Wicked Wyckerly (9 page)

“Have someone bring Penny to see me sometime, please?” she whispered as the driver opened the door.

Lord Danecroft donned a cheerful smile and lifted his daughter from her lap. “We are most grateful for your generous hospitality, Miss Merriweather. I’m sure we’ll see you soon.”

“Want Miss Abby!” Penelope said threateningly when it became apparent that Abigail didn’t intend to leave the carriage with them. The child hugged the book to her thin chest as if someone might take it from her.

“I think you get to pick your own bedroom, Miss Penny,” Abby called to her as Lord Danecroft leaped out. “Find a pretty one, then look to see if there’s a good place in the kitchen for a kitten!”

“Don’t wanna!” Penny cried as the berlin began to roll away.

Abigail dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief and waved out the window for as long as she could see them. It appeared the earl had no servants to open the door for him. Her last glimpse was of his tall, wide-shouldered figure carrying a screaming, kicking Penny down the kitchen stairs.

10

Hanging on to a struggling Penny, Fitz braced his shoulders against the crumbling stairwell and slammed his boot against the rotting kitchen door. The whole damned panel fell inside. It wasn’t as if anyone had ever given him the keys to his own home, and it was a trifle late in the day to hunt down the family lawyers.

Even Penny fell silent in awe at the damage he had caused.

“This is what Wicked Wyckerlys do, my girl,” he said cheerfully, walking over the fallen door and setting her down so he could hunt for a candle stub in the growing darkness. “I had a cousin once whose wife ran off with the keys. They say he crushed every locked door in the house. I’ve always wondered if that was possible or just a tale. Guess we know now.”

He was actually glad to have the child with him. He hadn’t set foot in the earl’s town house since he’d turned seventeen and his father, having learned about the funds Fitz had saved from his gambling, insisted that Fitz hand them over, claiming real Wyckerlys didn’t need books. Apparently real Wyckerlys needed a wine cellar more than an education.

Fitz told himself he would never have made a scholar anyway. Professor Fitz, moldering away in the mathematical department, wouldn’t have suited him. It had been far simpler to find his own rooms, gamble for a living, and stay away from the dissolute sots he called family.

He could understand why Geoff’s branch of the family would give his a wide berth. The earls would only hit the tradesmen up for loans. Then renege on them.

And now the sots were all gone, and the house echoed with their ghosts. He didn’t think his father or brother had lived here anytime recently. The place should have been rented out long ago—just one of many examples of the family’s selfish incompetence. He’d no doubt find a crumbling lease agreement amid the debris of neglected paperwork in the estate office. Surely the family solicitors would have attempted to earn income off a valuable asset, if only to ensure their own payment.

Fitz lit a candle stub, found another, and lit it, too. A rat scurried into hiding. Dark shapes skittered up walls and under baseboards. No decent cook would come near this kitchen. His fascination with entomology did not lean toward
living
with roaches.

He should have taken Penny to the rooms he rented, but they were on the third floor of a tenement in a far less respectable area of the city. And creditors probably slept on the doorstep. At least no one had thought to look for him in this long-deserted property.

It was a far cry from Miss Abigail’s clean and cozy home, but at least he now knew what cozy ought to look like. “Don’t touch anything, Penny,” he warned as he carried in their bags, then raised and braced the door with bars to hold it in place.

“Want Miss Abby,” his little charmer replied, sticking out her flexible lower lip and clinging to the purloined book the lady had gracefully called a gift. He could scarcely condemn his daughter for stealing books, since he’d done the same in his youth.

Fitz wanted Miss Abby, too, but probably not in the same way Penny meant. He wanted Miss Abby’s laughter and her sensible voice telling him his home would simply need a little work. And then he wanted to take her fairy figure up to bed and find solace in her jolly bosom. Damned good thing he wasn’t a rake. “What would Miss Abby do if she saw this mess?” he asked, more of himself than of Penny.

“Say
‘Ooo, yuck,’
” Penny answered.

Fitz laughed. “You are absolutely correct, my precious. Let us see how much
ooo yuck
ing we must say before we find a place to lay our heads. Grab that broom over there. I fear we’ll need to fight for our claim to the beds.”

Apparently delighted with an opportunity to wreak mayhem, Penny set down her few belongings to grab the broom and whack anything that moved in her path. And some shadows that didn’t. He hadn’t begot any squeamish, insipid miss, but a warrior child. Idiotic pride swelled in his chest.

Fitz led the way up the stairs, sweeping aside cobwebs with his hat and stomping anything that looked like a cockroach. He’d seen cleaner homes in the stews of Seven Dials. The last servant must have abandoned the place over a decade ago.

Upstairs, anything that could be sold had been. Even the lighter-colored areas where paintings had once hung were now coated in a thick layer of London soot. The expensive satin wall covering of some prior generation hung in tatters, rotted by age and damp. The house had been in the family since before Mayfair had first been developed in the late sixteen hundreds. The Wyckerlys had acquired an earldom shortly after that, in reward for their successful piracy, which had filled the king’s coffers.

It would cost another fortune to repair the place sufficiently to rent it out. It was a pity piracy was frowned upon these days.

At least they’d eaten not long before they’d arrived here. All he had to do was find a bed that was not too bug-ridden for Penny to sleep in. In the morning, he would seek out Quentin and see if he would accept the prize stud’s papers as collateral. Quentin was a businessman, not a gambler or a horseman, but he was good for a properly secured loan.

With a little exploration Fitz discovered that the linen closet was empty. The beds had apparently been sold, too, all except the king’s bed that was too huge to be moved without removing walls. Charlie Stuart had reportedly slept in it, probably with half a dozen women. The first Earl of Danecroft had gained his title from scandalous royalty. The passive, boring Hanovers had dismissed the Wyckerlys as frivolous. Imagine that.

The mattress on the king’s bed had been made of doeskin, practically bug proof. Fitz threw his coat over it and wadded his waistcoat into a pillow. “No napping,” he told his daughter as she wandered around the room, swatting at shadows. “I absolutely forbid you to lie down and sleep until I say so.”

His little contrarian glared at him suspiciously. “Miss Abby says I’m supposed to take naps.”

“Well, I’m not Miss Abby. I say you need to swat roaches and clean cobwebs for another hour or two.”

“Will not! I wanna nap!”

“If you nap, it better not be for more than half an hour,” he warned, calling on the threatening tone that had raised his hackles and made him rebel when tutors had tried it.

“I’ll nap as long as I want!” she shouted back, climbing up on the bed and snuggling down into his coat.

“Then don’t you dare take those shoes off!”

She promptly sat up, took off her shoes and stockings, and threw them on the floor. And then she wiggled out of her petticoat and skirt, leaving on only her bodice and chemise. “So there!” She crawled into his coat again.

Bemused at his success, Fitz swept her garments off the filthy floor, folded them, and set them inside an armoire that was equally too large to cart off. He didn’t think Miss Merry would approve of child rearing that invited open rebellion, but his daughter was a Wyckerly. No one ever followed orders in his family. Defiance seemed to light their wicks. A point to ponder some other time when he was feeling philosophical. For now, he had to plot his survival.

Abigail was too tired and nervous to do more than gape at crystal chandeliers, marble floors, silk wall coverings, and indecent statues that belonged in museums as she traversed the halls of the marchioness’s townhome to the guest room she’d been assigned. The dowager had departed on some matter of business, leaving her guest in the hands of silent, well-trained servants.

She might as well be sleeping in a museum. Gilt-framed oil paintings covered the walls of the bedchamber to which they’d taken her. An old-fashioned Chippendale table served as a writing desk, adorned with onyx and gilded inkstand and pens. Heavy maroon velvet draperies guarded her tester bed from nonexistent breezes. The stuffy air stank of coal smoke seeping beneath the mullioned windows. An immense floral carpet adorned the wooden floor, and a maid in crisp white mobcap with dangling ribbons dropped striped maroon and green draperies over the windows to enhance the vaultlike effect.

A brass bed lamp illuminated a marble-topped dressing table and a gilded wall mirror. Two more maids shook out her clothes, folded them, and placed them in a tall cherry armoire.

She was surrounded by bustling servants, yet felt all alone.

And scared, although she would not admit that even to herself. She would walk deserts and swim oceans to see the children. Elegant loneliness was luxury in comparison.

“We breakfast at ten, ma’am,” the housekeeper informed her after shooing the maids from the room. “Would you like hot chocolate before then?” At Abby’s tongue-tied nod, the servant curtsied and slipped out, closing the door behind her.

Left alone, Abigail opened the drawer of the writing table, found stationery, and sat down to write to the children. She had to be very careful not to raise their hopes too much—or her own—but the first thing she must do was to let them know where to find her.

Our cousin the Marchioness of Belden has agreed to help us. I am staying with her in London while her man of business checks on you. I hope very much to find a way to see you soon. I am sending all my love and kisses, so everyone remember me until I arrive.

She folded, sealed, and addressed the letter. She didn’t know if a dowager marchioness could frank it, but she assumed not. Perhaps the lady would know someone who could. Abby wasn’t certain how many miles it was to Surrey, so she couldn’t calculate the postage, but she hated for the children to have to find the pennies to pay the cost when it arrived.

Her one duty done, she glanced around her elegant prison and her heart raced in trepidation. Could this be real? Had she truly inherited enough money to hope she could hire a solicitor?

And if so, how long would it take before the children might be returned to her, and she could revert to her familiar routines?

Perhaps she could worry about how Lord Danecroft and Penelope were faring.

She’d dined with an
earl
. After that, she should be able to survive anything society presented.

Lord Quentin Hoyt, younger son of the recently installed fourth Marquess of Belden, was the man of substance that Fitz had never been. Although Quentin was only a few years older, Fitz tried not to fidget in his imposing presence when he and Penny were granted entrance to Hoyt’s study the next morning.

Fitz’s skill at talking commerce was nonexistent, but he knew he must present a businesslike demeanor while making his case to a man with the education and determination to have acquired a fortune in shipping and industry over the past few years. But keeping an eye on Penelope as she wandered the limits of Hoyt’s study tested Fitz’s concentration.

Lord Quentin was a large man, known at Gentleman Jackson’s for his methodical technique of pummeling his opponents until they surrendered. He’d expressed momentary shock and relief when Fitz had been introduced from the dead, but he wasn’t given to conveying more than polite curiosity at the best of times.

He didn’t raise his voice or tap his fingers now as he listened to Fitz’s explanations. With any other man, Fitz could have leaned back in the chair and offered a cigar, a wink, and a blithe tale, and he would have been satisfied. Not Quentin.

Besides, Fitz had too much respect for the man to give him anything less than the truth.

“So you told your servant that you were going to pick up the stallion, and he knew perfectly well that you were alive?” Quentin steepled his fingers and looked thoughtful.

“Bibley’s an old family retainer who probably hasn’t been paid in a century. I daresay he no longer takes orders from us but captains his own ship. Perhaps he hoped to convince Geoff that he was heir and liable for wages.”

As if to confirm Fitz’s ruminations, Quentin nodded. “I’ve met your cousin through a few trade associations. Seems a sensible man, but his tastes are on the lavish side, and he’s a little too aware of his consequence. I heard he applied for admission to Almack’s when we thought you dead.”

Thunderation.
The bastard was celebrating Fitz’s death by joining the fashionable party set? That was execrable even for a Wyckerly.

Because of an old feud, Fitz’s family and Geoff’s had never been close. They traveled in different circles, but he’d never heard that his cousin was an encroaching mushroom, mooching off the family name, what there was of it. Was there any chance Fitz’s absence had given Geoff ideas? If he and Bibley had plotted together . . . Bibley would most certainly have taken Geoff’s suggestions if money was involved. The butler liked his creature comforts.

“Encouraging honesty was never high on my family’s scale of virtues,” Fitz said, dismissing speculation until he could investigate further.

Quentin snorted. “Your
family’s
virtues might be lacking, but you could have charmed Lady Bell into lying for you, disappeared for a year, and stuck your cousin with the title’s woes until you were ready to return. The temptation to do so even now must be tremendous.”

With a weary sigh, Fitz rose from the comfortable leather chair and crossed the room to pry Penelope off a shelf. He clapped a hand over her mouth before she could emit any epithets, and scanned the shelves until he found the book he wanted.

He handed Penny a large portfolio of colored lithographs of birds and set her beside his chair. “As you can see, I have acquired a complication. She is the main reason I’m here. I need funds to hire a good governess and decent rooms while I straighten out my affairs. I can give you the bill of sale on the stud as collateral, but I cannot tell you how soon I can pay you back.”

Quentin drew his eyebrows down in thought, and Fitz quailed at the prospect of his request being rejected. He couldn’t take Penny into the gambling hells where he earned his living. He couldn’t take her into the ballrooms where he needed to woo and win an heiress. He was developing some understanding of why widowers with children often married in haste.

“Why the devil didn’t you leave her where she was?”