Page 3 of Nice Earls Do

His lips quirked in a chiding smile that carved a dimple into one cheek, as if he suspected she must already know the answer. “Not even my publisher. We’ve been negotiating plans for a companion volume, you see.” He held out the two letters to her. “And before those plans are finalized, they’re insisting Mrs. Goode go to Hertfordshire. They believe it will be excellent publicity.”

Tabetha scanned the letters. The threat—for what else could it be called?—wasn’t explicit. But clearly the publisher’s willingness to purchase Oliver’s future work depended upon Mrs. Goode’s compliance with this, this...request. She suspected it was at least in part a ploy to find out the identity of Mrs. Goode. But the publisher wouldn’t be happy with what their little scheme uncovered.

Oh, it wasn’t just that Mrs. Goode’s Guide had been written by a man. Gentlemen were forever involving themselves in ladies’ affairs, telling them what to do or wear or buy. That a man would proffer a book of advice on such topics was unremarkable. But gentlemen weren’t actually supposed to be interested in such feminine trifles as home décor, recipes, and furbelows. If word got out that Oliver had written Mrs. Goode’s Guide from a place of genuine enthusiasm for its subject matter, he could expect ridicule, scorn, or worse. He would be driven to set aside yet another of his passions to keep someone else’s peace.

“What will you do?”

He shrugged, as if the matter were of complete indifference to him. As if a measure of his happiness didn’t hang in the balance.

She’d seen that shrug before.

“I’ll go in your stead,” she offered rashly. “I can pretend to be Mrs. Goode.”

One eyebrow shot skyward. “You know I love you, Mamabet. But no, you cannot.”

Did he hesitate for her sake or his own? Was he reluctant to participate in a deception that might damage his stepmother’s character? Or fearful her taste was so execrable that Mrs. Goode’s good name would be ruined?

“We could come up with some pretext for you to accompany me,” she suggested. “That way, you could still make all the important decisions, while I simply play the public part.”

“If I were able and inclined to disguise myself as a lady’s maid,” he scoffed, “I daresay I could also manage a passable Mrs. Goode.”

“Not as my maid,” she said, pushing to her feet and beginning to pace. “As my...my groom?”

His lips pursed, and distaste shuddered through his lithe frame.

“My manservant, then. Or—oh, I know! My secretary. Surely someone as successful as Mrs. Goode would have a secretary?”

She held her breath, waiting for his reaction. After an impossibly long moment, his long leg slid down from the arm of the chair, and his glossy boot settled on the floor beside its mate. “Go on...”

“We will travel to Hertfordshire and present ourselves to...to...” She sat down and scanned the letter again. “To this Lord Stalbridge’s housekeeper as the esteemed Mrs. Goode and her secretary, Mr. Oliver. A day or two of discussion and sketches should be sufficient, wouldn’t you say? Surely your publisher cannot expect more. And then we’ll be free to return to town. You can make all the actual arrangements for the nursery renovation from here, in the name of Mrs. Goode, and no one will be the wiser.”

Oliver leaned toward her. “You would do that? For me?”

“Can you doubt it?” The hurt in her voice was not put on.

Certainly she wasn’t doing it for Lord Stalbridge, whoever he might be. She’d heard the title but could put no face to it. Under ordinary circumstances, her curiosity might have been piqued, particularly when she had so little to occupy her at present. But now, her irritation outweighed her interest. Being a bachelor gentleman did not excuse a total inattention to matters of household management.

Oliver snatched up her hands, heedless of the papers crumpling between them, pulled her to her feet, and planted a smacking kiss on her cheek. “Bless you, Mamabet. I’ll see to everything,” he promised before departing in a whirlwind.

A house in mourning, buried in the country, undergoing improvements, and soon to be filled with the noise of children, was not exactly the cure for the doldrums she’d been hoping for. But she would go gladly, just to help Oliver.

And perhaps for the added pleasure of giving this Lord Stalbridge a piece of her—or rather, the indomitable Mrs. Goode’s—mind.

* * * *

Not quite a week later, Kit looked up from the account ledger he’d been reviewing to find Mrs. Rushworth standing in the doorway of his study, her starched linen handkerchief stark white against her dark dress. He had to peer over the tops of his spectacles to see her expression clearly, a mixture of apprehension and surprise.

“Is everything all right?” he asked. For a moment, she didn’t answer, leaving him to picture any number of catastrophes. “Something in the attic?” Perhaps, against all odds, one of the late earl’s crates had contained something interesting, even shocking....

“No, my lord. That is, everything is fine. It’s naught to do with anything upstairs...exactly.”

He closed the ledger, laid his spectacles aside, and folded his hands on the desktop. “Then what, exactly, is the matter?”

“It’s Mrs. Goode, sir.” Mrs. Rushworth’s mouth moved oddly; he suspected her of chewing on the inside of her lip. Her voice dropped. “She’s here.”

His brain suddenly felt as thick and impenetrable as the crust of an overdone plum pudding. Her whispered words could not seem to pierce it. Mrs. Goode? He’d assumed the name was nothing more than a polite fiction, manufactured to sell books.

Before he could muster even simple questions—How? Why?—Mrs. Rushworth went on. “I wrote, you see, to her publisher. It was you, my lord, who put the notion into my mind. I thought perhaps, if she weren’t too busy, she might offer a little free advice. But I never dreamed...” Now she began to twist her handkerchief with agitated hands.