Page 3 of The Earl's Inconvenient Houseguest

Chapter Two

An hour later and finally on his way home, Rafe was still kicking himself for his ill-timed and ill-considered visit to the village when all he wanted was a quiet life as far away from life as was humanly possible.

After living in the blissful anonymity of Cheapside, he had forgotten that it was virtually impossible to do anything in an English village unnoticed. But like a blithering idiot and fed up with being cooped inside the depressing mausoleum he had inherited, he had inadvertently chosen market day of all the days to get his horse shod. In dire need of a change of scenery, and completely convinced he could slip in and straight out again before anyone was the wiser, he had blithely set out without a care in the world. A horrendous mistake he would make damn sure not to do again before he and Archie hightailed it to pastures new.

And the sooner they did that, the better! He already loathed whinging Whittleston on the blasted Water completely and couldn’t wait to see the back of it.

Hardly a huge surprise really.

For as long as he could remember, Rafe had always hated the cloying confines of village life. There were so many things about the quintessential and quaint English village to dislike. The herd mentality and inflated importance of the few they all followed like brainless sheep. The small-minded pettiness which always ran rife. The prejudice and ignorance which they spouted at every turn and did little to correct. The suffocating and insular society who typically thought themselves a cut above the rest of the nation simply because they lived in such a small enclave. The way everyone unashamedly knew everybody else’s business and, because they were incapable of minding their own, all had strong opinions regarding what a man should do for the best irrespective of whether or not those opinions had been sought in the first place.

And then, of course, there was the inevitable village rumour mill, fuelled by the inane and mindless gossip which they all took such fevered delight in. As if the subject of it were both blind, deaf and so thick-skinned they would have no clue the cruel, fevered whispers behind hands were about them. All the very antithesis of the quiet life he craved with every fibre of his over-burdened being.

They were an unsubtle lot here, that was for certain, if the brazen coven of witches who had held court smack bang in the middle of the market square were any gauge. All openly staring at him and speculating. No doubt casting unfounded aspersions about his character despite not knowing him from Adam. So acidic he had literally felt his ears burning from their toxic vitriol from fifty feet away.

He had abhorred that most of all in his youth—largely because his family had always been at the heart of it all—and it never ceased to infuriate him. That was why today’s had cut more deeply than he should have allowed. He had heard the words ‘tainted blood’ carried across the market square on the breeze and the bile had risen in his throat. He had spent a lifetime overhearing much the same. Yet the unsubtle stares and comments when they all thought he wasn’t looking were a stark contrast to the fake smiles and insincere pleasantries when they did. All so typical and all so gallingly familiar.

And he still simultaneously cringed and raged at the way his former village had treated Archie from the moment he had been born. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever put him through any of that again.

A week in, and already this village felt as suffocating as the one he had once called home, the inhabitants all determined to pile on as much guilt as they could to bend them to their will in much the same way. Back then, of course, it had been his father’s debts they had all swarmed around him to repay, as if he could magically conjure money out of thin air to give to them. Here, from what he could make out, the villagers believed he owed them all too, and thanks to his idiotic trip to the blacksmith this morning, he now felt overwhelmingly guilty despite having no earthly reason to feel that way.

Up until a fortnight ago when Mr Spiggot’s letter had found him in Cheapside, Rafe had been blissfully unaware he had any cousins. Therefore, to discover that he had always had one and that sole, distant relative on his father’s side was now as dead as a doornail had come as quite a shock. More shocking still had been the revelation that he had not only been left the mystery fellow’s estate but his title too—which in turn had left him with the money he had always desperately needed alongside a glut of fresh and unwelcome responsibilities which he absolutely didn’t and was still royally furious about.

He had more than done his time in the soul-destroying service of others. Too many years, man and boy, and none of that mountain of responsibilities which had always weighed down his shoulders, apart from Archie, had ever brought him any joy. He felt no sense of accomplishment at using his hard-earned salary to clear his kind but financially hopeless father’s debts. No sense of pride in his military career and the men he had marched victorious into battle on another man’s orders. How could he when half of those men who had blindly followed him into the fray never got to march back out again?

For the past year and a half, from the comfortable and cosy sanctuary of his suite of rented rooms in Cheapside, Rafe had lived from day to day on what was left of his savings. Scrimping and tightening his belt while dreaming of the future that he and his brother both deserved. It hadn’t been an easy eighteen months because they had started in tragedy, but once Archie had settled he blossomed so it had been, for want of a better word, sheer, unadulterated paradise not having to answer to anyone.

Until this all happened completely out of the blue, part miracle and a bigger part a nightmare, and Rafe had been dragged kicking and screaming right back to where he had started. Trapped by circumstances that were not in the slightest of his making, but he was still expected to fix it all regardless.

Well, fate might well be having a laugh at his expense by dangling the means to the perfect end on a gilded rope with a million unwanted strings attached, but he was damned if he was going to be imprisoned by such guilt and responsibility ever again!

Rafe had very different dreams that did not involve people. An overriding ambition which he wouldn’t ignore and a million unfulfilled plans that were a decade overdue. He fully intended to take the money and run off into the sunset with it. He had no affinity to this place. No history here. No relationship to anyone who lived anywhere close apart from the unfortunate link he had with a total stranger buried under the soil. No binding ties whatsoever as far as he was concerned, and he certainly didn’t want any either. Binding ties and quiet lives did not go hand in hand and he and Archie had more than earned the peace.

The trials and tribulations of whinging Whittleston on the blasted Water were nothing to do with him no matter what his long-lost second cousin’s will, Mr Spiggot his lecturing solicitor or his legions of new and needy tenants had to say on the subject, and it would be a cold day in hell before he engaged with any of it!

No indeed! The quicker he could offload the unwanted, unsavoury aspects of his unexpected inheritance, the better. Mr Spiggot had already, albeit begrudgingly, written to the necessary people to start the proceedings but had warned it might be many, many months before a sale went through for the right price. Being impatient and delighted enough by the huge new fortune already nestled in his bank account, Rafe had taken the unseemly decision to place a half-page advertisement in The Times this coming Saturday to expediate matters for a quick sale. That, combined with the rest of his miraculous windfall, would give him more than enough money to set himself up for life several times over and still have change.

He could finally buy a remote farm somewhere miles from anyone and raise horses with Archie to his heart’s content. Read, ride, even learn to paint if the mood struck him...whatever he and Archie wanted, when they wanted it, unjudged, entirely self-sufficient and with no recourse to anyone else. Frankly, there wasn’t enough money in the world to encourage him to stay here—no matter how much the inhabitants of this fetid backwater seemed to think he owed it to them to do so.

As the lane turned left towards the unkempt driveaway to the mausoleum, Atlas his belligerent stallion voted with his hooves and went right towards the rickety thatched cottage which stood next to a bubbling stream. Rafe couldn’t blame him. He was in no hurry to go back to the house and its piles of paperwork and ledgers either, so he indulged the horse’s whim and lowered his behind to the bank while the animal drank, enjoying the peace and tranquillity of the moment.

Unfortunately, but typically here, it didn’t last long.

‘Lord Hockley—a word if you please.’

He turned to see one of the witches from earlier bustling towards him from the cottage and inwardly he groaned. It was the one who had been pretending to be enthralled by an apple while she publicly rubbished him with the rest of them. The old spinster’s niece. The one he had glared at when he’d caught her staring.

The one that his eyes had wanted to continue staring at before he’d given them a piece of his mind.

The one who currently had a face like thunder and a determined glint beneath her furrowed eyebrows.

Ingrained good manners dictated he stand, so he did, reluctantly, while already plotting his exit. ‘Good afternoon, Mrs...’ What was her blasted name again?

‘It’s Miss Gilbert.’

Miss?That surprised him.

Firstly, because she seemed to be around his age and therefore well past the proper age to have been married, and secondly, because if one ignored the stern expression, she was a comely wench, so it was a wonder some fellow hadn’t snapped her up. There were some nice curves that he couldn’t help noticing under her drab clothes. A pretty face beneath her plain bonnet. Lovely chocolate brown eyes too. Very comely indeed all things considered, even though it annoyed him to have noticed something like that in this blasted village when he was trying to remain detached. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Gilbert.’

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