The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance) (21 page)

"No trouble at all," the man said as he
stood up.

"Nevertheless," Harry said, "I must
apologize for having mistaken you for another peer."

Kellow came closer. "Perhaps I can
help?"

"I'm trying to purchase the Grosvenor
townhouse," Harry said, "but I've been unable to contact its owner.
I was told the owner was a peer from Cornwall. I had the odd notion
that was you."

Kellow shook his head. "Dare say it's
Arundell. His is the wealthiest family in Cornwall."

Louisa shook her head. "We started with him,
but he was not the man we were seeking."

Kellow lifted a brow. "I suppose it could be
Tremaine. Nobody knows much about him. Reclusive and all that, but
I've heard he's wealthier than anyone will ever know."

Tremaine. The next to last lord on the list,
the last geographically. A peer whose seat was in Falwell, near
Land's End. "What does he look like?" Louisa asked.

Lord Kellow shook his head. "Actually, I've
never met him. As I said, he's rather reclusive."

"What age would he be?" Harry asked.

"I expect he's near my own father's age.
Were he alive, my padre would be four and seventy."

Harry glanced at Louisa. She nodded. That
would be the right age. He took Louisa's hand and moved toward Lord
Kellow. "We're exceedingly sorry to have troubled you," Harry
said.

"No problem whatsoever," Kellow mumbled. His
brows lowered as if he were deep in concentration.

As Harry and Louisa left the spacious
morning room and headed down the broad stone hallway to the front
door, Lord Kellow followed them.

Even when they left the house and walked up
to the carriage, he followed. They turned back to say goodbye to
him, and he slapped at his head, a broad grin on his face.

"By Jove! Knew you looked familiar to me,"
Lord Kellow said to Harry. Then his eyes narrowed. "Though the name
Smith doesn't match up. Why, Lord Wycliff, did you wish to deceive
me?"

Harry stiffened.

Kellow smiled and walked toward them.
"Perhaps you would remember me as Tom St. John – my name before I
ascended."

Harry's jaw dropped. "By Jove! At Eton, you
gave no sign you would ever grow so tall."

A grin flashed across Kellow's face. "My
mother claims I didn't begin to grow until I married!"

Since he had been no closer to Kellow – or
Sinjun, as he was then called – at Eton than he was now, Harry did
not feel he owed the fellow an explanation. "A pity your growth
came so late. You'd have been a much more formidable opponent in
sport."

"I doubt I could ever have bested you."

"I daresay your recollection of my abilities
has dimmed with the years."

Kellow tossed a glance at Louisa. "Pray, is
this really your wife?"

As much as he disliked lying to the fellow,
Harry refused to allow Kellow to think ill of Louisa. "Of course!"
he said with mock outrage, moving closer to Louisa and closing his
arm around her. "We have our reasons for secrecy. Another time,
perhaps, I shall be at liberty to discuss them with you."

"As you wish, Wycliff."

Harry turned his back on the man and helped
Louisa into the carriage.

As the carriage pushed away, Louisa asked,
"Were you not utterly dumbstruck when Lord Kellow recognized
you?"

"Thunderstruck is more like it."

"I take it you two were not close at
Eton?"

"Not particularly. Poor fellow was one of
the last chaps picked for the matches."

"I daresay you were the one doing the
picking."

Harry shrugged.

"Had you no desire to impart the truth to
Lord Kellow?"

He leveled his gaze across the carriage at
her. "None whatsoever. I'm not an idiot."

"I do abhor lying."

"As much as you abhor the idea of being my
wife?"

She continued gazing at her
gloved hands, then slowly lifted her lashes and glared at him.
"Being your
pretend
wife."

He shrugged. "Pray, which
is most odious to you? Lying or being my
pretend
wife?"

"I'm surprised you credit
me with an intolerance toward fabrication, given my
nom de plume
."

"Yes, you do live a lie. Somewhat."

She thrust hands to hips. "I can honestly
say my pen name is the only time in my entire life I have lied, and
my reasons for doing so more than justified my dishonesty. My work
would never have found an audience had it been known the author was
a female, and it was very important to me that my writings be
published. I believe what I have to say promotes the common
good."

"Utilitarianism. And you're justified in
thinking so."

His compliment silenced her.

He stretched out his long legs and watched
her beneath hooded brows. Undoubtedly aware of his scrutiny, she
refused to glance in his direction. Instead, she lifted the curtain
and peered at the verdant countryside.

"When will we reach Truro?" she asked a
little while later.

"What makes you so sure I'm not going to
skip Truro and go directly to the reclusive Tremaine?"

She spun toward him, her brows lifted.
"You're not?"

He chuckled. "It's a possibility. What think
you of it?"

Her lovely lips puckered in
thought for a moment. "If I'm picturing the map correctly – and I
am possessed of picture-perfect memory – going to Cuthbert instead
of to Lord Tremaine's Falwell would actually take us back father to
the east. And if Curthbert's Lord Walke is not our man – and I must
confess it
does
seem more likely Lord Tremaine is our man – then we would have
diverted from our path for naught. I say we should forget Cuthbert
and head toward Land's End." She paused a moment, then meekly
added, "If my opinion is being solicited."

He threw his head back and laughed hardily.
"Your opinion is, indeed, being solicited." He tapped his signal to
the coachman, then after the coachman stopped, Harry directed him
to head toward Land's End.

"Aye, my lord, but I shall have to consult
me map."

"As I would expect you to do," Harry said.
John was a good man. He not only knew his horses, but was also
skillful at directions. Harry had the greatest confidence in his
abilities.

While they sat there inside the unmoving
carriage, Louisa gazed out the open window. Finally she looked back
at him. "Pray, why did you think it necessary for me to play the
part of your wife at Gulvall?"

"Because I knew Kellow was a fellow of my
own age, and I realized there was a possibility he would recognize
me."

She looked quizzingly at him. "And?"

"And I thought I would be less recognizable
if I appeared to be a happily married man." He cleared his throat.
"It seems I have a reputation as a . . . well, as a bit of a
rake."

"And having a wife would erase your wicked
past?"

"Having a wife as lovely as
you could," he said throatily.
What the
deuce was he doing?
He hadn't meant to give
himself away. Wasn't he supposed to be convincing Louisa she was
completely unattractive to him?

A deep flush crept up her cheeks.

He had to redirect the conversation. "Using
your picture-perfect memory, I beg that you tell me what the next
town we come to will be."

"I only memorized the
routes we
had planned
to take. Since we're altering our direction, I cannot tell
you. I did not memorize the name of every village in the Duchy of
Cornwall."

He had gone and aggravated her again. Where
Louisa was concerned, he could not seem to do anything right.

Fortunately, she softened. "Actually, as the
crow flies, it's almost directly a straight line west to Falwell,
but, of course, the roads never seem to go in a straight line."

"No, they don't," he said grimly. Surely the
reclusive Tremaine had to be the fiend who had caused his father's
ruin. Yet, a nagging doubt persisted. Everywhere they had gone,
they had met with failure. All of this time spent could be for
naught. No, he amended, a surge of an unfamiliar emotion washing
over him. Not for naught. He could never regret one single,
precious moment he had spent with Louisa. Even when he had lain in
his fevered stupor, he counted himself fortunate for the pleasure
of gazing up into his angel's face.

He gritted his teeth and
forced himself to look away from her.
Bloody hell!
She was far too good for
him. He wasn't fit to be sitting in the carriage with her. He moved
to the opposite window from where Louisa watched.

At noon, they reached Marazion, where they
stood gazing out to the medieval structure rising from St.
Michael's Mount before changing horses and taking a quick repast.
Harry smiled to himself when Louisa insisted on purchasing a comfit
from the establishment next to the inn. She wished to give it to
the coachman, and she refused to allow Harry to pay for it. No
doubt, she pitied John Coachman because of his misfortune of being
born to the working class.

Once they were on the road again and he was
just about to close his eyes for a nap, Louisa startled him. "Why
didn't we ask Lord Kellow about Lord Walke?"

A good question. Had they erred in deciding
to dismiss Curthbert without making any inquiries about its Lord
Walke? Since they had already eliminated four of the possible six
lords, what would it have hurt them to try to find out everything
they could about Lord Walke and his Padflow Priory? Harry bolted up
and muttered an oath.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I had no right to be
so negative. It's not as if we can't go right to Cuthbert if Lord
Tremaine is not our man. Actually, it won't be a minute out of our
way home from Falwell to go through Cuthbert. Going to Falwell
first is a much better plan."

He still frowned, though what she said made
a great deal of sense. He only hoped one of the last two would be
their man. Preferably Tremaine.

She returned to gazing out the window while
he tried once again to close his eyes and drift into a relaxing
sleep, but he was unable to suppress his thoughts, thoughts of
lords and fruitless quests -- and Louisa. Always, all thought
returned to Louisa.

What would he do when he located the
mysterious lord? His first objective, of course, was to persuade
the man to sell him the house on Grosvenor Square. Harry was
prepared to pay whatever it took to regain ownership of the house,
even if he had to pay twice what it was worth.

But what else did Harry wish to accomplish
when he finally came face to face with the evil man? A surge of
hatred rippled through him. He would have to find out why the man
had orchestrated his father's downfall. What could his father ever
have done to generate such vile contempt? Harry would never be able
to peacefully lay down his head until he knew the answer to that
question.

Also, Harry was possessed of a strong
conviction that the disappearance of his mother's portrait was
intrinsically tied up with the mysterious lord. And he vowed to do
everything in his power to learn the whereabouts of the
portrait.

Despite his hopes that they would make
Falwell by nightfall, Harry had not counted upon how early it got
dark in these parts. Darkness forced them to stop for the night --
though it was barely past four in the afternoon -- in the village
of Helporth. Had the terrain been less hilly with more reliable
roads, he would have instructed John to continue. But it was far
too dangerous for those unused to the region.

In Helporth, they disembarked from the
carriage and stood still in front of the inn where they watched
cool white mists rolling across the surrounding countryside like
curls of smoke from a chimney. There was an eerie, unreal quality
about it. Finally, Louisa set a gentle hand on his arm and urged
him into the inn.

Surely, he thought impatiently, Louisa could
not continue to feign fatigue and beg to go to her room for the
night before the clock struck six.

Neither of them was hungry yet, though they
had bespoken a private parlor at the Three Lambs Inn. In the room's
darkness, he and Louisa perused the map of Cornwall.

"A pity it's grown so dark for I do believe
we could have reached Falwell in another hour's time," she said,
looking up at him with her blue eyes.

Fighting the urge to stroke the satiny skin
of her face, he nodded. "There's something to be said, though, for
arriving in the daylight."

Louisa turned away to watch the fire's
licking flames. "If your offer for a game of piquet is still good,
I believe I shall take you up on it.

He procured cards, and they commenced an
amiable game, which was followed by another and another until they
were finally hungry enough to eat.

Harry was growing sorely tired of eating at
inns and sleeping on beds which were much smaller than what he was
accustomed to. He was impatient to ride his mount and not sit in a
cramped, stuffy carriage. He was consumed with curiosity about the
vile man he was taking such great efforts to meet. Thinking on all
this caused him to grow angry.

And as had become his custom, whenever he
was angry, he took his anger out on Louisa.

"I think I shall be sorry to see our journey
come to an end," she said softly, sipping her wine and gazing into
his face with a dreamy expression.

He harrumped. "Not I! I'm so sick of
Cornwall and of riding in carriages I pray I'll never again darken
the misty peninsula as long as I live."

She looked offended. "Surely the journey's
not been all bad?"

"Tell me, madam, one good thing that's
occurred since we set off from London?"