Priceless (3 page)

“I’m sorry, Da. It’s all my fault.”

“I know it’s all your fault, Bronwyn. No other thought ever crossed my mind.” Lord Rafferty Edana, earl of Gaynor, paced across their room at the Brimming Cup Inn. “Your shenanigans will be the ruin of ye someday. I don’t know where ye got your fecklessness.”

Bronwyn peeked out from the wig her mother was tugging on her head. “From you?”

Lady Nora tugged hard on a loose strand of hair. “Don’t be impertinent, young lady.”

Bronwyn chose discretion. “No, Maman.”

Lord Gaynor stuck his fingers in the pockets of his embroidered waistcoat and rocked back on his heels. “I can’t believe ye simply decided to explore London on your own. What madness swept ye to such depths?”

“I was bored.”

Impatient, he waved her excuse away. “Ye tried that already. Let’s hear the truth.”

She could never fool her papa, Bronwyn reflected. The man knew her inside and out. For all her mother’s denials, she was exactly like the audacious man she called her father. She hadn’t his looks or his charm, but when it came to split-second decisions, his daring had found a home in
her. Staring at him boldly, she said, “We went to visit a salon.”

“That is the silliest thing I ever heard,” he roared. A burst of moist, nervous laughter shifted his attention to Olivia. “Olivia, me darlin’,” he crooned, his Irish accent thick enough to cut, “tell your ol’ da the truth. Where did Bronwyn drag you off to?”

Olivia gulped. She looked to Bronwyn, who lifted her eyebrows. Transferring her attention to Lord Gaynor, Olivia laced her fingers in her lap. “Bronwyn told you, Da. We went to visit a salon.”

“A salon?” He circled the trembling Olivia. “What did ye do there, darlin’?”

“We, ah, we drank tea and talked with the lady who ran it?” She checked Bronwyn, relaxing under her sister’s approval. “Aye, Da, that’s what we did.”

“What was this lady’s name?” he queried, all charm and sweetness.

“Madame Rachelle,” Bronwyn answered promptly, and he swung on her in irritation.

“I wasn’t asking ye, colleen. Ye just tend to your business.”

“I was trying to help,” Bronwyn protested, her innocence as false as his.

“I know your kind of help.” He turned away, muttering, “Help indeed.”

Always quick to head off a quarrel, Olivia agreed, “Her name was Madame Rachelle, and she fed us cakes.”

“Drank tea, did ye? Ate cakes, did ye?”

“Yes, Da, cakes too.”

“Then ye two won’t be needing the dinner we’ve kept back for ye.” He nodded at their dumbfounded expressions. “I’ve already paid the shot.”

Seeing her chance for a meal slip away, Bronwyn snipped, “Then you got money from the moneylender, Da?”

“Mind your tongue, lass,” he answered. “Money is of no concern to m’daughters.”

“Were that that was only true,” Bronwyn said.

Lord Gaynor put his hands on his hips. “Not two months ago, lass, I invested in a concern that will be the making of us.”

“The moneylenders loaned you enough to invest?”

“The moneylenders loaned us enough to keep us until the coin overflows my copious pockets.” Faced with Bronwyn’s skepticism, Lord Gaynor remembered he never discussed finances with his womenfolk but he couldn’t resist bragging, “Keep yer eye on me, lass.” To Lady Nora he said, “We’ll be on our way to Lord Keanes’s immediately. Are you finished with Bronwyn’s wig, m’dear?”

Like a ship in full sail, Lady Nora stepped around Bronwyn to join him. “I am.” Studying Bronwyn critically, she said, “I’ve done the best I can. Little Bronwyn must do the rest. Girls, ready yourselves and meet us downstairs.”

As the door closed behind them, Bronwyn complained, “I wish Maman wouldn’t call me, ‘little Bronwyn.’”

“I suppose they got the money.”

“Of course they did.” Bronwyn rubbed her rumbling stomach. “What moneylender would refuse Da now, with the prospect of Lord Rawson for a son-in-law?”

“I’m hungry,” Olivia complained.

“Well, I’m not.”

Olivia’s eyes flashed. “You are too.”

“You always get peevish when you’re hungry,” Bronwyn said. Before Olivia could retort she added, “Will Lord Rawson have a very large supper, I wonder?”

Diverted, Olivia suggested, “Breads and jellies, and those little apples draped in cinnamon pastry?”

The sisters stared at each other.

“You wash first,” Bronwyn commanded. “And hurry.”

As they left the room, the landlord’s voice echoed up the stairs. “Yer Ludship, they tol’ me they was goin’ out with their grandmother. I can’t ’elp it if their idea of ’onesty don’t square with mine.”

“Be careful what you say, my man,” their father said, hostile with the insult to his daughters’ integrity.

Bronwyn and Olivia exchanged glances and descended in a silken rush. The landlord, red-faced and indignant, was saying, “They even tol’ me footman they was goin’ about with their mother, but the lady they brought down was old. Couldn’t hardly walk.”

As Lord Gaynor’s eyebrows climbed, Olivia slipped her hand under his arm. Bronwyn took the other. Together they wheedled, “Da, we need to go.”

He tried to shake them off. “This lowlife of an innkeeper—”

“We won’t get to Boudasea Manor until after dark if we don’t hurry,” Olivia insisted.

“I need to hear—”

“It’s only in Kensington, Da, but we’ll not be safe from highwaymen if we don’t leave soon.”

Lord Gaynor glared. “Anxious to go, aren’t you, dearies?”

Olivia tugged his elbow. “The horses are in the street, Da, and I’ll wager Maman’s inside the carriage.”

Weakening, he took a step toward the door. “I’ll get the truth of this soon, me dear little colleens.”

The sisters herded him outside before he could argue further. “Da, we told you the truth,” Bronwyn insisted.

He snorted but asked only, “Will you ride in the carriage, Bronwyn?”

“We’d rather ride our horses, Da, like you. Can we?” Olivia hung adoringly on his arm.

“You know I can never deny you two minxes anything.”

The voices faded as the equipage rattled away, and the footman came in, pocketing the large vail he’d received from Lord Gaynor. “A generous man,” he informed the landlord, “but a fool fer ’is daughters.”

“I could not help but watch that scene with great interest.” A gentleman’s gentleman stepped forward. His wig was pulled back in a ribbon and well dusted with gray powder; his large brown eyes rested deep in his sallow skin. His musical voice rang with the accent of Italy. “The girls have got Lord Gaynor wrapped in pink embroidery thread.”

Not pleased to be providing shelter for the foreign-looking servant, yet unable to express himself with the vehemence he longed for, the innkeeper contented himself with a sniff. Grudgingly he agreed, “That they do, Genie.”

“Gianni,” the valet corrected.

“What?”

“Gianni.” The valet smiled reproachfully. “My name is Gianni.”

“Whatever.” The landlord raised his voice to speak to the whole taproom. “If they was mine, they’d be nursin’ their backsides, not ridin’ merrily away t’ some fancy estate.”

Gianni ignored the landlord’s words. “They were in the room next to my master’s, were they not?”

“Yes, an’ a whinin’ couple of females they was. Complainin’ about yer master’s, er, lady…” The landlord trailed off under the valet’s liquid eye.

Jumping in with a youth’s eagerness, the footman said, “First they say that veiled woman is their mother, then they say she’s their grandmother. Ye know what I think? I think she weren’t even related t’ them. Their father certain didn’t know nothin’ about it.”

“Ye don’t suppose…?” The landlord gaped at Gianni in dismay, but he only nodded regally.

“I must ready my master. We’ll be leaving immediately.” He ascended the stairs with stiff-necked dignity, rapping at the door at the end of the hall.

Letting himself in with a key, the valet eagerly reported, “Just as you suspected, my master, the girls in the room next door helped Henriette escape while we were out.”

“Damn.” The man called Judson sat before the mirror,
studying his pockmarked face with little pleasure. “I’m ready for my wig.”

Gianni hurried to his master. After arranging a cloth across Judson’s shoulders, he lifted the large, full-bottomed wig from its stand. He settled it on his master’s hairless head and shook powder over it.

“Who are they?” Judson inquired.

“Two young ladies of quality, although I caught only the name of the elder.”

Judson lifted his handkerchief and dusted the excess powder from his face. “Yes?”

“Bronwyn Edana.”

Turning on Gianni like a tiger on his prey, Judson whispered, “Of the famous Edana sisters?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s bad.” Holding a soft brush dipped in color, Judson leaned close to the mirror and painted eyebrows where there had been none. “Those Edanas are integrated into society, and not easily eliminated. I suppose she looks just like the rest of her sisters?”

“Not at all. Most unattractive.”

“Ah.” Judson studied his results. The wig covered his baldness, the paint gave him brows. Yet nothing could replace his eyelashes, nor give him back all he’d lost to the smallpox. “Do you think anyone notices I have no hair on my body?” he fretted.

With a well-rehearsed sound of disbelief, Gianni denied it. “Women don’t like men who are covered with fur, like an animal. You know how the ladies fawn on you. Asking your advice about their cosmetics and their wigs, praising your sense of color…”

His vanity appeased, Judson asked, “Where was this creature going?”

“To Boudasea Manor.”

“That’s the new home of Lord Rawson.”

“Yes, my master.”

At the valet’s obvious relish, a half smile cocked Judson’s mouth. “Tell me, Gianni. What do you know?”

A half smile answered his. “You know how I hate to repeat rumors—”

“Of course.”

“But word is that the girl is to wed the noble Adam Keane.”

Throwing back his head, Judson burst into laughter. “Adam Keane?” He laughed again. “The viscount of Rawson? That sour seaman? Oh, that’s too good.”

Pleased with his master’s merriment, Gianni laughed, too. “Yes, my master.”

“I was raised with him, you know, and I hated him even then.” Judson stared in the mirror, but he saw into the past. “Wretched man. So self-confident. So
handsome
.”

“Not more than you, my master,” Gianni assured him.

“Oh, yes,” Judson hissed with malevolent envy. “Even before the smallpox, he turned heads where I did not.”

Gianni wrung his hands at his master’s unhappiness.

“But how delicious. An ugly bride. What distress that will cause him.” Carroll Judson dusted his fingers. “I’ll not have to worry about her, then. He’ll never let her off his estate, never speak to her, do no more than give her children. Let’s leave this place.” Having lifted the leather pouch that hung around his waist, he opened it with care. Gianni turned his back as his master fumbled with the coins, waiting as he always did for the largesse Judson dispensed. “Here.” Judson thrust the money at Gianni and glanced disdainfully at the bloody bed. “Give this to the landlord and tell him he needs to clean.”

“She’s just as beautiful as rumor said.” Adam Keane kept his horse under restraint with a strong hand on the bridle.

Northrup swallowed. “Sir?”

The setting sun shone toward the riders, and Adam stared through his spyglass across the green sweep of his lawn. “Look at that black hair, that fair skin. See how gracefully she sits her mount. No doubt she’ll be just like the other Sirens of Ireland—none too bright, a good breeder, a good manager. That woman is worthy to be the mother of my children.”

Tugging at his cravat, Northrup said, “Sir, I believe there’s some mistake.”

“True, she looks younger than her twenty-two years.” Adam scraped his thumb across his chin, already darkening with the shadow of his beard. “If the marriage contract hadn’t assured me she was of a suitable age, I would have never thought it. The Edanas wouldn’t be fools enough to try and cheat me?”

“No, no,” Northrup burst out, horrified. “I met Lady Bronwyn during my days at court, and assure you her family isn’t trying to cheat you.”

“Good man. I knew I could depend on you.” Adam nodded briefly. “For all that she’s an Irishwoman, I’ll have no trouble bedding her.”

“Sir, I believe you’re looking at Lady Bronwyn’s sister.” Once he’d spit out his message, Northrup sighed with relief. When Adam folded the spyglass together and turned his gaze on him, the secretary gasped at the dash of cold. He’d forgotten how frigid those gray eyes could be.

“I beg your pardon?”

Adam’s grammar was as fine as Northrup’s, but in his speech Northrup could hear the distinctive meter of a seaman. That betrayed Adam’s perturbation more than the tightening around his mouth. A high note colored Northrup’s reply. “I said, my lord, that you’re looking at Lady Bronwyn’s sister.”

“I heard you.”

Northrup cleared his throat and lowered his voice. “Yes,
sir. Lady Bronwyn is the woman next to the…girl you described.”

Adam glared at the wedding party as it rode closer. “That’s the maid.”

“No, sir. That’s Lady Bronwyn. If you will recall, I told you of her distinctive features when I returned from my trip to Amsterdam.”

Adam’s grip tightened on the reins, and beneath him his horse stirred. “Now I remember. From now on, I’ll have to listen more closely to my esteemed secretary, shan’t I?”

His smile froze Northrup’s bones. Lord Rawson seldom took advantage of his position as master, Northrup mused, but when he did, it always made Northrup unhappily aware of his own privileged upbringing.

“She looks like a King Charles spaniel, beribboned and curled.” Adam tucked his spyglass into its leather case. Guiding his horse down to the curved gravel drive, he suggested, “Shall we go greet my bride?”

What sort of symbolism prompted the two gentlemen to watch their guests’ arrival from the top of the rise? Silhouetted against the setting sun, the horsemen and the partially finished chapel offered a sight that chilled Bronwyn. One of those men was her fiancé. One of them would have the right to control her behavior, her dress, her body.