The Earl Most Likely Read online

  “On the shelf, there are three containers, each with a different picture. Tell me, in order from left to right, what pictures are on those containers.”

  Harriet straightened, and beneath the blindfold, she furrowed her brows. That deep baritone, commanding yet somehow tinged with something close to…fear? She knew that voice. Her memory for sounds wasn’t quite like her memory for sights, but somewhere in her mind, trying to get out, was a name…

  “Lord Berkley,” she said, slightly louder than a whisper. They had met once, at the John Knill ball. Alice’s husband had introduced them, and he’d muttered a proper greeting, thoroughly distracted by the sight of Clara, who had been especially pretty that night. It had been a small moment, a snippet in time, but Harriet still remembered feeling suddenly more alive than she ever had in her life because he was just that beautiful. And then he’d walked away, without even really looking at her.

  She could almost see his mouth lift in a slight smile as she said his name before he replied simply, “Yes.”

  “Three containers.” She looked through the pictures in her mind. She’d been in this tea shop on numerous occasions, and she waded through the images until, finally, she found the right one. Tucked up high, so high she couldn’t imagine there was anything stored in them that was used on a regular basis, were three small white ceramic containers with red lids and small rounded filials on top.

  “On the left is a picture of a man on a horse.” She stopped, looking at that image. “And there’s a dog, running beside the horse.”

  “Go on,” Berkley said, and Harriet couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t nearly as calm as he sounded, though she couldn’t have said why she felt so.

  “In the middle is a small cottage, with a tree on the…right. A woman is standing in the door. And on the right is a horse and carriage, with a man wearing a top hat.”

  * * * *

  Augustus stared at the small containers as this woman, this ordinary woman, perfectly described the containers. She sat with Alice Southwell, his good friend’s wife, and two other women he vaguely recalled seeing before. The blindfolded one sat straight, her head tilted to one side as if she could see through the blindfold, though he was quite certain she could not. She was facing away from the containers at any rate.

  When he’d walked into the tea shop, as he did nearly every day about this time, he sat by himself with his copy of the Times and ignored everyone else around him. Once in a great while, someone would acknowledge his presence, but these occasions were rare enough to make the shop pleasant. He’d seen Mrs. Southwell enter, but chose to pretend he didn’t, and lifted up the newspaper, hiding his face from view.

  Two other women entered, and Augustus took the time to note how pretty they were. One with deep auburn hair, the other with hair thick and black and curling, and both with fine figures. He was tempted for just a moment to make his presence known to Mrs. Southwell, who would certainly have introduced him to her two pretty friends. While they looked familiar, he was quite certain he’d never met them formally; he would have remembered both of their lovely faces.

  Shortly after the women arrived, a fourth entered, smiling a greeting at her friends. She was exceptionally ordinary, wearing an ill-fitting gown that was too loose and too ugly to even contemplate. If she had a figure, it was certainly hidden by that gown. Her hair was neither blond nor brown, the color and texture of straw, and the hat she wore was something his dear grandmamma might have worn. He dismissed her immediately. Life was too short to waste any thought on such a creature.

  Picking his newspaper up again, he continued reading, only to be interrupted a short time later by raucous laughter of a type never heard in Teague’s Tea Shop. Lowering the paper, he glared in the direction of the noise, only to be surprised by the subject of everyone’s attention. The fourth woman was wearing a blindfold, facing him, and, oddly enough, he was fascinated by her mouth. He hadn’t noticed it when she’d first come in, but her mouth was the sort that drew a man’s attention—soft and pink and plush. He could stare at that pink flesh all day, he decided.

  It didn’t take long to get the gist of what game they were playing, and at first Augustus thought it was some sort of trick the girl was playing. No one could recall with such uncanny accuracy the details she did. The questions, he realized, were easy enough. Even he was able to get one or two without looking. But as her audience became more demanding, more particular, more obscure with their questions, Augustus realized he was witnessing something extraordinary.

  That was when a painful idea bloomed in his chest. A woman who could recall such detail would be invaluable to a man who was trying to restore his ruined house. Costille’s public rooms, the ones that held the most historical value, had been obliterated by his late wife and he had no idea how to go about restoring them. Tapestries, coats of arms, mosaics, paintings, furniture, chandeliers, centuries of collections, all ripped from their foundations and thrown haphazardly into a large barn on the property. He’d stood there amidst the ruin and wanted to weep, for he had no idea where anything went, and it had become critical that everything be restored to its rightful place. If this woman had toured his house as so many had over the years, she could be his savior. It almost unmanned him, the hope that bloomed in his heart.

  She pulled off the blindfold and looked up at him, and he realized with a start that this plain woman had yet another remarkable feature—pale blue eyes, the irises rimmed with a blue so deep it was nearly black.

  “I have one more question for you,” he said, his heart pounding in his chest even as he silently chastised himself for his hope. “Have you ever toured Costille House?”

  Her beautiful lips turned up in a smile. “Indeed, I have, my lord. Twice, as a matter of fact.”

  Augustus took a step back, her words too perfect even to contemplate. “Allow me to introduce myself—”

  “We have met, my lord. At the John Knill ball.” She looked down at the table, annoyingly shy or coy, and Augustus wondered what he could have said or done at the ball to create such a reaction to his presence. “Mr. Southwell introduced us.” She looked over at Alice Southwell and let out a small laugh. “It was at that very moment you saw my sister, Clara Anderson.”

  He hadn’t the first idea what she was talking about. Oh, he remembered Clara Anderson; she was not the type of woman easily forgotten. But he had no recollection of being introduced to anyone at the John Knill… Then he remembered Henderson making some sort of introduction to something in a dress, but he’d already been looking at Clara, and once a man did that, nothing else mattered.

  “Yes, Miss Anderson. I do recall now,” he said. He stopped and greeted the other women at the table, who were watching their exchange with interest.

  “Would you like to join us, Lord Berkley?” Alice asked. It would hardly be comfortable, five around a table that was better suited for three, and Augustus had no desire to make idle chit-chat with the women. Besides, he didn’t miss the look of pure panic on Miss Anderson’s face when Mrs. Southwell issued that invitation.

  “Thank you, no,” he said. What he needed to ask Miss Anderson required privacy and no doubt his most persuasive arguments. He had no idea what he would do if she said no to his proposition. Kidnapping might be one solution. But, no, it was bad enough he’d once been a murder suspect; he didn’t need kidnapping on his list of transgressions.

  Augustus’s late father kept a book of secrets on nearly every man of importance in England, and he wondered if his sire had bothered to create a file on Mr. Anderson. Likely not, since the man was not involved in politics, but it was worth searching for if Miss Anderson decided not to help him. He wasn’t opposed to blackmail, even if the subject was a woman with lush, pink lips.

  He waited for her outside a small distance away, pretending to enjoy the scenery of the place. As a boy, he’d spent most of his time in St. Ives; it was the home of his heart
. These streets were familiar, like friends he hadn’t seen in decades—changed but somehow very much the same. When he was seven, his father had sent him away to school, and he returned only in the summer, angry and sullen but secretly exultant to be back home. He’d always feared that if he’d shown how very happy he was to be home, his father would not have allowed it. Now, with his father dead, Costille House was his, at least what was left of it.

  Finally, the four women emerged, three with their brightly colored dresses: blue, yellow, burnished red. And then Miss Anderson in gray. They embraced, laughed at something Alice Southwell said, then split apart—two going north, Mrs. Southwell south, and Miss Anderson west. He waited for her to take a few steps before following behind, puzzled by the sudden change in her. She’d been lively in the little tea shop, eyes sparkling, joyful, at least until he’d inserted himself into their game. Now as he watched, it seemed as if before his eyes she’d turned into another woman altogether. She walked quickly, head down, body tense, as if she were waiting for something to bound out and attack her. Her hands were fisted in her skirts, and he wondered if she were late and worried about being in some sort of trouble. Then she stopped abruptly outside a small shop and stared into the window, a small smile on her lips. Then, she hurried on, as if she’d reminded herself she was late for something.

  It mattered naught if that were the case; Augustus needed to speak to her, needed to persuade her to help him.

  “Miss Anderson,” he shouted, and she stopped still, the way a mouse does when a cat is about to pounce. Slowly she turned around and looked at him, eyes wide, rather horrified, he thought, that someone had dared call out to her in the middle of St. Ives.

  “My lord,” she said, and gave him an awkward little curtsy, her cheeks flushed, her eyes not quite meeting his. Where had the girl from the tea shop gone?

  * * * *

  Harriet watched Lord Berkley walk toward her, slightly bothered that he took a moment to peer through the store window at what she’d been looking at. It was a silly thing, a porcelain figurine of a fairy sitting on a rock, but she’d secretly coveted it for a few weeks now, and always checked to be certain it was still there. As he approached her, she was unsure what she should do, and even whether he’d meant for her to stop. Perhaps, she thought, he was simply calling a hello. She hesitated as he approached, suddenly horrified by the thought he was going in the same direction as she and wanted company. She created a mental picture of Costille House and her house and realized he very likely was going in the same direction. What would possess him to call out to her like that? Anyone passing by would see her and him and report back to her mother. On that thought, she spun around and continued her hasty retreat home, only to have him call out to her again, laughter clear in his voice.

  “Are we racing, then?” he asked, trotting up beside her.

  She gave him a quick look, her feet moving even faster on the cobblestones. “I’m returning home, my lord.”

  “Please, I have a question for you.”

  Without slowing down, she said, “You may ask it.”

  “I need your help, miss. I am restoring Costille House, you see, and I am having difficulties recalling precisely what it looked like prior to my wife’s renovations. I thought, with your proclivity for memorization, that perhaps...” He let his voice trail off.

  Harriet stopped and stared ahead at the well-worn path that led to her family’s home. It was a gloriously sunny day, cold despite the sun, and the leaves on the trees created a colorful canopy overhead. She’d always loved walking this path in the fall, kicking up the leaves beneath her feet, gold, red and brilliant orange. After giving the path a look of longing, she turned to Lord Berkley.

  He frightened her. It wasn’t that he was an earl—though that was a large part of it—but rather that he was so large, so powerful, so beautiful. In the tea shop, it had been easy to have a pleasant conversation with a stranger. Her friends had been nearby, laughing and having a grand time. She was always able to be comfortable when she was with Alice, Eliza, and Rebecca. They were as close to her as Clara was, and far more understanding.

  Now, standing alone with him, his intense dark-blue eyes assessing her, his mouth set, stern and hard, she found it difficult to speak. Inside, her stomach tightened sickeningly, and for a moment, her mind went terribly blank.

  “I…Are you quite all right, Miss Anderson?”

  She lifted her head, blinking rapidly, wishing with all her being that he would go away. “What did you want, my lord?”

  He let out a low chuckle. “I don’t plan torture or murder, miss.”

  Harriet shot him a look, angry suddenly, that he should be so rude as to point out her very real fear of him. Oh, she didn’t believe he would harm her, but simply talking to him made her heart feel as though it was about to leap from her chest. “If you could more clearly state what you want, my lord.”

  He narrowed his eyes, not liking her impertinence, but Harriet didn’t care. She wanted this interview over so that she might escape down the path and go home to her wonderfully empty house. “With your remarkable memory,” he said with what sounded like forced patience, “I thought that perhaps you could assist me in restoring my home to the way it was. I am at a loss and it is vital that Costille House be returned to her former state.”

  “Her,” Harriet whispered, finding that a charming way to think of a house. She closed her eyes briefly, seeing in her mind the great hall, the massive fireplace, so large she could stand upright in it. An entire cow could have been cooked in that fireplace, and probably had. Both tours had been delightful, like stepping back to a time when knights were real, when ladies gave their lovers tokens before a joust. When she opened her eyes, she was almost startled to see Lord Berkley staring at her, impatient, almost angry.

  “I will help you, Lord Berkley.”

  His face was transformed by a sudden, brilliant smile. “Marvelous,” he said, clapping his hands together loudly and making Harriet flinch slightly. “Can you come with me now to take a look? I fear I may have understated the extent to which my wife changed Costille. It looks nothing like it did.”

  “Now?” Harriet asked, slightly bewildered by this turn of events. “I must…” You must do nothing, she realized. No one expected her home; no one even knew where she was. “It happens I do have some time today, my lord.”

  Her maid, Jeanine, had gone with Clara so that her sister might look her best when meeting the baron, so not even she would note her absence. Harriet rarely used her services, except when straightening her hair on infrequent occasions. Mostly, she combed out her thick curls, then forced them into a neat bun as she had done today. Any strands that escaped looked a bit like kinky, dead grass—at least that’s what Clara had said one day in jest. Clara had been blessed with burnished gold hair, thick and shining. More than once Jeanine had sighed with the pleasure of styling her sister’s hair. “It’s your glory, it is,” she’d say.

  “Excellent. It’s only the public rooms, but they are the most historically important and most likely the ones you toured. They’d remained unchanged for three hundred years.” His mouth tightened. “Until recently, that is.”

  As they walked, Harriet was profoundly aware of Lord Berkley next to her. They walked a distance apart, he slightly ahead for he hadn’t thought to shorten his stride to accommodate her smaller stature. Harriet found herself walking rather quickly in an effort to keep up with his seemingly casual stride.

  “How much of the house do you remember? Anything is better than what I have now. When I think…” He slowed as if suddenly aware of how quickly she’d been walking in an attempt to keep up. “My pardon, Miss Anderson.” He slowed his gait, giving her a small, wry smile. “We had a small fire at Costille when I was a boy, and my father, realizing how close he’d come to losing the house, commissioned an artist to make careful drawings of every room. Each corner, each wall, each inch o
f that house was recorded and stored in my father’s library. My wife burned the drawings.”

  Harriet gasped, stunned by the cruelty of such an act. What kind of hatred could have produced such animosity? And how much anger would such destruction incite in a man who loved his home? Harriet’s love of the macabre and her remarkable memory meant she was much aware of the mystery surrounding Lady Greenwich’s death, including the quick inquiry conducted by St. Ives’ sole constable. It had been reported in St. Ives’ newspaper, and she easily recalled the salient points: Found dead in the courtyard. Heard nothing. Saw nothing. I believe she had been drinking.

  “My father, thank God, never saw Costille in her current form. So you see, Miss Anderson, you truly are my only hope of restoring her to her former glory. Do you truly think you can help? It must be years since you saw the place.”

  Could she help? Certainly, she would not be able to help restore areas she had not seen, but she would be able to recall a great deal. She stopped walking and closed her eyes. “The entrance to the house is off a courtyard. The door is heavy, a dark wood, mahogany I think, carved with oak leaves and in one corner, the top right, is a clever little squirrel. The door opens to a large foyer. It’s lovely in the afternoon, for the sun streams through the high windows and I recall a large suit of armor, a very fierce-looking fellow. His suit had been engraved with little figures and there was a symbol, much like a figure eight.” She opened her eyes to find Lord Berkley staring at her as if she were some sort of apparition. “Do you know what those symbols were?”

  His laughter took her off guard. “You are a miracle, Miss Anderson. I have no idea what that symbol meant, but that you recall it at all is remarkable. Come, let us not dawdle, there is much that needs to be done.” With a determined step, he began walking, again making Harriet hurry to keep up.