What An Earl Wants

Chapter 2-2

“Good Lord, what is that monstrosity?”

She jumped, nearly bumping into his chest. He was leaning over her, his hand on the back of her chair. Her shoulder brushed his fingers as she moved.

He sniffed and looked around the room. “Has my mother been in here?”

“No, my lord. I joined her in the drawing room, at her request.”

He stepped back to allow Quincy room to rise. “Wrapped her around your finger, too, I suppose?”

Quincy tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. “She said she was pleased to make my acquaintance and she… she—”

“She what?”

“Hugged me.”

Sinclair’s mouth opened, but no sound emerged. He raised both eyebrows. “You still haven’t told me what that monstrosity is on your desk.” He reached around her to flick one of the colored balls strung on rows of wires in a wooden frame.

“It’s an abacus.” She flicked back the ball he had moved. “My last employer had one, and I found it quite helpful. It might blend in better if you had a Chinese decorating scheme.”

“Bah. This is my room, and its decorating scheme is that it has none.” He sank onto the sofa and put his feet up on the ottoman. “So, report. What did you learn about the household accounts this morning?”

“I’d rather not say yet, my lord. I found some confusing entries, and I’d prefer to look into them more carefully before discussing the matter.”

“Commendable. Get cracking, then.” He opened the folio he’d carried under one arm and began reading.

Quincy went back to work, trying not to think about Lord Sinclair sitting just a few feet away. She risked a peek at him through her lashes. It took all her powers of concentration to turn her attention back to the account books instead of his profile, to gaze at the figures on the page and not the figure seated in the chair.

The deeper she delved into the entries, the easier it became to concentrate. When she finally caught on to the pattern taking shape in the books, she would have shouted in triumph if it didn’t mean such bad news for Sinclair. The abacus proved her figures were correct, not Johnson’s. She gathered proof from paid bills, ledger books, and correspondence files, spreading them out across the desk and even onto the floor as she worked.

* * *

Sinclair peered at Quincy over the top of the document he was pretending to read, and considered their interview yesterday. Though he was still sure he’d made the right choice, all sorts of questions nagged at him. It was too soon to know for certain that Quincy was a man of his word, and would only use his forgery skill for his employer’s benefit rather than detriment, but Sinclair felt confident things would turn out for the best. His instincts were always right.

Quincy had apparently gotten over his initial discomfort of this morning, and made himself at ease at Sinclair’s desk, using every square inch of its surface. Sinclair hadn’t noticed before how slight of stature the lad was, dwarfed by the leather chair and oak desk, his heels not even reaching the floor. Quincy squinted as he tried to make out Johnson’s indecipherable scrawl. His expression soon cleared, as he must have learned the secret cipher.

He even began humming under his breath and swinging his crossed ankles above the carpet, looking more like a child playing make-believe than a young man at work. But it was no child’s intellect with whom Sinclair had crossed verbal swords earlier.

Time for a little reconnaissance. Sinclair rose from the sofa and settled in the chair across from Quincy. It took the lad several seconds to notice him, but he finally looked up with a start.

“My lord?”

Sinclair leaned his elbows on the desk and rested his chin on one palm. “Tell me how you learned to forge.”

Quincy’s jaw worked for a moment, then he folded his arms in front of his chest. “Have you changed your mind about Newgate?”

“No.”

Quincy just looked at him. Sinclair was beginning to think the lad would refuse to answer, but he stayed still, silently awaiting a reply.

“It was by accident,” Quincy said at last. He picked up the pencil, toying with it. “My… last employer was ill for a long time. His hands would tremble, which made it hard to write. One day I copied his signature on a letter.” He shrugged one shoulder. “After a little practice, he couldn’t tell my version from his.”

“You had his permission?”

Quincy looked insulted that Sinclair would even suggest otherwise. “Baron Bradwell didn’t want others to know how far his illness had progressed.”

“Proud man.”

Quincy looked up from the pencil. “Aren’t we all?”

Sinclair examined his fingernails for a moment. “I don’t recall giving you permission to learn my signature, or a letter from which to copy it.”

Quincy lowered his gaze. “I needed this job. Notes to merchants or agencies are easy to intercept.”

Sinclair straightened. “You stole a note from one of my footmen?”

“Borrowed. I did deliver it.” He glanced at Sinclair over the top of his spectacles. “Eventually.”

Pieces of the puzzle fell into place, giving him an entirely different picture. Sinclair wasn’t certain whether he felt angry or impressed. And he’d thought Quincy audacious before. “The employment agency didn’t send you, did they?”

Before Quincy could reply, Harper knocked on the door. “Beg pardon, my lord, but Lady Sinclair requests your presence,” the butler intoned.

Sinclair stood. “We’ll finish this later,” he warned, and faced the butler. “Where is she? The drawing room?”

“Her bedchamber, actually.”

Sinclair’s eyebrows raised. The butler gave a slight nod. Odd, indeed. Sinclair shot one last look at Quincy, who had gone back to organizing stacks of papers, and headed upstairs.

Hannah, his mother’s maid, opened the door before Sinclair could even knock. “It’s a miracle, my lord,” she whispered, “a bleedin’ miracle!”

Sinclair stepped inside the door, and froze. His mother was in front of the mirror, performing a girlish pirouette, her skirts flaring out. Her yellow skirts. Not black, not gray, not even lavender. Soft, sunny yellow. A color she hadn’t worn in over five years.

“Is something amiss with my appearance, Benjamin?” Lady Sinclair looked at him in the reflection. “Your father used to tell me this dress was flattering on my figure.”

“It was. It is! It’s just that, ah…”

His mother smiled. “You have been after me for ages to put away my widow’s weeds. Now that I’ve decided to do so, you can’t string together a coherent sentence?” She clucked her tongue, then turned to her maid. “Hannah, I think I’ll wear the dark blue. It would shock everyone senseless if I were to wear bright yellow to Lady Fitzwater’s card party tonight.”

“Yes, m’lady.” The maid sprang forward, gathering up the yards of dresses and fabric strewn across his mother’s bed, setting aside a dark blue mass.

Lady Sinclair nodded. “Now, Benjamin, which ball are you going to squire me to tomorrow night?”

“Ball?” He swallowed.

“You haven’t forgotten our agreement, have you? You promised to attend balls — yes, yes, I know you still can’t dance yet — and look about for a wife, and I promised to dance with at least one gentleman each time we go. Have you picked someone out for me yet? What’s his name?”

Sinclair sank into the delicate-looking chair at the dressing table, grateful it didn’t collapse the way his knees threatened to, and watched his mother walk toward him, hands on her hips. “You spend your days dreaming up ways to set me back on my heels, don’t you?”

His mother laughed.

After a stunned moment, Sinclair chuckled too, from the sheer delight of hearing her laughter. It had been absent so long.

In the dark months following his father’s suicide, Sinclair had often wondered if his mother would suffocate under the weight of her grief and humiliation. She had switched to half-mourning only last fall, at his request, when Sinclair had been brought home to recover from his injuries. He’d suffered nary a twinge of guilt when telling her that seeing her in black made him feel his own death was imminent.

He’d meant the comment as a jest, but quickly realized he’d found a way to bring her back to life, to make her give up her isolation and go about in society again. Hence their “gentleman’s agreement.” He agreed to do things he’d planned to do anyway, but dragged his feet about them, until she agreed to do things she hadn’t done since becoming a widow.

This was the first time she’d followed through on planning to attend a ball. He’d have to sort through his invitations, and older gentleman acquaintances, and find someone suitable for the occasion.

“Well, Benjamin? Whose ball?”

He stood up and kissed her cheek. “It’s a surprise, Mama.”

His mother gave an inelegant snort. “You haven’t the least idea whose yet. Why don’t you have your new secretary sort through the mail and pick one?”

“Have Mr. Quincy pick one?”

“Yes, Mr. Quincy. Had a nice chat with him this afternoon. Charming young fellow. I like him much better than Johnson.”

“Well, he certainly smells better than Johnson.”

Lady Sinclair smiled. “I think you chose well, Benjamin.”

Quincy the forger had had a nice chat with Lady Sinclair … and wrapped her around his little finger, too.

Before Sinclair could form a reply, his mother spun him by the shoulder toward the doorway. “Now, shoo! I have to get ready for Fitzy’s card party.”

“Yes, Mama.” He bussed her on the cheek again and set off back to the library. As he struggled to limp down the stairs, he thought back on their conversation, and the sudden changes in his mother. The spring in her step, the sparkle in her eye — if he’d seen that in anyone else, he’d expect mischief.

Sinclair paused to rest on the landing. His mother had seemed her usual self — usual since Papa’s death — at breakfast this morning. She hadn’t gone out, and no callers had come in, either. The only thing that made today different from any other day had been … had been her chat with Quincy.

Quincy?

He remembered his mother’s words. “Charming young fellow.”

Had Quincy managed to charm his mother out of the blue devils? In one afternoon? When Sinclair had been struggling to do just that for years? Years!

But how?

His own words came back to him. I think you bear watching, Mr. Quincy.

Indeed.

He entered the library, noting that Quincy barely looked up as Sinclair sat on the sofa. He grabbed the folio with the latest report from his solicitor and again pretended to read it as he studied his new secretary. He had every intention of continuing their earlier discussion, but first he wanted more time to think about his conversation with Mama.

The lad was absorbed in his work as he moved from the desk and knelt on the floor, organizing papers and stacking ledgers. Still kneeling, his back to Sinclair, Quincy stretched to reach another pile, the tails of his coat falling to either side. Quincy was wearing new trousers in addition to a new coat, as Sinclair had requested. The tailor had done fine work, despite any misgivings Sinclair might have had.

But something was wrong.

Quincy sat back on his heels, studying a piece of paper. Then he leaned forward to drop it onto a pile of receipts, his trousers stretched taut across his backside. Normally Sinclair paid little attention to other men’s clothing, other than to confirm that his own attire was appropriate for the occasion. But he couldn’t take his eyes off Quincy.

And then Sinclair recognized what was wrong. Though circumspect, Sinclair was no monk. His last dalliance had been long before Waterloo, but he hadn’t lost his appreciation for a fine female derriere … and that’s exactly what he was staring at.

Mr. Quincy was actually a Miss.

Without thinking, Sinclair sprang forward, kneeling on the floor beside Quincy, and grabbed her wrist as she set down a receipt. The spasm of pain in his leg made his voice harsher than he’d intended. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Miss Quincy?”