All I Ever Needed Page 2

  East merely smiled.

  Barlough looked at the others. "All of you! Out! You're blocking my way."

  "Oh?" East asked as Pendrake and Harte came up behind Barlough. "And which way is that?"

  Harte groaned softly and clutched his stomach. "The water closet," he managed. "It's the last door on the left."

  "Is that so? I didn't realize." He stepped aside, and the rest of the Compass Club followed suit.

  Pendrake lunged at the door, shouldering it when it resisted his first efforts to open. Since there was no lock, the only explanation for its refusal to open was that it was barricaded on the other side. Swinging around, Pendrake stared at the four young intruders. "What have you done to it?" He didn't wait for a reply. He fairly screamed at Barlough, "They've stoppered the door! We can't get in!"

  Barlough's fair complexion was reddening now, and there was a faint sheen to his brow and upper lip. The restraint he was placing on his body's natural functions was beginning to show. He stared pointedly at Gabriel. "What is it you want?"

  "The toll, if you please."

  Barlough gritted his teeth but he persisted. "Name it."

  "Sign this." From behind his back Gabriel produced a neatly drawn-up treaty. "Would you like to read it or shall I?"

  Afraid that Gabriel would draw out each word of the document until the Bishops were writhing in pain or soiled themselves, Barlough grabbed it out of his hands just as he had the parcel. It was in that moment that he realized what Gabriel's intent had been all along. "The scones," he said.

  "And the biscuits," Gabriel said helpfully. It was clearly a struggle for Barlough to talk now. "And the sweet raisin muffins."

  "You poisoned us."

  "Oh, no. Nothing like that. That is, there are no lasting effects." He spared a glance for Pendrake and Harte. "At least I hope not. I was most particular on that account."

  Harte groaned again. His knees buckled a fraction, but he didn't drop to the floor. "Do something, Barlough, or I swear I shall explode on the spot!"

  Barlough's thinking was not so foggy at this point that he disbelieved his friend. He felt as if he might explode himself. The humiliation of it would drive him from the school.

  He would be the first archbishop of the Society to leave disgraced. Holding up the treaty that Gabriel had carefully penned, he read through it quickly.

  "You don't intend I should sign it in blood, do you?" Barlough asked.

  Gabriel grinned. It certainly had occurred to him. Without a word, he produced a quill and inkpot and placed them on the sill below the window.

  Barlough dipped the quill and centered the paper carefully on the sill for his signature. He scribbled it quickly and passed it back to Gabriel who formed his letters with deliberation. It was then duly witnessed by all those present.

  "The door," Barlough said. "Open the bloody door."

  "That will take far too long," Gabriel said, letting the treaty flutter between his fingertips as the ink dried. "And I don't believe you can wait. There is, however, a solution."

  At these words, South and North hopped up to the window-sill and opened the transom in the stained glass. Hooked to the latch was a rope, and attached to the rope, dangling from the outside of the prestigious Yarrow House at Hambrick Hall, were three slop buckets. Hand over hand, they pulled them up and in and presented them without ceremony to the three upper classmates whose bowels were fairly bursting.

  "Odd how they came to be there," Gabriel said. He folded the treaty neatly and placed it in his pocket. "I imagine they were what you were looking for in your rooms."

  The Compass Club did not wait to see if the Bishops used the buckets for relief in the hallway or managed to answer nature's most urgent call back in Barlough's room. They had East's treaty in hand. The low groundswell of laughter from the commons as the slop buckets were raised was an unexpectedly pleasant addition to the experience, though it seemed bad form to dwell on it.

  "It was a good piece of work," North announced much later that night. "You are to be commended, East."

  West nodded and bit deeply into a cherry tart that had arrived by express post after they had retired from the dining hall. "You were right to want to do something about the Bishops and their bloody extortion schemes. It was well done of you."

  Viscount Southerton sat cross-legged on the floor while his hand hovered over the selection of desserts in the wicker basket. "That's why he's the tinker, you know. He has a good heart, East does, and it's in his nature to fix things."

  East passed the basket on to North after South made his choice. He did not take anything for himself. "I suppose it is," he said slowly, coming to terms with the fact of it. Reaching in his jacket, he extracted the treaty. He unfolded it and laid it on the floor between his splayed legs. They all craned their heads to read it again.

  Be it known to all and sundry that the Society of Bishops will collect no tariffs, taxes, tolls, or tributes for—

  "Alliterate," South said to no one in particular. "That is always a good touch."

  —traffic in any of the common areas of Hambrick Hall. Common areas are defined as those places where anyone may gather without invitation. The Society of Bishops further acknowledges it has no privilege, right, or responsibility to collect money, goods, or services for entry into any private domain not expressly controlled by the Society under their charter with Hambrick Hall.

  "The Society has no charter with Hambrick," North said around a mouthful of tart. "They're a secret society."

  "A society of secrets," said West. "There's a difference."

  They all agreed it was so. Without a charter at Hambrick the Bishops could not lay claim to any area of the school as their private domain. Even Yarrow House was not strictly theirs. It was one of Gabriel's best ideas and one they were fairly certain Barlough had not clearly understood when he had signed. In defense of Barlough's thick-wittedness they accepted the fact that he had been under rather severe duress at the time of his signing. That had also been Gabriel's idea. South had insisted they proceed with a plan, but the plan had ultimately been Gabriel's.

  Finally, for money, goods, or services already yielded to the Society of Bishops, the archbishop and the undersigned tribunal agree to make full reparations within a fortnight of the ratification of this treaty.

  Picking up the treaty, Gabriel scrambled to his feet and went to his bookcase. He carefully placed his finest work to date between the pages of the essays of William Paley, specifically the "Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy." He hadn't read Paley's work yet, but he fully intended that he would.

  It was just the sort of thing a tinker should know.

  Chapter 1

  June 1818, London

  Sophie imagined she could hear their laughter. She could not blame the heat of the day for the color that crept into her cheeks. It was their laughter that had done it, just the thought of it. There was something faintly disrespectful in the sheer release of so much good humor. The deep, rolling tones of it, reverberating as they did like a series of cavernous echoes, could garner attention from every corner of a crowded ballroom. It was the sort of raucous amusement that had an energy and boisterousness that quite took a listener's breath away.

  That hard, spontaneous laughter nearly always inspired envy—except if one was the point of it as Sophie imagined herself to be.

  She closed her journal without bothering to mark her place. Writing was not holding her attention the way she had hoped it might, and when it ceased to be a respite, she had learned to put it aside. She laid the journal down, then stoppered the inkhorn and returned her pen to its stand. She idly smoothed the blanket she'd thrown haphazardly across the grass. Sunlight sifted its way through the apple tree behind her and dappled the book's dark green leather cover to give it a spotted emerald hue. She turned her head away and leaned back against the tree trunk, closing her eyes as she had been wont to do since coming to the garden. It was foolish convention that made her think she shouldn't invite
sleep out here. Where else, she wondered, was she to find some few minutes of respite if not in the relative privacy of this walled sanctuary? Her own room did not permit her so much peace as this place, not when it was so easily accessible to the children. They were encouraged to seek her out before pressing their concerns on their mother. Sophie was the first to hear about scraped knees and spilled milk and the spider that had crawled under Esme's pillow, compliments of that rascal Robert. It was Sophie's duty to sift through the high drama of their childhood and inform their parents of those particulars that were deemed sufficiently important.

  Today the children were confined to their rooms for the afternoon because of an unfortunate mishap involving a regiment of tin soldiers on the stairwell and the housekeeper's hard tumble from the uppermost step all the way to the first landing. It was Sophie's fault, of course. It did not matter that she was not at home when the incident happened, nor that the reason she was away from Bowden Street was due to her ladyship's insistence that she go immediately to the apothecary for a packet of megrim powders. There was nothing to be gained by pointing out that Lady Dunsmore had not had a megrim at the time she'd sent Sophie out, but merely that she had been in expectation of having one directly.

  Sophie had purposely placed the tin soldiers out of the children's reach because of an earlier unfortunate mishap with the cook in the pantry, but no one speculated on how Robert and Esme had come to have them once again in their possession. Lady Dunsmore did not have the grace to look at all abashed. She dismissed the children to their rooms, dispatched a runner for the doctor, and laid the responsibility for it all at Sophie's feet. Her work done, she retired to her bedchamber with a megrim.

  Sophie breathed deeply of the garden's redolent scents. She supposed she should feel a shade guilty for enjoying the children's incarceration, but she could not quite summon that feeling. It had not passed her notice that she was in some small way answerable for the end to which they had come. She could have, after all, taken Robert and Esme to the apothecary with her. Keeping them in eyesight seemed to be the order of the day—and most days this sennight past. There was no predicting what tricks they might get up to, only that they would inevitably get up to some.

  Even this new penchant they had developed for planning and executing pratfalls among the servants was not entirely their fault. Oh, it was not that anyone had encouraged the behavior; it was just that the children were not proof against the mounting tension at No. 14 Bowden Street. Robert and Esme were merely responding to what they felt all around them. Among the adults civility was palpably strained. It was little wonder that the children had acted upon it. Sophie knew it was not their desire to see her dismissed from their home, but just the opposite, to prove how very necessary she was to them. Without her constant vigilance, they were determined to be no better than young ruffians. Sophie, though, was the only one to interpret their actions in such a benevolent manner. For her cousin Harold and his lady wife, the children's behavior was further evidence that Sophie made a poor sort of governess. She must leave them, Harold counseled her, for her own good if she would not think first of his dear children.

  Naturally enough, there was a rub, because the good Viscount Dunsmore could not simply send his homeless cousin out into society unprotected. Marriage was the logical solution most frequently offered to Sophie, though until a sennight ago there had been no suitors at the ready.

  That was changed now. The Most Honorable Marquess of Eastlyn was rumored to have made a surprising declaration. It seemed that from among all the young women counted as suitable to be his wife, Lady Sophia Colley was the one he had chosen.

  Which brought Sophie back to the laughter she'd imagined. It required no special talent to call it to mind once again. The sound simply resonated within her, heating her cheeks a deeper, rosy hue than previously. It was not just the laughter that put embarrassed color in her face, but the fact that she could not doubt the laughter was directed at her.

  It would be all four of them, she thought. How could it be else? They rarely seemed to be so deeply diverted outside of their own company. It was not that Sophie had never seen them smile or demonstrate a measure of amusement when they were left to their own devices; it was just that the smiles seemed to be tempered, the line of them vaguely derisive, and the laughter was subdued, perhaps wry. She had always supposed that they saved their abandoned and occasionally ribald humor for the moments when they were together, when they could share their individually collected observations of society's foibles and absurdities.

  Surely, Sophie thought, if not precisely one of the ton's foibles, she was one of its absurdities. Regarding her as a suitable mate must have provoked the marquess into fits of laughter, or quite possibly his friends had pointed out the humor inherent in his situation. If it weren't for the fact that she was feeling rather sorry for herself, Sophie might have been able to rouse some sympathy for the Marquess of Eastlyn. There were many suspects as to the source of her rumored engagement, but the one person Sophie knew to be blameless was the marquess himself. He would not attach himself to her, even for the amusement of his friends. Eastlyn had never struck Sophie as a man given to petty cruelties, and she allowed that it was unfair to judge him as enjoying a laugh at her expense when the sound of it existed only in her own mind.

  Something fluttered across the tip of Sophie's nose. She batted at it idly, too weary to open her eyes and identify the cause. If it was one of Robert's spiders, she'd confound his plan to frighten her by ignoring the crawly thing. A moment passed before the tickling visited her again, this time between her honey-colored eyebrows. She frowned slightly, creasing the space just above her nose. When it came a third time it fluttered across her cheek. It was when the sensation finally flickered along her jaw from ear to chin that Sophie was roused to action.

  She slapped herself lightly on the side of the face and was rewarded for her effort, not by trapping the offending insect, but by the last echo of oddly familiar laughter. It struck her with more force than her hand had against her cheek. She knew the deep, throaty timbre of that laugh. Even when heard in concert with his friends it had always been distinguishable to Sophie as to which thread of sound was his.

  Lady Sophia Colley blinked widely and stared up into the amused countenance of Gabriel Whitney, the eighth Marquess of Eastlyn.

  "May I?" he asked, letting his hand sweep over the expanse of blanket where Sophie sat. "It is a tolerably fine day for being out-of-doors and settled in the heart of nature's bounty."

  The garden at No. 14 Bowden Street was hardly the heart of nature's bounty, but Sophie felt certain the marquess knew that. She wondered if he thought she was unaware of the same. Perhaps he believed her naivete extended to all manner of things. Sophie rose as far as her knees, quickly pushing the rucked hem of her dress to modestly cover her ankles. "You might find the bench by the wall more to your liking."

  East glanced over his shoulder to the heavy stone slab supported by two frighteningly plump cherubs. He raised one eyebrow. "I don't believe so, no. I would not find it in the least comfortable." The eyebrow relaxed its skeptical arch. "But if you are opposed to sharing your blanket, I will avail myself of this patch of grass."

  Before Sophie could protest that she had no objections, or rather that she would voice none, the marquess simply dropped to the ground, folding his legs tailor fashion and resting his elbows lightly on his knees.

  "Please, m'lord," Sophie said quickly. "Your trousers will be stained."

  "It is good of you to warn me, but it is of no consequence."

  "You will allow that your valet's opinion might be contrary to your own."

  He smiled. "You are right, of course." East moved to the blanket where he repositioned himself in the same manner as before. He pointed to the book at Sophie's side. "What were you reading?"

  Sophie could hardly make sense of the change of subject. She had to glance at the book to find some recollection of it. "It is my diary."

  East
saw the inkbottle and quill when she shifted her position to reveal them. "A worthy endeavor."

  "Some think so."

  "Though perhaps more of a strain on one's upperworks than simple woolgathering. Deep contemplation beneath an apple tree has much to recommend it. Or so North says." His rich baritone voice softened to a confidential tone. "I believe he has been inspired by Sir Isaac Newton's success."

  Sophie's eyes darted into the boughs. Was it too much to hope that an apple would fall directly on the marquess's head? Barring that event, was it too much to hope one would fall on hers?

  Following the direction of her gaze as well as her errant thoughts, Eastlyn casually remarked, "They're puny green things now, but if you will invite me to return in the fall when they are beautifully ripened and it takes no more than a hint of wind to nudge them from the branches, I can promise you that one of us will be most satisfyingly thumped on the head, thereby putting a period to all awkward moments between us."

  Sophie was sure she did not like having her thoughts so easily interpreted by this man. On the other hand, it was somehow reassuring that he also found this encounter awkward. She eased herself back against the rough bark of the trunk and let her legs slide to one side. Strands of softly curling hair the color of wild honey fluttered as she moved. She lifted her face and regarded the marquess with a certain solemn intensity. If the eyes that returned his amused gaze could arguably be described as too large for her heart-shaped face, there was no argument from any quarter that they were remarkably sober.

  "I've been in anticipation of your visit, my lord."

  He nodded, equally grave now. How like Lady Sophia to place her cards before him. She did not dissemble or play coy as most young women in the same circumstances would do. Even as her lack of pretense raised her in his estimation, he was also reminded that she was not so very young, at least not by the standards that were often set for a marriageable age among the ton. She was more of a certain age, one somewhere after la jeune fille and before ape leader, mayhap in her twenty-third year. He was heartily glad of it, if the truth be known. Had she been younger he would have had to tread more carefully, taking special pains not to trample a heart already foolishly attached to him.