Chapter One
Cornwall, England
Christmas Eve, 1816, 7:00 p.m.
Somewhere between the Duke’s Head Inn and here, he’d fallen off the edge of England and into the deepest pit of hell.
Hell, or Cornwall. Same bloody thing.
The Duke’s Head.
Ethan snorted. Pity he wasn’t in the mood for a laugh, because that was damn amusing. The Duke’s Head was the only inn in the tiny village of Cleves, and it was the last place a duke would be caught dead, with or without his head.
His horse stumbled as Ethan led him around another of Cornwall’s endless muddy puddles. Christ, it was dark here. He wouldn’t have believed any place in England could be this dark if he hadn’t seen it himself. Or not seen it, as it happened, because it was too bloody dark to see bloody anything. Well, except for his flask. He could see that because he had it clutched in his hand, and a bloody good thing too, because a man doomed to spend Christmas in the wilds of bloody Cornwall bloody well better keep a flask to hand at all times.
He paused to count, the flask hovering in front of his lips.
Six bloodies in less than a minute.
There was a chance—just the merest possibility, of course—he wasn’t overflowing with the joys of the season.
Ah, well. At least he was overflowing with whiskey.
He tipped the silver flask to his lips and took another swallow. What he lacked in Christmas cheer he more than made up for in drink, and it wasn’t as if any of the servants left at Cleves Court were in a position to scold him for his drunkenness. He was the Earl of bloody Devon now, and in the year since he’d become his lordship, he’d discovered earls were permitted to behave rather badly, indeed. Not as badly as marquesses and dukes, but badly enough, and no one seemed to trouble themselves much about it.
Perhaps that’s how his father had become such a wastrel. Too much . . . Earling? Earlishness? Lordshippery? Ethan frowned. It was one of those, but it didn’t matter which. Whatever you called it, it amounted to the same thing—some earl or other had behaved badly, so the new earl was obliged to ride to bloody Cornwall in the cold and dark to clean up the disaster the previous wastrel of an earl had left behind.
That it would be a disaster, Ethan hadn’t the slightest doubt. The last time he’d been to his country seat it was teetering on the edge of disreputable, and that was two years ago. He hadn’t the faintest idea why his father hadn’t shut the cursed place down altogether as he’d promised he would, but whatever whim had moved the old earl was no doubt fleeting, like most of his whims.
God knew once his father abandoned something, he never looked back.
He’d have forgotten all about the place the moment he returned to London, and by now the old pile would be collapsing into rubble. With only a handful of servants left to tend to it, it would be dark and freezing, and likely damp as well, with cobwebs thick enough to smother Ethan in his sleep, and servants who hadn’t the faintest notion how to look after an earl.
What if they led him to some godforsaken room with damp walls, uncarpeted floors and mice-infested sheets? What if they didn’t even have sheets, or proper lamps or candles? Or, dear God, what if he should run out of whiskey while he was trapped in that old tomb, and was forced into tedious sobriety?
Damn it, perhaps he should have dragged Fenton with him to Cornwall, after all. He’d considered it, but Cleves Court was barely civilized. His fussy London valet would be in fits of horror over the savagery of it all, and Ethan didn’t want another useless servant about, wringing his hands and making things difficult. This visit was bound to be unpleasant enough without Fenton’s hysterics to contend with.
No, it was best to keep things simple. Wrestle his way through the wilds of Cornwall to Cleves Court, issue orders for the house to be closed at once, stay long enough to see those orders carried out, then get back to London before his supply of whiskey was depleted.
But he’d have to see to it he had a proper bedchamber. He was an earl, after all, and accustomed to his comforts. He’d need something with sheets and without mice, and he’d prefer better music, as well, instead of that incessant picking on the pianoforte keys, but he supposed it was too much to ask anyone at Cleves Court would know how to play the pianoforte—
Music? What the devil?
Ethan brought his horse to a halt and stared down at the flask in his hand. Good Lord, how much whiskey had he drunk? He was so far in his cups he must be hallucinating, because there wasn’t a blessed thing for miles around here aside from Cleves Court, and the music couldn’t be coming from there.
Could it?
It was damned odd, but it seemed as if someone at Cleves Court was playing the pianoforte. If you could call it playing, that is. Pick, pick, pick. He couldn’t quite decipher the song, but it was something irritatingly festive. Without realizing he did it, he began to hum along under his breath, trying to place it.
Four calling birds, three French hens . . .
Oh, Christ. It was the Twelve bloody Days of bloody Christmas. Christmas music in general was intolerable, but he loathed this song in particular. A man might be partial to milkmaids, and eight of them at once could prove amusing, but what the devil was he to do with French hens and a bloody partridge? They’d only get in the way.
Ah, well. It was nothing more whiskey couldn’t cure.
Ethan drained his flask and urged his horse forward, but once he crested the hill he stopped a second time, his gaze frozen on his ancestral estate nestled at the notch in the hill just below him.
Light spilled from every downstairs window and cast a cheerful glow onto the drive in front of the house, which was crowded with wagons and carriages. Even from this distance he could see people passing to and fro in front of the windows, and hear voices and an occasional shriek of muffled laughter. The delectable scent of sugared apples and roasted meat drifted through the air, and Ethan’s stomach let out an insistent growl.
Laughter, music, and sugared sweets? He might be in his cups, but he wasn’t so foxed he couldn’t see what was right in front of his eyes. Some presumptuous devil was running amok at his estate, without his knowledge or permission.
Ethan tucked his flask into his pocket, kicked his horse into a run, and shot down the hill toward the house. Damnation. He’d only just arrived, and already he was being thrown headlong into sobriety.
A few coachmen were loitering in the drive, but they were distracted by cups of ale, so he dismounted and tied his horse himself, grumbling at the neglect. What bloody good was it being the earl if he didn’t get to shout orders, and then stand back like a proper aristocrat while the servants rushed about in a panic to do his bidding?
He strolled through the front door, squinting at the sudden light. Christ. It appeared they did have candles and lamps at Cleves Court, because the place was brighter than a London ballroom. A dozen or so people hung about, and the entire entryway was smothered in kissing balls and evergreens.
Bloody hell. It looked as if Christmas had gotten foxed, and then cast up its accounts all over Cleves Court.
There was a rather nice-looking Christmas punch on a table at his elbow, so Ethan snatched up a glass. Whiskey was preferable, but he’d drunk it all, so the punch would have to do.
He raised the glass to his lips, took a healthy swallow, spluttered, and then stared down at the glass, aghast. For God’s sake, who made a punch without brandy? It was a disgraceful waste of perfectly good fruit—
“Who d’ye think ye are? That’s my punch ye just drunk.”
Ethan dropped the glass onto the table and turned to find a thin, dark-haired boy at his elbow. “Who the devil are you?”
Instead of disappearing as a figment of one’s imagination should, the boy jabbed his thumb into his chest. “Why, I’m Henry Munro.” He announced this as if everyone in their right mind should know who Henry Munro was. “Who’re you?”
“The Earl of Devon.” Everyone in his right mind should know who that was, but if Ethan expected the boy to blanch with terror to find the master of the house had suddenly appeared in his midst, he was disappointed.
“What, yer a lordship? I’ve not got much use fer lordships, meself.” Henry took in his depleted glass of punch, and gave Ethan a disgusted look. “’Specially those what drink my punch.”
“That’s my punch. Didn’t you hear what I just said? I’m Lord Devon.” Ethan waved a hand around the room. “Lord Devon. This is my house. Every glass of punch in the bloody place belongs to me.”
He sounded like a two-year-old whining over a toy, but for God’s sake, who was this demonic imp, and what was he doing here? And didn’t anyone in this house recognize the name Devon?
“Aw right then, guv. No need to take on like that.”
The boy grabbed what was left of his punch and tried to dart away, but Ethan snatched him up by the collar and hauled him back. “Who’s in charge here?”
“I thought ye said this was yer house.”
“It is, but—”
“Ye don’t know who’s in charge of yer own house?” Henry wriggled loose from Ethan’s grip and eyed him, looking less impressed with every passing second.
Damnation. As much as Ethan hated to admit it, the boy had a point. “I’ve been away. Is it Mrs. Hastings still?”
It seemed unlikely Mrs. Hastings—or Mrs. Hastens, he couldn’t quite recall—was the authoress of all this offensive merriment. A vague image of a gray-haired lady with lace collars and dozens of iron keys at her hip rose in Ethan’s mind. She had to be at least sixty years old by now. Perhaps she’d gone senile.
“Mrs. who? Never ’eard of ’er.”
Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. What, the boy hadn’t even heard of Mrs. Hastings? What had happened to his bloody housekeeper? “Well, who then, Henry? If it’s not Mrs. Hastings, then who’s responsible for this house?”
“Same person what’s always been responsible, guv.”
Ethan grasped the boy’s collar again, ready to shake the answer out of him. “And who would that be?”
Before Henry could reply, a maid appeared and held out a tray to Ethan with a smile. “Punch, sir?”
“No! No bloody punch. I’m Lord Devon, just arrived.”
“Lord Devon? Oh, no. That is . . . oh, dear, the earl himself.” The maid’s face went white and she sank into a hasty curtsey, still clutching the tray. “I, ah—welcome home, your lordship.”
Cleves Court wasn’t his bloody home anymore, and in another few weeks it wouldn’t be anyone else’s either, but the maid would find that out soon enough. “What’s your name?”
“Becky, sir—that is, my lord.”
“Becky, you will tell me at once who’s responsible for this madness.”
Becky shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortable. “Um, our housekeeper, your lordship, just as she is every year.”
Every year?
Ethan gritted his teeth. “Would you be so kind as to tell me where I might find the housekeeper?”
“Let’s see. The last time I saw her she was in the kitchens, but I think she may have gone back to the drawing room. I’d be happy to take you to her, sir—”
But Becky got no further, for at that moment a child darted through the drawing-room door, his head down, and slammed right into the back of her, sending the tray in her hands to the floor with a crash of shattering glass. Becky let out a despairing wail as punch splattered everywhere.
The floor, the walls—Christ, even the kissing balls were dripping with it.
Ethan might have laughed if it hadn’t been for his boots, which were now splattered with sticky punch. He’d managed to make it through every muddy inch of bloody Cornwall with the pristine shine still on his boots, but the second he set foot in this godforsaken house they were ruined. Damn it, a man’s boots were sacred—
“George Munro! You naughty boy! Look at what you’ve made me do!”
George Munro? Ethan stared at the child who’d come to a screeching halt in the . . .
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