The Impossible Earl. Sarah Westleigh

will escort you myself, Miss Vincent. This once. After this, you must, I fear, use the service stairs and enter and leave by the back basement entrance at all times when the Club is open.”

      They had begun to mount the curving staircase, arranged round a small, circular, open well. Leonora snorted.

      “You mean that I shall not be allowed to use my own front door? I do not see that you can prevent me, my lord!”

      “The lease expressly forbids it,” said Kelsey complacently. “Naturally, as a member of the Club, your uncle was able to come and go by these stairs whenever he wished.”

      He cut off to greet two gentlemen passing them on the landing. Leonora realised that they were more than a little foxed and their bold scrutiny offended her. She tossed her head and trod silently up the next, much narrower flight until she came to the landing and found a screen and a door barring her path.

      “You will appreciate the danger of meeting strange gentlemen on the stairs should you insist upon using them,” murmured Kelsey as he leaned past her, uncomfortably near, to unfasten the door. “Though you need not fear intrusion provided you keep this door locked,” he went on smoothly, handing her the key.

      Leonora walked through into a small lobby with some half dozen doors leading off it. The apartment was larger than she had anticipated and her spirits rose. Secure behind her locked door she could ignore what went on downstairs while she made her plans.

      “Charles—Mr Vincent,” went on the Earl, “had old-fashioned tastes. No doubt you will require to redecorate and refurnish in your own fashion.” He flung open the door to a room at the front of the house. “This was his parlour.”

      Leonora entered, curious to see how her uncle had lived. She took in the double window with its brown drapes, the comfortable leather armchair, the writing desk and the shelves of books.

      “It looks extremely comfortable to me,” she said, shuddering inwardly at the dinginess of the place. But the furniture was good and the books looked interesting. She could soon change the soft furnishings. “I shall be quite content living here,” she informed his lordship with conviction.

      He could see that she meant it. Of course, she would. The decorations would suit a drab, narrow-minded governess to perfection.

      Damnation. He had absolutely no desire to conduct his business with a highly critical female, who was, intolerably, his new landlord, installed above him.

      Chapter Two

      The Earl departed as the luggage came up, causing confusion on the spiralling stairs.

      Anything large, Leonora could see, would have to be hoisted in through the windows. She looked forward to causing a different kind of confusion when she changed some of the furniture. For although she had said, and believed, that she could be comfortable surrounded by her late uncle’s things, her ideas on furnishing were rather different to his. Were she to be here long, changes would have to be made.

      “The apartments are quite spacious,” remarked Clarissa as they went from room to room together.

      Once the Earl had left, they had taken a good look round the front parlour and the rear dining room before inspecting the front bedroom, which Leonora would use despite its masculine decorations, because it was big and had a door through to a dressing room.

      “Morris House is nothing like Thornestone Park, of course,” went on Clarissa as they moved on, “or as grand as what you were used to as a child, I collect.”

      “No.” Leonora opened the last door and looked around approvingly at the smaller bedroom at the back of the house, which must have been used by Mr Vincent’s valet. “This should suit you, Clarissa, if we brighten it up a bit. The bed and rest of the furniture look adequate. It seems my uncle did not scruple to make his man comfortable.”

      “Indeed, yes! It is larger than my room at home in the Rectory and look, there is a splendid washstand, and a writing table—even a mirror!” Clarissa’s normally rather sallow complexion had taken on a faint glow of excitement. “But what of Dolly?”

      “She will sleep upstairs in one of the rooms in the attic. I’d better go down and arrange it with this Monsieur André. Meanwhile, you could begin to unpack your things.”

      “Would you like me to see to yours first?”

      “No. Dolly can do it after she has been downstairs with me. You make yourself comfortable.”

      The back stairs were discovered behind the main staircase, at the end of a short passage accessed through a narrow door opening from the lobby. Dolly, her boots clattering on the bare boards, followed her mistress down to the basement. A comfortingly warm, aromatic and steamy atmosphere drew them to the kitchen.

      Dinner was over, though sounds of washing up came from the adjoining scullery, through which Leonora dimly glimpsed the back area and steps.

      In the kitchen itself, pots and pans, mostly iron but some copper, hung from hooks and sat on shelves, shadowy in the light cast by oil lamps and candles. A huge dresser held an assortment of crockery and jars. Beyond the long scrubbed table that occupied the centre of the room, a large range stretched along the opposite wall. A clockwork spit turned a couple of chickens over the glowing fire, which largely accounted for the mouth-watering aromas filling the kitchen, and a couple of pots simmered gently on the hob.

      Mixed in with the smell of roasting meat were echoes of coffee, of baking bread, of spices and herbs. Leonora’s stomach rumbled. They had not stopped to take more than a light nuncheon on the way.

      A small man in a tall, crumpled white hat aimed an excited stream of fractured English at those working about the table chopping, beating and blending. As the door opened he paused in mid-flow to exclaim in scandalised tones, “What ees eet? What you do ’ere, madame? What you want?”

      Everyone in the room stopped work.

      Leonora swept forward with a gracious smile. “Monsieur André?”

      “Zat ees me, oui.”

      “And you are the cook.” It was a statement. He could be no one else.

      “Le chef de cuisine, madame,” he corrected her stiffly, with a small bow.

      “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, monsieur,” said Leonora. “Allow me to introduce myself, since there is no one here to do it for me. I am Miss Vincent, now the owner of these premises. I have spoken with my tenant, Lord Kelsey, who informs me that, through him, you are contracted to supply any meals I might order.”

      The cook’s stiff manner changed into one of open curiosity as he made a deep, deferential bow. “Madame! Enchanté, madame! Hees lordship, ’ee ’as tolded me you come. And you ’ave chose to stay?”

      “I have, monsieur. I find the house quite charming. This,” she said, pulling her reluctant servant forward, “is my maid, Dolly. She will bring down my orders and collect the dishes when they are ready.” Dolly dipped a clumsy curtsy and Monsieur André acknowledged her presence with a nod. “And perhaps she may be allowed to use your kitchen to make me a pot of tea or some other drink or snack occasionally?”

      He eyed the girl, who stood awkwardly beside Leonora, her face as red as her work-worn hands. “Zere will be nossing of any difficulty, madame.”

      “Thank you. Dolly will need to occupy a servant’s room in the attic. Perhaps someone could show her up?”

      “Zee ’ousekeeper will arrange zat, madame. She is in ’er chamber.”

      “Housekeeper?” murmured Leonora, momentarily brought up short. Lord Kelsey had not mentioned a housekeeper, though of course he would need one.

      “Mrs Parkes, madame, une veuve—’ ow you say? A vidow? She ’as zee room in front next zee servants’ room. I ’ave zee one next ma cuisine.”

      “Then