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His valet, Craven, turned from the clothespress. “Good morning, Your Grace.”
Maximus nodded silently and threw back the coverlet. He rose, nude, and padded to the marble-topped dresser with only a slight limp. A basin of hot water already waited there for him. His razor, freshly sharpened by Craven, appeared beside the basin as Maximus soaped his jaw.
“Will you be breaking your fast with Lady Phoebe and Miss Picklewood this morning?” Craven enquired.
Maximus frowned into the gold mirror standing on the dresser as he tilted his chin and set the razor against his neck. His youngest sister, Phoebe, was but twenty. When Hero, his other sister, had married several years ago, he’d decided to move Phoebe and their older cousin, Bathilda Picklewood, into Wakefield House with him. He was pleased to have her under his eye, but having to share accommodations—even accommodations as palatial as Wakefield House—with the two ladies sometimes got in the way of his other activities.
“Not today,” he decided, scraping whiskers from his jaw. “Please send my apologies to my sister and Cousin Bathilda.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Maximus watched in the mirror as the valet arched his eyebrows in mute reproach before retiring to the clothespress. He didn’t suffer the rebuke—even a silent one—of many, but Craven was a special case. The man had been his father’s valet for fifteen years before Maximus had inherited him on attaining the title. Craven had a long face, the vertical lines on either side of his mouth and the droop of his eyes at the outer corners making it seem longer. He must be well into his fifties, but one couldn’t tell by his countenance: he looked like he could be any age from thirty to seventy. No doubt Craven would still look the same when Maximus was a doddering old man without a hair on his head. He snorted to himself as he tapped the razor against a porcelain bowl, shaking soap froth and whiskers from the blade. Behind him Craven began laying out smallclothes, stockings, a black shirt, waistcoat, and breeches. Maximus turned his head, scraping the last bit of lather from his jaw, and used a dampened cloth to wipe his face.
“Did you find the information?” he asked as he donned smallclothes.
“Indeed, Your Grace.” Craven rinsed the razor and carefully dried the fine blade. He laid it in a fitted velvet-lined box as reverently as if the razor had been the relic of some dead saint.
“And?”
Craven cleared his throat as if preparing to recite poetry before the king. “The Earl of Brightmore’s finances are, as far as I’ve been able to ascertain, quite happy. In addition to his two estates in Yorkshire, both with arable land, he is in possession of three producing coal mines in the West Riding, an ironworks in Sheffield, and has recently bought interest in the East India Company. At the beginning of the year he opened a fourth coal mine, and in so doing accrued some debt, but the reports from the mine are quite favorable. The debt in my estimation is negligible.”
Maximus grunted as he pulled on his breeches.
Craven continued, “As to the earl’s daughter, Lady Penelope Chadwicke, it’s well known that Lord Brightmore plans to offer a very nice sum when she is wed.”
Maximus lifted a cynical eyebrow. “Do we have an actual number?”
“Indeed, Your Grace.” Craven pulled a small notebook from his pocket and, licking his thumb, paged through it. Peering down at the notebook, he read off a sum so large Maximus came close to doubting Craven’s research skills.
“Good God. You’re sure?”
Craven gave him a faintly chiding look. “I have it on the authority of the earl’s lawyer’s chief secretary, a rather bitter gentleman who cannot hold his liquor.”
“Ah.” Maximus arranged his neck cloth and shrugged on his waistcoat. “Then that leaves only Lady Penelope herself.”
“Quite.” Craven tucked his notebook away and pursed his lips, staring at the ceiling. “Lady Penelope Chadwicke is four and twenty years of age and her father’s sole living offspring. Despite her rather advanced maiden status, she does not lack for suitors, and indeed appears to be only unwed because of her own… ah… unusually high standards in choosing a gentleman.”
“She’s finicky.”
Craven winced at the blunt assessment. “It would appear so, Your Grace.”
Maximus nodded as he opened his bedroom door. “We’ll continue downstairs.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Craven picked up a candle and lit it at the fireplace.
A wide corridor lay outside his bedroom. To the left was the front of the house and the grand staircase that led to the public rooms of Wakefield House.
Maximus turned to the right, Craven trotting at his heels. This way led to the servants’ stairs and other less public rooms. Maximus opened a door paneled to look like the wainscoting in the hall and clattered down the uncarpeted stairs. He passed the entrance to the kitchens and continued down another level. The stairs ended abruptly, blocked by a plain wooden door. Maximus took a key from his waistcoat pocket and unlocked the door. Beyond was another set of stairs, but these were stone, so ancient the treads dipped in the middle, worn away by long-dead feet. Maximus followed them down as Craven lit candles tucked into the nooks in the stone walls.
Maximus ducked under a low stone arch and came to a small paved area. The candlelight behind him flickered over worn stone walls. Here and there figures were scratched in the stone: symbols and crude human representations. Maximus doubted very much that they’d been made during the age of Christianity. Directly ahead was a second door, the wood blackened by age. He unlocked this as well and pushed it open.
Behind the door was a cellar, long and with a surprisingly high ceiling, the groin vaulting picked out in smaller, decorative stone. Sturdy pillars paced along the floor, their capitals carved into crude shapes. His father and grandfather had used the space as a wine cellar, but Maximus wouldn’t have been surprised if this hidden room had originally been built as a place to worship some ancient pagan deity.
Behind him Craven shut the door, and Maximus began taking off his waistcoat. It seemed a waste of time to dress and then undress again five minutes later every morning, but a duke never appeared in dishabille—even within his own house.
Craven cleared his throat.
“Continue,” Maximus murmured without turning. He stood in only his smallclothes now and looked up. Spaced irregularly along the ceiling were iron rings he’d sunk into the stone.
