Page 37 of The Earl Next Door
“Is that all?” Her gaze stayed on his. “Really, you have no idea why I’m here?”
“There are too many possibilities for me to guess at just one.”
“Hmm. I assumed you knew and you were simply being your usual mum self when it comes to your private life. Which I understand and don’t mind, you know.”
“Ah, I see.” He sipped the coffee and casually crossed one foot over the other. “You’re here to do your usual complaining about my father. Enlighten me. I have no idea what he’s done this time.”
“Fiddlesticks, no,” she said, shaking her head for emphasis and using a rare frustrated tone with him. “I wouldn’t waste my morning on him. Not today anyway. But, that’s not to say that I’m not looking forward to seeing Miss Ballingbrand at the Great Hall for the first soirée of the Season. Everyone is. It’s been at least six years, maybe more, since her debut. No one I know has seen her since, and we’re all counting the days until we meet her.” Cordelia stopped and sighed, while dabbing her napkin at the corner of her mouth. “We can talk about her later. Neither she nor your father are the reason I’m here. It’s much more important than those two. I had a note from Mrs. Feversham on mytea tray this morning asking that I come visit her with all haste.”
“Another fall?” he asked, placing his cup on the table in front of his chair. “Is she all right?”
“Yes, she’s well. For all her complaints, she’s almost as robust as you. Except for her hip, of course. She is fine, but I fear you are not.”
The way his aunt said the last sentence worried Lyon, but calmly, he asked, “What do you mean?”
“To put it bluntly, my dear, she saw Lady Wake march into your house yesterday afternoon as if she owned the place and had every right to do so while your gaming club was there. How many men is it each week? A dozen? In any case, Mrs. Feversham was outraged the widow would do such an unacceptable thing even if it was raining buckets on top of her head.”
Doing the unacceptable was one of the things that drew him to Adeline. A primal feeling to protect her rose up inside him.
“Mrs. Feversham is watching my house again?” he asked, outraged at the thought.
“Again?” Cordelia asked incredulously. “She’s never stopped. And what’s more, now she never will because she’s purchased a sailor’s spyglass for herself so she can see up closer.”
“Blast it!” Lyon said, muttering an oath under his breath. He pulled out his chair but didn’t bother to sit down. “A telescope? Has the lady no sense of decency or shame for such behavior?”
If she were a younger, able-bodied lady, he’d go over and rip the damn thing from her hands and stomp it to pieces right in front of her. He didn’t like the idea ofanyone snooping on him, knowing who came and went from his house. Once he’d thought about trying to have the school moved out of the neighborhood. Now he was wondering what he could do to get Mrs. Feversham out.
“It’s all she can do.”
“No, she could knit and keep her eyes on the yarn instead of her neighbors. I can’t believe this is the way she repays me for taking her enormous basketful of pastries to Lady Wake,” he said angrily. “She shouldn’t be spying on a gentleman’s door. She’s gone too far.”
“Are you saying it would be all right for her to watch a lady’s door with her spyglass?” his aunt asked rather guardedly as her brows went up again. “Perhaps Lady Wake’s door?”
“No one’s door,” he insisted. Suddenly Lyon’s gut tightened. He looked closely at his aunt. “She didn’t.”
“Of course she did,” Cordelia said, pushing her chair back from the table and refolding the napkin in her lap with no small amount of consternation. “She saw you enter Lady Wake’s house last night after the lights on the servants’ floor went out.”
Lyon refrained from speaking aloud the oaths that would have felt so good spewing from him. No one should have known he went to the countess’s house last night. He made sure there wasn’t a carriage or a soul in view and most every light within his sight was out.
“Homebound or not, friend or foe, Mrs. Feversham will have to be dealt with,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Indeed, but how?”
“Wait a minute, Aunt,” he said, his voice unusuallyheavy with aggravation toward her. “I’m not admitting to anything she has told you about the countess.”
“Dash it all, I wouldn’t expect or want you to. You know I’m not here for an admission, details, or to pass judgment on anyone.” Cordelia rose, laid her folded napkin by her plate and, to his amazement after his firm tone, smiled up at him as confidently as always. “I’m only here to advise you of what your neighbor saw and to suggest you use the back gate when you visit the widow.”
Lyon’s instinct to protect Adeline soared again as he stared at his aunt. “I won’t allow Mrs. Feversham to ruin Lady Wake’s reputation.”
“You don’t have to worry about Mrs. Feversham talking to anyone else about this,” his aunt said in a practical tone. “I took care of that so you wouldn’t have to.”
“How?” he asked, not convinced anything other than matrimony could salvage Adeline’s reputation.
“I said that I’d asked you to pick up the straw basket that I’d left at Lady Wake’s the day we delivered the tarts and biscuits to her. And that you had been so busy entertaining your gentleman friends all afternoon you must have forgotten about it until the evening. I had no idea why she couldn’t see my basket in your hand when you left, and she might need to have someone with knowledge of the instrument look at her spyglass and adjust it. That seemed to satisfy her.”
It didn’t satisfy Lyon. “What about Lady Wake coming inside my house? How did you leave that?”
“Oh, she knew the reason for that. She could see clearly that the area in front of Lady Wake’s home wasblocked with your friends’ coaches. Mrs. Feversham knew it wasn’t the first time it’s happened. It’s been going on for years. I told her I was very sympathetic with the countess on that account and that she had every right to knock on your door and express her displeasure. In the end Mrs. Feversham agreed with me.”
