An Improper Arrangement

“Bellamy, and he was being fitted with a new rig-out when it happened. Word has it the waistcoat was to be striped orange satin, so at least Society was spared that.”

“He’d ordered new clothes to celebrate his sixtieth birthday?”

Gabriel stood up, smoothed down his cuffs. He was a tall man, much more so than his rather squat friend, so he was used to looking down at him whenever he spoke. He did so now, raising one expressive eyebrow in mock disapproval. “Who’s telling this story? Yes, he was four days from his sixtieth, and there was to be quite a large celebration at Cranbrook House in Portman Square scheduled for the night after that birthday. Uncle Bellamy was out to prove the curse wrong.”

Now Rigby was on his feet, all eagerness. “Oh, now that’s something you forgot to mention. There’s a curse? Keep going, please. Nothing like a good curse to liven an otherwise dull afternoon.”

“Picked up on that, did you? Uncle Basil thinks so, yes. The moment word reached him that he was now the heir—they were in Venice, I believe—he packed up Aunt Vivien and has been hiding here at Cranbrook Chase ever since. He’s convinced his father and brothers lived too high and too hard—rather in the way he and Aunt Vivien were living—and the jealous fates had exacted a price for their excesses. He’s given up traveling, wine, song, adventure. And women. According to Aunt Vivien—who unfortunately shares everything other than her age—that includes her. His major worry is that he left redemption too late and won’t even live long enough to, well, erp.”

“I see. Well, not actually, but go on. Wait. Before you do, how did your father die? And when?”

“That took longer than I expected, but thank you anyway for your concern. My father never reached sixty, either.”

“Aha! You live a fairly high life, my friend. Why aren’t you hiding out up there with your great-uncle, perhaps reciting Psalms?”

“Papa accidently shot himself in a rather personal area of his anatomy while out hunting with his friends, who said they’d honestly tried but couldn’t find a way to attach a tourniquet.”

Rigby politely coughed into his hand, undoubtedly to cover a smile, and Gabriel just as politely ignored the gesture. “And before you ask, my grandfather, brother of the first duke, passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of eighty-two. I think I’m safe, my only problem being that I’m now the sole heir of—to borrow from the Greek—that hypochondriac hiding in his bedchamber, and his sixtieth birthday is fast approaching.”

“So are we here to plan a party to mark the day or a funeral?”

“Neither. I received a note—no, a command—from Aunt Vivien, informing me of her return from America. I’m to meet her here because, God help me, she has a surprise for me.”

“Not a good thing, I take it?”

“That depends. Would you have liked to be, I’m fairly certain, the only child ever to have a stuffed lemur—grinning, mind you, and with beady glass eyes—in your nursery? I’ve also got, just to list a few, cowbells from Switzerland, a gondolier’s hat and pole from Venice, some sort of strange white coat—I refuse to call it a gown—from India. Oh, and a bull’s ears and tail from Spain. There was also a monkey, but, alas, the thing died on the voyage home. I would probably have liked the monkey.”

“I think I’d like to see the lemur before I give you an answer. So what do you think she’s brought you from the wilds of America? I’ve seen drawings of some fairly fantastical feathered bonnets their Indians seem to favor. Think of the stir you’d cause in London, going out on the strut wearing one of those.”

Gabriel looked at Rigby questioningly. “Remind me again exactly why I let you tag along with me? Clearly you’re not going to be at all helpful.”

“I’m to back you as you lie barefaced to the duchess when you say you can’t linger here because you’re in hot pursuit of a certain young lady in London and have promised her you’ll be there for the Little Season.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now. But not one lady. Several. I’ve decided, as Uncle’s last and only heir, that I must marry, set up my nursery. Never say just one, for God’s sake, or Aunt Vivien will want to meet her. She’ll be happy enough I’ve taken her advice and set out to produce several heirs of my own.”

“You probably should try for something else while you’re at it,” his friend suggested.

“Such as?”

“Such as, since you say you’re not all hot to be the seventh duke anytime soon, making certain Uncle Basil wakes up hale and hearty, to greet the sun the day after his sixtieth birthday.”

“And how do you propose I manage that? According to him, there’s an erp out there somewhere just waiting for him between now and November.”

“True. But think on this for a moment, Gabe. If he does croak before his sixtieth, that would make five of the first six dukes of Cranbrook clearly carrying some sort of curse with their title.”

“Nobody’s noticed yet.”

Rigby grinned, his slightly pudgy face turning him into a red-haired cherub. “They will when I tell them. It’s the best story I’ve heard in years. You didn’t mention the first duke. Was he another erp?”

Gabe was beginning to feel uncomfortable, and Rigby’s good humor wasn’t helping him. “He was competing in a steeplechase, his always reliable mount balked at a five-barred gate and the duke went flying over it.”

“Maybe the horse heard an erp, and that’s what stopped him. And…? I can see by your expression that there’s more.”

“And the first duke, Bryam by name, was only a few days shy of his sixtieth birthday.”

Rigby spread his arms wide. “And there you have it. The Cranbrook Curse. Destined to cock up your toes, almost like clockwork, before truly hitting your stride, and cursing your offspring to the same sad fate. Nobody would marry you, Gabe. I wouldn’t wish to bear your children.”

“Well, thank the gods for that, at least,” Gabe responded sarcastically, cocking his head at what he believed was the sound of a carriage coming up the drive. “Come on. I think my aunt may be arriving. And if you repeat a word to her of what we’ve said in the past half hour, I will personally stuff and mount you beside Lord Lemur.”

“You’ve really still got the thing? You even named it? And you don’t think that’s at least passing strange? May I see it?” Rigby picked up his pace in an effort to keep up with the long-legged Gabriel as they headed toward the massive stone edifice that was Cranbrook Chase. “In any event, there’s nothing else for it, old son. Somehow, someway, you have to keep Uncle Basil alive and kicking for at least another year. If I may remind you again, you already said you’re in no hurry to be duke.”

Gabriel stopped so quickly, his friend nearly ran into him. “All right, you’ve made your point. I don’t believe in this curse because there is no curse. All of the Cranbrook dukes drank and caroused like Roman emperors of old, and probably were lucky to survive as long as they did. My uncle’s only problem is that he’s probably worrying himself to death—but I, according to you, with no idea how to do it—am now charged with single-handedly saving him from—”

“Not single-handedly. I’m more than happy to lend you my assistance. It seems only fair, as I’m the one who’s going to spread the rumor of the be-cursed Bs the moment we’re back in town. Now come on—I’m anxious to see what the duchess brought you this time.”

“Whatever it is, you can have it,” Gabriel told him as they rounded the edge of the building and approached the traveling coach.

Even from this distance, he quickly recognized his aunt’s petite, pillowy form as a footman assisted her down the folding steps to the ground. Her masses of silver hair were coiled into long girlish curls, which reminded him of sausages hanging in a shop window, and were topped by an enormous floppy hat seemingly fashioned out of a dozen circular layers of lavender silk. Her gown, similarly colored and even more embellished with thin silken layers that blew about in the breeze, was curiously abbreviated, exposing her ankles and the dark purple-heeled shoes on her small dimpled feet, the purple an exact match to the tiny bunches of artificial grapes tucked here and there on her skirt.

“The duchess?” Rigby whispered. “She puts me in mind of a—hmm, I don’t know what, but some sort of confection.”

But Gabriel wasn’t listening. He was too engrossed in watching as another leg appeared, a female leg supported by a slim foot and the most perfect ankle he’d ever seen…and he considered himself a good judge, as he’d seen his share.

A yellow straw bonnet exited next, to be neatly caught by the footman.

Only then did a young woman put out her second leg and completely show herself, posing on the top step in a butter-yellow gown while steadying her hands against either side of the door as she slowly observed her surroundings.

Her hair was black, without a hint of red or gold as the sun hit it; unbound, gently caressed by the breeze. In profile, she was perfection, from the straight yet intriguingly flared nose, to the clean line of her chin…to the lush curve of her bosom.

And then she turned to look in his direction, and he saw the fullness of her pink lips as they slowly curved in a smile. She had freckles dancing on her slightly golden skin. Her eyes were nearly as black as her hair. And her brows.? How to describe those brows? They were thick, beginning just above the inside edge of her eyes and very nearly straight, only arching down as they met the edges of her brow bone. Dark wings, that’s what they were, and uniquely fascinating.

She could have been a warrior queen. Lord knows in his salad days he would have followed her anywhere, probably spouting an ode to her eyebrows. Good thing he was older now, and wiser.

“Ah, Gabriel, there you are!” his aunt called out, waving a lace-edged handkerchief in his direction. “Come here, come here. Don’t dawdle, Sunny! Look at the surprise I promised you. Thea—wave to Gabriel!”

“That’s it? That’s your surprise? She’s your surprise? The one you said I could have?” Rigby clapped Gabriel on the back hard enough to stagger him. “You’re a true sport, sonny boy—that’s what you are.”

CHAPTER TWO

DOROTHEA NEVILLE QUICKLY turned her head and lowered her chin, knowing it wouldn’t be polite to laugh at either the stunned-ox man or the grinning one. Nor should she wonder what words had been exchanged between them as they approached, although she was certain they concerned her.

She shouldn’t have removed her bonnet and taken down her hair. But with the off-window pulled down, the breeze had been too enticing to miss for the sake of propriety.

It was one of her greatest failings—among many, according to her mother—that had ended badly, also always the warning from her mother.

She looked unkempt, windblown, and tossing her bonnet at the footman while calling out, “Catch!” couldn’t be listed among her best ideas.

But who would know there would be witnesses?

And wasn’t it a good thing the duchess had spoken up before Dorothea had leaped down the two remaining folding stairs, just happy to be moving again, rather than sitting confined in the traveling coach, her knees practically glued to her chin.

She stepped down carefully, holding up her gown just enough to see her way on the steps, and stood beside the duchess for a moment before moving a few feet away, as she always felt like a giant when in the woman’s proximity.

That was because the duchess was, although wide, quite small.

No, that wasn’t true. It was because Dorothea knew herself to be that tall. She towered over her own mother, her stepfather and her two half sisters, stuck out (or up) like a towering oak surrounded by saplings.

Not that she rolled her shoulders forward or attempted to stoop when in company, because she was proud of her height. She was her father’s child, and he had been tall, was still tall, curse him…quite possibly as tall as one of the gentlemen now approaching, hats in hand, with the taller one quick to bend over the duchess’s offered hand.

“Aunt,” he said now, “welcome home. The duke is upstairs, dying.”

The woman frowned. “Again? He promised not to do that while I was gone. What is it this time? Is he seeing spots? He hasn’t done that in a while.”

“He hasn’t mentioned spots, no, although I recall hearing something about ill-humors. I’m afraid I wasn’t attending his words all that closely.”

The duchess nodded, the many silken tiers of her bonnet nodding with her. “Don’t apologize, Sunny, we none of us do.”

Dorothea exchanged looks with the second gentleman, obviously not the grandnephew and heir, who was looking as perplexed as she at this lighthearted exchange. But then he smiled, and she decided they would be friends. She smiled back.

“Sonny boy,” the gentleman said, nudging the grandnephew, “have you considered introducing me to the duchess…and company?”

Now it seemed time for the two gentlemen to exchange glances, but nobody smiled. Indeed, they seemed to stare each other down for a brief uncomfortable second, before the nephew turned to the duchess and asked if he might be allowed to introduce his friend, Sir Jeremiah Rigby, baronet.

The duchess murmured something vaguely proper. She offered her hand to be bowed over and then turned back to her grandnephew. “Gabriel, Sir Jeremiah, it would be my great pleasure to introduce to you both my lovely new friend from Virginia, Miss Dorothea Neville. Show off your pretty curtsy for them, my dear, so that we may all go inside and out of this confounding breeze before my bonnet takes to the four winds.”

Thea did as she was bid—she’d found that to be easier than taking anything the duchess said to heart or as an insult—holding out her hand at the same time. The baronet, who was closer in any event, made an elaborate bow over that hand before stepping back to allow Gabriel Sinclair to do the same.

His hand barely grazed hers and he made a rather perfunctory bow, his gaze locking with hers for a moment before he shook his head as if to deny something he’d been thinking. “Miss Neville,” he said before turning to offer his aunt his arm, leaving Rigby to escort her up the marble steps and into the foyer of the impressive edifice that was Cranbrook Chase.

Bit of a prig, isn’t he, she thought, staring at the man’s back. He’s extremely handsome, but I believe I’d much rather he be personable. I’ll have to work on that, if I’m going to be in his company for any length of time.

Once inside, she refused to gape at the impressive foyer and its several stories’ height topped by an enormous oval glass dome that flooded the area with sunlight. Nor would she mention that the area was large enough—granted, if the furniture was removed—to host a cricket match and its assembled audience.

It wasn’t that she was a stranger to either size or beauty of architecture. Virginia was very well populated with mansions of all sorts, many of them built in the tradition of the owners’ grand homes in England.

She simply hadn’t ever before seen at least three dozen gilded birdcages of every shape and size such as those hanging here, situated there, clustered close together in corners, all of them filled with a gorgeous array of exotic birds. Birds of every color, every size. Birds with eyes that looked unreal, birds with beaks as bright as the sun or as long and black as ebony. Oranges and green and shockingly bright blues, birds with long tail feathers or strange feather plumage sticking up from the tops of their heads.

A near forest of vegetation she couldn’t recognize was spread about in enormous brass pots. Plants with drooping fronds the size of elephant ears, tall, single-trunked trees of some sort, wearing not bark but something more like exotic shingles and topped by wild green headdresses of spiked greenery. She did recognize the palm trees, as she’d seen those in Virginia. She’d never seen a banana tree, but she was fairly certain she was seeing one now, bunches of small green fruit hanging some twenty feet above the black-and-white-tiled floor.

Strangely—hardly as strange as the rest of it, but strange nonetheless—there seemed to be a two-sided balcony strung about a third of the way between floor and dome. An observation platform? And she’d thought her stepfather odd for insisting his new landau had canary-yellow wheels simply because he’d seen one like it in Hyde Park during his last visit to England.

A peacock strutted by, followed by his drab peahen, and then stopped to fan its fine feathers before moving on.

There was a pair of liveried footmen working amid it all, pouring water, picking up stray feathers, sweeping up, one would suppose, after the peacocks. One of the cages was open, a footman half stuck inside, reaching for something Thea probably didn’t want to identify.

Fires burned in a pair of huge matching fireplaces facing each other across the immense hall, and in the center of it all was—

“A fountain? A waterfall? But…but that’s not possible.” Thea hadn’t meant to say anything, but how could one not?

She wished she’d retained her bonnet, so that she could fan herself in the heat of the place.

Jeremiah Rigby bent his head close to hers. “I’m told the duke and duchess once traveled extensively and brought home reminders of their trips. Later you might want to apply to sonny boy if you’ve never seen a stuffed lemur.”

“Stuffed?” Thea looked at the nearest cage, relieved to see the pair of small birds—lovebirds of some sort?—were busily rubbing necks together. “These are all alive, aren’t they, not just a few of them?”

“They are, and with the parrots and such among them, many will probably outlive all of us. I can’t tell you how often my friend gushes to me about how thrilled he is by that news.”

“You’re being facetious, aren’t you?”

“Madly so. I fear all these lovely birds will be somewhere other than this grand hall once he’s in residence.”

“The air does smell rather sour. I knew the duchess badly desired to bring a pair of our local cranes to England with us, but my stepfather warned her the birds probably wouldn’t survive the voyage. I never imagined this.”

The duchess, who had been admiring her birds, must have overheard, for she came over to Thea to explain. “Basil is the genius behind it all, you know. Once he became duke, I complained to him about the sad, overcrowded state of the aviary, and this is the result. It was my dear cousin’s house in Virginia that helped spark the idea, as he’d thought it quite clever to place doors at both the front and the rear of the house, to encourage summer breezes, so Basil ordered the removal of a stuffy old den that once stood in the way and added a half-dozen French doors along the rear. We often open both sets of doors to the elements, during clement weather, of course. The peacocks tend to wander off, but they always return.”

Finally Gabriel Sinclair said something. “My aunt fails to mention that he only closed in the staircases after it became apparent that accidentally loosed birds tend to migrate. If we’ve seen enough?” He gestured toward a set of doors to his right.

“Yes, yes, let’s take ourselves upstairs,” the duchess agreed. “Although I should be going at once to Basil.”

“He’ll keep,” Gabriel said. “At least for another few months.”

The duchess playfully slapped his arm. “Naughty boy! He’s not going to die, no matter how much he’s talked himself into this silly idea of a curse. And if he is, well, I refuse to see him do it hiding here. And that’s what I want to talk about. Come along, dearest Thea—you’re a large part of this.”

Now the nephew was looking at her that way again, whatever that was. Perhaps he was working on developing a squint? Really, it was most disturbing. She didn’t need him. Not really. She would do what she would do and not request his help, no matter what the duchess thought.

Once more she allowed Sir Jeremiah to offer his arm to her. One of the footmen hastened to push open the double doors, and she found herself looking up at what had once probably been an impressive staircase, curving up and toward the great hall. She followed along dutifully to the top.

“To your left, Miss Neville, that door leads to the balcony that rides over the aviary and into the west wing and a matching staircase. To your right, the entrance to the grand salon. Aunt?”

“I know it looks terrible, Sunny, but it was necessary.”

“None of this was necessary.”

Thea had to agree with Gabriel Sinclair. If one wished to reside in a jungle, one could easily find a jungle and, well…reside. She actually began to feel pity for the man. Perhaps being heir to a dukedom wasn’t all one would suspect it to be.

She caught his eye once they’d adjourned to the grand salon and she’d taken up her seat beside the duchess on a quite lovely striped satin couch. When he returned her look, she smiled, hopefully sweetly, and then carefully removed her gloves and folded her hands in her lap. They would leave the past awkward minutes behind them and begin again.

“You had a pleasant voyage?” Gabriel asked, directing his question at her.

Ah, he was agreeing with her. They would begin again.

“It was delightful, sir, yes. We left Virginia well ahead of any thought of a late-summer tropical storm, and the entire crossing was blissfully uneventful.”

There. That was polite, informative, and if he seemed to be faintly surprised by her crisp, precise, cultured English, he only showed that reaction for a moment.

The duchess was already fussing with the tea tray one of the servants had carried into the room, pouring out tea and handing around thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches.

“How fortunate. And this is your first trip to England, Miss Neville?” Yes, he was definitely curious. Had he thought she’d drawl out every vowel, a laziness of speech her half sisters had fallen into, much to their mother’s despair?

“It is, yes.”

Sir Jeremiah looked at his friend, as if they’d come to some sort of conclusion. She wasn’t certain if it was a happy or sad conclusion, but they had decided something.

“I’d only ever sailed from England.”

Another exchange of glances. A decision possibly reconsidered.

Really. How rude of the two of them. She hoped the duchess would interject herself, explain, but she seemed to be engrossed in counting out sugar cubes to place in her tea.

“I was born an Englishwoman, sir. My brother and I both, although he was older than I, and since I’m two and twenty, that was a long time ago. He was taken off by a fever before I was born. In any case, we left England to settle in Virginia, where there were no sad memories facing my parents at every turn. Mama was horribly upset, fearing I’d never return for a London Season, but Papa promised he’d never do any such thing.” She looked down at her hands, mostly because she didn’t want Gabriel Sinclair to see something dangerously revealing in her eyes. “Unfortunately, he perished during his return voyage to England to settle the last of his affairs.”

“A family of tragedies,” Gabriel said, nodding. “My condolences.”

Thea squirmed slightly in her seat. She’d probably offered more information than either man needed, but the way they both kept looking at her was unnerving, and she had a tendency to babble when nervous. Her mother remarked on it all the time. She really was a sad disappointment to her mother, at least most of the time. The poor woman would have slid into a faint the moment her daughter had revealed her advanced age.

The duchess, at last done stirring her tea, said, “Thea’s mother became a bosom chum while I visited my cousin the first time Basil and I went to America, and we renewed our friendship during this last trip. Although I’ve never had a daughter, I could feel her pain when she spoke about her late husband’s sworn promise, and the disappointment of her beloved oldest daughter not being given the Season her father and she had so desired. There was nothing else for it, of course. In all charity, I couldn’t help but offer to bring Thea here with me.”