Lord Braybrook's Penniless Bride (Harlequin Historical Series #948) [NOOK Book]

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Julian Trentham, Viscount Braybrook, bit his tongue, figuratively speaking, and reminded himself that his stepmother, Serena, considered tact the best way to deal with his wayward half-sister. Telling Lissy she sounded like a second-rate actress in a bad tragedy was not tactful.

'But it isn't fair, Mama!' said the Honourable Alicia furiously. 'Julian only met Harry for five minutes yesterday and—'

'Half an hour,' said Julian, sitting down on a sofa. 'Long enough to ascertain that, apart from his post as Sir John's secretary, he has no prospects.' He eyed the tabby cat seated on Serena's lap out of the corner of his eye. The blasted thing was convinced he adored cats. It couldn't have been more mistaken.

'Five minutes!' repeated Lissy, 'and poor Harry is declared unsuitable. Whatever that means!'

'Amongst other things, it means you'd run the fellow aground inside of a month,' said Julian, unmoved. 'Have sense, Lissy.'

The cat stretched, brilliant green eyes fixed on Julian.

Lissy glared. 'I would not!'

Serena chimed in. 'Lissy dear, I feel quite sure that charming and pleasant as Mr Daventry may—' She made a grab for the cat, but it was already flowing off her lap. 'Oh, dear. Now, where was I? Yes, Mr Daventry, I am sure he is not at all well off, so—'

'What does money matter? And anyway, he has an income!' protested Lissy.

'Two hundred a year?' Julian suppressed a snort. 'And, no, money doesn't matter. Just as long as you learn to manage without it. Otherwise you will find it matters a great deal when the bailiffs take your furniture and the landlord kicks you into the street.'

'Harry has his own house,'said Lissy. 'In Bristol. He told me.'

'A man of property, then,' said Julian. He watched, resigned, as the cat strolled with offensive confidence towards him. His setter bitch, Juno, sprawled at his feet, lifted her head and then lowered it with a doleful sigh.

'Well, I wouldn't marry Lissy,' piped up six-year-old Davy from the corner, where he was endeavouring to put together a puzzle map of Europe. 'I'm going to marry Mama.'

Somehow Julian preserved a straight face. 'Excellent notion, old chap,' he said. 'Only not unless you want to land in Newgate!'

Lissy looked as though she might have giggled, had she not been trying so hard to look affronted.

The cat sprang into his lap and made itself comfortable. Very comfortable; its claws flexed straight through his buckskin breeches.

'Never mind, dear,' said Lady Braybrook to her youngest son. 'You won't want to marry me when you are old enough anyway.'

'No, indeed,' said Julian. 'After all, Lissy no longer wishes to marry me. Do you, Liss?'

'I never did!' exploded Lissy.

'You proposed to me when you were about five,' said Julian, reminiscently. 'It was most affecting.' He turned to Davy. 'Why don't you trot off to the kitchens and see if Ellie has something for you to eat?'

Davy leapt to his feet, scattering Europe to the corners of the drawing room, and decamped before his mother could veto this excellent idea on the grounds of education or indigestion.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Lissy burst out again. 'It isn't fair, Julian! Why should you have any say in it?'

'Probably because I am your guardian,' he said. 'For my sins,' he added. 'Calm down, Lissy. You're too young to be thinking of marriage.'

'I shall be eighteen soon!' she cried, making it sound like a death sentence.

'You turned seventeen less than three months ago,' Julian pointed out. 'You're not precisely on the shelf.'

'What if it were one of your rich, titled friends?' she countered. 'Like Lord Blakehurst?'

Julian blinked. 'Since he's married, I'd shoot him! Believe it or not, I would refuse my consent to any binding betrothal until at least next year.' The cat in his lap rolled, displaying its belly in furry offering. Resigned, Julian kneaded the shameless creature.

Lissy stared. 'But, why?'

'Because you're too young,' he said. 'And don't tell me again that you're nearly eighteen!'

Deflated, Lissy said, 'But we love each other. It isn't fair. Just because he isn't wealthy—'

'Lissy—Daventry can't afford to marry you!' He strove for patience and nobly squashed his instinctive, and more cynical, reaction. 'Not with bills like the ones sent to me from Bath last month,' he said.

Lissy blushed. He hoped some of his pithy comments on the advisability of keeping a check on expenditure had sunk in. 'It is unfair, though. If we cannot see each other, then—'

'I didn't forbid him the house!' said Julian irritably. 'ForGod's sake, Lissy! Stop acting as though you were in a bad tragedy!'

Serena coughed, and Julian gritted his teeth, remembering the tact. He added, 'He seems pleasant enough, and I believe I can trust him not to go beyond the line.'

'You mean, we may meet?'

He fixed her with his best steely glare. 'If he is invited to the same entertainments, then of course you will meet. He may call here. Occasionally. But you may not meet him unchaperoned, nor exchange correspondence. And I would make the same conditions for any man courting you, even if he were a veritable Midas!'

'I suppose you think you're being generous!'

He nodded. 'Yes. Now that you mention it, I do. And if at any time you are tempted to view me as a callous tyrant,' he added, 'you might care to ponder the fact that our father would have shown Daventry the door with a horsewhip, set the dogs on him, complained to his employer, and confined you to your room for a month. At least. And think—once you are twenty-one, I will be powerless to prevent your marriage.'

Faced with this very accurate summation, Lissy set her mouth in a mutinous line. In trembling tones she said, 'If you had the least idea about love, Julian, you would understand the agony of being obliged to wait!'

She swung around and stormed out.

Serena, Lady Braybrook, said, 'I thought we agreed to be tactful?'

Julian snorted. 'Tactful? Lissy needs a dose of salts!' He removed the cat from his lap. 'What has she been reading, Serena?'

Ignoring that as wholly unimportant, Serena regarded her stepson. 'Tell me, dear—when you were seventeen—'

'Yes, all right, very well,' said Julian hurriedly, recalling some of his youthful peccadilloes. He looked away from the cat, which was staring up at him indignantly. 'At least I never wanted to marry any of them!'

At Serena's choke of laughter heat flared on his cheekbones, and the cat took advantage of his distraction to reinstate itself with fluid ease.

'So I recall,' Serena said, still laughing. 'Is Tybalt annoying you? Just put him out.'

He grimaced. 'I think I can survive one cat.' Even if it was stretching its claws on his breeches again. Serena was fond of the thing. 'Was I that much of a nuisance?'

'Worse,' she assured him. 'Whenever news of your misdemeanours at Oxford and then, after you were sent down, London, reached us, your father nearly had apoplexy.' She smiled remi-niscently. 'The worst was the rumour that Worcester was about to call you out for your attentions to Harriette Wilson.'

Julian blinked at this unabashed reference to one of his youthful follies. 'Dash it, Serena! Where did you hear that?'

'Oh, was it true, then? I told your father it was more than likely a silly invention and not to give it a moment's thought. Was I wrong?'

'He told you?' He hadn't even realised that his father knew!

Serena stared. 'Well, of course! How else could he ask my advice?'

'He asked your advice?' Julian tried, and failed, to imagine his father discussing his son's involvement with a notorious courtesan with Serena.

Grey eyes twinkling, she said, 'Frequently. Which is not to say he took it very often.' Her mouth twitched. 'Not intentionally, anyway.'

Julian decided he didn't want to know. 'Hmm. Well, I'm here now for the rest of the summer, and Lissy and Emma are off to Aunt Massingdale in the winter. Surely we can keep Lissy out of mischief until then.'

'You're staying until Parliament resumes?'

He shrugged. 'Mostly. I do need to see Modbury about some business. I'll go to Bristol for a few nights next week. Since I'm meeting with him I'll write first and ask him to find out something more about Daventry. This house, for one thing.'

'Yes, that surprised me,' said Serena.

'Modbury should be able to discover something if Daventry does own property,' said Julian. 'Apparently, Alcaston is his godfather and settled the income on him.'

Serena frowned. 'Alcaston? The duke?'

'Yes. He recommended Daventry for the post with Sir John,' said Julian. 'Will you be all right while I'm away? Are you sure you don't want Aunt Lydia to visit? Or—'

He broke off under the fire of Serena's glare.

'I may be stuck in this wretched chair, Julian, but as I've said before, that does not mean I require someone hovering over me the entire time,' she told him. 'And since that is exactly what Lydia would do, no—I do not want her to visit!'

'Very well,' he said. 'No Aunt Lydia.'

He'd have to think of someone else, because with her daughters off to Bath for the winter Serena needed a companion. He looked at her with affection. Her confinement to the wretched chair, as she put it, limited her physical independence. While he could see her point in categorically refusing her widowed sister-in-law as a companion—Lydia would fuss mercilessly and bemoan ceaselessly the unfairness of fate—who else was there?

'Julian—I don't want any well-meaning relatives fussing over me.'

'No. I understand that.' Sometimes he wondered if she could actually read his mind…he'd have to think of something else. Meanwhile he'd best write to Modbury and ask him to find out what he could about Daventry.

Ithink I've found the house you wanted, my lord. Only Daventry I could find. It's on Christmas Steps.

Yes?

Only thing, my lord—there's a young woman living there from what I could find out…a Mrs Daventry …

Good Lord! Julian stood at the top of Christmas Steps and wondered if he was insane even thinking of descending the alley. Modbury had thought so, and Julian could see his point. The alley was positively medieval, and so steep someone had actually built steps. According to Modbury it led down to the old quay, and at least once had housed the sort of establishments sailors on shore leave frequented—brothels and taverns.

You can't visit, my lord!

The hell he couldn't. Gripping his umbrella, Julian started down the slippery steps. There were two possibilities. Either Daventry kept a whore down here—it was not unknown for a woman to use her protector's name—or he was already married. On the whole, Julian thought a conveniently distant wife more likely; a mistress was only convenient if she were close enough to bed regularly. Either, however, would settle Lissy's idealistic infatuation, if a description of the alley wasn't enough.

It was dark in the alley and a dank chill closed in, with a reek of cabbage, fish and sour humanity on the breeze rattling the shop signs. The old, timbered houses with their cantile-vered upper storeys loomed over the street, holding light and fresh air at bay. A couple of seedy-looking taverns were the only hard evidence of the street's former reputation. There were few people about, but suspicious eyes followed him from doorways and windows. He consulted the address Modbury had given him—there, on the opposite side, just before the next set of steps between a fishmonger and an apothecary, was the house he sought.

A one-eyed, moth-eaten cat sheltering in the lee of the building flattened its ears and hissed, slinking away as he approached the open door.

A voice was raised.

'Now be sensible, missy. I got Mr Daventry's letter and it says, right here, "the house and all its contents"! See? All its contents. Not "all its contents if no one else happens to want them". So—'

'Well, I assume you're not planning to put me on the auction block along with my clothes and hairbrush as part of the contents!' came another voice. A prim, schoolmistressy voice a man would think twice about annoying.

The voice went on. 'And if you can make that distinction, then you should be capable of exempting the rest of my personal property.' Irony gave way to anger. 'And since Mr Daventry is my brother and not my husband, he owns neither them nor me!'

Blast! Probably not wife, then. Mistress remained a possibility…

The angry woman continued, 'When you return next week, you may have the house and all its contents because I shall have removed myself and my possessions to lodgings!'

Through the open door Julian could now see a large, beefy-looking man, in the old-fashioned knee breeches and frieze coat of a respectable tradesman. He had his back half-turned, but there was no mistaking the rising annoyance in the set of his jaw.

'Now see here, missy!' he growled, all attempt at reason abandoned. ''Twas unfortunate I misunderstood how things were, but there's no call to take that tone! I'll be calling in the sheriff and bailiffs if you remove more than your clothes and hairbrush. Everything, the letter says, and I've made a list, I have!' He brandished a piece of paper, presumably in his unseen opponent's face. 'If aught's missing, I'll have the law on you!'

It was none of his business, Julian told himself. Common sense dictated that he remain out of any legal brangle between Daventry and his sister. Only this wasn't Daventry… and exactly what situation had the man misunderstood?

The woman spoke again. 'You may leave, Goodall. I suggest you clarify your instructions with my brother. In the meantime my solicitor will call upon you.'

Goodall, far from being abashed, took a step forward, presumably towards the woman.

'Are you threatening me, missy?' His voice had turned thoroughly unpleasant.

'Leave!' Sister ornot, the undercurrent of fear in her tone flung Julian into action. Three swift strides took him over the threshold.

'Goodall!' he rapped out.

The man swung around. 'Who the hell are you?'

'The lady told you to leave,' said Julian coldly. 'As an acquaintance of Daventry, I suggest you do so before I speak with the magistrates on his behalf about entering this lady's home and harassing her. Out.'

He strode past Goodall with scarcely a glance at the woman. All he could see was that she was of medium height, bespectacled and clad in dull brown. His attention was on the aggrieved Mr Goodall, and he deliberately interposed himself between them.

Goodall flushed. 'Now, see here—'

'Out.' He delved in his pocket and pulled out his cardcase. 'As for who I am…' He took out a card and handed it to Goodall '…I'm Braybrook.'

He gestured to the door and Goodall, his face now as pale as it had been red, swallowed.

'I'm sure… that is… I didn't mean—'

'Out!'

Goodall went.

Julian closed the door and turned to receive the heartfelt gratitude of his damsel in distress—

'I have no idea who you may be, but you will oblige me by also leaving.'