly, there has been a misunderstanding,” Lucian said, aiming for a more conciliatory tone. “Blanche was supposed to send a gentleman as agent, one who could help with the work.”

“I doubt she mentioned sending a gentleman, since she rarely has but one use for men,” Daisy said with a raised brow. “Blanche says men try to intimidate women in matters of business, so she prefers to trust agents of her own gender to tend to such things.”

“But she said she’d send someone who could help me.” Lucian rubbed the small scar on his chin. “I know you’re handy enough with a pike, but I confess I can’t imagine you with a shovel, Miss Drake.”

“If needs must, I suppose I could manage. As you can see, I’ve dressed in rustic fashion in anticipation of any contingency, but perhaps my talent would be better used in translation. I am quite fluent in Latin and can help you cata log your finds,” she said airily. “And since you call Mlle La Tour by her given name, you may call me Daisy. It will be easier, since we’ll be working quite closely together.”

“Miss Drake,”
he said pointedly, “we will not be doing anything of the sort.”

“Blanche will be most displeased,” she said, folding her
arms beneath her breasts. “She was quite taken with the notion that I should be her eyes and ears here. She’ll be frightfully put out when I tell her you have rejected the agent of her choosing. I wouldn’t be surprised if she withdraws her funds.”

“Then I’ll find another partner.” He turned to leave.

“Blanche will probably be so upset she’ll refuse to see you,” Daisy predicted.

That stopped him. He needed to see Blanche again, like a starving man craved food. Lucian turned and leveled a stare at the insufferable Miss Drake. “If my father learns you’re on his property, he’ll—”

“What? Have me arrested for trespassing?” She laughed lightly. “Unlikely, since you obviously intend to permit me to join you in your endeavor.”

“Only under duress,” he said icily.

Lucian was reluctant to admit, even to himself, that his father’s hatred for the lord of Dragon Caern was excessive, given the nature ofigabriel Drake’s offense. Other lords had spurned his father’s request for investment in South Sea as well, but the Cornish baron had been Lord Montford’s last hope.

Sometimes, Lucian suspected the earl teetered close to madness. Fear of seeing his father tumble into that dark abyss was part of what drove Lucian to improve the family fortunes, but it was certainly not something he’d confess to a Drake. Especially not this Drake.

“You don’t understand—” he began.

“I know perfectly well that your father holds an unreasonable grudge against my uncle, but I don’t see why that should extend to our relationship.”

“We have no relationship.”

She heaved an annoyed sigh. “I meant our business association, of course.”

The sound of a raised voice echoed down the hall. By the
slurred speech and the crash of broken crockery, Lucian suspected his father was already in his cups, and noon still hours away. Lucian strode to the desk and rummaged through the top drawer.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for a way to alter your appearance,” he said as he finally found the glasses case he sought. The previous owner of the desk had mistakenly left them in it, and Lucian kept them only because sometimes it eased his own eyes to wear them if he read too much late at night. “If my father recognizes you, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I doubt that he will,” Daisy said as he settled the steel frames on her nose, distracting attention from her moss green eyes. She blinked over the rims at him. “After all, you certainly didn’t.”

He decided to ignore that jab. “But he might. Unlike my father, I’m not fixated on your family, and you do have a definite Drake look about you.”

One after another, the Drake girls had assaulted London’s fashionable set, their golden hair and golden fortunes the talk of the town. Lucian remembered hearing that Daisy hadn’t managed to snag a husband, but given her proclivity for maiming and mayhem, perhaps that was understandable.

Some things even a boatload of pirate gold couldn’t smooth over.

A loud crash sounded in the hall. His father was getting closer.

Daisy cast him a slightly cross-eyed look.

“Now, if you’re serious about continuing as Blanche’s agent, you’ll leave the talking to me,” he said under his breath as the earl staggered into the room. “Good morning, Father.”

“Nothing good about it,” Lord Montford said with a snort. He fixed a bleary-eyed glare on Miss Drake. “Who are you?”

Lucian stepped forward, partially shielding her from his gaze. “This is Miss…Clavenhook. Miss Clavenhook from Knightsbridge. She’s come to help with the Latin translations.”

“So, my son’s dragged you into this mad business as well,” the earl said. “Nothing in that field but extra heartache.”

Lucian’s lips drew together in a tight line. This conversation was a vicious little circle with no end. One they had already worn smooth with constant repetition.

“Better put your mind to courting, lad,” Lord Montford said. “That’ll come closer to filling the family coffers than mucking about in the mud. Lady Brumley and her daughter are coming to tea this afternoon. Don’t be forgetting that. I’ll expect you to attend them right sharp.”

His father squinted around him at Daisy, raking his gaze over her form. Lucian sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she’d been prudent enough to dress in a manner that belied her wealth, no ostentatious frippery or jewels.

“You put me in mind of someone, m’dear,” the earl said. “What’s your name again?”

Ignoring Lucian’s warnings, Daisy stepped neatly around him to dip in a low curtsy before his father. “I’m—”

“Miss Clavenhook, my assistant,” Lucian finished, pulling her back to his side with a glare that demanded silence.

The earl laughed and chucked her chin. “Assistant, hmm? Didn’t think Latin went with young ladies. No matter. Expect you’re a fair treat without those spectacles.”