‘Forgive me, Lady Moreland. I do not wish to presume, but would it be helpful if I speak to the staff about it—provided we have his lordship’s consent? I would wish to be of assistance.’
The countess looked at Tess, a small, considering smile on her lips. Tess shifted under the gaze. Was no longer a virgin emblazoned on her forehead? Or perhaps she was allowing her feelings for Alex to show. But his mother was definitely smiling. ‘Thank you, my dear. I think that would be very…appropriate. Alexander, tell your father I am in favour of this scheme.’
Tess glanced at Alex, relieved, but surprised, and found that he was looking at his mother with a quizzical expression as though he, too, was taken aback by those smiles and her agreement. She shrugged inwardly. Provided no one found out that she was sharing Alex’s bed and no one discovered who she was, then there was nothing to worry about.
Chapter Seventeen
‘We will go and find Garnett and take his advice on how to proceed with our party.’ Alex steered Tess in the direction of the main hall.
‘Your mother… I expected her to be reluctant,’ Tess confessed. ‘And yet she seemed quite approving of it.’
‘I suspect the approval is for you rather than the scheme,’ Alex said.
She wished they were in private so she could rub away the lines from between his brows. It took her a moment to realise just what he was frowning about. ‘For me? She thinks you and I… But surely she knows I am a nobody?’
‘Does she? Besides, you are not a nobody, you are very much yourself.’
How could he pretend to make light of it? ‘I mean, does she realise that I am quite ineligible?’
‘Probably not,’ Alex conceded.
So there goes that foolish little daydream, the one where your King Cophetua falls for you, the beggar maid, marries you and defies all convention. Of course Alex has more sense than that. ‘Then, you had better tell her before she comes to any embarrassing conclusions,’ Tess said, more snappishly than she intended. It wasn’t Alex’s fault that he was heir to an earldom and she was the illegitimate child of a scandalous liaison. Not that he knows that, she mused as they came out into the hallway. He knows I am ineligible enough, even if he believes I am legitimate. No money, no connections…
‘Alex! What in blazes do you think you are doing?’ Matthew thudded down the staircase, his boot heels like thunder on the old polished oak.
‘Organising Christmas dinner, since you ask,’ Alex drawled, coming to a halt under a trophy arrangement of swords and rapiers that fanned out across the entire wall.
‘To hell with Christmas dinner. What do you mean by thinking you can exile me to the other end of the county, give away property—’
‘You will kindly mind your language in front of Miss Ellery. I have neither the power nor the inclination to exile you anywhere and I certainly do not have the ability to give away any of the lands, although why you are objecting since they would end up in your hands, I have no idea. I merely suggested to Father that as you wanted to set up your own estate, he give you one of the unentailed properties to the west.’
‘To get me out of the way? And the old fool thinks that because you boast about your swordplay and your riding that you’re a fit heir all of a sudden?’ Matthew was pacing up and down, hands clenched, shoulders hunched, for all the world like an angry bull, Tess thought.
‘Excuse me. This is obviously a family matter.’ She stepped back into the passageway, then stopped behind the shelter of a screen. She did not want to eavesdrop, but nor did she like the edge of violence in Matthew’s ranting.
‘I am the heir. It is not a matter of choice.’ Alex was hanging on to his patience somehow. ‘I suggested he double your allowance, set you up with a good property in recompense for the fact you’ve been landed with all the work up to now. If you hate the idea, then stay here.’
‘And watch you mincing around?’
‘I do not mince.’ It sounded to Tess as though Alex’s patience was stretched to breaking point. Why his brother seemed to be constantly jibing about his masculinity baffled her.
‘Of course, I was forgetting you were a great swordsman. So show me.’
There was the sound of metal scraping against metal, then Alex said sharply, ‘Take care, Matthew, there are no buttons on those foils.’
‘All the better to prick you with, brother dear.’
Tess looked round the screen in time to see Mathew, foil in right hand, throw a second at Alex. He caught it by the hilt and pointed it at the floor. ‘Don’t be a fool.’
‘What, scared of a little sport?’ Matthew was in a fighting stance, feet spread, left arm out behind, the unblunted foil pointing directly at Alex’s heart.
‘Not at all, but do tell me, are you attempting to alter the succession?’ Alex enquired and lifted his own weapon, adopting the same position. Tess could not see his face, but his posture seemed dangerously relaxed. She recalled how he had looked just before he’d hit the sailor on the ship and felt reassured.
‘Alter the succession? No, you’re welcome to it, but I would be interested to see whether you bleed water or red blood.’
‘At this time in the morning, coffee.’ Alex moved suddenly, a flickering lunge with the blade, and Matthew jumped back. Tess winced at the clash of metal and the two stopped talking and began to fight, it seemed to her, in deadly earnest.
Matthew was more aggressive, stockier and heavier and, to her ignorant eye, far more serious. Alex moved less, but with more grace, and he used his foil with an economy and accuracy that seemed to expend far less effort.