Wicked Wyckerly (35 page)

“Your apologies are accepted,” Abby said with gracious gravity.

To Fitz’s glee, his less-than-timid bride lifted Penny, hugged her, and then maliciously swung the grubby urchin into the dowager’s lap. Both urchin and marchioness warily studied each other.

Which left Fitz free to swing Abby into his arms, and stride toward home.

His grandiose home. His bankrupt estate. He was a fortunate man who had apparently just acquired a new trainer as well as a stud for his nonexistent mares. A fine madness this was, indeed.

By the time his cousin and friends straggled back from racing all over the countryside, Fitz was comfortably ensconced in his office with Abby by his side. She jotted down the numbers he gave her into a list, while occasionally helping Penny sound out a word in one of the children’s books the maids had found in the attic.

As he had suspected earlier, he was uncovering an amazing sequence of events within the pages of these dusty tomes that his father apparently couldn’t read.

The twins were napping, as Penny ought to be, but they’d given the older children permission to stay up this once, if they behaved. Jennifer had found a kitten in the kitchen, and Tommy had grown bored with accounts and gone exploring. The nanny was taking a well-earned rest.

Fitz couldn’t bear to let Abby out of his sight. Since it was too late in the afternoon to send everyone out on the road today, and he’d rather have Abby with him than entertain his guests, he’d allowed Quent’s penny-pinching Scots sisters to prowl about the neglected mansion alone. They were currently rearranging rooms and discussing economical refurbishing with the housekeeper. Maybe they knew how to get rid of mice.

He didn’t want to know what Quent and Lady Bell were doing with his new horse trainer. Lady Bell knew more about animals and stables than Fitz did, and if it kept her out of his hair, he’d let her supervise them all, including Mick, who obviously needed managing.

Rather than rearranging rooms or stables or even kitchens, Abby seemed content to be with him, which was a marvel he might never get over. He’d sat in this office a few weeks ago, wondering if a bullet to the head might be his only salvation. He leaned over and kissed her.

He’d been alone all his damned life. Abby was meant to be with him forever, like the trees and the clouds. Abby was a goddess among women, timeless and omniscient. And he would steal every moment he could with her.

“I love you,” he murmured for the umpteenth time. “I can never say that enough.”

“As I can never tire of hearing it,” Abby admitted. “We are both in dire danger of becoming maudlin, I fear. And it gives me such a thrill every time you say it, it is hard for me to behave respectably. So unless you wish to retire upstairs . . .”

She gazed expectantly at him, and Fitz nearly carried off his Lady Temptation right there and then. Had it not been for the sound of several sets of boots stomping down the hall, he might have. But he had things to say to his cousin that he needed others to hear. This business of being earl stood to be damnably inconvenient on occasions like this.

He took the ledger from Abby with the notations he’d dictated, set it neatly on the desk in front of him, and waited for the door to slam open now that the stragglers had returned. He glanced to his daughter and noted with satisfaction that she’d curled up on a pillow and fallen asleep.

“Poor mite has spent so much of her life being wary, it’s a wonder she can trust us enough to sleep so easily,” Abby murmured, tucking her shawl around her new daughter. “I’ll warn them to be quiet.”

She stepped into the outer room and the racket of big noisy clods approaching was instantly silenced. Fitz grinned like a fiend at the thought of his pocket Venus quelling big, lordly men like Quentin, who liked to throw his weight around. He stopped grinning and rose when his disheveled guests entered with Lady Belden in tow.

He gestured for Lady Bell to take a padded chair near the empty grate.

Quentin filled the center of the room, impatiently tapping his boot with a riding crop. The small estate office wasn’t large enough to contain all the restless energy building inside it, but Fitz needed the ancient ledgers scattered across the desk.

“I’m an earl,” Fitz informed them, reinforcing what he had only just come to accept.

Montague, with his usual grasp of intense situations, swung a wooden chair around, and straddled it, prepared to fight or defend as needed. He was no doubt lining up the various puzzles of stone throwers, reluctant heirs, and tottering ledgers in his head and running detailed analyses on the answers. He would probably work out Fitz’s announcement before Fitz could seat everyone.

With languid grace, Atherton propped his wide shoulders against the doorframe. Gazing from beneath hooded eyes, he appeared bored, but Fitz knew his friend was studying the room’s occupants in the same way Fitz studied cards.

Geoff was the mystery here. His heir prowled the edges of the office, examining the gun collection and the portrait of Fitz’s mother with interest.

“I outrank the lot of you,” Fitz declared, once his visitors were settled. “I want to make that perfectly clear. I don’t have to explain a damned thing. But for Abby’s sake, I’ll prove that I won’t endanger her inheritance or that of her siblings any more than I have.”

The marchioness waited without her usual air of suspicion. With a knowing smirk, Geoff abruptly grabbed another wooden chair and straddled it as Blake had.

Once Abby was sitting again, her busy hands resting in her lap for a change, Fitz opened the ledger to her notes. “I have only had time to trace the largest of my outstanding debts.”

Geoff nodded encouragingly, and Fitz narrowed his eyes in his cousin’s direction.

“The largest ones are bank loans obtained ostensibly to cover improvements on this sinkhole, as my cousin so rightly calls it. They date back to my grandfather’s time and have multiplied over the years of nonpayment.”

“Those weren’t bankers hanging about the door out there,” Quentin observed.

“No, they’re just the tradesmen who provided my family with food and clothing and whatever it pleased them to buy without payment. Over the years, the tradesmen must have learned that if they harassed Bibley sufficiently, he would find means to cover some portion of what was owed. In consequence, they padded the bills, regularly sent old ones that looked like new ones until they were tumbling stacks of invoices, and otherwise used whatever method they could to pry blood out of turnips. Their accounts are vastly inflated at this stage. Once we settle on the corrected sums, I will arrange payments at harvest time.”

“It will take years just to calculate Bibley’s method of payment,” Abby said, biting back a smile. “He often traded estate assets for necessary items. We need to discover who has been paid in such manner, then negotiate their recompense in price per pound of deer and duck meat or whatever commodity he exploited.”

“Threaten Bibley with a broom until he straightens it out. That seems to work.” Fitz leaned over and kissed her again, just because he could. Then he turned to glare at Geoff. “But judging by how far back these ledgers are in disarray, and from Bibley’s assessment, it seems my father and brother inherited their inability to read from my grandfather. They could not adequately decipher invoices and ledgers and relied on people
they trusted
to handle the details for them—family members who could
read
, like Geoff’s branch of the family. My family wasn’t as self-indulgent and incompetent as I believed, and I owe their memories a great apology.”

“And you have worked this all out by yourself in these few days?” Geoff asked in amazement. “How?”

“Danecroft is a mathematical genius,” Abby said cheerfully. “Really, I don’t understand why no one has seen that. That little book in front of him is the sum total of years of ledgers. He did them all in his head these last few hours.”

“Like my father,” Geoff said, surprising them all. “He could sum ledgers in an instant. My grandfather—Fitz’s great-uncle—had a genius for investment. Our pirate ancestor was actually a brilliant navy captain when England had no navy. The Wyckerlys weren’t just wicked. They were geniuses. Unfortunately, only a few of them learned to put their brains to good use instead of bad.”

“Education and a few morals might have made a difference,” Quentin said dourly.

“That’s all beside the point,” Fitz interceded. “The point is . . .” And here he glared at Geoff, who smirked as if he already knew the point. “To keep his accounts, my grandfather relied on family members who did not suffer his reading difficulties—which apparently included my grandfather’s youngest brother and his son, Geoff’s father, may they rest in peace.”

“And my branch of the family robbed the old man blind,” Geoff concluded for him. “I feared as much. My father and grandfather were thick as thieves. When I was little, I thought it was because they were forced to go into trade to keep food on the table, thus putting us beyond the pale. But once I took over the various enterprises they operated, I started wondering about the source of the capital that originally built them. I could have expanded several times over if I could have had access to that kind of blunt.”

Quentin straightened, his financial acumen allowing him to catch on faster. “Because Fitz’s grandfather, the fourth earl, relied on his younger brother and nephew to take care of the estate accounts, they had the ability to siphon funds from Danecroft’s branch, who thus unwittingly financed
your
family’s holdings?”

“That’s the way it looks to me.” Geoff didn’t appear shocked or angered by the accusation. “You’re the mathematical genius, Fitz. What say you? Aside from despising you and yours, did my side of the family rob the earldom blind?”

Fitz tapped his pen against the ledger and looked around at the friends who had stood beside him through thick and thin over the years. He might not have survived without their guidance and aid. Now that he had some modicum of influence, he would return their respect and support in any manner necessary.

Geoff didn’t fall under that umbrella, but he was family, and he was being honest. Fitz was learning the hard way that family was important. He could take Geoff to court and ensure a lifetime of enmity, or he could find a means of mending family bridges.

Abby placed a loving hand on his arm, encouraging him to do as he thought best. He had five children and perhaps more on the way. He needed to give them a future. And a family. And friends. Ones who wouldn’t cheat his son and heir if he should inherit the family affliction.

“I think my grandfather placed his trust in men who knew how to invest more wisely than he did,” Fitz said cautiously, watching Geoff’s expression. Apparently, the estrangement between his cousin’s branch and the earldom had begun in his grandfather’s time. Somehow, the fourth earl must have twigged to the theft that had drained his coffers and, in consequence, severed the family relationship. Fitz might never know why the matter hadn’t been resolved then, but it was up to him to lay the groundwork of reconciliation now. “Your father and grandfather provided the time and labor in developing the investment. My grandfather provided the funds.”

Geoff’s forced smile faded, and he straightened, placing a hand to his back and stretching as if relaxing for the first time since he’d arrived. “I was hoping that was the conclusion you would reach. Otherwise we were in for a rather nasty court fight, and I don’t trust the courts.”

“No point in paying barristers for family matters,” Quent agreed, looking interested.

Lady Bell frowned in puzzlement. “Does this mean Danecroft is not bankrupt?”

“Oh, I am a thread away from Newgate still,” Fitz said cheerfully. “But a share of Geoff’s substantial investments should provide a more reliable income than gambling.”

He raised an eyebrow at Geoff, who already seemed to be tallying mental lists. “We’ll have the solicitors draw it all up,” Geoff agreed. “Put you on the board, give you a share of the stock. Then you can approach the banks and negotiate payments with collateral in hand.”

“And perhaps I can use my mathematical abilities to increase the company’s profit.” Fitz glanced at Abby. “Would you mind if we rented out the town house for a few seasons, my love?”

Her face lit up like a chandelier. Had it not been for their guests, he’d have carried her off to bed right then.

“Not at all, dear Dane,” she said in delight, gently mocking his endearment. “I will even contribute toward hiring someone to clean up the town house, if you wish. And how will you employ yourself if you don’t have card games to attend?”

“Acquiring an education in crop production, I believe. And convincing an executor that I no longer gamble—at cards, at least.” Fitz tugged Abby from her chair, swelling with pride that he’d put that joy in her eyes. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said to dismiss their company, “I think we need to peruse the library.”

“Your daughter, Danecroft,” Lady Bell said sharply, glancing at the sleeping Penelope. “You cannot leave her there alone.”

He and Abby laughed. Lady Bell needed someone to manage. Far better that she start with a child. He allowed his bride to do the honors.

Abby smiled at her benefactor. “She’s one of the brilliant Wyckerlys, my lady. Not only can Penelope read, but she taught herself to do so. Given her genius, I’d advise you to treat her as the child you’ve never had, and if she has inherited any of Fitz’s gift, you could train her to look after your investments. Your kindness to me will be returned threefold.”

All of which would give his illegitimate daughter a secure place in society someday.

Chuckling, Fitz swept his blushing bride into his arms and carried her away. They’d provided sufficient amusement for the day. His guests could entertain themselves for a while.

He had a countess to please and an heir to beget.

39

Abby slipped from the nursery late that evening to find Fitz leaning against the wall, arms crossed and wearing an expression of bemusement. He cocked an eyebrow and glanced down at her. “Are they finally asleep?”

Odd noises rose from the rotunda two stories below, but Abby addressed the important question first. “Penny is hiding under the covers with Cissy and telling her a story that involves some rather colorful language, but they’re being quiet.”

“You do not mind that my daughter is teaching her an inappropriate vocabulary?” He took her arm and strolled toward the railing overlooking the front entrance.

“Children learn from example. They will soon grasp when it’s suitable or not to use their newly extended vocabulary,” she said in amusement, before giving in to curiosity. “What is going on down there?”

Wrapping his arm around her waist, Fitz leaned over the upstairs railing. “I believe I’ve given our guests the wrong impression. They seem to have decided the rotunda is a boxing ring. I fear Bibley will soon post flyers and invite the public—for an admission fee, of course.”

Abby stared in astonishment at the mat of bedcovers stacked on the marble floor below. Mr. Wyckerly and Mr. Montague were already circling each other, fists raised, while the ladies hastily lined the “ring” with the mouse-eaten cushions from the salon. Whether they meant to sit on the cushions or use them to prevent cracking heads was not immediately evident.

The other gentlemen were lounging about the walls, talking among themselves, exchanging wagers, and keeping an eye on the action.

“Whatever on earth are they fighting over?” she whispered. “Shouldn’t we stop them?”

“Geoff needs to learn to fight, and Blake’s volatile temper needs an outlet. He knows his strength—he’ll hold his blows. I question their wisdom in allowing Bibley to hold the wagers, though.”

Abby shook her head in dismay at the sight of Lady Isabell glaring at Lord Quentin, who was insouciantly handing gold coins to the wily butler. “I may never understand the
ton.
Lady Bell hates gambling. Why is she down there?”

“Lady Bell hates losing. As I understand it, she and Quent had a wager. Once she gave you control of your dowry, she lost, so she’s now obligated to send off Lady Sally this season. I do not question as long as she and Quent have agreed to tackle Greyson so that I might have you and the children here with me.”

“They are generous benefactors. We must find some way of returning their generosity someday. It is a pity Lord Quentin is in trade and only a younger son with no land of his own.”

“Do not underestimate the man. I’d say from the way he’s hanging about, he may be raising the stakes. Quent is a bit of an enigma.” Fitz gently steered her from the fascinating spectacle below.

Abby glanced uncertainly over her shoulder at the first thuds and shouts of the gathering. “Lady Bell is an independently wealthy marchioness who has no desire to marry. He cannot hope to win her. I’m not at all certain why she wagers and argues with him.”

Fitz tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her down a corridor. “Because she is a woman and he is a man. Really, all the rest does not matter when it comes right down to it, does it?”

“Oh.” Abby blinked at the image he raised. “Roosters will do what roosters do. And here I have been so very terrified of society when they are no different than a farmyard.”

“Precisely,” Fitz responded with glee, opening a narrow door at the far end of the passage that she’d not noticed before.

“Where are we going?” Curiosity overcoming her concern about their guests’ entertainment, she peered up a dark staircase but could not see its end.

“To the roof. I thought you might like to know how to find Tommy or Penny if they disappear. The temptation to explore up here is much too great for independent minds like theirs.” He lit a candle and held it high so she might precede him upward.

She had rather hoped to spend the second night of their marriage in a different manner, but after the day’s terrors, Abby supposed it was wise to know the sprawling mansion’s hiding places.

She turned a bend in the staircase and a silver light lit a path upward. “Oh, my, is that the moon?”

“It’s full tonight,” Fitz said with a decided purr of pleasure deep in his throat.

Abby shivered in anticipation at the sound. A man who had learned to survive on his wits had many advantages, such as planning ahead. She appreciated her new husband’s many talents. She could easily come to rely on his calculating ways.

He held her elbow as she stepped through an open door, onto the roof, and into an ethereal fairyland. “Oh, my,” she whispered in delight, spinning in a futile attempt to take it all in at once.

The glass dome skylight of the rotunda rose at the front of the vast expanse of roofline, illuminated by the chandelier below. Beyond that, minarets, domes, spires, and towers gilded in moonlight and wrapped in wisps of fog created an enchanted playland. “I never knew anything like this existed,” she murmured in awe.

“Less practical than a rhubarb bed,” he admitted, “but sometimes life needs a little splendor. I believe with a bit of work, we could honeymoon in a different location every night and never leave the house.”

She laughed, and the sound floated toward the stars. “If the roof leaks in a storm, we could call the leak a waterfall, add sand, and pretend we’re at the beach.”

Catching her in his arms, Fitz swirled her across the rooftop to the music of a waltz only they could hear. “Who needs wealth when we have each other and our imaginations?” he crooned in her ear, before sweeping her up in his arms—and depositing her on a very wide, mattress-filled hammock.

Abby gasped in startlement as the bed swayed, and even more so when he climbed on with her. “Are we on a ship sailing a moonlit sea?”

“A rope bed tied between two chimneys, but the effect is the same.” He leaned over and kissed her and the mattress rocked gently.

Abby wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly for the ride. “My wonderful, wicked Wyckerly,” she murmured as his kisses moved to her ear. “Whatever did I do to deserve you?”

“Take in a wayfaring stranger?” He laughed and proceeded to divest her of earthly attire and wrap her in moonlit gossamer.