Three Little Secrets by Liz Carlyle

Author:Liz Carlyle [Carlyle, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Adult, Historical
ISBN: 9780743496124
Google: dEeztenEG5cC
Amazon: 0743496124
Barnesnoble: 0743496124
Goodreads: 38928
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2006-03-20T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Kindle not a fire which

ye canna put out.

P hipps gave one last neatening tug on his employer’s lapels. “There!” he said in some satisfaction. “You look quite splendid, sir.”

Merrick lifted his gaze to the pier glass and studied himself in its reflection. He saw nothing but the scar. Especially vivid against his evening blacks, the thing curled like a thin, pale snake along his jaw and down his neck, then slithered away beneath his starched white collar.

“What kind of fool am I, Phipps, to have agreed to this?” he asked.

“The kind of fool who will die a very rich man,” murmured Phipps, reaching up to neaten the knot of his cravat.

“But a birthday party,” he grumbled. “And for some chit not yet out of the schoolroom.”

“A chore, to be sure,” said Phipps pragmatically. “But given who her father is, at least a few of the City’s bankers will likely turn up. Besides, it is not precisely a high society affair.”

“Damn me if I have any use for such things, high or low.” Merrick stuck a finger in his collar and gave it a little tug. “But when a man looks you in the eyes, and asks you outright, it’s dashed hard to think of an excuse.”

Phipps had bent down to run a bit of flannel over Merrick’s evening slippers. “But they are a pleasant enough family, sir, are they not?”

“Bloody cheerful,” Merrick agreed. “Sweetness and light all around. You’d think Lord and Lady Treyhern never exchange an ill word.”

Phipps stood, and admired his handiwork. “Perhaps they do not,” he suggested. “In an ideal world, all marriages should be so. Otherwise, why bother being married at all?”

Merrick gave one of his sarcastic grunts. “Your naïveté shocks me, old fellow,” he said. “These people marry for dynastic concerns.”

“Some do, yes.” Phipps snapped open his silver cheroot case, and persuaded that all was in order, slipped it into Merrick’s coat pocket. “But Lord Treyhern, as I hear it, did not.”

Merrick’s eyes widened in surprise. Treyhern struck him as just the sort of man who would marry for practicality, at the very least. “A love match, eh?”

“Oh, very much so.”

Merrick was skeptical. “How the devil do you know?”

Phipps smiled faintly. “Servants’ gossip, sir,” he said. “The most reliable source on earth. Treyhern’s housekeeper, Mrs. Trinkle, is a stepsister to Agnes’s mother, Mrs. Barney, over in Stepney.”

“Agnes?”

“Agnes Barney who works in the kitchen, sir.”

“Ah, yes, the thin, quick one,” he recalled.

“Yes, she is quite a hard worker,” Phipps agreed. “And, Agnes reports that her aunt Trinkle claims that Lord and Lady Treyhern once had something of a scandalous past.”

Merrick grinned. “A past, eh?”

“Childhood sweethearts,” he clarified. “But the girl was poor, French, and considered far beneath him, so the family split them apart and sent the girl to Switzerland to become a governess. The earl married money, but it was a troubled union. The wife was thought to be…” Here, Phipps paused to clear his throat sharply, “—well, of questionable constancy, sir, if you know what I mean?”

“Aye, I’ve a fair notion.

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