The Silver Lord. Miranda Jarrett

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ uniform, George wouldn’t have the slightest notion how to dress himself, while Brant not only knew the fashions, he set them, from the precise width of this season’s waistcoat lapel to the cunning new way to wear a peridot stickpin in the center of one’s cravat.

      Once again George smiled to recall how blithely Miss Winslow had lumped him in with the other Londoners, and smiled, too, to remember how she’d lifted her chin with such charming defiance when she’d done so. Yet he’d felt more instantly at home in that windswept corner of Kent than he’d ever felt in his family’s vast formal house on Hanover Square—a contradiction he intended to correct as soon as possible.

      “Ah, ah, Your Grace, Captain My Lord!” exclaimed Mr. Potipher as he scurried into the office, bowing in nervous little jerks like some anxious little waterfowl in old-fashioned knee-breeches and steel spectacles. “I am so honored to have you here, so very honored!”

      George didn’t even give him time to circle around to his desk. “I have come about Feversham,” he declared. “I have decided to take it.”

      “You have?” exclaimed Potipher, so shocked that he briefly forgot his manners. “That is, Captain My Lord, you have found the property pleases you?”

      “I have,” George answered without hesitation. “And I wish to buy it outright, not merely let it. The house requires so many improvements—which, of course, I intend to make at my expense—that it would be imprudent not to.”

      “You would buy Feversham outright, Captain My Lord?” asked Potipher, shocked again. “You would make an offer this day?”

      “Indeed, I will make it,” said George, “just as I expect it to be accepted. I understand the family that owns the property has had little interest in it for years, and should not be overly particular.”

      “No, no, no, they shall not,” agreed the flustered agent, taking down a wooden box from the shelf behind him and rustling through the sheaf of papers it contained. “Yes, here we are. You are quite right about the Trelawneys, you know. Times being what they are, I am sure they shall be delighted to accept whatever you offer.”

      George nodded, and smiled with satisfaction across the room at his brother. Brant had always been the one among the three brothers with a head for business and investments, and Society had long ago dubbed Brant the “Golden Lord”, after his ability to draw guineas seemingly from the air, while their brother Revell had been called the “Sapphire Lord” for his success in India.

      It had, of course, followed that George would be labeled the “Silver Lord” on account of that single stupendous capture, a title that George himself found wretchedly embarrassing. But after today, he’d have more than that ridiculous nickname. When he left his office, he’d no longer be just a rootless, roaming sailor, but a Gentleman of Property.

      But Potipher was scowling through his spectacles at a paper from the box. “You should know that there is one small consideration attached to this property, Captain My Lord.”

      “My brother’s credit is sufficient for a score of country houses in Kent,” drawled Brant. “That should be no ‘consideration’ at all.”

      “Oh, no, no, there was never a question of that!” Potipher smiled anxiously, the plump pads of his cheeks lifting his spectacles. “It is the housekeeper, Miss Winslow. I believe you must have met her at your, ah, inspection of the house, Captain My Lord?”

      George nodded, striving to remain noncommittal. The last thing he wished was to confess to this man, and worse, to his brother, that he’d been thinking of that self-same housekeeper day and night since he’d returned, with no end to his misery in sight.

      “Then I am certain you shall be willing to oblige this request from the current owners, Captain My Lord,” said the agent, his lips pursed as he scanned the letter in his hands. “Miss Winslow’s father was the house’s former caretaker, and most kind and useful to old Mr. Trelawney before his death. But it appears that recently Mr. Winslow himself has met with some manner of fatal misfortune.”

      At once George thought of the young woman’s somber dress, how she’d said her father was only away, and how long it took for her to smile.

      “I am sorry, on Miss Winslow’s account,” he said softly. “She is young to bear such a loss.”

      “Then you will honor the Trelawneys’ request that she be assured her position as long as she wishes to retain it?” asked Potipher hopefully. “They have made it a condition, you see, Captain My Lord, having great respect for the father’s services as well as regard for Miss Winslow’s own abilities. She would certainly ease your entry into the neighborhood, recommending the best butchers and bakers and such.”

      George sat, suddenly silent. To keep a lone young woman in the house once he’d settled it with his own men from the Nimble, his steward and other sailors who knew his ways and would readily adapt them to land—it would not do, it would not do in the least. He was certainly fond enough of pretty women, but he hadn’t lived in the same quarters with a female presence since he’d been a child, and to do so now could bring nothing but absolute, appalling trouble.

      And then he remembered the wistfulness in Miss Winslow’s face when they’d stood together in the last bedchamber, when the view from the windows had convinced him to make the house his own. He’d realized then that she’d saved the best for last, at once hoping and dreading that he’d love it the same way that she did. Clearly she did love the weary old place as if it were her own, and he understood the depth of her sorrow at seeing it go to another. She’d already lost her father, and now she was faced with losing her home as well. He understood, and he sympathized, a good deal more of both than was likely proper.

      And now there was this damned clause imposed by those damned Trelawneys, tying his hands and hers too….

      “I shall leave you to consider it, Captain My Lord,” said Potipher as he rose behind his desk and began bowing his way towards the office’s door. Feversham had sat empty for years, and clearly the agent meant to be as obliging as possible if it resulted in a sale. “Pray take as long as you need to reach your decision. But I fear I must remind you that there is not another property with Feversham’s special charms in all my lists, and keeping the housekeeper is such an insignificant, small condition for such a fine estate!”

      “‘Special charms’, hell,” grumbled George as the door clicked shut. “The place is such a rambling, ramshackle old pile that they should be paying me to relieve them of it.”

      Not that Brant cared one way or the other. “The housekeeper, George?” he asked, pouncing with un-abashed curiosity. “You’ve been keeping secrets from me again, brother.”

      George sighed mightily. “No secrets, Brant, for there’s nothing to tell.”

      “Nothing?” repeated Brant archly. “I’d wager ten guineas that this Miss Winslow isn’t the sort of black-clad old gorgon who ruled our youth with terror, else you would have already described her to me in the most shuddering terms. Instead you haven’t even mentioned her existence, which tells me infinitely more than any words.”

      “You will make a wager of anything,” grumbled George. This was precisely the kind of inquisition that he had wished to avoid. If there was one area where Brant delighted in displaying his superiority over his younger brother, it was his far greater experience with women—a markedly unfair advantage, really, considering that George had spent most of his adult life at sea and far from any females at all, while Brant, with his fallen-angel’s face and СКАЧАТЬ