The Gentleman's Keeper

Prologue

Horses frightened him , so he rode as often as possible. Great heights made him dizzy and nauseated, so he climbed to the top of every church tower he could. He loathed violence but got into more scrapes than any other boy of his year. Both of Everett Gerard’s names meant brave and strong, and, by God, he’d live up to the names, no matter what his mewling inner self desired.

His first task at school was to shed the nickname bestowed upon him within an hour of his arrival by his awful cousin, Hubert. Losing the name of Eve proved easy enough to accomplish—he took on anyone who called him that.

Small of stature and not particularly strong, Gerard rarely won fights, but he also never quit the battlefield. He became quite familiar with the school’s sick room, and he suffered two broken noses and a broken arm before he went to university.

By the time he reached his twenty-fifth year, he’d grown nearly tall and strong enough to suit his own specifications, and perhaps even his father’s requirements for a Gerard, though he’d never know, for the pater familias suddenly died.

The moment Gerard heard of his father’s death, he stopped the fight.

His father’s approval, if such a thing existed, would remain unexpressed for all time. The other reason the younger Gerard had engaged in combat also seemed doomed to failure. He could not root out certain undesirable portions of his nature.

He hadn’t lost all his internal battles. When it came to his cringing secret self, he’d overcome most of his long list of fears and only one remained. Although could his distaste for his family’s country home, the abbey, be called fear? At any rate, Gerard had no interest in conquering that particular dread, so he simply stayed away. After his father’s death, he lived in London except for an excursion to Italy.

He ignored correspondence from the abbey as well, until one morning in September when he no longer could.

1

London 1888

Sir? You must read this one. Farley, his valet/secretary, dropped something light on Gerard’s chest.

Gerard roused from an uncomfortable doze. He blinked and looked down at himself, or rather up. Dressed in rumpled eveningwear, he appeared to have his boots on, and yes, his feet were propped on a chair. He lay on his back on the hearthrug next to the drawing room fireplace. He clutched a wilted glove in one hand. In the other he held an almost empty brandy glass. A white object lay on his chest—the piece of paper and an envelope Farley had dumped on him.

What time is it? His voice came out as a croak. His head hurt, but he’d felt worse in the last year of dissipation.

Ten a.m., sir. With a long sigh, the portly Farley sank onto the chair near the fireplace. Gerard turned his head enough to see that the valet had also polished his own boots to a perfect shine.

That early, eh? Wonder what time I got back.

Sir arrived home four hours ago and refused to go to bed. Farley’s words dripped with disdain.

That I recall. Gerard touched his aching head, and the paper on his chest rustled. What the devil did you drop on me just now?

A letter from the abbey’s gamekeeper, sir.

Pickens? Hadn’t he died years, more than a decade, earlier? Gerard had a vague memory of a man with a squint and a tray of cheeping baby birds.

No, sir. Mr. Kenway is now our gamekeeper.

Gerard remembered the interview, as he’d been quite knackered from an evening’s festivities. Mr. Miles Kenway from Yorkshire by way of Canada, or perhaps the other way around. He had a peculiar accent, mostly the long, soft vowels of Yorkshire. And he had shoulders that barely fit through the doorway of the solicitor’s office.

He’s a bailiff, or steward. Not gamekeeper. No one has hunted at the abbey for years. I recall Kenway. He’s that hulking man I hired a while back. The one with the voice sounded like the toll of a church’s funeral bell.

Very poetic, sir. Kenway claims he has sent us two letters already.

You opened my mail?

"Yes, sir. Surely he is mistaken, sir? Two previous letters?" When Farley spoke in first person plural and added many sirs to his speech, he was more annoyed than usual. He rose to his feet. A servant must not sit in his master’s presence, and on occasion Farley remembered he was Gerard’s servant.

I doubt he’s lying. Gerard had tossed several letters into the fire, telling himself he needed the space on his desk.

Throwing away unwanted correspondence—when had he turned into such a coward? He patted his chest until he found the paper.

Farley loomed over him, waiting.

Yes, I was wrong to toss the letters away. Stop the sniffing noises, Farley. See? I pick up the paper like so, unfold and read it… The man has the most appalling hand, and…eh? What? He squinted and read again. What in God’s name does Kenway mean ‘my son’? I have no son.

Are you certain of that, sir?

Yes. Gerard didn’t elaborate.

Farley made a soft, disbelieving grunt. He was convinced Gerard’s recent habit of dissipation included bedding women. Gerard had once overheard the valet telling a footman that he should be ashamed to believe the rumors; a manly man like Mr. Gerard would never have spent the night in the Conte Azzari’s bed.

Farley was technically correct. Gerard and the count had only been in the bed for four hours, hardly the whole night. There’d been an invigorating hour on the floor as well.

A month before breaking a lifetime’s fast with Azzari, Gerard had received the news of his father’s death. At that news, all virtue, self-discipline and temperance had flown out the window like a flock of doves—and no birds had flown back to the roost since.

Gerard pulled his feet off the chair and sat up, groaning softly. He held up the letter to read one more time. Oh, well, of course it can’t be. This so-called son of mine is about nine years old, so I would have been in school when he was conceived.

Yes, sir. Farley leaned over and plucked the letter from his hand. He held something in his other hand, a tintype.

Gerard took it from him. A thin, unhappy face peered at the world. The heavy Gerard eyes and the distinctive full lower lip. Christ. He looked down at a copy of his own features and attitude in a much younger face.

Well. Whoever his father might be, he’s certainly one of us, Gerard said.

He pulled the letter away from Farley, who was reading it again. He’d probably memorized the good bits, of which there were plenty.

Kenway had written: The boy arrived here by foot, half starved. His mother gave him your name and direction, a train ticket and information about your family, but little else, not even proper shoes. The servants are convinced he is your child.

The man’s indignation showed in every scrawled line. Apparently Miles Kenway didn’t care if he offended his employer. He didn’t hint or approach the subject crabwise or skirt around it.

You must come to the abbey. No one else has the authority to cope with the situation. I had thought a simple letter of instruction from you might be enough, but I am afraid we require you here as soon as possible.

He had some cheek, Garret thought without anger. Perhaps he would interview other possible bailiffs, because this one apparently didn’t want to keep the job.

I’m warning you, put it down. Now. And carefully. Don’t aim it at me or the windows. Miles was fairly sure he’d unloaded the shotgun, but who knew? Maybe the young devil knew how to load guns.

Why should I?

Miles examined the scarecrow-thin figure who seemed too scrawny to lift the weapon. If you do, I’ll teach you to shoot properly. If you don’t, you’ll end up learning about birdshot too well, my boy.

No. Not his boy, thank God. Though unfortunately the young devil was more his than anyone else’s. If any abbey servant should want to find young Ipsial Gerard, they’d ask Miles. If they did ask, usually they wanted to be able to stay away from the troublesome lad.

Standing in the middle of the room, the boy narrowed his heavy-lidded eyes at Miles. You’ll teach me to shoot? There was pure disbelief in the voice.

Yes, I promise. They’d had similar conversations before. Miles would make a promise and then listen to Ipsial’s scoffing disbelief. No matter that so far Miles had kept the promises. The boy never believed the next one.

Ipsial had grown better in the weeks he’d been at the abbey, Miles supposed. He no longer cursed as much. He’d stopped trying to steal wallets—mostly. He actually engaged in conversation rather than trying to escape Miles’s house with food tucked under his hideous jacket. And the boy stole only a meal’s worth now, instead of as much as he could carry.

When Miles had arranged the picture-taking with a traveling photographer, the boy had protested for only half an hour and hadn’t attempted to invade the man’s wagon or annoy his horse. That counted as progress.

Ipsial sniffed. He touched the gun’s stock, peered into the barrels, the young idiot. He looked around the main room of Miles’s cottage with feigned interest.

Miles counted to ten slowly. He could wait out animals, and this boy was certainly a beast. After what had to be two full minutes of pretending to think about it, Ipsial lowered Miles’s gun and put it on the rough wooden plank floor.

He watched Miles, smirking. The big pale blue eyes dared him to protest at how slow he’d been to obey, but Miles stayed silent and allowed him the victory. Miles usually did when it came to the details. Let the fiend win in small matters.

Ipsial. Miles tried to think of him using the silly name no one else would. The name wasn’t from the Old Testament as the staff had first guessed. Joey, who acted as groundsman, footman and groom all rolled into one, had quipped, Unless Satan wrote a version of the Bible?

Certainly everyone else on the estate called him the young devil.

Everyone agreed Ipsial had made a nest somewhere on the estate. Miles suspected it was the hut that had once belonged to the abbey’s gardener, but he didn’t go inside to make sure. Wild animals tended to abandon their homes if humans poked around too much.

Miles went to the shotgun and cracked it open. Loaded and ready to fire.

Christ. He rarely cursed.

What? Ipsial slunk to the door. I put it down, he whined.

So you did. Tomorrow morning, an hour’s lesson. Miles held back a sigh. The boy fled the cottage without a backward look.

Miles sat down heavily on the only chair in the room. The door still stood ajar, and a stiff breeze pushed through the crack. Would Ipsial try to light a fire to stay warm? He hadn’t burned down a house yet.

Miles laughed. He’d been a fool to think he missed the sound of childish voices when he’d first arrived at the estate. He’d thought he liked children, and so he did—most children. He had no illusions about childish innocence or pure souls. They could be cruel with one another as any man in war. Still, he liked their shrieks and their play, and he even enjoyed the endless questions his nephew and niece plagued him with.

Ipsial, though he said he was nine or perhaps ten, was like no child Miles had met, except perhaps the abandoned orphan he’d seen in Halifax. That boy had been on trial for murdering his grandparents.

Miles had come back to his cottage for a midday meal, but finding Ipsial there with the gun had stirred his ire, again. Now he grabbed a chunk of two-day-old bread and gnawed it as he strode through the edge of the woods, past the overgrown gardens, over the surprisingly tidy lawns to the servants’ entrance of the abbey.

Mrs. Billings, the housekeeper, was alone in the servants’ dining hall, eating some sort of stew. She rose at once, graceful for such a large lady. No doubt the state of the lawns was due to her influence. He wondered if she scared the day gardeners as much as she frightened her own staff.

She kept her black dress and black hair in starched, spotless perfection, and the lace at her sleeves and neck remained pure white. Never mind that the master of the house had been absent during her entire tenure. As she was fond of telling people, Mrs. Billings had recently worked in the household of an earl and kept the standards high in any position she held.

She folded her hands in front of her and eyed Miles as if he was a workman and not the steward. If you have any game, leave it in the kitchen. Are your boots muddy?

No game, and my boots are fine. Worn down, certainly, but he kept them clean. I want to know if Gerard has been in contact with any of you lot.

"Mr. Gerard has not."

He paced the room. Has he always been such an unreliable sod?

I fail to understand that word, she said with a sniff.

If he didn’t apologize at once, she’d read him a lecture as if he was a slovenly parlor maid, and he’d never get an answer. Beg pardon. I should say, has Mr. Gerard always been so irresponsible in his duties?

"We do not gossip in this hall and—"

He interrupted before she could get a full head of steam. I ask because of the boy.

Ah. She sat at the table again. You have been in contact with the lawyer, Mr. Chambers, I understand?

That was a month past, and he promised to contact Gerard immediately. I’ve heard nothing. You’d think a solicitor would give a da—would care that his client suddenly gained an heir. Or maybe the master’s ignoring him as well.

She picked up her spoon and ate a small mouthful of stew before answering. The members of staff I hired from the valley and village have stories of Mr. Gerard’s late father, a stern but fair man.

A bastard, Joey the catch-all servant had said.

But none knows the younger Mr. Gerard. There are rumors from London, though of course one doesn’t believe everything one hears.

A few months earlier, a London friend had laughed when Miles told him the name of his employer. "Keep your references handy, Kenway. I’ve heard Gerard plans to drink himself to death before thirty." The friend had promised to keep his eyes open for something steadier for Miles, but they both knew times were difficult. Miles, restless though he was, could ill afford to leave a good job.

Miles walked over to the fireplace. He picked up a poker and shoved a stray coal back into the glowing heart of the fire. He said, I’ve heard one or two stories of the man.

Mrs. Billings wrinkled her long nose. Bah, someone’s cousin’s servant claims Mr. Gerard is a libertine. I hold no stock in such nonsense.

The translation of her statement was simple: she couldn’t bear to be in charge of a household run by a less than respectable gentleman.

Miles kept his mouth shut, though he disagreed. Even if he hadn’t talked to his London friend, Miles would be inclined to believe the rumor of Gerard as a wild man. Made sense Ipsial’s sire would be as rackety in the head as the boy.

I’m sorry I cannot help you. Do you require anything further, Mr. Kenway?

He carefully replaced the poker. No, thank you, Mrs. Billings. A bit late now to act the part of polite servant—if only he’d measured his words before sending those letters. He needed this job. Those letters he’d written Gerard would annoy the mildest of employers.

A pity he’d lost his temper when his sister depended on the money he sent her.

Could he manage an apology? No, for he remained thoroughly disgusted by the lad’s father. If he was going to act against his inclinations, he’d contact his London friend and others—everyone he knew—to beg them for help to find new work. And between writing those groveling letters, he’d do what he could with Ipsial. He doubted anyone else would take on the drunkard’s spawn; obviously not the drunkard himself. Before Miles moved along, he’d do his best to tame the boy.

2

They passed the ugly coal mining towns, past the darkened, cramped cottages of the miners and then the town with steel workers, back to fields and a smaller village where farms still ruled the landscape. The closer the carriage got to the abbey, the rougher the roads were—and the more Gerard’s leg jiggled. He couldn’t seem to stop the restless movement of his body or the growing anxiety that made his chest ache and his breathing erratic. A particularly painful lurch of the carriage as it bumped over a washed-out road made his teeth click together, nipping the end of his tongue. The sudden sharp pain brought tears to his eyes—or maybe they were from the sight of the horrid, desolate moor that he’d sworn never to clap eyes on again. He’d fled the country and his childhood home for good reason. Only an unexpected miracle could have dragged him back.

Although, could the immaculate conception that produced an heir be considered a miracle? More like a curse. No doubt the curse carried the name Cousin Hubert. Good luck to any lad who tried to claim Halfwit Hubie as father.

Gerard had fully intended to let his family line die with himself, and even now he didn’t care if the house crumbled, a haunted ruin around which ravens circled. But suddenly, all because of a boy who happened to have features similar to his own, he was facing the mossy stone wall that surrounded the grounds and driving the familiar path toward the forbidding monstrosity that would alarm any sane person. Despite himself, Gerard leaned forward and pressed his cheek against the window to get a better view of the house.

The gardens were somewhat overgrown but better maintained than he’d expected. And the rambling building, which had once housed an