my guest into the formal parlor and have the kitchen send up the tea tray. Does Lord Bellefonte know our guest has arrived?”
“He does, my lord, and is arriving from the carriage house as we speak, by way of the kitchen.”
Val let his features settle into the expression worn by a duke’s youngest son—polite, faintly bored, but benevolently tolerant of his many, many inferiors. When he joined Freddy Markham, Freddy was standing by a window with an upside-down Waterford vase in his lily-white hands.
“Good day, my lord.” Val smiled just a little. “Do I take it your journey from Town was pleasant?”
“Windham.” Freddy grinned and set the vase down. “Spent last night in Oxford seeing the attractions and appreciating the summer ale. Put me in quite good spirits.”
By the slight cooling of his smile, Val let it be known Freddy’s failure to use his host’s courtesy title was not appreciated.
“How pleasant for you,” Val remarked, his tone implying something else entirely. “Shall we be seated?”
“Oh, so we’re to do tea and crumpets. Lovely, but I have to say, you’ve certainly gone to a lot of trouble over the old place.”
Val shrugged. “It has good bones. One hates to see something of value allowed to go to waste for simple lack of attention.” Freddy’s brows rose, but his expression suggested he couldn’t quite put his finger on where in that remark the insult to him lay.
“One does,” he replied, a little less exuberantly. “Shall we have a tour? I haven’t seen the interior for years and years.”
Val lifted one eyebrow. “You’ve seen the exterior, then?”
“Oh, well…” Freddy shot his cuffs and ran a finger around the inside of his collar. “If I’m in the neighborhood, I occasionally take a spin out this way just to have a look.”
“And what would there be to look at? I understand from my tenants their farms were of no interest to you.”
“No interest?” Freddy frowned. “What have I got to do with their farms? They’re the farmers, right? And here’s our tea!”
“Allow me to pour.” Val did a creditable job with a teapot. He’d attended any number of his sisters’ tea parties as a child, and it was a skill any mincing dandy—real or impersonated—had to perfect. When he passed Freddy his tea, Val had the satisfaction of seeing Freddy’s hand trembled slightly.
“I say.” Freddy smiled brightly at Val. “Since it’s just we fellows, would there be something we might doctor this with to set the day to rights?”
Val silently passed along to Freddy the decanter of very good brandy Freddy had no doubt spied on the sideboard.
“Am I late?” Nick sauntered in without knocking. “I am, and I beg the pardon of the assemblage. Roxbury.” Nick met the man’s eyes but did not bow, because Nick did, clearly, outrank Freddy.
“You’re Reston.” Freddy rose, all smiles again and stuck out a hand.
“Owing to a recent bereavement,” Val interjected, “he’s Bellefonte now.”
Nick inclined his head and pointedly ignored Freddy’s hand. From his great height, Nick stared down his nose, blue eyes glacially cool, until Freddy bowed in response.
“Tea, Bellefonte?” Val gestured toward the tray.
“Of course.” When Nick spied the brandy, he arched a disbelieving eye. “Lord Valentine, you are not ruining a perfectly good pot of libation with that profane practice of brandying the tea, are you?”
“Of course not,” Val replied pleasantly as he poured Nick a cup.
“Bellefonte was visiting friends at Candlewick,” Val explained to Freddy, “and deigned to grace us with his presence today. We are acquainted through family.”
Val and Nick deftly dropped one titled name after another, until Freddy was all but trying to disappear into his teacup between longing glances at the brandy decanter.
Val rose when the teacups were empty. “We’ve had our tea, and Lord Roxbury did not come all this way to listen to us reminisce. The point of his sortie was to see the progress made with the property, so let’s give him a tour of the house, shall we?”
Val started in the kitchens, and room by room, rattled off the repairs, renovations, and restorations required. He tossed in the work needed on the roof, in the yard, in the outbuildings, and on the grounds. The list was endless, and while it should have made Freddy ashamed, the only visible result was to light a sullen spark of anger in his eyes.
They’d toured all four floors when Lord Roxbury asked for the use of a water closet and was shown to a guest room.
“I’ll be happy to meet you gentleman out front, if you’d like to stroll the grounds now we’ve seen the house?” Lord Freddy offered.
“We’ll await you on the front terrace,” Val replied, not meeting Nick’s eye for even an instant. They walked off, leaving Freddy to ostensibly use the water closet.
“Don’t give him too long,” Nick murmured as they walked, “it’s the work of a moment to nip up the attic stairs and strike a spark on that pile of kindling.” Val nodded as they turned the corner of the corridor and found Darius waiting for them.
“What an insufferable little ass,” Darius whispered, rolling his eyes. A door opened and closed down the hall, then footsteps sounded on the narrow stairs leading into the attics.
“Let’s go.” Nick tugged on Val’s arm, but Val held still, listening to the pattern of the footfalls.
“Now. We’ll leave the door open, Dare.”
They climbed the attic steps silently, pausing at the top to listen. Freddy was jiggling a can half full of liquid, swishing it around, presumably to let some slosh over the lip, then swishing it again. The can was set down, and another silence ensued, during which the distinctive scratch of flint on steel came clearly through the stillness of the attics. Val moved; Nick silently followed.
“Why the hell won’t you light, damn you?” Freddy was muttering at the pile of tinder.
“Because,” Val said, “the wood has been kept quite damp, and you really do not want to swing for arson, Roxbury.”
“Windham!” Freddy rose to his feet, his face turning an interesting shade of red. He slipped the flint back into his pocket and glanced around, as if an excuse would come winging to him from the rafters.
“Downstairs.” Val gestured through the attic doorway. “Now.”
“You can’t prove anything,” Freddy hissed in a low, mean voice. “It will be your word against mine.”
“And mine,” Nick added pleasantly from Val’s elbow.
“And mine,” Darius chirped from Val’s shoulder. “I believe you’ve been invited downstairs, Roxbury?”
Val let Nick and Darius escort an abruptly quiet Freddy back down to the formal parlor. It was a bit of a progress, since they had to cross the house and descend three floors, and in that time, Val wondered why he didn’t feel a greater sense of triumph. His instincts had been right. Ellen’s warning had been accurate—Freddy had been out to destroy the house, but Val still had to wonder why.
And in the next fifteen minutes, he wanted to find out.
Needed to.
“You have one chance,” Nick said when they’d reached the formal parlor, “and one chance only to explain why you just tried to burn Lord Valentine’s property to a cinder.” He pushed Freddy once on the chest, dropping him into a chair. Freddy looked from Nick to Val and back to Nick again.
“I’d spill,” Darius said with a sympathetic shrug. “The man wants the truth, and after all, there was no harm done.”
Freddy huffed out a semblance of an indignant sigh. “There is no need for all this drama. You caught me fair and square, and I’ll take my lumps and go home.”
“Fair and square?” Nick’s tone was laden with menace. “You’re fool enough to lose an estate on a wager, and you think fair and square served when you’re caught trying to torch that same estate, Roxbury? There are servants here,
“How did you know it was lamp oil?”
Nick rolled his eyes at Darius, leaving Val to stifle a derisive snort.
