Tess felt a blush rising up her collarbone. “We haven’t brought any maids with us.”
“In that case,” her guardian said without even blinking, we can employ these four young women for the purpose, if that would be acceptable.” He indicated the four nursemaids, still lined up against the wall, their eyes wide as ha’pennies. “I’m certain the housekeeper can train them in their duties readily enough.”
“You’re in need of a chaperone,” Mayne put in, with a slanting glance at the duke. “Now that you’re no longer running a nursery. Tonight, Rafe.”
Clearly the thought hadn’t crossed their guardian’s mind. “Dammit, I’ll have to write a note to Lady Clarice,” he said, running a hand through his wild hair, “and ask her to pay me a visit. That’s if she’ll come after last time; I think I was a trifle rude to her.”
“In your cups, were you?” Mayne asked.
A wry grimace curled their guardian’s mouth. “I threw her out, with luck not bodily. Can’t really remember.” He suddenly realized that Tess and the girls were all staring at him and gave them a smile that hadn’t a whit of remorse in it. “Now my wards will think I’m a sot.”
“To know you is to love you,” the earl said, throwing him a sarcastic grin. “My dear Misses Essex, the evening when your guardian isn’t clutching a bumper of brandy will be the day hell blooms with roses.”
“Lady Clarice’s land runs parallel to ours,” Holbrook said to Tess, ignoring his friend’s comment. “I daresay if I send a pretty enough note, she’ll forgive me since we are in desperate circumstances. You can’t possibly spend the night under my roof without a chaperone.”
But Mayne wasn’t to be silenced. “The lady’s a widow, and she has an eye for your guardian,” he told the girls. “I do believe she’s hoping that one day she’ll find him so deep in his cups that he doesn’t notice that she’s calling the banns. It’s too bad for her that Rafe doesn’t show his liquor.”
“Nonsense,” the duke said gruffly, sweeping his hair about so that he looked even more of a lunatic.
“Doesn’t bother her that she has ten years on Rafe,” Mayne continued blithely. “Lady Clarice has an optimistic soul, for all that her own son is almost Rafe’s own age.”
“Maitland is considerably younger than I,” the duke said rather curtly.
“He’s in his twenties,” Mayne said, “and that makes Lady Clarice at least five years older than you.”
Tess felt rather than heard an agitated little sound from Imogen, at the same second that her own heart sunk. They were hoping to wean Imogen from her hopeless adoration of Lord Maitland, and finding him next door wasn’t the best start. “Are you by any chance referring to Draven Maitland, Your Grace?” she asked, obedient to an imploring glance from Imogen.
“So you know Maitland, do you?” It didn’t look to Tess as if their guardian thought much more of Lord Maitland than she did. “Likely he’ll accompany his mother then. I’ll ask them both to join us for supper. Perhaps you and your sisters would like to take a short rest before the evening meal?”
“That would be pleasant,” Tess said. Imogen was grinning like a fool. Tess saw the duke’s eyes take in her grin, but he said nothing.
“The rose suite will do until your chambers are readied.” Holbrook held out his arm, and Tess took it, rather awkwardly.
The Englishmen were so unlike what she had expected! They were—formidable. But Englishmen weren’t supposed to be formidable. Everything she’d ever heard about English gentlemen suggested that they were willowy creatures, liable to sneeze and blow away. Oh, there were exceptions, of course. Lord Maitland, for one, had a sturdy enough figure.
Their new guardian didn’t fit the mold either. He was not ducal in the least. He wasn’t dressed in satin or velvet. Instead, he was wearing trousers so old that she could see the seams on the side, especially where they strained over his belly, and a white shirt that didn’t have a bit of satin on it. Its sleeves were even turned up, as if he were about to set to work in the stables.
There was nothing aristocratic about his voice, either. It was nice enough, but gruff and brusque. And he had lines around his eyes, for all he couldn’t be more than thirty-five. Dissipated, that’s what he looked. Not a womanizer: Tess could spot one of those a mile off, and though he looked at all of them with interest, there wasn’t a spark of appreciation of their womanhood in his eyes.
And yet, for all that wild hair and dissipated face and ancient clothing, for all of that—he wasn’t frightening.
Tess felt a hard knot in her chest begin to loosen, just a trifle.
This burly man who had hired four nursemaids for four little girls and was never without a bumper of brandy…he wasn’t someone to fear.
Tess looked down at the worn linen of his shirtsleeve and said, “I want to thank you, Your Grace, for accepting this guardianship.” She swallowed, but it had to be said. “My father was an improvident man, and sometimes he traded upon acquaintance in a way that must create a burden.”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Don’t think twice about it, m’dear.”
“I’m quite serious,” Tess persisted. “I—”
“So am I,” the duke said. “I must be named guardian in at least twenty wills, Miss Essex. I am a duke, after all, and I’ve never seen that I had a reason to refuse such a request.”
“Oh,” Tess said, shocked to the bone. It seemed her father wasn’t the only man to take advantage of a slender acquaintance with Holbrook.
He patted her hand, for all the world as if he were a middle-aged uncle. “Not to fear, Miss Essex. I’m certain we can figure out this guardianship business amongst us. It should be an easy enough business to find a governess for young Josie. Finding a chaperone that we can bear to live with might take a bit more thinking. But there’s nothing to worry about.”
To Tess’s mind, worry had been her sole emotion of last few months, most of which had been occupied by squabbling over the possibility that their guardian was a reasonable, kindly man versus a half-cracked horseman. And to each and every nervous question Tess had said stoutly, “I’m certain he will be an estimable gentleman. After all, Papa chose him with careful forethought.”
Lord knows that wasn’t the truth. On his deathbed, Papa had grasped her hand, and said, “Not to worry, Tess. I’ve an optimal man to look after you all. Asked him just after poor old Monkton up and died last year. I knew Holbrook years ago.”
“Why has he never visited, Papa?”
“Never met him again,” her father had said, looking so white against the pillow that Tess’s heart had clenched with fear. “Not to worry, lass. I’ve seen his name mentioned time and again in Sporting Magazine. He’ll take good care of Wanton, Bluebell, and the rest. Said he would. Wrote me as much. And I sent him Starling to seal the bargain.”
“I’m sure he will, Papa,” Tess had said, putting down her sweet, feckless Papa’s hand with a loving squeeze since he seemed to have drifted off to sleep. So this duke would take good care of Papa’s beloved horseflesh—but what of his daughters?