A Murdered Earl Read online

  'Like a baby in a tantrum,' Luke told Sam later in the small bedroom they shared in the basement.

  'Then what?' Sam asked, grinning. Sam, the second footman, baby-faced and with guileless blue eyes, was the eldest son of a curate attached to a poor London parish, a man with a large family and small income. He was by far the pleasantest of the male servants in Redditch House, and Luke valued his friendship.

  'I found one more in the drawer, and he had the sense to make do with it, or he knew he'd not be able to go out.'

  'It's young Percy's fault.'

  'Percy? But I thought he was with the army?'

  'He is, somewhere in the Americas, but he's for ever writing home for money to buy a new uniform or a couple of horses. It always sends the Earl into a tantrum. There was a letter a few days ago. And the older one's just as expensive.'

  'But our precious Augustus is scared out of his wits every time he sees his father.'

  'Don't stop him ordering clothes and jewelled swords, or setting up his fancy women with a pair of horses dyed pink.'

  Luke choked. 'He didn't!'

  'Drove 'em through the Square bold as brass. His mother saw them and had to be carried into the house in a fainting fit.'

  'And she looks expensive. She goes to the shops every day. I was forever carrying parcels back for her.'

  'Can't think why she always wanted your company,' Sam chuckled. 'She was mad as a hornet when the Earl made you valet.'

  'I suppose that's another advantage,' Luke murmured. Sam was still calculating the Earl's encumbrances.

  'Then the daughter got married last month, and he's not yet recovered from the size of the settlements Sir Granville wanted as the price for taking her off his hands. Six and twenty she was, everyone thought she was on the shelf good and proper.'

  'But the old devil's rolling!'

  'And mean as hell. It hurts worse than being cut for the stone for him to spend money on anyone but himself. There's his brother's children too, and their brats, always wanting something. Not that they ever get much from the old skinflint.'

  'It's so aggravating, being rich. Plenty of problems.'

  'I could suffer 'em,' Sam said.

  Luke laughed. 'He's due back early tonight, they dine at home. So I'd better fetch the cravats, and woe betide me if those chits haven't ironed them properly.'

  The next hour was a flurry of desperate activity. He found the crumpled and dirty cravats lying where he'd left them, and no laundry maids visible. They'd both been struck down with a mysterious malady, the butler, Drummond, informed him with malicious pleasure.

  'So you'll have to go and buy some more or wash them yourself,' he added, smirking.

  'Be damned to that, I'd never get my money back.'

  Five minutes later he had cajoled Jenny, with the promise of taking her to Vauxhall Gardens on their next evening off, to wash and starch the cravats while he wielded the large irons.

  'But I'd really like ter go ter Ranelagh to see the fireworks,' she said, pouting, and she scrubbed at the cravats.

  'Not at five shillings a time,' Luke said firmly. 'Even Vauxhall costs two shillings.'

  ' 'Ain't I worth it?'

  'For washing a dozen cravats?'

  'More like three dozen. There must be every single one he owns 'ere.'

  He grinned at her. 'Yes, I think there is.'

  She glanced speculatively at him, and wiped her face, leaving a streak of lather across it. Leaning close to him she whispered, 'What would make it worth yer while?'

  He slowly wiped away the lather, then bent and swiftly kissed her cheek.

  'Wait until after Vauxhall,' he teased. He'd never, even in the old days, been attracted to maidservants for more than a week or so, even when they were pretty and curvaceous like Jenny. He'd taken what they offered, what young man wouldn't, but rapidly became bored with their slavish devotion and utter lack of anything interesting to say. Them he'd been able to dismiss, but with Jenny he was trapped, working in the same house, under the same constraints as fellow servants. And he was very bored indeed, since she was making increasingly persistent demands, and behaving as though she owned him.

  To his relief the Earl didn't comment on the cravats the following day, but curtly informed Luke that he was driving to Oxford for a couple of nights, leaving at noon. 'So pack me a bag, and be ready.'

  Luke's heart leapt. At last his endurance of the Earl's tantrums might prove worth while.

  It was mid-afternoon before the Earl appeared, and he was morose, glaring at the Countess when she came into the hall to bid him farewell.

  'Stop your fussing, woman!' he snapped, turning away from her proffered cheek. 'I'm not throwing my blunt away on buying land on the far side of the world, so your precious baby will come back home soon enough when he's done with playing at soldiers.'

  She shrugged. 'I don't want him to stay in that God-forsaken place either. When will you be back in London?'

  'How the devil should I know? At this rate, nothing but questions and interruptions, it'll take a week to get there.'

  At last his lordship was safely bestowed in the travelling chariot and carefully wrapped in rugs. His elder son, Viscount Hanbury, looking sulky, climbed in beside him. Luke and the Viscount's valet, Harris, a small dour man a few years older than Luke, scrambled into the rumble seat. Two of the grooms, armed with pistols, were to ride alongside. Finally the postillions could mount and the coach set forth, drawn by a team of fast-stepping bays.

  They didn't make much progress. The Earl's team drew them as far as Uxbridge, but there the Earl, despite his complaints, had to accept a mismatched team of broken-down nags which couldn't maintain the pace he kept urging on the postillions. Three miles short of Beaconsfield one of the horses went lame and they were forced to proceed at walking pace to this town.

  'Damn it, it's almost dark!' the Earl growled as he was helped down outside the posting house.

  'We'll not make it to Redditch Court tonight,' the Viscount added as he stepped carefully down, and waited for Harris to straighten his cloak and brush imaginary fluff from his lapel.

  'You, Peters. Go and order rooms for us. We'll dine in an hour. And tomorrow,' he added, glaring at the postillions, 'you can find me some nags that are going to stay alive for more than a day.'

  Luke nodded and went into the inn. A flustered landlord approached and began to say that he was full up, he had no rooms to spare, but Luke cut across him.

  'His lordship the Earl of Redditch and his son the Viscount are outside. I think they usually halt here. Of course, if you cannot accommodate them no doubt they'll be happy to transfer their custom to the George.'

  The landlord frowned. 'Well, I could manage it, I suppose,' he muttered.

  'Good. And they wish to dine in an hour, in a private parlour.'

  The landlord looked anything but pleased at this increase in his business, and turned away to shout orders to a tapster. Luke smiled grimly. It was the same everywhere, a title opened doors. He corrected the thought. Money opened doors. The Earl must be a familiar traveller on this road, and the extent of his fortune was certainly widely known. He was one of the richest men in England.

  The Earl and his retinue were entering the doorway, and Luke moved forward in case he was needed to take charge of cloak and hat and cane. A tall man, dark-eyed and with an olive skin, elegant in a long driving coat and gleaming topboots, stepped in front of him and grasped him by both shoulders.

  'It is! By all that's wonderful! We didn't know where you'd vanished to.'

  'Louis! I thought you'd retired to your sugar plantations?'

  'Cocoa, you ignorant peasant! But Grenada doesn't have the same attractions as the big cities. Since Paris is unavailable, I've come to visit London.'

  'It has my condolences.'

  The man laughed. 'Antoine,' he called to another, slighter man sitting nearby. 'Look who's here, our old friend Luc de St Pierre. What the devil have you been doing the past few months?'

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  Chapter 2

  The Earl had been simmering ever since he'd been installed in his bedchamber, but uncharacteristically had remained dumb. Luke went about his duties silently, trying not to think of the astounded expression on the man's face when he had entered the taproom to find a town exquisite clapping his valet familiarly on the shoulder, and calling him friend. It had been bound to happen, one day. Luke would have preferred that day to have been delayed, until he was more familiar with the Earl, but now he had the opening to make his enquiries.

  The Viscount was less easily content. Immediately he and his father had dined, and the older man settled in front of the fire with a decanter of brandy, he'd sought out Luke in the taproom. Ignoring the stares of its inhabitants, blinking at his London elegance, he'd ordered Luke to sit down at the end of the trestle he'd commandeered.

  'Why did that man call you Luc de St Pierre?' he demanded without any attempt at subtlety.

  Luke sighed. 'That is my name. My real name.'

  'But – but why do you call yourself Peters? Are you French? You don't sound French,' he added accusingly.

  'My mother was English, and I was educated in England.' Luke managed to suppress his grin. The Viscount had been in the senior form when he had first gone to Eton, but he didn't think it would be tactful to remind him of that circumstance. The Viscount had left somewhat hurriedly, only a few weeks later, under a cloud that had involved one of the junior housemaids.

  'But your name,' the other persisted.

  'I chose to make it sound more English. Since I need to earn my bread, and French émigrés are two a penny in London, it seemed easier to forget my French heritage.'

  'Were you, that is, have you lived in France recently?' the Viscount asked, licking his lips eagerly, his eyes gleaming.

  Luke suppressed his distaste. He didn't know which he despised more, the ones who condemned all Frenchmen as lily-livered poltroons for permitting the rabble to take control of their country, or those who slavered for gruesome details of the atrocities committed by the peasants on their former lords and masters.

  'I've been in England for the past eight years, since I was fourteen,' he said dismissively. 'I know little more than you of what happened in '89, it was two years after I left.' And what he did know, from his one clandestine visit only two years ago, he had no intention of telling anyone. He valued his life too much.

  The Viscount looked disappointed. 'My father won't like it,' he warned.

  'Won't like employing a Frenchman as his valet?' Luke asked, surprised. 'My mother was English, if that makes any difference.'

  'Well, what of that, but it is more that you deceived him.'

  'What's in a name?' Luke asked, suddenly weary of this conversation. 'I ought to go and see whether he needs anything.'

  To his surprise, the Earl made no reference to the matter that night or on the following day when they travelled to Redditch Court. His attention was fixed on other matters, which became clear when they were greeted in the entrance hall by a plump, balding man in his mid-thirties, and a thin, red-haired woman a year or so younger with two children clinging to her skirts.

  A lumpish, sullen looking boy of about ten years old hovered in the background, kicking mutinously at an old oak chest, and a small pug dog, its snub nose quivering with excitement, leaped about yapping ferociously at the intruders.

  His lordship paused, looked around, then handed his hat and cane to the footman who was bowing obsequiously.

  'Take that apology for a dog away and drown it,' he ordered, and the woman gave a shriek of fury and snatched up the dog, clutching it to her scrawny breasts.

  'Don't you dare!' she shouted at the footman. Then she took a deep breath and turned to the Earl. 'Uncle Redditch, the poor little scrap's doing no harm,' she said in a voice she tried to make conciliatory, but which sounded petulant.

  The Earl glared at her. 'I told you two miserable lick-spittles to leave here when I came down last month. And tell that brat of yours to stop damaging my furniture or I'll have him whipped!'

  'But, Uncle Redditch, you know we've nowhere else to go! Willie, dear, do stop that noise, it's giving me a dreadful headache,' the woman whined. She attempted to seize the Earl's hand, and the pug snapped at his cloak.

  The Earl slapped them both away, his voice rising in anger. 'Will you do as I say, woman, or do I have to tell the servants to carry you out?'

  'Surely you don't mean to turn the poor little children out in the snow?'

  'My dear Amelia, the last snow cleared three months past,' the Earl pointed out triumphantly, his good humour partly restored. 'And both you and Frederick have families. They can take on the task of feeding and clothing you for a change.'

  'You know my mother has only the pittance you allow her,' Frederick said sulkily.

  'And mine's a poor defenceless widow, with scarce enough jointure to feed and dress herself,' his wife added.

  'Then the sooner she snares that fool of a Cit she's been chasing the past year the better. I've had enough. My steward tells me you've offended the Rector, going to sleep during the sermon, and your whelp broke his son's specimen cases and ruined some damned beetle or something he said was rare, or some tomfoolery. Then you tried to give notice to one of my tenants, and you, Madam High and Mighty, sacked a couple of the maids, none of which you have the slightest right to do. You'll pack your bags and be off before the day's out.'

  He ignored their wailings and stumped up the broad flight of stairs. Luke, casting down his eyes, followed. The Viscount, wisely, he considered, had vanished into one of the saloons the moment they entered the house, and was no doubt cowering there in the hope that his father's ire would not be diverted onto him.

  The Earl permitted Luke to remove his coat and pour warm water for him to wash his hands. 'I'll see the steward now, Peters,' he said when he'd been installed in a chair before the fire. 'Send him up. But throw on a couple of logs first, go and help Harris pack their clothes, and make sure they don't take anything belonging to me. And then I want to see you in an hour.'

  Luke retreated downstairs, pondering the instructions with exasperation. How could he know what belonged to the Earl or his unfortunate nephew? He shivered slightly. It was a recurrent nightmare that one day he might not be able to pay for Sylvie's keep, and would have to beg one of his own English relatives for help. They were already sheltering her, she was out of harm's way so long as Bossard didn't find her, and he knew they would give him financial assistance if he needed it, and with more charity than the Earl, who had so much more and could spare it better. Perhaps, he thought grimly, the revolutionaries had a point with their demands for equality.

  He hadn't visited Redditch Court previously, but the clattering of pans and burst of noise led him to the kitchens. Before he reached there a young housemaid, who blushed painfully when he spoke to her, said she'd find the steward and deliver the message. He retreated back upstairs, and found Harris and a couple of maids in one of the large bedrooms on the first floor. They were stuffing clothes into two large trunks, while the red-haired Amelia Redditch clutched the dog to her as she berated them.

  'Take care, you dirty slut! That's my best silk gown, and I don't want it crushed more than necessary! And where's my jewel box?'

  'It's at the bottom o' the trunk, yer ladyship, so's not ter crush yer fine gowns,' one of the maids said with an open smirk.

  'Well, you can just get it out again! I wouldn't put it past either of you two drabs to have helped yourselves, knowing that old lick-penny downstairs wouldn't do anything when I complained.'

  The maids both stood back from the trunks, arms akimbo, and glared at her. 'Teks one ter know one,' the cheeky one muttered. They stood watching while the box was unearthed, the jewels tipped out, and their owner satisfied to the last paste buckle that nothing had been removed. Then the box was replaced, and another, a casket with an ornate lock, was placed beside it. Luke sniffed. He detected the aromatic scents of various herbs, t
he pungent aroma of smelling salts, and concluded this was the lady's medicine chest. He felt a pang of nostalgia. His mother had prized her own favourite remedies in the same way, preserving them, using them sparingly, taking as much care of them as she did of her jewels.

  He was dragged from these reflections by Harris, busily packing her husband's clothes into another trunk.

  'Help me, pass the waistcoats from that commode,' Harris said, and Luke did as he was bid. The maids, watched at every step, finished packing the lady's clothes, and then one of them was directed to fetch the children's belongings from the nursery, and add them to the trunk Harris was packing. The other was sent to make sure all Master Willie's belongings had been safely packed.

  Five minutes later she was back. The boy, screaming obscenities, was clinging to her arm, and trying to snatch something she held out of his reach. She turned instinctively to Luke.

  'Look what the little varmint's done!' she panted. 'Tryin' ter steal things, 'e was! This knife's kept in a case in the library. Real diamonds and rubies, they are, in the handle. An' there's more in his box, I saw several snuff boxes as well as this!'

  Luke seized the boy by the arms and held him at arm's length, where his attempts to kick Luke's shins were unavailing.

  'I didn't! They're mine!' Willie shrieked. 'Give them back, or I'll kill you!'

  'We'll go and ask his Lordship,' Luke decided, and he began to propel the screaming Willie out of the room.

  The fond mother, recovering from her surprise, ran to him and tried to drag her son away, receiving a kick on her ankle for her efforts. Pug, dropped unceremoniously to the floor, yapped in shrill annoyance. Outside, coming along the landing, were the Earl and a short, portly man Luke assumed was the steward.