She had pages to write. There would be no payment from her publisher until the latest installment of Nikolas’s adventures was in his hands.
‘That ye did, and so I told the gentleman, but bless me if some of us dinna act as high and mighty as the day is long.’
A strangled sound came from behind her. The squat, solid figure of Hugh Hamlyn, Viscount Renhurst, stood right on Mrs Ferguson’s heels.
‘Lord Renhurst,’ Chione said in surprise. ‘Are you back from town so soon?’ A quick surge of hope had her instantly on her feet, her heart pounding. ‘Have you heard something then? Has there been word of Mervyn?’
‘No, no, nothing like that.’ He waved an impatient hand. ‘My steward wrote me in a panic, some sort of blight got into the corn. I had to purchase all new seed for the upper fields, and since nothing momentous was happening in the Lords, I decided to bring it out myself.’ His habitually harsh expression softened a bit. ‘I’m afraid your grandfather’s whereabouts are still a mystery, Chione. I’m sorry.’
Chione smiled and struggled to hide her disappointment. ‘Well, of course, a visit from you is the next best thing, my lord.’ She filed her papers away, then stood. ‘Will you bring tea, please, Mrs Ferguson?’
The housekeeper nodded and, with a sharp look for the nobleman, departed.
‘Now what have I ever done to earn her displeasure?’ Lord Renhurst asked in amused exasperation.
Chione waved a hand in dismissal. ‘Oh, you know how Mrs Ferguson’s moods are, my lord.’ She shot him a conspiratorial smile. ‘I know the perfect way for you to get back into her good graces, though.’ She led her visitor over to a massive desk centered at one end of the room. ‘You know how she loves it when people make themselves useful.’
She indicated the large bottom drawer of the desk. It was wedged tightly askew and impossible to open. ‘Could you please, my lord?’ Only with a long-time family friend like the viscount could she ask such a thing. ‘All the sealing wax is in there and I’ve desperate need of it.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘I come bearing news and get set to servants’ work!’ Yet he gamely folded back his sleeve and bent over the drawer. He pulled. He pounded. He heaved. ‘Why haven’t you had Eli in to take care of this?’
Eli was the ancient groom, the only manservant she had left, and also the one-legged former captain of the Fortune-Hunter, her grandfather’s first merchant ship. ‘He does not come in the house,’ Chione explained. ‘He claims his peg will scuff the floor, but I think he is afraid of Mrs Ferguson.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ Renhurst huffed in disgust. His fashionably tight coat was straining at the seams, and a sheen of perspiration shone on his brow. ‘We’re all afraid of Ferguson,’ he grunted. ‘And you still have not told me what I did to end up in her bad graces.’
Chione smiled. ‘It appears that Mrs Ferguson was, at one time, of the opinion that you were on the verge of marrying again.’
The viscount was startled into losing his grip. ‘Good God. Marrying whom?’ he asked, applying himself and pulling harder.
‘Me.’
With a last mighty heave, the drawer came loose. Chione hid her grin as both the sealing wax and the viscount ended up on the library floor. He gaped up at her, and Chione could not help but laugh.
‘Oh, if you could only see your expression, sir! I never thought so, you may rest assured.’ He wisely refrained from comment and she helped him rise and motioned him to a chair before she continued. ‘Can you imagine the speculation you would be subject to, should you take a bride of three and twenty? And though society’s gossip is nothing to me, I could never be comfortable marrying a man I have always regarded as an honorary uncle.’
Chione tilted her head and smiled upon her grandfather’s closest friend. ‘And yet, although I’ve said as much to Mrs Ferguson, I’m afraid that, since you have no intention of marrying me, she has no further use for you.’
The viscount still stared. ‘I confess, such a solution has never occurred to me! I know I’ve told you more than once that a marriage might solve your problems, but to be wedded to an old dog like me?’ He shuddered. ‘What if, against all odds, you are right and Mervyn does come back after being missing all these months? He’d skin me alive!’
Chione smiled. ‘Mervyn himself married a younger woman, but he did so out of love. He’d skin us both if we married for any other reason.’
‘You are doubtless right.’ He sat back. ‘Not every man in his dotage has the energy that your grandfather possessed, my dear. There is not another man in a hundred that would contemplate a second family at such an age.’ He smiled wryly. ‘So sorry to disrupt Mrs Ferguson’s plans. I suppose now it will be stale bread on the tea tray instead of fresh bannocks and honey.’
‘Perhaps not.’ Chione chuckled now. ‘But I would not put it past her.’
‘Actually, I did have a bit of news for you, but before we settle to it, I must ask—where are the children?’
‘Olivia is napping.’ She smiled and answered the question she knew he was truly asking. ‘Will has gone fishing and taken the dog with him. You are safe enough.’
The viscount visibly relaxed. ‘Thank heavens. The pair of them is all it takes to make me feel my own age. Leave it to Mervyn to spawn such a duo and then leave them to someone else to raise!’ He smiled to take the sting from his words. ‘When you throw that hell-hound into the mix, it is more than my nerves can handle.’
Mrs Ferguson re-entered the library with a clatter. She placed the tea tray down with a bit more force than necessary. ‘Will ye be needing anything else, miss?’
‘No, thank you, Mrs Ferguson.’
‘Fine, then. I’ll be close enough to hear,’ she said with emphasis, ‘should ye require anything at all.’ She left, pointedly leaving the door wide open.
Lord Renhurst was morose. ‘I knew it. Tea with bread and butter.’
Chione poured him a dish of tea. ‘I do apologise, my lord. It may not be you at all. Honey is more difficult than butter for us to obtain these days.’
He set his dish down abruptly. ‘Tell me things are not so bad as that, Chione.’
She gazed calmly back at him. ‘Things are not so bad as that.’
‘I damned well expect you to tell me if they are not.’
Chione merely passed him the tray of buttered bread.
He glared at her. ‘Damn the Latimer men and their recklessness!’ He raised a hand as she started to object. ‘No, I’ve been friends with Mervyn for more than twenty years, I’ve earned the right to throw a curse or two his way.’ He shook his head. ‘Disappeared to parts unknown. No good explanation to a living soul, just muttering about something vital that needed to be done! Now he’s been missing for what—near a year and half again? Then Richard is killed five months ago in some godforsaken desert and here you are left alone. With two children and this mausoleum of a house to look after, and no funds with which to do so.’ He lowered his voice a little. ‘No one respects your strength and fortitude more than I, my dear, but if
