Whisper of Magic (15 page)

But once they returned to the house, the horror began again.

“Lord Rochester will need new clothes if he’s to attend
school with Kenan,” Lady McDowell asserted as if she had been making lists of
announcements all through the sermon. “The teachers will make certain he’s up
to snuff before he’s thrown into the rigors of Oxford.”

“I thought perhaps a tutor . . .” Celeste
suggested. “Oxford is out of the question unless we regain our inheritance.”

“Nonsense. He needs to meet people just as you do,” the lady
said imperiously, gesturing for the footman to set the tea tray down in front
of her. “You need maids!”

Celeste blinked at this abrupt change of topic and glanced
to copper-haired Lady Aster for explanation. Short and well-rounded, Lord
Erran’s sister-in-law had a mischievous smile that dazzled when her family’s
apparent lunacy prevailed.

“Aunt Daphne is intent on saving women from the workhouse by
finding them employment,” the younger lady explained. “My city household is
small and can only take a few. And there are only so many I can train at once
in Iveston. I don’t suppose your housekeeper would be willing to train
inexperienced maids?”

“Ashford will need them,” Lady McDowell proclaimed, before
Celeste could reply. “If only to keep coal in the scuttles in this drafty old
house.”

“Nana is elderly,” Celeste said hesitantly. “I suppose she
could use helping hands so she needn’t run up and down stairs so much. I just
don’t know . . . . She’s trained maids at home, of course,
but they’re . . . not English.” And Nana needed to be sewing
shirts, but money didn’t seem to be a consideration in Lord Erran’s world.

“The Rochesters have African servants,” Lady Aster explained
to her aunt and cousins. “Even in the kitchen.”

“Better yet,” Lady McDowell decided, after a moment’s
thought. “We have several mixed bloods who can’t find employment. Indian, I
believe, not African. Will that be a problem?”

Celeste shook her head. “Of course not, if it isn’t a
problem for Lord Ashford.” Who couldn’t see, she remembered. He threw shoes at
all and sundry, without regard to race or gender. She bit back a smile at her
own foolishness.

Lord Erran wandered in after having some discussion with
Jamar. With his solid, impressive build clothed in the finest tailoring, he
could have been the marquess instead of simply his brother’s solicitor. He
helped himself to a sandwich and raised his dark eyebrows. “If what is a
problem for the Beast of Iveston?”

The ladies explained, and he shook his head with an impolite
snort. “The maids just need to stay out of his way and keep objects from his
path and they could be green three-eyed Martians for all Dunc will care. It
might be interesting to see how his guests will react, but we can cross that
bridge when we come to it.
If
we come
to it. Prying him out of the country comes first.”

“He knows how important the election is,” Lady McDowell said
with a sniff. “We’ll see that he comes to London.” Straight-backed and regal,
she rose from the old chair as if it had been a throne. “Come along, girls.
We’ll return in the morning to begin the round of modistes, and a tailor for
Lord Rochester.”

Alarmed, Celeste jumped up with far less grace. “Modistes?”
She glanced anxiously at Lord Erran, who didn’t seem at all surprised. “But the
solicitors are coming tomorrow,” she protested, although that wasn’t her only
concern.

“They’ll be here mid-afternoon. There’s plenty of time for a
round at the shops,” he said with a dismissive air—as if spending a fortune on
clothing for impoverished relations was of no moment whatsoever.

Sylvia was practically drooling and watching them hopefully.
Trevor . . . needed new everything. He’d outgrown almost all his
clothes this past year. It was all too much, too fast. Celeste wanted to weep
her frustration.

“United front,” Lord Erran said with a wave of his sandwich.
“You’ll be entering the wars as Dunc’s troops. He can provide the uniforms.”

Uniforms
! Celeste
thought hysterics might be appropriate, were she given to such excessive
display, which she was not. She had just established a new normality, and now
he would throw all her routine into disarray again. She opened her mouth to
argue, but no words would emerge. She, who had wielded her voice to good
purpose for a lifetime, was speechless.

From beneath a rumpled cap of dark curls, Lord Erran winked.
He
winked
. As if this were all a
grand jest and not their lives! Now she not only wanted to weep, but to pound
her fists against his broad chest in hopes of beating sense into him.

Instead of railing like a shrew, she smiled graciously at
her guests, escorted them to the door with promises to look forward to the
morrow, then stomped up the stairs without returning to the parlor.

***

Happily oblivious to his surroundings while working out
the intricacies of the sewing mechanism, Erran installed the elastic to improve
the working machine. If his formidable intellect couldn’t be applied to a
courtroom, he could study machines for ways to better society, and this
mechanism would be a boon to the overworked eyes and fingers of tailors and
seamstresses.

Earlier, he had sorted through the late baron’s workbox and
found tools but little else, not even drawings for the mechanism. He’d started
reading through the various documents in the other trunk, but as the lady had
said, they were mostly letters of introduction. Lord Rochester had attended
schools in England and lived with relations here for a large part of his life.
He had an extensive collection of acquaintances, and if Erran did not mistake,
some were related to Lady Aster’s family. The Rochesters might not recognize
all the names, but he had a good memory for connections. He’d have to ask Aster
later.

Without a defined direction for his energy, he played
mechanic.

Still under the table, Erran sensed more than saw Jamar’s
arrival. The majordomo wasn’t in the habit of visiting the sewing room. Erran
scooted out and looked up questioningly as he dusted himself off.

“There are two young women pulling the bell at the back
gate. Will the ladies have sent over maids this quickly?” Jamar asked in his
lilting English.

“The bell works, does it?” Pleased, Erran stood up. “The
Malcolm ladies have magic wands which produce servants in the blink of an eye.”
He bowed before Nana to catch her attention.

She gave him a wary look and stopped sewing.

“I should have told Lady McDowell that you needed help with
the sewing. I’ll rectify that error instantly, if you would be so kind as to
take charge of the maids she has sent over. They’re new. They’ll need training.
There will be more to follow, so we’ll leave it up to you as to what positions
need filling first.”

The gray-haired housekeeper rested her hands in her lap and
studied him as if he might be a curious specimen of insect. “You and she are
two peas in a pod,” she said slowly, frowning. “The power in this house is very
strong. Use it for good and not evil.”

Without further explanation, she rose and sailed from the
room. With a shrug, Jamar followed after her.

Erran fought a shiver of foreboding. Evil? Had she really
said that?

Having feared that his mysterious verbal ability to bully
came straight from the devil, he’d rather consider her comment about
two peas in a pod
. What did that mean?
And was it a good thing? Because the only “she” he could think she meant was
Miss Rochester, and he didn’t think it very fortunate to resemble a woman, no
matter how lovely.

Thinking of Miss Rochester made him restless. He should go
to his club, lift a few mugs, learn the drift of the political winds—perhaps
hit the streets in search of the latest beauty of the night.

Instead, insanely, he was more inclined to walk around the
block, looking for any sign of miscreants. He didn’t want to believe the
influential earl of Lansdowne had sent rogues to drive his relations out of the
house just to reclaim the rents. He preferred to believe it was his own family’s
enemies.

Perhaps he could enlist a few troublemakers of his own to
find out. That would get him out of the house, and he could lift a pint in the
tavern while doing so.

Dropping his tools into the box, Erran returned to the study
where he’d left his valise, retrieved an old coat he’d meant to wear while
working, and set out for the newly improved back gate. While he was verifying
that the new iron bolt operated properly, the young baron approached him.

“If you are going out, sir, might I ask to walk with you
awhile?”

Hiding his surprise, Erran slipped the bolt and gestured for
the boy to precede him. “You might actually help me on my enterprise. Shall we
discuss it over a tankard?”

Lord Rochester’s dark eyes registered surprise and pleasure.
“Thank you. My sisters do not believe in strong spirits.”

“Ladies generally don’t,” Erran agreed, fastening the bolt
with a turnkey before leading him across the mews to the tavern. “They don’t
understand that a man’s tongue only loosens over a mug of ale. Tea isn’t quite
the same.”

The tavern wasn’t crowded at this early hour. Erran bought
two mugs of ale and took a table where he could keep an eye out for the young
lads he’d talked to before. “What’s on your mind, Rochester?”

“Trevor, please, sir. It’s too hard to be my father just
yet.” The boy tasted the warm ale and grimaced. He brushed a dark lock off his
bronzed face and sighed as if all the world weighed on his shoulders. “I cannot
think tutoring will help me run an estate. Oxford was a fine idea while my father
was alive, and I had no other responsibility, but now it’s important that
someone manage the plantation. If Jamar and I could return home, we might
recruit aid from some neighbors—”

Erran shook his head. “I understand that you prefer
immediate action. We all do. If I had command of an army, I’d ship them out now
to protect your workers. But we’re civilized these days, and we don’t hire privateers
anymore. Information and who you know will accomplish the same, although
admittedly, it is slow going from this distance.”

The boy took another drink. Wiping the froth from his mouth
with his coat sleeve, he chose his words carefully. “I know people on the
island. I know no one here. I cannot see how I can be of any use when your
family is in a better position to do so. At home, I could at least see that the
women and children are cared for.”

Erran sympathized, but the lad didn’t have the experience to
know what he was up against. “I have had Ashford’s solicitors send letters to
your governor and to your men of business in Jamaica, warning that the
executors have no legal right to sell anyone or anything. If you know good
neighbors who can be trusted, you might write them and implore them to keep
your people safe. I can have the letters sent out with official document
carriers so they arrive swiftly. Anything else is likely to end in bloodshed.”

Trevor scowled. “They’re
family
,
can’t you see? They’ll think we’ve abandoned them, especially if they receive
word that we’re flitting about London, having a good time, while they starve.”

“Jamar won’t allow them to think like that,” Erran argued.
“He’s already in communication with his son and will let him know what we’re
doing. In the meantime, there is something you can do here besides flitting
about ballrooms.”

“There is?” the boy asked in suspicion.

Erran hoped Miss Rochester wouldn’t boil him in oil for
this, but the boy had every right to want to protect his holdings, and he
needed to be included in their plans. “Someone has evidently paid local
ruffians to harass your family in hopes of forcing you to leave. It takes only
a few ha’pennies to buy anyone around these parts. Do
you think you could occasionally step over here, talk to the younger lads, give
them a few coins and tip them off that their help would be appreciated, that
kind of thing?”

Trevor glanced around the tavern at the slouching,
ill-dressed occupants. He swallowed hard, then nodded. “I can’t stay cooped up
inside all day, can I?”

“You’ve been doing a fine job of it until now,” Erran said
without rancor. “And it’s been smart to do so, not knowing your enemies. But
now that we have some idea where we stand, I’ll introduce you to a few to get
you started. They’re plucky lads, and they’re more likely to work for people
who are good to them, than to work for ill-bred bullies.”

Trevor nodded with a little more confidence. Erran assumed
he would be accused of aiding and abetting in the dissipation of a minor or
some such, but the young baron had to start somewhere if he was to hold his own
at Oxford.

Ives knew how to raise boys. The real puzzles were women.

Lady Aster arrived early on Monday morning, escorted by a
sturdy footman, a lady’s maid, and two bedraggled, terrified children.

“I am desperate,” she announced as Celeste hurried down to
meet her in the foyer. “Aunt Gwendolyn says the village will not accept any
more maimed children, that their families must care for them. But their mothers
must work to put food on the table, and there is never enough to go around . . . .”
She halted to catch her breath.

The child in a shabby dress was balancing on a walking
stick. The boy in trousers too short for him had only one hand, and the stub
was still wrapped in a dirty bandage. With dismay, Celeste needed no
explanation. “And these two have been helping feed their youngers by working in
the factory?” The ladies had described the horrors they fought against in the
mills—some of which her father’s horrible cousin, the earl of Lansdowne, owned
as part of an investment consortium.

“Exactly. And they have been injured in the process. We have
laws
, but no one to enforce them.”
The lovely copper-haired lady wore an expression of despair—and anger. “They
ought to be receiving an education, but their families need their wages or the
whole lot will end up in the workhouse. And if they end up in the workhouse,
the beasts who sell children out to farmers as little more than slaves will
take them. I thought perhaps Marie could learn sewing, but I’m at a loss with
what Tommy might do.”