Earl's Invention Read online

  “I observed a carriage departing the house, and I assumed you had gone for a drive with one of your many suitors. However . . .” He made a great show of extracting a gold watch from his waistcoat pocket and frowning at the face. “However, I daresay it is a trifle early to repair to the park. Well, do not despair; I expect another of your partis will come along at the proper time.”

  He replaced the watch in his pocket, straightened, turned around, turned back.

  “Which of your suitors was it, by the by?” he said casually. “Ravenshaw, I'll warrant; he always did fancy redheads.”

  “You would be well advised to say no more about my suitors,” Bonnie snapped. His jaws twitched, hardened, and he raised his eyebrows. “Inasmuch as it was not one of my suitors who called. It was one of yours, uncle dear.”

  “One of mine?” His jaws and brows simultaneously drooped. “Kate again? Or was it Jane?”

  Jane? Bonnie could sit still no longer, she sprang off the sofa and stalked to his side.

  “I fervendy hope that ‘Jane’ is Miss Godwin,” she said frigidly. “I should hate to discover you're embroiled with three barques of frailty. Be that as it may, the caller was neither Kate nor Jane; it was Lady Pamela Everett.”

  “Hell and the devil!” Evidendy David had left his beaver hat in the vestibule, for his head was bare, and he raked his long fingers through his hair. “The woman will give me no peace. I’ve employed every means I know to rid myself of her attentions—”

  “So I collect,” Bonnie hissed, “and I’m sure you’ll be overjoyed to leant that your latest means have succeeded. Lady Pamela is convinced you are sharing your home with a cyprian, and even she is somewhat embarrassed to press her suit in such indelicate circumstances. She came to buy me off. As if I were nothing more than a . . . a . . ."A sudden maddening lump formed in her throat, and she furiously choked it down.

  “Good God,” David groaned. “Oh, Bonnie, my poor girl.”

  He seized her hand, and Bonnie felt a familiar tremor in her midsection. Felt the onset of the same odd breathlessness she had experienced when they danced.

  “Please believe me when I tell you I never intended it to go so far. I didn’t dream Lady Pamela would be so bold as to confront you directly.”

  “But you did intend her to think I was a bird of paradise, did you not?” His words had rekindled Bonnie’s wrath, and she snatched her hand from his. “You correctly calculated that she would cease to pursue you if she fancied you had established a barque of frailty in your very home. And had she not been so bold as to confront me, I should never have

  known what you were at. Admit it, David: was that not your plan?”

  “I shouldn’t exactly term it a plan." He flashed his engaging grin, and Bonnie willed herself not to succumb to his charm. “Though I must own that the situation you describe did . . . ah . . . occur to me.”

  “Did it also occur to you to consider what would happen when Lady Pamela circulated her delicious on-dit the length and breadth of London? Judith and Robert will realize I am not your niece—”

  “But Lady Pamela won’t circulate such a rumor. That is the beauty of it.” David’s grin broadened. “As long as she entertains the slightest hope of luring me into the parson’s mousetrap, she cannot afford to destroy my reputation. She will consequently be compelled to keep her opinion to herself, and Judith will be persuaded that you’re our long-lost niece.”

  “Judith may be so persuaded if I elect to continue my impersonation.” Bonnie essayed a glacial smile of her own. “As it is. I’m inclined to depart for Cheshire on the next

  stage.”

  “And what would that achieve?” the earl said soothingly. He reached for her hand again, and Bonnie dodged out of his grasp. “If there was any damage, it has already been done.” “// there was any damage?” Bonnie choked. “Lady Pamela believes me a cyprian; is that not damage enough? No, I daresay it isn’t.” She answered her own rhetorical question. “Not in your view. Which leads me to wonder what other schemes you had in mind when you conceived our project. Am I to expect an even more distressing call tomorrow?” “To the contrary.” David sketched another winsome smile. “Tomorrow we shall pay a distressing call on Judith and Robert and Francis. They are scheduled to return to town late this evening, and I propose we visit them early tomorrow afternoon. I shouldn’t want Judith to hear the thrilling news of her niece’s arrival from anyone but us.”

  “Very well,” Bonnie said stiffly. "But I warn you, David, that if you do have additional plots afoot, you'd best tell me of them now. Because if I discover you are using me in yet some other devious fashion, I shall leave without a further word.”

  “There is nothing.” He shook his head with every appearance of sincerity. “Nothing more, I promise you. You've only to deceive Judith and her family, and I am confident—”

  “Miss Bonnie?”

  She had not heard Kimball’s approach either, and she once more started.

  “Pray forgive the interruption, miss, but you have another caller.”

  Kimball extended his little tray, and Bonnie suspiciously plucked an ivory card from its surface.

  “The Earl of Ravenshaw,” the butler added as she examined the card. “Shall I advise him you are occupied?"

  “Oh, no,” Bonnie said sweetly. “No, please show his lordship up without delay. And then, if it would not pose too much trouble, perhaps you could bring us a fresh pot of tea.”

  Kimball nodded and bustled back down the hall, and Bonnie was delighted to note that David's smile had tightened round the edges.

  “I trust you will excuse me?” he said politely. “I fancy you would prefer to entertain your . . . er . . . friend in private.”

  He swept an elaborate bow and retreated into the comdor. and Bonnie was at a loss to say which of them had won the day.

  6

  The peal of the doorbell reverberated through the house, and Bonnie discovered that her mind had gone quite blank. She could no longer recollect even what bedchambers Judith and Cornelia had occupied during their girlhood—much less the various pets they had owned—and she cast David a stricken glance.

  “It will be all right,” he whispered. “As I’ve told you in the past, you might well be able to deceive Cornelia herself. You’ll certainly have no difficulty fooling Judith and Robert and Francis.”

  Did he sound a trifle warmer than he had last night? Bonnie wondered optimistically. He had been infinitely polite at dinner, making no reference whatever to her “suitors.” She judged his restraint particularly remarkable in view of the circumstance that Sir Lionel Varden had called just after Lord Ravenshaw’s departure, and Viscount Lambeth had appeared later in the afternoon bearing one of his prize puppies for her inspection. But if the earl had been prodigious polite, he had also been excessively cool, and Bonnie had again tossed and turned in her canopied bed. Indeed, she had tossed and turned rather longer than on the preceding night, for— though she could not conceive why—she found David’s frigid courtesy more oversetting than his anger. . . .

  She became aware that his sapphire eyes had never left her face, and she hastily averted her own eyes and began to fumble with the ribbons of her leghorn hat.

  “Perhaps they didn’t return on schedule," she suggested hopefully as the echo of the doorbell died away.

  “That is possible,” the earl conceded. “However, I’m inclined to suspect that Briscoe is sipping brandy in the kitchen. With his faithful tippling companion at his side, no doubt.”

  On this curious note, he rang the bell again, and Bonnie undertook a nervous examination of the house. It was located very near to David’s home—in Orchard Street just north of Oxford—and a stranger to the area might well be excused if he could not distinguish Orchard Street from Grosvenor. The residences in both were more or less alike: tall, narrow structures differentiated only by the presence or absence of pilasters, the style of the windows, the design of the roof.

  Except for Sir Robert an
d Lady Hellier’s residence, Bonnie amended grimly. It stood painfully apart from the neighboring homes, and Bonnie collected that—however enthusiastically the Helliers had frittered away David’s money—they had not expended a single farthing on the maintenance of their townhouse. The stone facade was grimy with soot, and the paint was peeling off the iron fence. In fact, Bonnie observed upon closer inspection, the fence was beginning to rust. Furthermore, a number of the bricks fronting the arcade were chipped—

  “Yes?”

  The door creaked open at last, and Bonnie could not repress a gasp of surprise. She had inferred from David’s remarks that Briscoe would be as unkempt as the home in which he was employed, but the man across the threshold presented a most impressive figure. He was tall and slender, immaculately clad in black pantaloons and a matching frock coat; and Bonnie calculated that he must have been monstrous handsome in his youth. Indeed, he was still very handsome. He’d kept the whole thick shock of his hair—though it had turned entirely gray—and possessed eyes so vividly blue that they almost rivaled the earl’s.

  “Good afternoon, Briscoe,” David said.

  “Lord . . . Lord ...” The butler gnawed his lip. and Bonnie perceived that he was jug-bitten after all. "Lord Sedgewick!” he finished, beaming with triumph. “I knew it was you, sir.”

  "Excellent,” David said dryly. “And now you’ve ascertained my identity, would you be so kind as to announce me to my sister? We shall wait in the—”

  “Yes, sir!” Briscoe agreed. “Yes, you wait here, and I shall advise Lady Hellier of your arrival.”

  He bowed, turned, wove his way across the vestibule and up the staircase; and the earl shook his head.

  “I had thought to tell him we should wait in the saloon, but I daresay the library will do. With any luck, he will at least remember that he left us on the ground story.”

  David closed the front door and beckoned Bonnie toward the room on the left side of the foyer. The library betrayed symptoms of deterioration as well, she noted, stepping across the threshold and stopping to gaze about. She surmised that the scarlet-and-ecru upholstery of the sofa had once matched that of the armchair in front of the window, but the latter had been exposed to the sun so long that its red stripes had faded to a sickly pinkish hue. The draperies had also faded, but to orange rather than pink, and the resulting combination of colors was hideous in the extreme. It was probably fortunate, Bonnie reflected, that the shield-back chairs were so worn as to have lost their color altogether; one noticed only the clumps of stuffing poking through the numerous holes and rents in the fabric.

  Her eyes drifted to the shelves, and for the first time during the course of her inspection, she was genuinely horrified. Even from a distance, it was clear the books were cloaked in dust; and even through the dust, Bonnie could see that many of the leather bindings were split. Although there weren’t

  “many” bindings to begin with: the shelves were largely bare—

  “I am somewhat comforted to observe that Judith and Robert do not rely entirely on my charity.” David’s wry voice intemipted her scrutiny. “It appears they have sold the bulk of their library since last I visited.”

  Bonnie could not but wonder what portion of their library the Helliers had elected to retain, and she traversed the threadbare Brussels carpet to study the remaining volumes on the shelves. When she grew sufficiently close to make out the titles, she was horrified anew because there was not a Shakespeare, a Defoe, or even a Miss Austen among them. In fact, Bonnie was unfamiliar with fully half the works, and those she did recognize were silly novels of the sort she had forbidden the Powell girls to read—

  “David?”

  Bonnie spun around and sucked in her breath. Though the earl had stated that she looked astonishingly like his sister, the resemblance was so very startling that her jaws sagged with amazement. Lady Hellier was precisely her height, Bonnie judged, and she did not suppose their weights could vary by half a stone. And if they did, her ladyship did not carry a single excess ounce in her face; she had Bonnie’s high cheekbones and hollow cheeks, her pointed chin and slightly over- long nose. There was one difference: Lady Hellier’s hair was abundantly streaked with gray. But the strands which had not yet turned were the same pale red as Bonnie’s hair, and she entertained an unsettling notion that she was seeing herself as she would look a quarter of a century hence.

  “To what do I owe such a honor?”

  Her ladyship moved from the doorway to David’s side, and Bonnie noted that she had, indeed, availed herself of Mrs. Pruitt’s services. In sharp contrast to her decaying home, Lady Hellier was clad in a fashionable walking dress which— apart from the circumstance that it was blue rather than yellow—bore a suspicious likeness to Bonnie’s own ensemble. “I am hard pressed to recollect the last time you called, her ladyship continued coolly. “Am I to conclude you were eager to assure yourself we had come safely back from France?"

  “Of course you may so conclude.” His concurrence notwithstanding, the earl’s tone was somewhat frostier than his sister’s. “However, beyond that—’’

  "Speaking of France, the most absurd thing occurred when we left our hotel.” Lady Hellier sniffed, as if the customs of the country just across the Channel quite defied civilized belief. "Robert discovered himself somewhat short of funds, and the concierge declined to grant him credit. Fortunately, since you had previously patronized the establishment, he agreed to forward the bill to you. The miserable little concierge, I mean. And naturally Robert will reimburse your expense." “Naturally." David sardonically inclined his head.

  “If we are in agreement then, I shall bid you good day.” Lady Hellier turned haughtily toward the door, spied Bonnie for the first time, and froze in her proverbial tracks.

  “That was the other reason I called,” the earl said pleasantly. “I should like to present—”

  “Good God, David," her ladyship hissed, whirling back around. “I have told you time and time again that I will not have your women in my house.”

  "But Bonnie isn’t a woman,” he protested. “Well, she is a woman," he amended, perhaps perceiving Bonnie’s quelling glare, “but not one of my ... ah .. . But I shall keep you in suspense no longer." He flashed his most engaging smile. “I am sure you will be as thrilled to leam as I was, Judith”—he paused for dramatic emphasis—“that we have a niece. Bonnie is Cornelia’s daughter.”

  “Cornelia’s . . . daughter?” Lady Hellier repeated weakly. Her head spun from the earl to Bonnie, back to him. back to her, as though she were watching an especially lively game of tennis.

  “I knew you would be thrilled!” The earl clapped his hands with delight. “Come, Bonnie, and give your Aunt Judith a proper greeting."

  Bonnie trudged reluctantly back across the ragged carpet, uncomfortably aware that Lady Hellier had ceased to rotate her head and was now observing her every step. Or misstep as the case might be. At length, she grew so nervous that she did, in fact, begin to stumble, and she lowered her own head and concentrated on placing her feet one before the other. She did not look up again until she glimpsed the toes of her ladyship’s white kid slippers, and she then perceived a further difference between them. Lady Hellier had her brother’s eyes, David’s remarkable sapphire eyes. But the earl had told her that, Bonnie recalled, frantically dredging up the endless hours of his instruction. He had told her over and over that—while they keenly favored their mother in every other respect—the Merrill daughters possessed the late Lord Sedge- wick’s deep blue eyes—

  “Your eyes,” Lady Hellier muttered. She might have been sharing Bonnie’s thoughts. “You look quite like Cornelia except for your eyes. I daresay your father’s are brown? I cannot remember.”

  “Who can puzzle out the mysteries of inheritance?” David said airily.

  It was all returning to Bonnie now. All the earl’s interminable tutelage was flooding back into her mind, and she recollected that he could not remember the color of Thomas Carlisle’s eyes eit
her.

  “The important thing,” David continued, “is that Cornelia has sent her daughter to England. And while her objective was to give Bonnie a London Season, I prefer to regard our niece’s visit as an opportunity to heal the distressing rift in our family.”

  As Bonnie had expected, the earl punctuated this pronouncement by throwing one arm around her shoulders and drawing her fondly against him. However, she had not anticipated that his fingers would dig painfully, pointedly into her flesh; and when they did, she realized she had yet to utter a single word.

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance at last. Aunt Judith,” she murmured.

  She could not quell an impression that she was once more trapped in a theatrical performance, and she now expected Lady Hellier to seize her niece in a welcoming embrace. But David—though the pressure of his fingers had eased—was still clasping the alleged niece firmly to his side, and her ladyship's expression was far from being one of welcome. To the contrary, she appeared to have recovered her aplomb, for her sapphire eyes were narrowed with disapproval.

  “What sort of name is Bonnie?”she demanded. ‘‘I do not recall any woman in the long history of our family—”

  “Her legal name is Elizabeth,” the earl interposed soothingly. “In memory of our great-great grandmother on Papa's side of the family.”

  Having recalled the tedious details of their lessons, Bonnie was quite certain that the great-great grandmother on the Merrill side of the family had been named Joan. But her ladyship nodded—albeit a trifle grudgingly—and David flew