The Raven Prince (Princes #1)(4)

He cleared his throat. “If I could have a moment, my lord?”

Lord Swartingham glanced up from the paper in his hand. “What is it now, Hopple? Come in, come in, man. Sit down while I finish this. I’ll give you my attention in a minute.”

Felix crossed to one of the armchairs before the mahogany desk and sank into it, keeping an eye on the dog. He used the reprieve to study his employer for an idea of his mood. The earl scowled at the page in front of him, his pockmarks making the expression especially unattractive. Of course, this was not necessarily a bad sign. The earl habitually scowled.

Lord Swartingham tossed aside the paper. He took off his half-moon reading glasses and threw his considerable weight back in his chair, making it squeak. Felix flinched in sympathy.

“Well, Hopple?”

“My lord, I have some unpleasant news that I hope you will not take too badly.” He smiled tentatively.

The earl stared down his big nose without comment.

Felix tugged at his shirt cuffs. “The new secretary, Mr. Tootleham, had word of a family emergency that forced him to hand in his resignation rather quickly.”

There was still no change of expression on the earl’s face, although he did begin to drum his fingers on the chair arm.

Felix spoke more rapidly. “It seems Mr. Tootleham’s parents in London have become bedridden by a fever and require his assistance. It is a very virulent illness with sweating and purging, qu-quite contagious.”

The earl raised one black eyebrow.

“I-in fact, Mr. Tootleham’s two brothers, three sisters, his elderly grandmother, an aunt, and the family cat have all caught the contagion and are utterly unable to fend for themselves.” Felix stopped and looked at the earl.

Silence.

Felix wrestled valiantly to keep from babbling.

“The cat?” Lord Swartingham snarled softly.

Felix started to stutter a reply but was interrupted by a bellowed obscenity. He ducked with newly practiced ease as the earl picked up a pottery jar and flung it over Felix’s head at the door. It hit with a tremendous crash and a tinkle of falling shards. The dog, apparently long used to the odd manner in which Lord Swartingham vented his spleen, merely sighed.

Lord Swartingham breathed heavily and pinned Felix with his coal-black eyes. “I trust you have found a replacement.”

Felix’s neckcloth felt suddenly tight. He ran a finger around the upper edge. “Er, actually, my lord, although, of course, I’ve searched qu-quite diligently, and indeed, all the nearby villages have been almost scoured, I haven’t—” He gulped and courageously met his employer’s eye. “I’m afraid I haven’t found a new secretary yet.”

Lord Swartingham didn’t move. “I need a secretary to transcribe my manuscript for the series of lectures given by the Agrarian Society in four weeks,” he enunciated awfully. “Preferably one who will stay more than two days. Find one.” He snatched up another sheet of paper and went back to reading.

The audience had ended.

“Yes, my lord.” Felix bounced nervously out of the chair and scurried toward the door. “I’ll start looking right away, my lord.”

Lord Swartingham waited until Felix had almost reached the door before rumbling, “Hopple.”

On the point of escape, Felix guiltily drew back his hand from the doorknob. “My lord?”

“You have until the morning after tomorrow.”

Felix stared at his employer’s still-downcast head and swallowed, feeling rather like that Hercules fellow must have on first seeing the Augean stables. “Yes, my lord.”

EDWARD DE RAAF, the fifth Earl of Swartingham, finished reading the report from his North Yorkshire estate and tossed it onto the pile of papers, along with his spectacles. The light from the window was fading fast and soon would be gone. He rose from his chair and went to look out. The dog got up, stretched, and padded over to stand beside him, bumping at his hand. Edward absently stroked its ears.

This was the second secretary to decamp in the dark of night in so many months. One would think he was a dragon. Every single secretary had been more mouse than man. Show a little temper, a raised voice, and they scurried away. If even one of his secretaries had half the pluck of the woman he had nearly run down yesterday… His lips twitched. He hadn’t missed her sarcastic reply to his demand of why she was in the road. No, that madam stood her ground when he blew his fire at her. A pity his secretaries couldn’t do the same.

He glowered out the dark window. And then there was this other nagging… disturbance. His boyhood home was not as he remembered it.

True, he was a man now. When he had last seen Ravenhill Abbey, he’d been a stripling youth mourning the loss of his family. In the intervening two decades, he had wandered from his northern estates to his London town house, but somehow, despite the time, those two places had never felt like home. He had stayed away precisely because the Abbey would never be the same as when his family had lived here. He’d expected some change. But he’d not been prepared for this dreariness. Nor the awful sense of loneliness. The very emptiness of the rooms defeated him, mocking him with the laughter and light that he remembered.

The family that he remembered.

The only reason he persisted in opening up the mansion was because he hoped to bring his new bride here—his prospective new bride, pending the successful negotiation of the marital contract. He wasn’t going to repeat the mistakes of his first, short marriage and attempt to settle elsewhere. Back then, he’d tried to make his young wife happy by remaining in her native Yorkshire. It hadn’t worked. In the years since his wife’s untimely death, he’d come to the conclusion that she wouldn’t have been happy anywhere they’d chosen to make their home.