To Love a Tormented Earl - Bridget Barton Page 0,8

front of him.

They sat across from each other at the breakfast table, in the narrow morning room with blue and white patterned wallpaper. Samuel, Max’s tall, trim valet, poured tea for each of them.

'Do tell Cook to get us some peach or apricot preserves, eh, Samuel?' Robert said absently, still reading.

Max glared at his teacup, out of temper after a restless night. The incident with the stranger who had followed him had badly unsettled him.

'Cook wanted me to ask whether cherry would be satisfactory?' Samuel inquired.

Robert lowered the paper and peered at Samuel. 'Haven’t we got any peach?'

'Not as yet, sir, but I’m sure we shall acquire some presently.'

'Oh hang peach preserves, Roberts,' Max grouched.

'Really, Milton,' Roberts said with an offended air.

Max sighed and ran a hand over his head. 'I apologise, old chap. I’m under the hatches, I suppose.'

'Why are you troubled? Is it because of that encounter you had? With the fellow you think was following you last night?' Roberts said, folding the newspaper and setting it aside.

'I don’t “think” he was following me, he most certainly was,' Max said, his temper rising again.

'You must own it seems fantastical. Why on earth would anyone want to follow you?' Roberts said. 'Unless he was a footpad. But one acting alone?'

Max glared at Roberts until he saw the realization dawn on the lieutenant’s face.

Samuel left the morning room and Roberts leaned forward. 'You don’t think this is about...the late Maximilian Emery?' he whispered.

Max sighed again. 'It seems most likely.'

As Samuel returned with a plate of honey-almond cakes and cherry jam, the gentlemen let the matter drop.

'Mm, delightful,' Roberts said as he tried a cake.

Max had little appetite.

'I’ve decided I simply must call on Miss Whitmore,' he announced after a few minutes of silence.

'Have you?' Roberts said, patting his napkin to his moustache and mouth. He gave Max a look, clearly intrigued. Max had told him about recognizing her, but this was the first he’d mentioned his intention to seek her out.

'Yes, but I don’t think calling at her home is a good idea. People might talk.'

The servants certainly might, if their mistress was suddenly to entertain an unknown man. More than once rumours had reached Max’s ears, when he was still the earl and before that, the earl’s son, through the intermediary of his valet. He had no desire to cause Miss Whitmore any distress.

'The goal is to make the meeting as light and easy as possible,' he told Roberts. 'Almost a chance meeting, you understand.'

Roberts raised his eyebrows sceptically.

'Oh, no you don’t! Stop right there!' The cry originated from the hall, and in another moment the door swung open and Jollyboy bounded in, jumping up onto Max’s lap.

'Hell and damnation!' Max exclaimed.

Samuel, who was a few steps behind the dog, hurried to drag him off of Max. 'I beg your pardon, sir!' he said, his face flushed. 'He’s a lively one.'

'He wants training,' Max said, but he was already recovering. Taking a bit of bacon from a dish in the centre of the table, he held up a finger, looking at the dog.

Samuel still clutched the collar Roberts had put around Jollyboy’s neck, and without that, it was clear the animal would have happily leapt back onto Max’s lap.

'Sit,' Max ordered, and the lower half of Jollyboy’s body, rather than complying, began to wave back and forth as if his tail had dominion over all of it.

Holding the bacon out to Samuel, Max said, 'Take him out for now, please. I shall have to walk him shortly.'

'His name suits him, at least,' Roberts chuckled as Samuel, holding the bacon like a carrot on a stick, led the dog back into the corridor.

Jollyboy’s antics had raised Max’s spirits, he realized, and he finished his tea.

'A walk and then there’s a tea room I recall that Miss Whitmore mentioned, which she favoured for a light luncheon. Shall we see if perhaps she’s there today?'

'Seems a bit of a long shot, old boy,' Roberts said.

'Perhaps,' Max said. 'But I prefer to try a roundabout approach first. If I’m unsuccessful, I shall resort to a call at her house in the end.'

Roberts nodded and made short work of his honey cake, joining Max as he called for his coat.

***

Leaving her father in Mrs. Gale’s expert hands, Emilia rode with Alice in the closed landau to Hyde Park. If anyone had asked, they would have claimed it was to take the air.

Once there, Emilia noticed that it was still too early for many members