Page 1 of Nice Earls Do

Chapter 1

Kit had already read the letter a dozen times at least. Looking at it again would tell him nothing new—not least because he’d left his reading spectacles downstairs. Nevertheless, restless, he withdrew the paper from his breast pocket and unfolded it.

The blur of indistinguishable words might just as easily have belonged to another, similarly life-changing letter, one he’d received almost a year ago, announcing his younger brother’s death.

That news hadn’t come as a surprise, by any means. A lifetime of rebellion and risk-taking was not likely to lead to any other outcome. Nevertheless, Kit had mourned, was still mourning, his loss. The world’s loss. Edmund’s gifts might have been turned to better uses. Kit found himself now, as then, grateful his parents had not lived to see what had become of their favorite.

Amid the clatter of his thoughts, he hadn’t heard Mrs. Rushworth’s footsteps.

“Lord Stalbridge?” the housekeeper prompted, a hint of worry in her voice.

Kit folded the letter, returned it to his pocket, and glanced toward her before surveying the boxes and crates that surrounded them, the sundry relics of another man’s life. “I want this room cleaned out, thoroughly scrubbed, and set to rights, Mrs. Rushworth.”

“Of course, my lord,” she replied, inclining her head. But she did not immediately turn and go. He had not really expected it of her. “May a body ask why?”

The previous earl, a distant cousin Kit had never met, had been a noted traveler and a collector. The uppermost floor of Ferncliffe had been devoted to storage of his treasures. In the four years since his unexpected inheritance, Kit had focused his attention on other parts of the estate and spared little thought for the house itself, and even less for this particular room. He had had no need for the space. Until now.

“Because, Mrs. Rushworth, the nursery is soon to be occupied.”

“Oh?” A note of speculative interest replaced the previous concern in Mrs. Rushworth’s voice.

“Edmund’s children will be arriving by the end of the month,” he explained.

Silence hung on the air, mingling lazily with the dust motes. “Beggin’ your pardon, my lord,” she said at last, “but I never knew your brother had taken a bride.”

Kit cleared his throat. The housekeeper’s respectability fit her even more neatly than the charcoal-colored woolen dress she wore. If he weren’t careful in his reply, she’d tender her resignation—or at least leave him to clean out the nursery by himself.

“Oh, yes,” he told her, though he, too, had his doubts. The wedding ceremony had probably been conducted under the watchful eye of some poor girl’s father—or at the end of his hunting rifle, or the point of his sword.

“The children and their mother were living with Edmund in Sicily. She contracted his fever while nursing him, it seems, and died some months after,” he said, patting the letter inside his coat. “But her friends did not initially know to whom the children ought to be sent.” The only marvel, really, was how much time had elapsed before someone had asked him to clean up another—and hopefully the last—of his brother’s messes.

To his surprise, Mrs. Rushworth sighed. “Then the poor things are orphans.”

“Yes.” He surveyed the dismal, dirty attic. “I’d like to arrange a suitable welcome for my niece and nephew, Mrs. Rushworth.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, though the enormity of the task had stripped away some of her usual confidence. And his.

How could a man of forty-five, with no wife of his own and no intention of acquiring one, no experience with children, and a house in which even he did not feel welcome, ever hope to give two young children the home they needed?

“You need Mrs. Goode,” the housekeeper declared.

Was this another of Mrs. Rushworth’s matchmaking schemes? Since he’d come into the title, the housekeeper had hinted mercilessly about the need for a Lady Stalbridge.

Kit, who had sworn off marriage twenty years before when the girl he loved had married another, had learned to smile and nod and politely ignore her. This time, however, he blurted out, “I beg your pardon?”

“Mrs. Goode,” she repeated, as if the woman’s identity must be self-evident. “Of Mrs. Goode’s Guide to Homekeeping,” she added by way of explanation, though clearly incredulous at the necessity of providing it. Finally, his baffled expression forced her to concede defeat. “It’s a book, my lord. Very popular. Indispensable advice on how to design, decorate, and prepare the household for any guest or occasion.”

“Ah. A pity this Mrs. Goode cannot come to us in person,” he joked, then sobered as he looked once more about the room. “We need all the help we can get.”

Mrs. Rushworth made a noise in her throat, the meaning of which was indecipherable to him. “I’ll get right to it, sir.” With a curtsy, she bustled away.

Though wintry wind whistled through the cracked window, chilling the air around him, Kit remained behind, thinking not of the work that lay ahead but of Edmund and the adventures they would have had in such a room when they were little boys, when guarding his brother from cuts, torn clothes, and splinters was the biggest challenge he faced.

People had always thought of Kit Killigrew—he thought of himself—as a serious, predictable, orderly sort of man.

Why then had nothing in his life turned out as he had planned?

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