Twelfth Night with the Earl (The Sutherland Sisters #3)
Anna Bradley
Chapter One
Cornwall, England
Christmas Eve, 1816, 7:00 p.m.
Somewhere between the Duke’s Head Inn and here, he’d fallen off the edge of England and into the deepest pit of hell.
Hell, or Cornwall. Same bloody thing.
The Duke’s Head.
Ethan snorted. Pity he wasn’t in the mood for a laugh, because that was damn amusing. The Duke’s Head was the only inn in the tiny village of Cleves, and it was the last place a duke would be caught dead, with or without his head.
His horse stumbled as Ethan led him around another of Cornwall’s endless muddy puddles. Christ, it was dark here. He wouldn’t have believed any place in England could be this dark if he hadn’t seen it himself. Or not seen it, as it happened, because it was too bloody dark to see bloody anything. Well, except for his flask. He could see that because he had it clutched in his hand, and a bloody good thing too, because a man doomed to spend Christmas in the wilds of bloody Cornwall bloody well better keep a flask to hand at all times.
He paused to count, the flask hovering in front of his lips.
Six bloodies in less than a minute.
There was a chance—just the merest possibility, of course—he wasn’t overflowing with the joys of the season.
Ah, well. At least he was overflowing with whiskey.
He tipped the silver flask to his lips and took another swallow. What he lacked in Christmas cheer he more than made up for in drink, and it wasn’t as if any of the servants left at Cleves Court were in a position to scold him for his drunkenness. He was the Earl of bloody Devon now, and in the year since he’d become his lordship, he’d discovered earls were permitted to behave rather badly, indeed. Not as badly as marquesses and dukes, but badly enough, and no one seemed to trouble themselves much about it.
Perhaps that’s how his father had become such a wastrel. Too much . . . Earling? Earlishness? Lordshippery? Ethan frowned. It was one of those, but it didn’t matter which. Whatever you called it, it amounted to the same thing—some earl or other had behaved badly, so the new earl was obliged to ride to bloody Cornwall in the cold and dark to clean up the disaster the previous wastrel of an earl had left behind.
That it would be a disaster, Ethan hadn’t the slightest doubt. The last time he’d been to his country seat it was teetering on the edge of disreputable, and that was two years ago. He hadn’t the faintest idea why his father hadn’t shut the cursed place down altogether as he’d promised he would, but whatever whim had moved the old earl was no doubt fleeting, like most of his whims.
God knew once his father abandoned something, he never looked back.
He’d have forgotten all about the place the moment he returned to London, and by now the old pile would be collapsing into rubble. With only a handful of servants left to tend to it, it would be dark and freezing, and likely damp as well, with cobwebs thick enough to smother Ethan in his sleep, and servants who hadn’t the faintest notion how to look after an earl.
What if they led him to some godforsaken room with damp walls, uncarpeted floors and mice-infested sheets? What if they didn’t even have sheets, or proper lamps or candles? Or, dear God, what if he should run out of whiskey while he was trapped in that old tomb, and was forced into tedious sobriety?
Damn it, perhaps he should have dragged Fenton with him to Cornwall, after all. He’d considered it, but Cleves Court was barely civilized. His fussy London valet would be in fits of horror over the savagery of it all, and Ethan didn’t want another useless servant about, wringing his hands and making things difficult. This visit was bound to be unpleasant enough without Fenton’s hysterics to contend with.
No, it was best to keep things simple. Wrestle his way through the wilds of Cornwall to Cleves Court, issue orders for the house to be closed at once, stay long enough to see those orders carried out, then get back to London before his supply of whiskey was depleted.
But he’d have to see to it he had a proper bedchamber. He was an earl, after all, and accustomed to his comforts. He’d need something with sheets and without mice, and he’d prefer better music, as well, instead of that incessant picking on the pianoforte keys, but he supposed it was too much to ask anyone at Cleves Court would know how to play the pianoforte—
Music? What the devil?
Ethan brought his horse to a halt and stared down at the flask in his hand. Good Lord, how much whiskey had he drunk? He was so far in his cups he must be hallucinating, because there wasn’t a blessed thing for miles around here aside from Cleves Court, and the music couldn’t be coming from there.
Could it?
It was damned odd, but it seemed as if someone at Cleves Court was playing the pianoforte. If you could call it playing, that is. Pick, pick, pick. He couldn’t quite decipher the song, but it was something irritatingly festive. Without realizing he did it, he began to hum along under his breath, trying to place it.
Four calling birds, three French hens . . .
Oh, Christ. It was the Twelve bloody Days of bloody Christmas. Christmas music in general was intolerable, but he loathed this song in particular. A man might be partial to milkmaids, and eight of them at once could prove amusing, but what the devil was he to do with French hens and a bloody partridge? They’d only get in the way.
Ah, well. It was nothing more whiskey couldn’t cure.