Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

The children focused instantly on him, the buns left unheeded. They looked like they wanted to pull the words out of his mouth. "One night at Oxford when a group of us"—were drinking ourselves senseless—"ah, when we were telling each other stories, Max said Mr. Flowers, the Storne Hope butler for a thousand years, told him the third Earl of Storne was a wastrel, and he needed money badly. He was told of a wealthy widow who lived in Venice, Italy. He went there, met her, and they married. She birthed one boy. It was said he only spoke Italian. The earl and countess gave him a grand ball on his eighteenth birthday. But it ended in tragedy. The earl fell from the gallery into the great hall and died. There were questions, of course, accusations spoken behind hands, but nothing was done because the new young earl was very wealthy and his Venetian mother ruled Cowpen Dale."

Grayson was a writer steeped in demons, and so he couldn't help himself, added, "It's said whenever there's a party at Storne Hope, at midnight there are strange noises, sort of like distant wolves howling, and all the candles go out." His soup spoon paused in the air. "Max said there are bloodstains on the stones at the base of the gallery nothing can wash away."

P.C. squeaked.

Brady jerked back so hard his chair nearly fell over.

As for Pip, he grinned at his father. "That was good, Papa. Scare us more."

Grayson wondered if Max would recognize the tale he'd just told the children.

Brady said, "Did the son ever learn to speak English, sir?"

"Like you, Brady, he learned the Queen's English perfectly." Grayson studied Brady's serious face that showed promise of the man he would become. He was growing straight and tall as a sapling, his proud papa would say.

Grayson half listened to the children make up tales about Lady Hilda. He remembered the first time he'd met Max, newly arrived at Christ Church, just turned eighteen, smart, irreverent, wild as an unbroken stallion. While Grayson penned his stories and played cricket and rounders, Max boxed, fenced, raced his Arabian against all comers and usually won, and led drunken young men on wild races over the Oxford rooftops at midnight, singing at the top of their lungs ditties so obscene a local vicar's hair supposedly stood on end and stayed that way. The only reason he hadn't been expelled was not because of his wealthy father, the Earl of Storne, but because, Grayson later found out, his own father, Ryder Sherbrooke, had intervened. Grayson would never forget what his father had said to him: "Max brought me a young boy he'd found beaten in an alley in London. It was my precious Edward. Max was only fifteen at the time, and he'd heard of my children. He acted, Grayson. He was only a boy himself and he acted."

The boy Max had saved, Edward Pultney, was now a strong, smart lad of sixteen, thanks to Max and to Ryder Sherbrooke.

Grayson's father had taken in discarded and abused children since he himself was very young. There were usually about fifteen children of all ages at Brandon House at any given time. He fed them, clothed them, educated them, and most of all loved them.

P.C. said as she buttered another warm bun, "Grandmama is pleased the new young worthy earl is here. As I said, she wants to have a party for him. And soon, she said, because the Great might finally croak just to annoy her and then she'd have to wear black weeds and pretend to mourn and not be able to go anywhere. The Great told her she was a minx with a quick wit and he planned to outlive her."

Grayson laughed, couldn't help it. How he adored this perfect little girl who led the boys around by the nose. He saw Brady and Pip were whispering and giggling as they ate their cucumber soup. Because Pip told him everything, he imagined he'd find out when he tucked him in bed tonight.

Later, as he saddled Astor, he thought of the first time he'd actually seen Storne Hope. True, it had the look of a huge brooding medieval gargoyle set above everyone on Piper Hill, but it was surrounded by larches and maples and oaks snugged up to beautifully scythed lawns, scores of yew bushes, incredible flowers in well-tended plots. The property was flanked by rich farmlands with happy tenant farmers keeping a nice steady cash flow for centuries now, no drama in that.

Imagine Max was back in his life. He wondered how long he planned to stay at his ancestral home. If local gossip was right, and it usually was in Cowpen Dale, he'd brought someone with him. And who would it be?