“Yes, my lord, but I would prefer that you saw him in private. His language is deteriorating rapidly. I don’t think that a female sort of person should have to listen—”
“Show him in, Tregeagle,” Caroline said in a very loud voice. “This minute.”
“Yes,” he said, stiffer than a broomstick, and took himself from the library. He said over his shoulder, “Bare feet, it just isn’t done, not in a gentleman’s library, not in a gentleman’s library at Mount Hawke.”
“Go away, Tregeagle,” North said.
North sighed. He was still feeling as randy as a goat with a new boot to chew, his fingers were still warm from her flesh, but now, given that Bennett Penrose was just on the verge of breaking up his peace entirely, his randiness was growing more distant by the moment. It just wasn’t bloody fair.
“Caroline, your hair is a fright. Go straighten it. When are the new female staff arriving here?”
“After luncheon. They are all approved by Mrs. Trebaw, North.”
“Does she also think they’ll survive my three brave lads?”
“She didn’t venture an opinion on that.”
Scant minutes later, Bennett Penrose, looking like a male angel, strode into the library, primed for battle.
23
“WHAT THE HELL are you doing here, Penrose?”
“I’m not happy,” he yelled. “You, Caroline, you take away my pregnant pigeons—don’t you recall that Aunt Eleanor made us both trustees of them?—and then that miserable man, Owen’s father, Roland Ffalkes, stays the night, and we play whist. He’s a rank cheater, do you hear? Rank! He took my last guinea, my very last one. He kept pouring me brandy, which was very good but it muddled my wits, and I wouldn’t have drunk all that much if I had been the one deciding. And this morning he gives me this superior grin and tells me I should never drink when I gamble. Damned officious old man! He’s gone now, but he’s got all my money.”
“Thank God,” Caroline said. “I hope he went back to Honeymead Manor.”
“Why are you thanking God, Caroline? You connived with him, didn’t you? You told him to make me drink brandy and gamble recklessly.”
“That’s quite enough, Penrose,” North said now, his voice very calm, very quiet, and it terrified Caroline to her bare toes. This was a voice she never wanted to hear directed at her. This was the dark, vicious, probably very dangerous North Nightingale.
“But—”
“No, be quiet. Now you will listen to me. The pregnant ladies are here at Mount Hawke because you can’t be trusted not to try to rape them at Scrilady Hall. Yes, I know about your attempted rape of Alice, she being all of fourteen years old, which makes you something lower than a slug.”
“She’ll be fifteen shortly and that’s a bloody lie. Why did you lie to him, Caroline? The little slut wanted me, she rubbed against me, she did everything but come out and beg me to come take her. I didn’t really want to because she’s got this brat in her belly, but at least I would be safe from having her accuse me of being the father. Damnation, I’m not a slug. And even though she isn’t quite yet fifteen, she looks at least fifteen, maybe even sixteen.”
“Bennett,” Caroline said, her hand resting lightly on North’s sleeve, “listen to me and listen very closely. I will pay you five thousand pounds to renounce your trusteeship of the pregnant ladies, those here now and any in the future. You will also renounce your residence at Scrilady Hall. In short, you will renounce everything, leave Cornwall, and stay gone. Remember, you wanted me to lend you five thousand pounds and you claimed you’d pay it back with interest. Very well, the money’s yours, but in return, there’s no payback to me and you renounce all your partnerships with me.”
“Five thousand pounds?”
North was merely looking on now, as if he were an interested onlooker, but Caroline, knowing him better than she thought it possible to know another human being in such a short time, saw the tug of amusement on his mouth. It was there, she was sure of it. She couldn’t let him down. She wouldn’t.
“Yes, five thousand pounds. Mr. Brogan can be fetched to draw up the papers for you to sign.”
“Ten thousand pounds, Caroline, not a guinea less. Surely my half is worth twice that amount, even more. You’re just trying to take advantage of me because you made Mr. Ffalkes cheat me and pour brandy down my throat.”
North said, giving his fingernails a study, never looking up, “Let me kill him, Caroline. He’s surely not worth anything close to ten thousand pounds. Yes, I’ll kill him. It will be quick and clean, and we won’t have to see his bloody face again. I can bury him underneath one of the apple trees. I don’t think anyone will care, do you?”
Bennett gulped and said quickly, “All right, seven thousand.”
It went back and forth, in the most civilized fashion, until they both agreed to six thousand three hundred pounds.
“It’s not enough to get an heiress,” Bennett said.
“Perhaps not,” North said, flicking an invisible speck off his sleeve, “but it’s enough—if you use your brain and don’t gamble—to live quite nicely for a very long time. Let me make it even more simple, Penrose. It will allow you to eat. Without it, you would starve, because I can’t imagine a single soul who would give you any money or any free food.”
“That’s right,” Caroline said, and walked to the library doors. “Besides, you told me five thousand would be enough. What’s the matter, Bennett? Are you getting less charming by the minute? You don’t think you’ll succeed anymore?”