What an Earl Wants Read online

  Sam’s smile faded, but only slightly. “We’ll see you at six, then.” He shook Quincy’s hand again, climbed back into the cart, and slapped the reins.

  Quincy hurried the rest of the way home, her mind racing even faster than her feet. Once before she had heard rumors of upcoming changes at a mine that she had invested in. When the dust cleared a month later, she had quadrupled her investment’s value. If only she’d had a hundred pounds invested then, instead of ten! The profit from that transaction had paid their expenses for several months. If only Papa had listened…

  But she had no energy to spare for such useless ruminations. As she entered her lodgings, she wanted to eat, then sleep, then get up and go to Sam’s and eat again. And hang on every syllable Angie uttered.

  “Mr. Quincy! You’ve come just in time,” Lady Fitzwater called from down the hall.

  Quincy set her bag inside their quarters and forced a smile. “Good afternoon, Lady Fitzwater. In time for what?”

  “Luncheon, of course! Come, your sister and grandmother are already in the dining room with my other guests. We don’t want to keep them waiting.” Lady Fitzwater tucked her arm through Quincy’s and half dragged her into the dining room. “Everyone, look who showed up in the nick of time,” she announced.

  Eight pairs of eyes turned toward Quincy. She swallowed hard, then pulled out the chair and seated Lady Fitzwater before taking the only vacant seat, next to Melinda, across from Lord Palmer. She nodded greetings to Lady Fitzwater’s other renters, Miss Stanbury, Reverend Gladstone, and Lieutenant Wheeler.

  “Lord Sinclair must be running you ragged,” Palmer said.

  “He’s been a bit under the weather,” Lady Fitzwater said before Quincy could reply. “But Lady Sinclair assured me this morning that he is doing much better. Isn’t he, Mr. Quincy?”

  “Yes, my lady, he is much improved.” Quincy gratefully sat back as the footman placed dishes and silverware before her, then filled her plate.

  “Sinclair never had much use for doctors,” Sir Leland said. “Has he sent one packing yet?”

  “I would wager he has his secretary tending to his needs, not some fusty old doctor,” Lord Palmer interrupted. “Isn’t that so, Mr. Quincy?”

  Quincy dropped her fork. Palmer couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he meant. Could he? Her palms felt damp, but she wouldn’t give Palmer the satisfaction of seeing her dry them. If even his friends were speculating on Sinclair’s relationship with his secretary, it was past time for her to leave.

  “Our Jo is quite experienced when it comes to dealing with illness,” Grandmère jumped in.

  “I don’t know what we would have done last winter without Jo,” Melinda added. “Grandmère and I were both quiteill.”

  “Now, now,” Lady Fitzwater came to Quincy’s rescue. “You’re making the boy blush. Eat up, everyone!”

  Quincy managed to get through lunch without choking. Unable to decipher the looks exchanged between Leland and Palmer, she did her best to ignore them, as well as the long looks they each gave her. Again and again she reached to push up her spectacles, only to remember they weren’t there.

  At last the meal was over and she escaped to her room. She tried to dismiss Palmer’s innuendo as merely a figment of her guilty conscience. She tossed and turned so much, Sir Ambrose jumped down from her pillow and stalked away, his tail twitching in annoyance. Eventually she fell into a fitful sleep, interrupted when Melinda shook her shoulder.

  Supper at Sam’s was all she hoped for. Angie described upcoming changes at the mine that involved laying off some workers, hiring others, and incorporating new equipment. The owners had hushed up things so well, London papers hadn’t heard of the unrest yet.

  Quincy barely kept from rubbing her hands together in glee. This was exactly what she needed. And this time, thanks to Sinclair’s extravagant raise, she had more than fifty pounds to invest. There was always a risk inherent to any investment, but the payoff—money for their cottage and getting Mel out of London—was worth it.

  She thanked her hosts by reading the younger children a story, and included Angie in the reading and penmanship lesson.

  Early the next morning, she took a hackney into the City, to the office of Sinclair’s solicitor. Reginald Chadburn, Esquire, did not keep her waiting long enough for her to experience more than a niggling doubt about the wisdom of what she was about to do. She barely had time to remove her hat and gloves before the clerk ushered her into his office.

  A short, stout man in his fifties, Chadburn urged her to be seated. “How can I be of service to you today, Mr. Quincy?”

  Quincy pushed her spare spectacles up on her nose and plunged in. “Lord Sinclair is not feeling well, and has charged me with a few tasks. I will need your help to carry them out.” She quickly outlined her strategy for moving the earl’s investments.

  “Certainly. I’ll draw up the necessary papers and personally bring them over this very afternoon.”

  “Bring them over?”

  “For Lord Sinclair’s signature, of course.”

  “Of course.” She cleared her throat. “Just ask for me when you arrive, and I’ll be happy to take the papers in to him. I’m afraid he’s still contagious.”

  Chadburn’s eyebrows shot up into his wig. “Contagious?”

  “Nothing serious, I assure you, but we don’t wish to take any chances.”

  “No, we do not. Better to err on the side of caution, I always say.” Chadburn consulted his pocket watch, and they agreed to meet at the earl’s town house at three that afternoon.

  When she arrived a short while later, Sinclair was awake, wearing his emerald satin dressing gown, sitting up in the chair drawn close to the window. Morning sunshine bathed his features, making his chestnut hair gleam, putting color back in his cheeks. He scratched at a hint of whisker stubble on his chin as he flipped through one of his ever-present folios.

  She wanted to gather him in her arms. Wanted to feel his arms around her, wanted him to whisper words of love in her ear. Wanted to burrow under the bedclothes with him, their naked bodies entwined.

  She hoped his future wife, whomever she was, would appreciate moments such as this. Private, quiet moments, nothing and no one in the world but the two of them.

  There was no use pining for what could never be, for her. She cleared her throat, all business again.

  “Good to see you sitting up again, my lord,” she said, handing him the morning newspaper. He seemed alert. Now would be a good time to tell him about her plans for his investments, and confess that she’d discovered the full extent of Johnson’s thievery.

  “Good to be sitting up.” Sinclair opened the newspaper, scanned the front-page headlines, then handed it back and dropped his folio on the table. “World hasn’t come to an end yet. It will all wait another day.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, his hands folded in his lap.

  Quincy pressed her lips together. News regarding his investments could wait, too. She made to rise, but stole a moment to gaze at him again. Just looking on him made her heart feel warm, her pulse speed up. His vulnerability made her wish for all sorts of impractical, impossible things. Things that she gave up the right to on the day she became Mr. Quincy.

  Years from now, she would pull out the bittersweet memory of this time, and cherish it all over again.

  She forced her attention to the paper. No mention of the doings at the mine yet. Tomorrow, most likely, the story would break. Then, with Mr. Chadburn’s help, she would have to move fast.

  Sinclair opened his eyes and caught her staring at him. She pushed her spectacles up on her nose. “Care for some tea, my lord?”

  He nodded, his expression slightly troubled as he returned her regard.

  She poured the tea. As he took the cup, his fingers brushed hers. Sinclair seemed in no hurry to break the contact. She looked up, both of them holding the cup, to meet his steady brown gaze upon her.

  “I realize the past few days have been less t
han ideal,” he began.

  She was in no hurry to break the contact, either, and gave him an encouraging nod.

  He shifted the cup to his left hand, holding her hand in his right. “The coming days will be much better, I promise. Until then, I just, ah, that is…Thank you.”

  She squeezed his fingers. “You’re welcome.” When she would have pulled away, he tugged her closer, leaning forward, until he raised her hand and kissed the back of her fingers, his lips warm and smooth upon her skin.

  Her heart stopped. They had done far more intimate things with each other just a few days ago, but this was different. This was a courtly gesture, common among the aristocracy, one he’d doubtless performed hundreds if not thousands of times.

  But no one had ever done it to her. And while she was Mr. Quincy, no one else ever would.

  While she struggled to bring air into her lungs and her thoughts tripped over themselves, unable to form a reply, he gave her a smile, stood, and went back to bed.

  His brief cough made her stand. She handed him the glass of honey-lemonade. “I’ll be in the next room if you need anything.” He nodded, and she walked to her desk, still dazed.

  Several times throughout the day she heard him move from his bed to the chair, and back again after a brief interval. She should tell him about the moves she was planning for his investment portfolio. Instead she kept thinking about his hand holding hers, his lips on her skin. And not just on her hand.

  As the clock struck three, Thompson opened the sitting room door to tell her there was a visitor for her. Blast. Mr. Chadburn. And she had forgotten to tell Sinclair.

  She greeted the solicitor in the drawing room where Harper had seated him, and went back upstairs with the papers before even thinking to offer him refreshment.

  Sinclair was asleep when she knocked and entered his bedchamber. Judging by the volume of his snores, he would not awaken anytime soon. He needed the rest; she wouldn’t wake him up. She chewed her bottom lip in thought, then shrugged. Nothing could be done about it.

  She signed Sinclair’s name to the papers and took them back to Mr. Chadburn, her conscience clear. After all, she was not cheating the earl. Everything she did was in his best interest, just as she had promised when he hired her. How fortunate that what was in his best interest benefited her as well.

  As he took the papers from her, Mr. Chadburn handed her a new folio. “Here’s the monthly report on the Three Soldiers Inn. Has his lordship made a decision on the prospectus I sent over last week?”

  “Prospectus?”

  “For the inns in Lancashire, and one in Manchester. If he still plans to buy one or more of them, we need to complete the transaction soon.”

  “Ah, no, I don’t believe he’s made his decision yet.”

  Chadburn stood, putting on his hat. “Let me know the moment he does, will you? Rumor is there’s another buyer sniffing around, and the price may go up.”

  “Yes. I’ll do that.”

  The moment she was alone, Quincy tore open the folio. Income, expenditures, planned improvements, everything one needed to know about the operation of the Three Soldiers Inn. The same inn she and Sinclair had stopped at on their way to Brentwood. As she had suspected, Sinclair was the anonymous benefactor, the one with more pounds than sense.

  She hugged the folio to her chest. She wanted to throw her arms around him. She settled for a deep sigh of contentment, and went back upstairs to work.

  The earl also happened to be asleep during the next three visits from Mr. Chadburn. It could only be a coincidence that Quincy scheduled those appointments for just after luncheon, when Sinclair was most likely to nap.

  “How does he do it?” Mr. Chadburn asked her one afternoon several days later. He had just delivered the news that their latest series of moves had netted a profit of ten thousand pounds for Sinclair, and five hundred for Quincy. She barely kept from dancing a jig of joy in front of the solicitor. “How did he know just when to buy and when to sell? We’ve been two days ahead of the newspaper, and all other investors, all week. Has he a Gypsy with a crystal ball?”

  Quincy returned the solicitor’s smile. “Let us just say Lord Sinclair listens very carefully to everyone he meets.”

  Chadburn nodded as though Quincy had just imparted great wisdom, and left with her new instructions, whistling a jolly tune. Likely he had made the same investments.

  This profit meant she now had enough to buy the cottage she and Mel and Grandmère had wanted for so long. Just a little longer, a few more transactions, and she would have enough funds to comfortably furnish and stock it in plenty of time to get Mel out of the city before winter arrived. Her sister’s life would be saved.

  The door to Sinclair’s room was open when she returned to her desk, and he was sitting up. Still bubbling with joy, she grabbed several folios from her desk and sat across from him.

  “This came for you.” She handed him the monthly report. “You great looby.”

  The swift change of expression on his face, from confusion to understanding to bashful, almost made her laugh aloud.

  “They’re doing quite well, but I agree, they still need Chadburn’s monthly visits. Soon you’ll be able to cut those back to quarterly, as the men are quick learners.” Before he could say anything, she handed him the other folios. “Manchester is the best choice of these three. Better cash flow, better location, more forgiving while new innkeepers learn their trade.”

  “You think you know all my secrets now?” Sinclair leaned toward her, his voice low and husky.

  Quincy licked dry lips. “You talk in your sleep.” She watched with satisfaction as he considered what he might have revealed. She had no intention of telling him all he’d said was her name. Over and over. And over. “I told you when you hired me that my actions would be in your best interests. You should know that while you’ve been ill, I—”

  The hall door burst open and Lady Sinclair entered in a swirl of burgundy skirts. “Benjamin, dear, tell me you’re feeling much more the thing.”

  While Sinclair assured his mother she should indeed go out that evening with Lady Fitzwater and Leland as her escorts, Quincy scurried back to her desk. Her intent to tell Sinclair of his change in fortune was thwarted when he fell asleep immediately after his mother left, and he did not awaken before Quincy went home for the day. Tomorrow she’d tell him.

  The next morning, Harper greeted Quincy at the door and informed her his lordship was dining in the breakfast room with his mother. “Leaning heavily on his walking stick, and had to rest on the landing when he came on to coughing,” Harper said, “but ’tis good to see him do justice to Cook’s meals again.”

  Quincy murmured agreement and hurried upstairs. She could put it off no longer. It was time to tell Sinclair of her efforts to repair his finances. And if he was well enough to take his meals downstairs, he no longer needed her care. There was no longer a need to subject him to the risk of scandal by her remaining in his employ. Thompson still had not collected on his wager, but there was no telling how long keeping her secret would amuse him.

  Alone in Sinclair’s sitting room, she sagged against the wall, blinking back a sudden tear. She should be happy. The goal she had worked so hard for, for so long, was now within her grasp. Her investments were now worth more money than she’d ever possessed, and the profit for Sinclair was even greater. She could move her sister to the country, where Mel would be safe and healthy.

  But it meant leaving Sinclair.

  No! She couldn’t. Not yet. But Thompson knew her secret, as did a footman at Brentwood. So would others, if she stayed too long. She would not subject Sinclair and his mother to more scandal than they’d already been through. It was time for her to leave.

  She railed at fate a minute more, then wiped the tears from her eyes and moved on. She would concentrate on one step at a time, and avoid thinking about the empty years, alone and without Sinclair, yawning before her. She enlisted Thompson’s help in moving her account books and o
ther accoutrements from Sinclair’s sitting room back down to the library.

  “I’m about to give notice, so you can collect from Grimshaw soon.”

  “You’re leaving?” Thompson dropped the books on her desk. “I’ll miss you, m’dear.” Quincy looked up in surprise as he patted her shoulder.

  His hand was still on her shoulder when Sinclair walked in.

  “That will be all, Thompson,” he said, scowling.

  “Yes, my lord.” The footman bowed to Sinclair and backed from the room.

  “May I say you are looking much improved, my lord?” Quincy said, pushing up her spectacles. This was the first time she’d seen him fully dressed since the day they’d ridden back from Brentwood. He was still pale, and his clothes hung a little loose, but he looked worlds better than he had that terrible night when she thought he was dying.

  “You may.” He gave her a grin as he dropped into his chair and unfolded the newspaper he’d carried tucked under his arm, and began to read.

  Quincy mentally rehearsed what to say. Sinclair might be upset at first when she told him what she’d done with his investments while he was ill, but that was sure to pass when she told him of the profit. She had completed the task of investigating Johnson’s thievery, the reason he’d kept her on. And after she confessed that at least two servants knew her secret, he would agree that it was best if she left his employ immediately. She cleared her throat.

  “Bloody hell!” Sinclair shouted.

  Quincy shut her mouth without saying a word.

  Sinclair dropped his feet to the floor and leaned across his desk, his eyes fixed on the paper before him. “Quincy, you aren’t going to believe this. Here, read it for yourself.” He handed her a folded section of the newspaper, his finger stabbing an article.

  It was a tiny notice, almost buried among the advertisements, concerning a ship headed for Boston that had gone down in a storm in the Atlantic. All hands were believed lost.

  “My lord?”

  “That’s the ship Johnson and Florence sailed on. I watched them board just before she lifted anchor.”