He needed time to reacclimate himself to life in England—and to country life in particular.
As he rode up Beasley’s expansive gravel drive, a groom jogged out of the stable to meet him. Ivo was nearly upon the fellow before the lad’s face came into focus. It was Andrew Cole, a former stableboy. He’d grown into a strapping young man in Ivo’s absence.
“Welcome back, Mr. Beresford,” he said.
Ivo smiled. “Well met, Andrew. Do I have you to thank for sending Snap ahead to me at the inn?”
“Aye sir. Mr. Partridge said as how you’d be wanting him.”
“Quite right, too.” Ivo brought Snap to a halt. There were no other stablemen about. “Are you in charge now?”
“Only while Whitson is away with Lord and Lady Allendale. It’s he who’s head groom.”
“Is he just. And he left you to manage in his absence? My congratulations.” Ivo dismounted. He tossed Snap’s reins to Andrew. “Look after him, would you.”
The housekeeper, Mrs. Kirby appeared at the top of the stone steps. A short, round woman of sixty-odd years, she’d been employed at Beasley since Ivo was a boy.
“Master Ivo! Upon my word. How tall you’ve grown.” Tears started in the old housekeeper’s eyes. “You are a sight, and no mistake.”
Ivo bounded up the steps. “Come, Mrs. K. I’m not so unique from my brothers. If you’ve seen one Beresford male, you’ve seen them all.” He dropped a kiss on her plump cheek before entering the house. “I trust my valet has arrived?”
Mrs. Kirby followed alongside him through the marble-tiled hall. “He came yesterday with the Italian gentleman.”
Ivo stripped off his leather riding gloves. Signor Ruggiero wasn’t precisely Italian. Not by birth anyway. But Ivo didn’t bother correcting her. There was no point in burdening Mrs. Kirby with the man’s tedious history.
“Have you had any word from my parents?” he asked.
“Lord and Lady Allendale are still in Hertfordshire with Lord St. Clare and Master Jack. We expect them back a week before Christmas. Lady Katherine should be returning then as well. She’s had her season in London, you know.”
“Yes,” Ivo said. “Mother wrote me about it in Italy.”
His baby sister Kate’s debut had been an unsuccessful one by all accounts. A surprising fact—and a dispiriting one. At twenty, Kate was a renowned beauty, with a healthy fortune to her name. If she couldn’t make a match, there was little hope for the rest of them.
He ascended the grand curving staircase. “Is Partridge about?”
“In your room, sir.”
“What about Signor Ruggiero?”
Mrs. Kirby remained at the bottom of the steps. “I’ve put the Italian gentleman in the rose bedroom.” Her lips pursed with evident disapproval. “He’s been…ill.”
Ivo paused in his ascent, suppressing a grimace. No doubt it was the same illness that had plagued the estimable signore since Ivo and his friends had hired him in Rome. The man loved to drink. He’d rarely spent a day sober since they’d crossed the alps.
“I trust he hasn’t been troubling you?”
“He’s kept to his room,” Mrs. Kirby said. “Mr. Partridge has been looking after him.”
God bless Partridge.
The indispensable valet had once served Lord Allendale himself and had traveled with Ivo on the earl’s insistence. Ivo suspected his father had originally intended Partridge to be some sort of a watchdog. Lord only knew how well Partridge had fulfilled that office. It was possible he’d written reports to Ivo’s father throughout the whole of their time away, detailing every one of Ivo’s missteps and misdemeanors.
But Ivo didn’t think so.
He trusted the man implicitly.
“I won’t be down for luncheon,” he said, continuing up the stairs. “I’ve letters to write. But you may tell Cook to expect me at dinner.”
“Yes, Master Ivo. Shall I send a tray to your room?”
“A splendid idea. Send one up for Signor Ruggiero too.” If the fellow hadn’t eaten yet, Ivo would see that he did. It was the only way to counterbalance the man’s perpetual drunkenness.
With luck, Ivo would have him sober enough by the time his parents, brothers, and sister converged on Beasley Park for Christmas.
As it was, most of the house was shut up. When not in residence, his parents retained only a skeleton staff at Beasley, comprised of Mrs. Kirby, the cook, and a handful of footmen, maids, and grooms. Ivo was glad for the privacy, however temporary.
Entering his bedroom, he found it just as he’d left it on his last visit home from Oxford. The same mahogany four poster stood at its center, draped in its familiar brocaded curtains, and the same blue and gold Aubusson carpets covered the floor. A few remaining leather cases from his travels were stacked on the bench at the end of the bed, the only sign that he’d ever left home.
Ivo shut the door behind him with an audible click. There was a fire awaiting him in the hearth. He came to stand before it, raising his hands to the blaze.
A rustling sound emitted from the bowels of the attached dressing room. Partridge stuck his head out soon after. “Ah. It’s you, sir.”
“Don’t act so surprised,” Ivo replied. “We both know you calculated my arrival time down to the minute.”
Partridge emerged from the dressing room with a smile. He was a short, brawny man of fifty, with sandy hair liberally peppered with gray. A jagged scar intersected his brow, the remnant of a mysterious encounter he never spoke of.
Whatever had happened, Ivo would wager that Partridge’s opponent had come out the worse in the affair. Despite his advancing years, the valet was a man to be reckoned with.
“I confess, you’re later than I anticipated.” Partridge assisted Ivo off with his coat. “Didn’t run into any trouble, did you?”
“Not the kind you mean.” Ivo loosened his cravat. “I stopped to render aid to a lady in distress.”
“Aye, did you?” Partridge inspected Ivo’s coat for wear and tear before draping it over the back of a nearby chair. “Not many ladies in these parts as I recall. Excepting your mother and sister, there’s naught but village girls hereabouts.”
“You’re wrong,” Ivo answered before he could stop himself.
Partridge arched his brows. “Sir?”
“Miss Burton-Smythe is a lady.”
Partridge went still.
Ivo returned his attention to the crackling flames of the fire, anticipating the valet’s censure. “She’s the daughter of a baronet, anyway.”
“She’s the daughter of Sir Frederick Burton-Smythe,” Partridge said.
“Through no fault of her own.”
“As that may be; the Burton-Smythes are no friends to the Beresfords. Never have been. A dangerous lot, they are.”
“For pity’s sake, Partridge.” Ivo shot the valet a dark look. “You know how I feel about this tendency to cling to the past.”
“Yes, sir, but the Burton-Smythes—”
“It’s why we’re in this muddle. All this emphasis on traditions at the expense of progress. One is supposed to keep doing something just because it’s what’s always been done before. It’s mindlessness. What this country needs is to be moving forward, not forever looking back.”