The Diamond Key (14 page)

They had decided that Wynn had to be the one to challenge Lynbrook. Troy would have lost his commission for breaking one of Wellesley’s prime rules against his officers dueling. Besides, Wynn was a better shot.

“Well, yes, we were old friends. We could not let that swine continue abusing you. But that is not to say ... marriage.”

“Why not? We would suit perfectly. And that way I would have my reputation back, since a marriage would satisfy the old tabbies with a romantical happy ending. Everyone knows you were my paramour, anyway.”

“But I never was your lover, you gudgeon. You knew I was just flirting with you to make Frederick angry enough to accept the challenge.”

“He was madder that you stole Rosie Peters from him.”

“I did not steal Rosie, I bought her. Actually, I leased her temporarily, at her price, and that only to deflect gossip from you.”

Bette waved the handkerchief in the air. “No one swallowed that taradiddle anyway. They all believed that you killed Frederick out of love for me.”

“I did not kill Frederick.”

“Of course you did. You shot him through the heart, which was not at all what Troy planned.”

“I shot him in the shoulder.”

“Oh, bosh. He would not have died of a ball in the shoulder. At least not for some time even if the wound turned putrid.”

Wynn started drumming his fingers on the chair’s armrest, to release some of his own pent-up emotions. “Bette, I say again, I aimed at the loose screw’s shoulder.” He paused. “And I do not miss my target.”

“But they told me ... I saw ...”

“He walked to his damned carriage! A man with a fatal wound could not do that, could he? I have no idea what happened, but I have my suspicions. If you did not kill him—”

She shrieked. “Me? You think I killed my husband?”

Wynn glanced to make sure the door was securely closed. “Why not? He was unfaithful and violent toward you. My shot, nay, the whole duel, was a warning, but Lynbrook would have lived. You might easily have taken the opportunity to find a more permanent solution while he was unconscious.”

“You spent six years thinking I killed Lynbrook? No wonder you did not wish to marry me. But now ...”

“You spent the same six years thinking I had killed a man, almost in cold blood, so one can only wonder why you would marry me. My fortune would have nothing to do with your sudden attraction, would it?”

“Oh, you are hateful.” She started weeping again. “I always knew I should have married Troy.”

“What, and follow the drum?” Wynn couldn’t think of a woman less likely to survive the rigors of army life. Lady Torrie could manage, with her wit and courage, but Bette? She would not last a week, and then only if no one strangled her to stop her whining. “Your parents would never have given permission.”

“We could have eloped. Troy did not wish to, but I could have convinced him.”

“A Gretna Green ceremony would still have been a scandal, and you would still be a widow.”

“But I would have a beautiful memory to cherish as my teeth fall out and my hearing fails and my chin droops. I would have known some love in my life.”

Wynn felt a pain in the vicinity of his heart at Bette’s words. It must be the almond cakes. He cleared his throat. “You are still young. There is time.”

“No, there is not,” she bawled. “I am already getting fat, and I swear I saw a gray hair. No one will ever want me again.”

With that she launched herself off her sofa and onto his lap in a leap that would have done Homer proud. Wynn checked that door again. He would not put it past this household to be setting another trap for him, this one ready to claim compromise. If he heard the softest footstep approach the door, he’d dump Bette on the floor so fast her hair might truly turn silver. At least her added poundage would cushion her fall.

In the meantime, while she wept into the wad he was calling a neckcloth these days, he was thinking that he did not feel the slightest urge to hold her closer, or to kiss away her tears, or touch that smooth skin on the back of her neck. Unlike any time he was in the vicinity of Lady Torrie, he felt absolutely nothing, except sore muscles from Bette’s weight. He did have an idea, however.

“Bette, my dear, I have a question to put to you.”

She sighed and stopped crying and adjusted the lace cap on her head. “I knew you would not let me down, Wynn. You were always a good and loyal friend. Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, in answer to your question.”

“Oh, then you do know where I can find Frederick’s valet.”

In the end, they went shopping. That was the fastest, surest way Wynn knew to stop Bette’s tears, other than offering to marry her. He’d buy out every shop in London first. Hell, he’d
buy
every shop in London first.

As Wynn explained to Lady Lynbrook along the way, he was making a start toward respectability without half trying. A wealthy, titled bachelor did not have to try as hard, say, as a flighty young widow with a murky reputation. Wynn did not care about his reception for himself, but as soon as he was socially acceptable, he could see about invitations for Bette. He could even act as her escort to proper, dignified occasions at the finer homes, where they would behave so circumspectly toward each other that the cackling gossip would have to look elsewhere for a roost. Bette could find a husband in a wink—if she was rigged out in style. Nothing would ruin her chances faster than looking fast, which were the only styles that appealed to the baroness, or like someone’s cast-off, which was how her out-of-fashion, slightly puckered gowns appeared to Wynn.

In a way Wynn felt like a traitor to his sex, trying to dress Lynbrook’s little mutton as lamb, to bait parson’s mousetrap. But, dash it, if he could not find Bette a husband, Wynn knew he’d have her on his hands, in his lap, sobbing on his shirtfront, forever. Better some knocked-in-the-cradle cawker than him.

No one could know Wynn was paying her bills, of course. That would sink the widow’s chances of receiving anything but highly improper proposals and invitations to the wilder sort of parties. The latter might be more fun than staid musicales, but they would never yield up a husband.

Luckily, Wynn knew just the place to take Bette for her new apparel, a shop that was barely open, so would not be busy, and where the dressmaker was so grateful she would never discuss his business nor divulge his secrets. All he had to do was put Lady Lynbrook in Madame Michaela’s capable hands, then he could leave for an hour or two. Or three. If Michaela was the mantua-maker who had the dressing of Lady Torrie, she was more than capable of outfitting Bette, although, he thought, Lady Torrie would look superb in anything. And better in nothing.

“Heavens, Wynn, you almost tripped me,” Bette complained. “Do pay attention to where you are going.”

* * * *

Torrie was in the fitting room with
madame’s
assistant, Tina. All of the modiste’s notes and measurements were lost in the fire and had to be retaken, a tedious business made slower by Torrie’s indecision regarding the neckline of her new gown. Too high and she would look like every other young female on the Marriage Mart. Too low and she would look like a Cyprian. Somewhere in the middle had to be the perfect spot to strike a certain eye, if the gold tissue she had selected did not catch his interest.

Happily, he had sent a note with another bouquet of violets, apologizing for his forward actions in the park and begging her to forget the incident. She had sent back a reply apologizing for her own behavior, and requesting he, in turn, forget. He must have forgotten her altogether, for Torrie had not seen hide nor hair of the viscount since. Well, she promised herself, he would not forget her in the gown she would wear to Mrs. Reese’s benefit ball.

“A smidgen lower,” she ordered Tina. The bell at the front door jangled, and she could hear Madame Michaela greet a new customer. In fact, she could hear every word.

“Monsieur,
what a pleasure. I was hoping you would come so I could thank you again, and again. What would I do without your generosity, your kindness? I tell you, my girls and I would be out on the street, hemming handkerchiefs for ha’pennies. You are my savior, my
chevalier tres gallant.”
In case he could not understand her French accent, the dressmaker added, “My hero. Why, you—”

“Please,
madame,
no more,” Torrie heard a familiar voice say. So he had been the one who helped the seamstress! She smiled to herself, warmed by the thought of his goodness. Then he said, “I have come to beg a favor from you.”

“For you,
monsieur,
anything.”

“My friend needs a new wardrobe.”

The smile faded from Torrie’s lips. His friend?

“I can see that. I mean
oui.
It shall be my pleasure.”

“She will need some of the gowns as soon as possible.”

“For your friend, nothing is impossible.”

She had told Torrie her new gown would cost an additional fortune, to be ready in time, since the seamstresses were having to remake half of the previous orders.

“I will pay for the extra effort, of course.”

He
would pay? Ingall had not said it was his sister or his cousin who needed a new wardrobe, but his friend. No man bought a friend’s clothing. He bought her a book or a fan, for heaven’s sake. And no respectable woman accepted more than a pair of gloves from a gentleman. Yet he was going on about the gowns to be selected, how they had to be modest without being moppish, and modish without being daring. In other words, respectable. Torrie wished she could get a good look at the woman, who was giggling now, but she did not want to seem too interested in front of Tina, and she most definitely did not want to be seen by Lord Ingall and his
ch
è
re amie.

“Fine,” he was saying in response to
madame’s
suggestions. “I see that you understand perfectly. I am confident I can leave Lady Lynbrook in your expert and efficient hands.”

Lady Lynbrook? Torrie turned around so fast the measuring tape flew out of Tina’s hands. His former mistress? His
other
former mistress? Between the baroness and the faro dealer, it was no wonder the man had not had time to call on her! And he was purchasing this one a new gown. No, a new wardrobe. And he had kissed Torrie in the park, the lewd, licentious lecher. She only wished she’d kicked him harder.

Then she heard the doorbell jangle as he left, and she took a deep breath. She was doing it again, rushing to judgment without knowing all the facts. Perhaps there was some explanation, as there had been when she was in Boyce’s embrace. She had to give Lord Ingall the benefit of the doubt, she told herself, but doubts were making furrows on her brow. She could not think of a single instance where a single man could pay a woman’s way that was not suspect, unless, of course, they were engaged to be wed.

Maybe Wynn had truly loved the lady all these years. After killing her husband, he must have deemed himself unworthy of her. While she had fallen into a decline, and into penury, he had waited to return until he had proved himself, to lay his heart and his fortune at her feet. Now they could finally plight their troth. No, that was the plot of the novel Torrie had sent her footman to return to the lending library while she had her fitting. Besides, she had not read any notice of the betrothal in the newspapers.

“Lower the neckline another inch, Tina.”

* * * *

When Wynn arrived at his lodgings in Kensington, a liveried messenger, not a written message, was waiting.

The servant’s uniform colors looked more than familiar, dash it. The dark blue and gold were his own colors, his family colors. His sister-in-law, it seemed, had grown weary of waiting for Wynn’s formal arrival.

Lady Ingall, the footman carefully recited, respectfully requested Lord Ingall’s presence for dinner at Ingram House preceding the theater that evening.

Respectfully, like Hades. It was more of an order than an invitation, but Wynn was of a mind to accept. He would have to face Marissa soon enough anyway, if he ever wanted to get his town house, his signet ring, or his uniformed servants back. As head of the family, such as it was, he was aware that he had not paid Marissa her proper courtesies. Her frequent letters had reminded him of his dereliction from duty.

He might as well get the unpleasant chore over with. Besides, Marissa could not lecture him during the play, nor during the meal with the servants in the room, which left only the brief, before-dinner gathering for his sister-in-law to go off on her rant about duty and decency and dear Roger, who’d died of a stroke during a speech in Parliament. Wynn reasoned that he could arrive close enough to the dinner hour to shorten the diatribe considerably. She might just forget that bit about him delivering an heir for the viscountcy. Or pigs could fly. His attendance might soften Marissa’s attitude toward him. Or pigs could fly upside down.

But she might prove handy, anyway. Marissa had been a political hostess, a doyenne of society before Wynn’s brother’s demise, and he doubted she had given up that power any more than she had given up Ingram House. He thought she could be of great assistance in bringing Bette back into society, if she consented to help. Or pigs could fly upside down on the backs of camels.

Still, Wynn had always enjoyed the theater. He thought he might enjoy an evening of high drama where he, for once, was not in a leading role. He could sit back and lose himself in someone else’s tragedy, forgetting for the nonce his need to find a husband for Rosie, his vow to find a husband for Bette, and his instinct to keep Lady Torrie from finding any husband whatsoever, Boyce or otherwise. Watching Romeo and Juliet enact their imbecile infatuation was preferable to examining his own thoughts.

She would likely be at the theater that evening, too. Not Juliet—he had no idea what was being performed this evening—but Lady Torrie. Most of the
ton
attended the plays, he knew, arrayed in all their finery. Seeing the earl’s daughter’s finest would be well worth the price of one of Marissa’s bear garden jaws.