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      Chapter Two

      Always prepare for the worst, and you’ll never be disappointed.

      This was hardly the sort of cheerful altruism that guided the lives of most English peers. Blue blood and privilege didn’t generally go hand-in-hand with such sturdy pessimism. But although Captain Lord George Claremont had in fact been born the legitimate second son of the Duke of Strachen, he’d learned from hard experience that the worst could be lurking around the next corner, and all too often was.

      No wonder, then, that as George leaned back against the musty leather squabs of the hired carriage, he concentrated on how best to attack the rest of this gray Kent morning.

      No, not attack. He was in the civilian world now, and civilians did not take kindly to attacking of any sort. He must remember that, even if it broke a habit of eighteen years’ standing. Impatiently he brushed away a speck of lint from the gold-laced sleeve of his good dress coat, refusing to believe it had been quite so long that he’d worn a uniform of the same dark blue.

      Sweet damnation, it had been eighteen years, hadn’t it? He hadn’t paused to do the figuring for a while, but the facts were still the same. He’d been only eleven when he’d been unceremoniously sent to sea, as wretched and homesick an excuse for a midshipman in His Majesty’s Navy as was ever created. But the Navy had given him a structure and values that his own family had never had, and against all his wishes he’d survived, even prospered. Now, at twenty-nine, he had risen to be a full captain of one of the fastest frigates in the service with a crack crew of seamen to match, and as thoroughly content with his lot as any man had a right to be in this life.

      Or rather he had been content, before the politicians had signed that infernal peace and he’d been deposited on the beach like every other good sailor. At least he was better off than most of his fellow-officers, and with a grumbled oath he remembered the fantastic good fortune that had, finally, brought him here to Kent.

      He glanced once more at the printed sheet that the property agent had given him in London.

      FEVERSHAM HALL

      A Most Handsome & Agreeable Seat of the

      First Order in the County of Kent

      Discreetly Situated & Elegantly Appointed

      Highly Suitable for a Gentleman’s Family

      Available for Immediate

      Consideration & Possession

      The crude drawing beneath this proclamation showed an old-fashioned, rambling house from the stately days of Queen Bess, with dark timbers criss-crossing white plaster walls and diamond-patterned windows. Roses bloomed on either side of the front door and handsome old trees shaded the curving drive, and in the distance was a picturesque glimpse of shining water and an improbable winged goddess with a trumpet hovering over the waves.

      Ever skeptical, George frowned at the illustration. “Elegantly Appointed”, hah: most likely there were bats in the chimneys and mice in the walls, and the slates on a roof that old were sure to let in the rain in torrents. He’d no more real use for a grand house in the country like this one than he did for a three-legged cockerel.

      He didn’t hunt and he didn’t give grand entertainments that lasted for weeks, the two usual reasons for country living. He didn’t feel the imperative to have a home tagged onto his name, of always being referred to as “Lord George Claremont of Pretentious Hall.” Besides, he’d no intention of lingering on land any longer than he had to, and as for the family that required the suitable arranging that the advertisement had promised—he certainly didn’t have so much as a wife, nor, given his career, was he ever likely to acquire one.

      Yet for the first time in his life he had the means to support the title he’d been born to. He hadn’t inherited the dukedom or their father’s debts with it, thank God, the way his older brother Brant had, but he was still a Claremont, and there were certain obligations to the family that should—and now could—be maintained. He was an officer of the king, too. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life ashore living in the same ragtag lodgings over a tavern in Portsmouth.

      The carriage slowed to turn off the main road, and with new interest George studied the landscape. There was a wildness to this part of Kent that he’d always liked, so different from the plump, sunny contentedness of his native Sussex. It had the additional advantages of being far enough from Portsmouth to excuse him from calling on admirals’ wives, yet almost exactly equidistant between Claremont Hall, where Brant lived, and Chowringhee, the oddly named house that his younger brother Revell had built for his new wife Sara.

      On this overcast day, the flat gray of the sky seemed to merge with the silvery sweep of the Romney Marshes, a place that fell somewhere between land and the restless waters of the Channel. This coast was known to have an unhappy history, replete with shipwrecks and smuggling, and it looked it. The few scattered trees had been bent and gnarled by the wind, and as far as the horizon stretched George could see no friendly curls of smoke to mark a cottage chimney. He’d not be troubled by inquisitive neighbors, that was certain. A desultory handful of gulls riding the wind and a herd of shaggy brown sheep, huddled along a stone wall for shelter as they grazed at the stubbled grass, were the only living things in the entire bleak picture.

      The driver turned again and swore as he struggled to control the weary horses. The new road was narrower and even more rutted, and George braced himself to keep from being bounced from his seat to the floor. One more way to hold unwanted visitors at bay, he thought wryly, and craned his neck for his first glimpse of the house that surely must be near.

      And once again, he’d been wise to expect the worst.

      Clearly the London artist who’d been called upon to draw the house had never seen it for СКАЧАТЬ