His Countess (Victorian Decadence Book 3) Page 2

  The chap across from him, Gideon thought his name was Beakham or some such, flinched at his vulgar response. Well, too bloody bad. He’d better get used to the fact that Lord Gideon Banks, the new Earl of Taunton, did and said whatever the hell he pleased.

  “Yes, my lord. The Sixth Earl of Taunton.”

  “Good God,” he muttered. “Me, Gideon Banks—a bloody earl.”

  The other man cleared his throat.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Gideon demanded.

  “I wanted to apprise you of the fact that the family name is actually Dornan.”

  Gideon shrugged. “You can call me Marie Bloody Antoinette if you like, but for the purposes of my significant business interests I will remain Gideon Banks.”

  The solicitor swallowed and nodded, his gaze shifting nervously.

  Good, Gideon liked to keep his subordinates on their toes. Hell, he liked keeping everyone he dealt with on his or her toes. Well, that wasn’t quite true; he actually enjoyed several other positions a great deal more.

  The older man cleared his throat. “When it comes to your new duties, if you need assistance with, er, issues of deportment or —”

  “I don’t need assistance with a damned thing and I’m plenty familiar with how nobs deport themselves.”

  Gideon had briefly rubbed shoulders with titled toffs at Oxford. Indeed, he’d quite liked several of them, until his arse had been tossed out for fucking the bagwig’s daughter. It wasn’t that he didn’t deserve getting tossed out because he most certainly had fucked her. But he’d been fucking her along with two others—a lord this and an honorable that—neither of whom had received so much as a slap on their delicate wrists for shoving their cocks into the little tart.

  He shrugged off the ancient gripe; that was the way of the world.

  Gideon saw the other man was waiting, his eyes assessing him in a way that spoke as loudly as words. He was thinking, Gideon suspected, that the new earl looked like a lord—or at least he greatly resembled the storybook princes one often saw in picture books.

  Gideon did look like those princes; fair-haired, blue-eyed, tall, and well formed, but he knew that he fairly reeked of dissipation. Still, that was yet another characteristic so many aristocrats possessed.

  “So,” Gideon said, leaning back in his chair and resting his expensively booted ankle on his knee. “What moldering pile did I inherit along with this fancy new moniker, Mr., er, what was your name again?”

  “William Beekman, my lord. I was his lordship’s man of business as were my father and grandfather.”

  “His lordship must have had a lot of business to need all three of you.”

  Beekman looked pained. “I meant—”

  Gideon grinned. “I know what you meant Beeky—may I call you Beeky? You meant that it is a tradition of longstanding in your family to serve the Earls of Taunton. I’m all for tradition, old thing. And I must say I am honored to now have you serving this earl. So, Beeky,” he said briskly, “What else have you got in that leather satchel you keep fondling?”

  The other man’s entire body—perhaps even his brushy eyebrows—were stiff with mortification as he opened his satchel. Gideon knew he shouldn’t tease the poor old fellow—he’d seen immediately that old Beeky had no sense of humor—but the man had better know sooner, rather than later, what his new lordship was like. And if he didn’t like Gideon’s irreverent humor he could bugger off and find another master to serve.

  “There are two properties, my lord. The house on Berkeley Square and the family seat, Foxrun, in Somerset.” He extracted two thick portfolio’s and set them on Gideon’s immense ebony desk, exactly where Gideon had fucked his chambermaid—or at least the woman he paid to pretend to be a chambermaid—not ten minutes before Beeky’s visit. His lips twitched at the thought of what the staid man-of-business would say to know his new employer’s ballocks had recently rested just where his hand lay?

  “—and I’m afraid the farms have not produced to capacity since well before his lordship’s time.” He was looking at Gideon and Gideon realized he must have missed the man’s maunderings while he’d been amusing himself.

  Gideon pulled the heavy stacks of paper toward him, opening the one on top and flicking pages quickly.

  “I daresay your lordship will require some time to—”

  Gideon kept turning pages, ignoring Beeky’s wittering. Only his closest associates knew he was able to absorb information this fast and faster from a page. It was, he supposed, a valuable skill although he’d long ago stopped feeling any pride in his ability. He didn’t need to look through many pages to see the state of affairs. Roof leaks, foundation cracks, rotten wood, some sort of disgusting house-eating beetle—Gideon shivered at that—and myriad other disasters awaited him, or, more likely, his money, at Berkeley Square. He closed the folder and slid it aside to look at the one beneath.

  “I took the liberty of putting the information for the Dower House on the top of the file as Lady Taunton is—"

  Gideon’s head whipped up. “Lady Taunton?” He smirked. “Did I inherit a wife along with these two decaying piles? How convenient.”

  Beeky’s already red face reddened even more and he sat up as if somebody had just jammed a barge pole up his arse. “Lady Alys Taunton is your predecessor’s widow, my lord.”

  Gideon gave the older man a smile he hoped was soothing. “There, there—no need to fly into a pucker, Beeky. I’m afraid you’ll need to get used to my sense of humor—if you wish to work for me. Cit though I might be, I gathered her ladyship was likely the last earl’s wife or mother. So,” he said, flicking through a few more pages. “She gets to live out the rest of her days on the estate, does she? And I’m to hose and house her?”

  “Not at all, my lord. Lady Taunton has her own jointure. It is merely the matter of the Dower House that requires your attention.”

  Gideon’s eyebrows descended. “Did you say requires?”

  Beeky recoiled. “I’m sorry, my lord. Perhaps that was not the correct word.”

  “Perhaps not,” Gideon agreed, looking at the few documents pertaining to the ancient cottage. Yes, it was in even worse condition than the country and London houses.

  “At my urging Lady Taunton has come to London. She arrived yesterday, my lord, and is staying at the house on Berkeley Square.”

  Gideon looked up at that. “I see,” he said, sitting back in his oversized leather chair, his eyes narrowing. “She is staying in my house. And this is something she does every year?”

  Beeky swallowed hard enough to crack a walnut. “Er, not in general, my lord. The last earl was in the habit of spending the Season here—certainly while the session was in—but her ladyship spent most of her time at Foxrun.”

  “I see,” he said again, but softer this time. So, she’d come to town to beg—or demand, more likely—and had commenced her begging/demanding by commandeering his bloody house.

  “I assured her ladyship you would not begrudge her the use of Taunton House while she was in town.”

  Gideon frowned. If the house was his, then it was his—wasn’t it? He didn’t appreciate people making free with his possessions; he never had. No doubt that came from not actually having anything for the first twelve years of his life, but his attitude hadn’t changed now that he was swimming in lard. What was his, was his.

  “If we are to get on, Mr. Beekman,” Gideon paused, allowing his changed tone to sink in—allowing the other man to understand there was the jolly, friendly earl, and there was this earl. “You’d better consult me in the future before making free with my belongings—the same goes for my new relative. Are we clear, sir?”

  Beekman nodded vigorously. “Of course, my lord. I did not mean to make free. Indeed, Lady Taunton tried to demur, but I convinced her it would not be amiss. This once. So I am the one you should blame for taking such liberties.”

  Gideon let him swing on his gibbet for a long moment before grinning. “Of course it’s fine, Beek
y. I’m quite looking forward to meeting my new relative—how are we related? Some sort of cousin-in-law, twice-removed, and so forth?”

  “Er, not quite.”

  Gideon shrugged and gave a dismissive wave. “Well, I shall call her cousin to make life easier.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Gideon examined the man. Beeky was not nearly so superior as he’d been when he’d entered the room. That was good. People tended to believe Gideon’s light-hearted, casual attitude indicated a lack of seriousness or intelligence. But most people—especially someone like Beeky, a man who was essentially his servant—learned to extend the proper respect sooner rather than later.

  Was Gideon prickly about receiving respect? Perhaps, but then he’d earned the right to be prickly. He’d gone from a despised son of a drunken, ignorant, over-proud gambler to something lower than a rent boy, to one of the wealthiest men in Britain. So yes, he could be as prickly as he liked.

  “Lady Taunton is otherwise occupied today, I take it?”

  Beeky blinked. “My lord?”

  “I was just wondering why she is not here to advocate on her own behalf.”

  Beeky’s horrified expression was priceless. “But she is a lady, er, my lord. Ladies do not call upon gentlemen they’ve not been introduced to—not even, er, cousins.”

  “Is that so?” Gideon asked, keeping his tone mild. “I did not know that. I daresay there are many such, er, rules of gentlemanly behavior I don’t know. Luckily I shall have you to guide me through those treacherous shoals.”

  Beeky met Gideon’s hard smile and looked as if he might be ill. “I never meant to imply—”

  “Tell me, when should I call upon a lady?”

  “Any time, my lord. I’m sure her ladyship would be pleased to receive you any time.”

  “In my house.”

  “Er, yes, sir. In your house.”

  Gideon was suddenly tired of baiting such easy prey. “Tell her I shall be around tomorrow—two-ish if that suits. Now,” he said, briskly. “You may leave this paperwork here. I shall summon you later in the week once I’ve gone through it. Go ahead and do whatever it is you need to do to secure my seat in Lords.” He grinned at the thought of telling his partners this particular little gem. “Let me know if there is any trouble or anything I can do to facilitate—well, whatever.”

  “I don’t anticipate any trouble.”

  “Excellent, that pleases me.” Gideon leaned across his desk, the abrupt movement causing the other man to flinch. “You please me, Beeky. If you continue to do so, I daresay we shall get on swimmingly. Now, you may go.”

  Beeky shot to his feet. “Very good, my lord. Thank you, my lord. Er, I look forward to serving you.”

  “I look forward to being served, Beeky.” Gideon then turned to the schematic he’d been drafting before the solicitor arrived, his action clearly signifying dismissal.

  But as soon as the door closed Gideon sat back, his lips curving slowly into a grin.

  “Great, bloody hell,” he whispered, his heart pounding. “I’m a fucking earl.”

  ☐ ☐ ☐

  Alys had only been in town three days and had already learned enough about the new head of the family to make her want to run screaming. Unfortunately, she had nowhere to run to, at least nowhere that Lord Taunton didn’t own.

  The second day after her arrival she’d received her first ever morning call. You could have knocked her down with a feather when she read the card Bingle brought to her: Lady Amelia St. James, the sister of Alys’s brother’s wife. Two more different women, Alys could hardly imagine.

  “I know you’ve not put up the knocker and we’ve never actually met,” Lady Amelia said when Alys greeted her and the two friends who’d accompanied her. “But we are family, after all.”

  “I’m very pleased you called,” Alys told her, not sure if that was really true as she took in the extremely stylish woman and her equally stylish friends. But what else could she do but welcome them?

  While her sister-in-law was a plump, colorless, and excessively devout woman whom her brother kept constantly pregnant, Lady Amelia was like a brightly plumed bird. A red bird, with matching red lips. Alys didn’t think she’d ever seen a woman wearing face paint before.

  Alys had barely sat down with the women when Amelia made it clear why they’d come. She laid a red kid gloved hand over Alys’s. “We’ve just heard, my dear.”

  Alys frowned, wondering how Lady Amelia could have missed word of Sebastian’s death for over a year. But then it occurred to her. “Oh, you mean about the new earl.”

  “My dear, darling Lady Taunton!” Lady Amelia had a laugh rather like a peacock’s screech and Alys jumped. “He is simply a savage.”

  “And an exceedingly gorgeous savage at that,” Mrs. Jane Norbert-Simpson told Alys as they sipped weak, almost cold tea in the drafty, moldy-smelling sitting room: the best of the four sitting rooms the house had to offer.

  “He is a part of the Bohemian set— and very much aware of his attractions,” Lady Amelia added.

  “I know Letitia Fullerton made a fool out of herself over him,” Mrs. Norbert-Simpson said, causing the other two women to titter.

  “Oh, yes, indeed.” Lady Amelia leaned forward, her expression avid. “I understand she presented poor old Henry with a blond-haired, blue-eyed daughter.”

  All three women cackled, bringing to mind Shakespeare’s infamous trio of witches.

  “She tried to end it all,” Amelia said in a whisper that was actually louder than her normal, ringing, tone.

  “This poor woman tried to kill herself?” Alys asked, appalled when all three of her guests snickered.

  “Mmm hmmm. She’d started showing up on Gideon’s doorstep, begging him to take her after Fullerton filed for divorce.”

  Alys swallowed hard. “And G—Lord Taunton, did nothing?”

  “Oh, he did plenty—just not with her,” Delphine Moreau, the third woman said.

  “I understand he keeps prostitutes at his house, posing as servants,” Amelia hissed like a giant, red-lipped snake.

  “Not only that, but he also keeps three mistresses,” Mrs. Moreau added.

  The women spent several minutes sharing speculations while Alys’s head whirled with thoughts of the new Earl of Taunton. So, Gideon Banks—or Dornan, rather—was the sort of man to drive women to kill themselves?

  Alys had often thought of killing Sebastian, but never herself.

  “Mr. Norbert-Simpson says Gideon is obscenely wealthy,” Mrs. Norbert-Simpson said nibbling the one biscuit she’d taken, making a moue of distaste, and setting it delicately back down on her plate.

  “Yes, I’d heard that. He’s part of some group of cits who’ve made great heaping piles of money. I believe one of the men is Edward Fanshawe.” Amelia clucked her tongue. “Poor Blandon’s daughter.”

  “Fanshawe,” Alys murmured. Even in faraway Somerset people knew of Catherine Fanshawe and her notorious divorce, which her husband had sought on the grounds of marital infidelity, but which had also left Lady Catherine—the daughter of the Marquess of Blandon—an extremely wealthy woman. There were tales of debauchery and impropriety, but Alys had never credited them. Now, however . . ..

  “Fanshawe married Natalie Hartwicke not long ago,” Delphine Moreau said.

  The other two women chuckled.

  “Yes, but the Hartwicke creature had Fanshawe all along, didn’t she?” Amelia retorted.

  Alys refused to ask what they were talking about.

  Indeed, she’d turned the conversation away from gossip after that and the women had soon left. It had been clear they’d only come for one purpose: to spread tales about the new earl.

  Not long after Lady Amelia’s call there had been the visit from Beekman, warning Alys that his lordship would pay a call on her today.

  “The new earl is,” Beekman’s brow furrowed as he hunted for some word. “Well, he is unusual. It is best not to, er, underestimate him. Although he is esse
ntially a product of the stews, he is not, by any means, unintelligent.”

  So, that was what Alys was waiting for: a gorgeous cunning whoremonger.

  Alys glanced around the grim sitting room as she awaited his arrival, wondering what he would make of his new inheritance. Wondering what he would make of her. She cut a quick glance at herself in the age-spotted mirror that hung across from her. Her reflection showed her what she already knew: a woman past her prime. At almost twenty-six she was practically in her dotage and would certainly be viewed as such by a man who no doubt considered himself a connoisseur of women.

  Three mistresses? Three mistresses!

  Fortunately Sebastian, a man who’d been a profligate spender, had never kept a mistress—or not as far as Alys knew. Not that she’d ever looked too closely. Alys had always been perfectly satisfied that Sebastian was leaving her alone. In truth, she hadn’t cared how many women he’d gone to after she’d learned the truth about him: that his charm was but a thin veneer over his selfish, debauched, drunken core.

  Alys wasn’t sure which of them had been stupider: her foolish, romantic, sixteen year-old self, who’d been so impressed by a handsome face and charming manner, or Sebastian, so lazy that he’d married Alys for her rather middling dowry when he should have been on the hunt for one of these American heiresses that seemed to be falling from the trees like overripe fruit.

  Because the truth—as she’d learned after their marriage—was that only a fortune could save poor Foxrun.

  There was a soft knock and Alys looked up. The door opened and Bingle stood on the threshold, his eyes a bit wild. “Lord Taunton to see you, my lady.”

  “Thank you, Bingle. Please show h—”

  An angel appeared beside the staid old butler and Alys gawked. Good Lord! Had Amelia and the other women merely said he was gorgeous? He was . . . heavenly.

  “My lady, thank you so much for receiving me today.” Even his voice—while not of her class—was a beautiful and only lightly accented baritone. He strode toward her with the grace of a cat, his coat and trousers were closely tailored—immodestly so, in Alys’s limited experience—and displayed his broad shouldered and narrow-hipped physique to stunning advantage.