“I’m my father’s son,” he shot back, pounding the desk with his fist. “You cannot keep me down.”
He was going too far, but to hell with boundaries. Sir Lewis Finch was Bram’s last and only option. The old man simply couldn’t refuse.
Sir Lewis stared at his folded hands for a long, tense moment. Then, with unruffled calm, he replaced his spectacles. “I have no intention of keeping you down. Much to the contrary.”
“What do you mean?” Bram was instantly wary.
“I mean precisely what I said. I have done the exact opposite of keeping you down.” He reached for a stack of papers. “Bramwell, prepare yourself for elevation.”
Three
Susanna, pull yourself together.
After excusing herself to hurriedly tame her disheveled hair and exchange her torn, muddied frock for a fresh blue muslin and matching gloves—in the process, speaking more sharply to Gertrude than the poor maid deserved—she joined Lieutenant Colonel Bramwell’s companions in the Red Salon.
As she entered, she stole a quick glance in the hall mirror. Her appearance was repaired, as much as it could be. Her composure, on the other hand, remained splintered in a thousand jagged pieces, all of them rubbing and chafing within her. Some jabbed at her pride. Others stirred up the familiar well of dread that always opened whenever Papa and black powder were mingled. The rest made her prickle all over with awareness. It wasn’t a nice feeling.
And it was all his fault. The beastly, teasing, handsome sheep-bomber. Who was the man, and what did he want with her father? Hopefully just a polite social call. Though she had to admit, Bramwell didn’t seem the type for polite social calls.
The downstairs maid brought in the tray, and Susanna directed her to place it on a rosewood table with legs carved in the shape of long-whiskered goldfish.
“Tea, gentlemen?” she asked, pulling her gloves snug as she reached for the pot. Pouring tea was just what she needed right now. Such a civilizing force, tea. She would nip sugar with little silver tongs. Stir milk with a tiny spoon. Tiny spoons were incompatible with a state of sensual turmoil.
The thought comforted her. Yes. She would give the men tea, and perhaps a nice dinner. Then they would be on their way, and the world would return to rights. At least her corner of it.
The formerly half-dressed gentleman—Lord Payne, as she now knew him—had located his coat and cravat, and smoothed his hair. He made a suitably aristocratic ornament, at home among the lacquered cabinets and glazed green vases.
As for the officer—a corporal, she’d gathered from his patches—he stood near the plate window, the picture of unease. He glared suspiciously at the dragon-emblazoned carpet, as if expecting the embroidered beast to strike. If it did, she had no doubt he’d kill it handily.
“Will you take tea, Corporal?”
“No.”
It occurred to her this might have been the first—and only—word she’d heard from his lips. He was the sort of man one knew, just from looking at him, had an interesting story to tell. She also felt, just as certainly, he would never tell it. Not at knifepoint, much less over tea.
She handed Lord Payne a steaming cup, and he took an immediate, reckless draught. A devilish smile curved her way. “Gunpowder tea? Well done, Miss Finch. I do enjoy a lady with a sense of humor.”
Now this one . . . he was a rake. It was written all over him, in his fine dress and flirtatious manner. He might as well have had the word embroidered on his waistcoat, between the gold-thread flourishes. She knew all about men of his sort. Half the young ladies in Spindle Cove were either fleeing them or pining for them.
Susanna flicked a glance at the closed door to her father’s library, wondering what could be keeping him so long. The sooner these men left, the easier she would breathe.
Payne reclined in his chair, tilting his head to regard the brass chandelier. “This is quite a room.” He indicated a display case mounted on the wall. “Are those . . .” His head cocked. “What are those?”
“Rockets, from the Ming dynasty. My father is an avid collector of antiquities. He takes a particular interest in historical weaponry.” Pouring her own tea, she explained, “Summerfield has an eclectic theme. This room is in the chinoiserie style. We have an Austrian morning room, an Ottoman parlor, and an Italianate terrace. My father’s study takes inspiration from Egypt and the great library of Alexandria. His medieval collections are housed in the long hall. Oh, and there’s a Grecian folly in the garden.”
“Sir Lewis must be a great traveler.”
She shook her head, stirring sugar into her cup. “No, not really. We’d always talked of a Grand Tour, but circumstances were against it. My father brought the world to Summerfield instead.”
And how she loved him for it. Sir Lewis Finch would never rank among the most attentive or observant of fathers, perhaps. But when she’d needed him most, he’d never failed her. He’d moved all their possessions and his entire laboratory to Summerfield, turned down innumerable invitations and opportunities to travel over the years . . . all for Susanna’s health and happiness.
“Good, you’re all assembled.” Her father emerged from the library. Rumpled, as always. Susanna smiled a little, battling the urge to go smooth his hair and straighten his cravat.
Lieutenant Colonel Bramwell followed like a thundercloud, dark and restless. Susanna had no urge whatsoever to touch him. At least, none that she would admit to. As he moved across the room, she noted that he favored his right leg. Maybe he’d done himself an injury earlier, when he’d tackled her to the ground.
“I have an announcement,” her father said, brandishing a sheaf of official-looking papers. “Since Bramwell has failed to muster the appropriate enthusiasm, I thought I would share the good news with you, his friends.” He adjusted his spectacles. “In honor of his valor and contributions in the liberation of Portugal, Bramwell has been made an earl. I have here the letters patent from the Prince Regent himself. He will henceforth be known as Lord Rycliff.”Susanna choked on her tea. “What? Lord Rycliff? But that title is extinct. There hasn’t been an Earl of Rycliff since . . .”
“Since 1354. Precisely. The title has lain dormant for nearly five centuries. When I wrote to him emphasizing Bramwell’s contributions, the Prince Regent was glad of my suggestion to revive it.”
A powder blast in the Red Salon could not have stunned Susanna more. Her gaze darted to the officer in question. For a man elevated to the peerage, he didn’t look happy about it, either.
“Good God,” Payne remarked. “An earl? This can’t be borne. As if it weren’t bad enough that he controls my fortune, my cousin now outranks me. Just what does this earldom include, anyhow?”
“Not much besides the honor of the title. No real lands to speak of, except for the—”
“The castle,” Susanna finished, her voice remote.
Her castle.
Of course, Rycliff Castle didn’t belong to her, but she’d always felt possessive of it. No one else seemed to want the pile of ruins, after all. And when they’d first taken this house and she’d been so weakened from fever, Papa had called it hers. You must get well, Susanna Jane, he’d said to her. You have your very own castle to explore.
“Susanna, show them all the model.” Her father looked pointedly at a high shelf on the room’s southern wall.
“Papa, I’m sure the lieutenant colonel wouldn’t be interested in—”
“He’s Lord Rycliff now. Of course he’ll be interested. It’s his castle.”
His castle. She couldn’t believe it. Why hadn’t her father told her anything about this?
“The model, dear,” her father prompted. “I’d fetch the thing on my own, but you know you’re the only one tall enough to reach that shelf.”
With a quiet sigh, Susanna dutifully rose from her chair and crossed the room to retrieve the clay model she’d made of Rycliff Castle more than a decade ago. Sometimes life could be astonishingly efficient in dispensing mortifications. In the space of a minute, she would be exposed before three male visitors to be both freakishly tall and an abominably poor sculptor. What would come next? Perhaps her father would invite the men to count her freckles, one by one. They’d be here until moonrise.
Suddenly, Bramwell was at her side.
“This?” he asked, touching a finger to the model’s edge.
She cringed, wishing she could deny it. “Yes, thank you.”
As he retrieved the model from the shelf, she stole glances at him out of the corner of her eye. She had to admit, the Rycliff title suited him. Give the man a mace and a chain mail vest, and she could easily have mistaken him for a medieval warrior, squeezed through some rocky gap in the centuries to emerge in modern day. From the sheer size of him, large and solid all over, to that squared jaw, shadowed with a day’s or more growth of whiskers. He moved with more power than grace, and he wore his dark hair long, tied back at his nape with a bit of leather cord. And the way he’d looked at her just before that kiss—as though he would devour her, and she would enjoy it—was straight from the Dark Ages.
As he presented the crumbling mess of sun-dried clay and pasted-on moss, Susanna fought the urge to blow dust off the thing. Evidently the maids couldn’t reach this shelf, either.
“Isn’t it clever?” Her father took the model from Bramwell’s hands and held it up. “Susanna made this when she was fifteen years old.”
“Fourteen,” she corrected, cursing herself a moment later. Because “fourteen” somehow made it better?
With a flourish, her father placed the model on a table in the center of the room. The men reluctantly gathered around it. Bramwell glowered at the lumpy gray diorama.
“It may not look like much,” her father said, “but Rycliff Castle’s history is legend. Built by William the Conqueror himself, then enlarged by Henry the Eighth. It’s situated on a bluff, right on the sea’s edge. Below is the cove, see?” He pointed. “And the water’s a lovely color in truth, not this murky gray.”
Susanna touched her ear. “There was blue paint, once. It’s flaked away.”
Sir Lewis went on, “The cove was a bustling medieval port. Then, in the thirteenth century, there was a terrific landslide. The result of storms, erosion. No one knows. Half of the original castle fell into the sea, and what’s left is in ruins. But come along, Bramwell.” Sir Lewis prodded the officer. “Look happy. Haven’t you always wanted a castle?”
At his side, Susanna watched the man’s massive hand gather into a fist. She heard knuckles crack.
“Sir Lewis, I’m honored, and I appreciate your recommendation, but this”—he waved at the model—“is not what I had in mind. I’m not interested in playing at knights and dragons.”
Ignoring him, Sir Lewis jabbed his forefinger on the table’s lacquered surface, to what would have been the castle’s western side. “The village would be just about here, down in the valley. Charming little place.” Then he turned and squinted at the far corner of the room. “And just about where that jade medallion is displayed”—he pointed—“would be Cherbourg, on the northern coast of France.”
Bramwell glanced toward the jade, then looked back at Sir Lewis. His brow rose in silent question.
Sir Lewis clapped a hand on the officer’s shoulder. “You did want a command, Bramwell. Well, you’ve just been granted a castle on England’s southern coast, not fifty miles distant from the enemy. As the new lord, you’ll raise a militia to defend it.”
“What?” Susanna blurted out. “A militia, here?”
She must have misheard, or misunderstood. These men were meant to take tea—perhaps a nice dinner—and then leave. Never to be seen again. She could not become neighbors with the sheep-bomber. And heavens . . . a militia? What would become of the ladies and Mrs. Nichols’s rooming house? There were no men like these in Spindle Cove. The absence of rakes and officers was the village’s primary attraction.