“Yes, Your Grace.” The secretary made a low bow.
Lister turned to descend his steps to the waiting carriage.
Or at least that was what he intended. Instead he stopped so suddenly that he nearly lost his footing. Waiting for him at the bottom was a tiny, beautiful woman in a bright green frock.
Lister frowned. “Madeleine, what are you doing here?”
The woman thrust out her chest, imperiling the fine silk of her bodice. “What am I doing here?”
Behind him, Lister heard a dry cough. He turned to see his secretary goggling at his mistress.
“Go inside and make sure Her Grace doesn’t take a notion to come out the front door,” Lister ordered.
The secretary looked a bit disappointed, but he bowed and went inside.
Lister started down the steps. “You know better than to visit my family residence, Madeleine. If this is some attempt at blackmail—”
“Blackmail! Oh, I like that! I like that indeed,” Madeleine replied somewhat obscurely. “And what about her?”
Lister followed her pointing finger to find… “Demeter? I don’t understand.”
The blond lady thus addressed cocked a magnificent hip and folded her arms across her ample bosom. “And you think I do? I received this letter”—she waved an elegant-looking missive—“saying you need me at once and please come here, of all places, if I had any affection for you at all.”
Lister drew himself up. His ancestors had fought at the Battle of Hastings, he was the fifth-richest man in England, and he was known for his ill temper. Two of his mistresses appearing at one time on his very doorstep was, of course, disconcerting, but a man of his experience, stature, and—
“And what the blazes is this?” Evelyn, the most strident of his mistresses, exclaimed as she came around the corner. Tall, black-haired, and imposing, she looked at him with the same wild passion that usually turned his loins to iron. “If this is your way of giving me my congé, Algernon, you will regret it, mark my words.”
Lister winced. He hated it when Evelyn called him by his Christian name. He opened his mouth and then wasn’t entirely sure what to say, a thing that had never before happened to him in his life. This experience was ominously close to one of those awful dreams even a man of his stature had once in a while. The nightmares in which one stood up to address the House of Lords and looked down to see that one was wearing only one’s smallclothes. Or the nightmare in which all of one’s mistresses somehow managed to be in the same place at the same time—and at his house, no less.
Lister felt sweat slide greasily down his back.
Of course, this wasn’t quite all of his mistresses. If it were, his newest light o’ love would have been here, and she—
A dangerously high phaeton rounded the corner, scandalously driven by a sophisticated woman, a little boy in flamboyant purple and gold livery behind her. Everyone turned to look.
Lister watched the vision approach with the fatality of a man who stands before a firing squad. Francesca drew the horses to a halt with a flourish. Her pretty little rosebud mouth fell open.
“What eez theez?” she cried in an excruciating French accent. “Your Grace, ’r you having zee joke wit’ your poor petite Francesca?”
There was a long and awful pause.
And then Evelyn pivoted and stared dangerously at him. “Why does she have a new phaeton?”
It was at this moment, as the shrill voices of four slighted women rose about him, that the Duke of Lister saw a man across the street tip his hat. The man wore an eye patch.
Lister blinked. Surely it couldn’t be…
But that thought was driven from his mind as the women converged on him. The House of Lords would have to wait.
REYNAUD GLANCED ABOUT the room, trying to judge his standing, but it was near impossible. The lords still talked avidly among themselves, with one or two throwing him curious glances. No one smiled at him.
Reynaud balled his fists on his knees.
The usurper took his spot before the table and cleared his throat. He began speaking, but his voice was so low that several lords shouted for him to speak up. Reginald paused, visibly gulping, and began again in a louder but slightly unsteady voice.
And suddenly Reynaud felt sorry for the man. Reginald was in his sixth decade, a short, stout, red-faced man who wasn’t a good speaker. Reynaud remembered very little of the man. Had he come to Christmas dinner with his wife once when Reynaud was down from Cambridge? He couldn’t remember.
The fact was that Reginald simply hadn’t been important. He’d been a distant relation unlikely to inherit the title, since Reynaud was young and healthy. What a surprise it must’ve been when he received news that he’d become the Earl of Blanchard. Had he celebrated Reynaud’s supposed death? Reynaud wasn’t even sure he could hold that against the man. Becoming the Earl of Blanchard had probably been the high point in his life.
Reginald had stuttered to a halt. He’d really not had that much to say to begin with, his basic plea being that he held the title and was therefore the earl. The chairman nodded, and Beatrice’s uncle resumed his seat with evident relief.
Lord Travers stood and called for a vote.
Reynaud felt the blood rush in his ears, so loud that at first he didn’t hear the verdict. Then he did and a wide grin split his face.
“. . . this committee therefore will recommend to Our Sovereign King, His Majesty George the Third, that Reynaud Michael Paul St. Aubyn be given his rightful title as the Earl of Blanchard.”
The chairman continued with the litany of Reynaud’s other titles, but he no longer listened. Triumph was flooding his chest. The lord sitting beside him clapped him on the back, and the man behind him leaned over the bench saying, “Well done, Blanchard.”
Dear God, it felt good to be addressed by his title finally. The chairman wound down and Reynaud stood. The men about him crowded close, offering congratulations, and Reynaud couldn’t help but feel a bit of cynicism at his sudden popularity. He’d gone from being a madman to one of the most influential men in the kingdom. Beatrice had been right. He had great power now—power he could use to effect good if he wished.
Over the heads of the crowd, he saw Reginald standing by the door. He was alone now, his power gone. Reginald caught his eye and nodded. It was a graceful gesture, an acknowledgment of defeat, and Reynaud wanted to go to him, but he was prevented by the press of bodies. In another moment, Reginald had left the room.
The committee began filing out, and Lord Travers came to offer Reynaud his congratulations. “That’s done, then, what? I’ll have the secretary draw up the official committee recommendation to be sent to His Majesty.”