1 The Earl of Falloden glanced at the visiting card resting on the salver his butler held extended toward him. He frowned. " 'Mr. Joseph Transome, coal merchant,' " he said. "Why the devil is a coal merchant calling upon me? Could you not have found out his business and sent him on his way, Starret?" The butler exchanged a brief glance with the earl's valet. "He was most insistent, m'lord," he said. "He declared that he could divulge the purpose of his visit to no one but you. You wish me to say you are not at home, m'lord?" "Yes," the earl said irritably, motioning his valet to hand him his neckcloth. He had just returned from a morning ride in the park that had done nothing to lift the gloom from his mind, that could do nothing to lift it. He was not in the mood for visitors. The butler bowed stiffly from the waist and turned to leave his master's dressing room. "Wait!" the earl said. He looked even more irritable as he tied his neckcloth in a hasty and simple knot despite the compressed lips of his disapproving valet. "The man is respectable, Starret? And he came to the front door?" "He arrived in a carriage and four, m'lord," the man said. The earl raised his eyebrows. "I had better see what the devil he wants," he said. "Show him into the salon, Starret." "Yes, m'lord." The butler bowed again before withdrawing. "A coal merchant," the earl said to his valet's reflected image. "What do you suppose he wants, eh, Crawley? To get me to change my supplier of coal for the winter? Who does supply it anyway? Well, I suppose I should go down and satisfy my curiosity. He came to the front door asking for me instead of to the back asking for Mrs. Lawford. Interesting, would you not say?" But he did not wait for an answer. He strode from the room and descended the stairs to the hallway of his town house on Grosvenor Square. The gloom of an early November morning made it almost necessary to have lamps lit, he thought as he crossed the hall and waited for a footman to open the double doors into the salon. It was a day entirely in keeping with his general mood. Mr. Joseph Transome, coal merchant, was a cit, he thought as the man turned from the window at the opening of the doors. He was as neatly and as expensively dressed as the earl himself, and altogether more fashionably. The earl had not been able to afford to keep up with the fashions for the past year, though most of that time he had been wearing mourning anyway. The only criticism he might make of the merchant's clothing was that it all looked as if it might be at least two sizes too large for the man. He was thin and angular, with a sharp, beaked face, from which eyes too dark and too large looked keenly at his host. The earl nodded to him. "I am Falloden," he said. "What may I do for you?" He stiffened when the man did not immediately reply but looked him unhurriedly up and down and half smiled. "You are a fine figure of a man, my lord, if you will forgive me for saying so," Mr. Transome said, rubbing his hands together. "Finer than I had been led to expect. That is good." "I thank you," the earl said coldly. "Did you have any business you wished to discuss with me, sir?" Mr. Transome laughed and continued to rub his hands together. "You would think it strange indeed if I had come for no other reason than to admire your appearance, my lord, now would you not?" he said. "But that is important to me too." The earl pursed his lips, stood near the doors with his hands clasped at his back, and declined to offer his guest a seat. "Perhaps I should come straight to the point, my lord," Mr. Transome said. "If the nobility is like the merchant classes, then time is money, as I always say. And time is not to be wasted on unnecessary chitchat." "My sentiments exactly," the earl said. "It seems, my lord," the merchant said, continuing to rub his hands Excerpted from A Christmas Promise by Mary Balogh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
