or so he felt, past all bearing, Hopwood opened his mouth and shouted—just as a half dozen worse-for-liquor gentlemen sitting in the dirty end of the room exploded in mirth over some joke or other: “Not Wythe, you feather-witted old nincompoops! Hythe! Hythe!”
While neither Lord Blakestone nor Lord Godfrey paid so much as a jot of attention to the red-faced young man bellowing ridiculousness within four feet of their ears, they were attracted to the sounds of merriment across the room, and immediately longed to join in the fun. Looking back and forth to each other across the table that separated their matching burgundy leather wing chairs, the two lords scrambled to their feet, knowing their gossip would be a sure entry to the group.
As they walked toward the small gathering of gentlemen, they called out in unison, “Have you heard? It’s all over town. It’s the strangest thing. Wythe’s dead!”
“Not Wythe, you paper-skulled asses. Hythe! Alastair Lowell, Fourteenth Earl of Hythe, and a damned fine gentleman.” Hopwood pushed the discarded newspaper to the floor and collapsed into Lord Blakestone’s abandoned chair, giving up the fight. “Oh, what does it matter anyway?” he soothed himself. “The fellow’s still dead, ain’t he?”
A MEMORIAL SERVICE was held three weeks later at Seashadow, the Hythe seat in Kent, with several of the late Earl’s friends making the trip down from London in the fine spring weather to pay their respects—although it was rather awkward that there was no body to neatly inter in the family mausoleum.
“His bright light lies asleep with the fishes,” the vicar had intoned gravely upon mounting the steps to the lectern, these depressing words heralding an hour-long sermon that went on to graphically describe the water fate of Alastair Lowell’s earthly remains until a none too discreet cough from Miss Elinor Dalrymple—sister of the new Earl—caused the man to reel in his tongue just as he was about to utter the words “putrid flesh” for a seventh time.
The number of fashionable young ladies of quality (as well as a colorful spattering of beautiful but not quite so eligible women) among the mourners would have cheered Alastair Lowell no end had he been privileged to see them—and so said his friends as they paid their respects to the new Earl and his solemn-faced sister before hastily departing the crepe-hung chapel for some decidedly more cheerful atmosphere.
“Made a muff of it,” Leslie Dalrymple, the new Earl, said tragically, watching from the portico as the last traveling coach pulled out of the yard, leaving him to deal with a dining room piled to the chandeliers with uneaten food. “Ain’t congenial, y’know. Never were.”
“Nonsense, darling,” Elinor Dalrymple consoled her brother, patting his thin cheek. “You were all that is gracious, and your eulogy, although understandably brief, as you had never met our cousin, was everything it could be. The late Earl, rest his soul, merely attracted those of his own, irresponsible ilk—considering that it is rumored our departed cousin was deep in his cups the night of his fatal accident. Doubtless they’re all off now to carouse far into the night, toasting their fallen friend and otherwise debauching themselves.”
Leslie shook his blonde, shaggy head, dismissing her assumption that he blamed himself for his guests’ hasty departure. “Not me, Elly. You. You’re the one routed them—what with your starchy ways. Scared them off, that’s what you did. Besides, black does not become you. Don’t understand it, as you’re blonde and all, but there it is. I do wish you wouldn’t persist in wearing such dark colors.”
Elinor looked up at her brother, who, although three years her junior, stood a full foot higher than she. “Thank you, Leslie,” she rejoined calmly, slipping her arm through his. “You have truly made my day. Now, would you be so kind as to join me in the dining room? I wouldn’t wish for all that food to go to waste.”
The pair entered the house to see that the Biggs family, clad in their Sunday finery, was lined up at attention in the enormous three-story-high hall, obviously in preparation of meeting the late Earl’s mourners.
Nine heads turned toward the doorway as Leslie and Elinor stepped across the threshold; nine necks craned forward to look past their masters for the horde of diners about to push their knees beneath the late Earl’s table and eat their heads off; nine pairs of sky-blue eyes widened as Elinor closed the door firmly on the spring sunshine, and nine mouths split into wide, anticipatory grins as their new mistress announced that the Biggses would just have to discover some way to dispose of the bound-to-be-ample remnants of the funeral feast.
Billie Biggs shifted Baby Willie, her youngest, on her hip and took one step forward. “Chased ’em off, did ya?” she asked in her deep, booming voice that reached all the way up to the rafters. “Good for you, missy. Never saw a sorrier-lookin’ bunch in m’life. They’d have ate us out of house an’ home before we knew which way to look. Come on, children—best get outta those duds afore ya ruin ’em.”
Each Biggs child obediently stepped forward in turn, to either bow or drop curtsies to the Dalrymples before leaving the hall.
Little Georgie, who helped his father in the kitchens (and the eldest at eighteen, though definitely not the brightest), tugged at his forelock and bowed his immense frame low, saying only, “Daft sort of party,” before shuffling toward the scullery—his mother’s absentminded cuff across the top of his head hurrying him on his way.
Lily, sixteen, a very pretty girl who served as upstairs maid, made an elaborate curtsey to Leslie—ignoring Elinor’s presence—and headed for the staircase, her skirts twitching side to side as provocatively as she dared allow in her mother’s presence.
Fifteen-year-old Harry, who worked in the stables, approached the Dalrymples and offered his condolences in a polite voice before passing behind them and through the front door, intent upon returning to the stable yard to check on a mare ready to drop her foal.
Elinor, whose new shoes were pinching her unmercifully, resigned herself to accepting the mumbled condolences of Iris, aged ten, Rosie, eight and one-half, and Bobby, a five-year-old cherub whose tumbling curls and intelligent eyes had, at first sight, prompted Elinor to believe Billie Biggs had played her husband, Big George, false at least once.
Finally, with Billie shooing the younger children in front of her with her immense white apron while reminding the Dalrymples to hurry to the table before the food got cold, the hall was emptied of all but Elinor and her brother.
“Lovely people,” Leslie said, waving to Baby Willie as the child dangled backwards over his mother’s shoulder, all ten fingers stuck in his wet mouth. “So kind, so caring.”
Elinor looked at her brother askance. “Leslie,” she intoned coldly, “the Biggses are not our house guests. They are the sum total of the late Earl’s idea of a servant force on this estate—other than the farm laborers and such. Big George cooks because Billie can’t boil water without burning it—although he told me the other day that it suits him fine anyway because she keeps a neat house and can make babies. Harry is a good worker, but Little George is a complete loss. Lily is ripe to seduce anything in long pants, while Rosie, Bobby, and Baby Willie are too young to do much more than eat their heads off and take up space—although I must admit Iris shows promise.”
Leslie was immediately apprehensive. “You don’t mean to turn them off, do you, Elly?”
Elinor shook her head and sighed. “No, Leslie,” she soothed wearily, “I don’t mean to turn them off. Truthfully, the estate was running quite smoothly when we arrived, so I see no need to change anything. It’s just—it’s just that it’s so depressing. I have nothing to do, Leslie. That boisterous woman and her gaggle of children have made me totally superfluous!”
