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They separated. James walked across the square and into the narrow street containing Tereford House.
The massive stone building, of no particular architectural distinction, loomed over the cobbles. Its walls showed signs of neglect, and the windows on the upper floors were all shuttered. There was no funerary hatchment above the door. Owing to the eccentricities of his great-uncle, the recently deceased sixth duke, James had never been inside. His every approach had been rebuffed.
He walked up to the door and plied the tarnished knocker. When that brought no response, he rapped on the door with the knob of his cane. He had sent word ahead, of course, and expected a better reception than this. At last the door opened, and he strolled inside—to be immediately assailed by a wave of stale mustiness. The odor was heavy rather than sharp, but it insinuated itself into the nostrils like an unwanted guest. James suspected that it would swiftly permeate his clothes and hair. His dark brows drew together. The atmosphere in the dim entryway, with closed doors on each side and at the back next to a curving stair, was oppressive. It seemed almost threatening.
One older female servant stood before him. She dropped a curtsy. “Your Grace,” she said, as if the phrase was unfamiliar.
“Where is the rest of the staff?” They really ought to have lined up to receive him. He had given them a time for his visit.
“There’s only me. Your Grace.”
“What?”
“Keys is there.” She pointed to a small side table. A ring of old-fashioned keys lay on it.
James noticed a small portmanteau sitting at her feet.
She followed his eyes. “I’ll be going then. Your Grace.” Before James could reply, she picked up the case and marched through the still-open front door.
Her footsteps faded, leaving behind a dismal silence. The smell seemed to crowd closer, pressing on him. The light dimmed briefly as a carriage passed outside. James suppressed a desire to flee. He had a pleasant set of rooms in Hill Street where he had, for some years, been living a life that suited him quite well. He might own this house now, but that didn’t mean he had to live here. Or perhaps he did. A duke had duties. It occurred to him that the servant might have walked off with some valuable items. He shrugged. Her bag had been too small to contain much.
He walked over to the closed door on the right and turned the knob. The door opened a few inches and then hit some sort of obstacle. He pushed harder. It remained stuck. James had to put his shoulder to the panels and shove with the strength developed in Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon before it gave way, with a crash of some largish object falling inside. He forced his way through but managed only one step before he was brought up short, his jaw dropping. The chamber—a well-proportioned parlor with high ceilings and elaborate moldings—was stuffed to bursting with a mad jumble of objects. Furniture of varying eras teetered in haphazard stacks—sofas, chairs, tables, cabinets. Paintings and other ornaments were pushed into every available crevice. Folds and swathes of fabric that might have been draperies or bedclothes drooped over the mass, which towered far above his head. There was no room to move. “Good God!” The stale odor was much worse here, and a scurrying sound did not bode well.
James backed hastily out. He thought of the shuttered rooms on the upper floors. Were they all…? But perhaps only this one was a mare’s nest. He walked across the entryway and tried the door on the left. It concealed a larger room in the same wretched condition. His heart, which had not been precisely singing, sank. He’d assumed that his new position would require a good deal of tedious effort, but he hadn’t expected chaos.
The click of footsteps approached from outside. The front door was still open, and now a fashionably dressed young lady walked through it. She was accompanied by a maid and a footman. The latter started to shut the door behind them. “Don’t,” commanded James. The young servant shied like a nervous horse.
“What is that smell?” the lady inquired, putting a gloved hand to her nose.
“What are you doing here?” James asked the bane of his existence.
“You mentioned that you were going to look over the house today.”
“And in what way is this your concern?”
“I was so curious. There are all sorts of rumors about this place. No one has been inside for years.” She went over to one of the parlor doors and peered around it. “Oh!” She crossed to look into the other side. “Good heavens!”
“Indeed.”
“Well, this is going to be a great deal of work.” She smiled. “You won’t like that.”
“You have no idea what I…” James had to stop, because he knew that she had a very good idea.
“I know more about your affairs than you do,” she added.
It was nearly true. Once, it certainly had been. That admission took him back thirteen years to his first meeting with Cecelia Vainsmede. He’d been just fifteen, recently orphaned, and in the midst of a blazing row with his new trustee. Blazing on his side, at any rate. Nigel Vainsmede had been pained and evasive and clearly just wishing James would go away. They’d fallen into one of their infuriating bouts of pushing in and fending off, insisting and eluding. James had understood by that time that his trustee might agree to a point simply to be rid of him, but he would never carry through with any action. Vainsmede would forget—willfully, it seemed to James. Insultingly.
And then a small blond girl had marched into her father’s library and ordered them to stop at once. Even at nine years old, Cecelia had been a determined character with a glare far beyond her years. James had been surprised into silence. Vainsmede had actually looked grateful. And on that day they had established the routine that allowed them to function for the next ten years—speaking to each other only through Cecelia. James would approach her with “Please tell your father.” And she would manage the matter, whatever it was. James didn’t have to plead, which he hated, and Nigel Vainsmede didn’t have to do anything at all, which was his main hope in life as far as James could tell.
James and Cecelia had worked together all through their youth. Cecelia was not a friend, and not family, but some indefinable other sort of close connection. And she did know a great deal about him. More than he knew about her. Although he had observed, along with the rest of thehaut ton, that she had grown up to be a very pretty young lady. Today in a walking dress of sprig muslin and a straw bonnet decorated with matching blue ribbons, she was lithely lovely. Her hair was less golden than it had been at nine but far better cut. She had the face of a renaissance Madonna except for the rather too lush lips. And her luminous blue eyes missed very little, as he had cause to know. Not that any of this was relevant at the moment. “Your father has not been my trustee for three years,” James pointed out.
“And you have done nothing much since then.”
He would have denied it, but what did it matter? Instead he said, “I never could understand why my father appointedyourfather as my trustee.”
“It was odd,” she said.
“They were just barely friends, I would say.”
