A Little Scandal (16 page)

That’s what they’d said, anyway. And even now, seven years later, she didn’t have any reason to disbelieve them.

Except, of course, for what her own eyes had told her.

But smoke, like fog, she had been assured, could play tricks on the mind. The shadowy form she’d sworn she’d seen when she’d flung open her bedroom door that dreadful night, to find the hallway leading to her parents’ bedroom consumed in flames, hadn’t been there at all—or, if it had, it had only been a figment of her imagination, struggling to come to grips with the horror of what she was seeing.

Smoke. Smoke and flame. That was what she’d seen. Thick, cloying smoke, which had choked her as she’d screamed for her parents, desperate to find them in the heat and haze. And red-hot flames, shooting higher and higher, forming a solid wall of fire between Kate and her parents’ bedroom door.

She hadn’t been able to get to them. Instead, she’d fallen, coughing uncontrollably, to the floor. Even then, she’d crawled, until something stopped her, just before the wall of smoke and flame. Something … or someone. Someone who knew her name, and said it, turning her over, and lifting her away from the heat. Daniel Craven. She was sure it had been Daniel Craven.

But Daniel Craven, they told her later, hadn’t even been in England at the time—his name had been on a passenger list for a ship that had left for South Africa the week before—and couldn’t possibly have rescued her that night.

No one, however, had been able to explain how it was that she’d managed to get from that smoke and flame filled hallway to the servants’ stairway, where she was found by the household staff as they ran for safety.

She’d never know. She’d told herself long ago that she’d never know, and it was better, in the end, not to wonder.

Except ….

Except that there were those who whispered things, horrible things, about that night. Things Kate would never believe, things Kate knew in her soul weren’t true.

The one thing no one whispered—no one but Kate—was Daniel Craven’s name.

And here he stood in front of her, staring at her as if she, like the mythological phoenix, had risen up from the ashes ….

“Oh, look,” Isabel said. “He’s coming this way. He’s jolly handsome, Miss Mayhew. Who is he? One of your old beaux?”

“Not exactly,” Kate said weakly.

“Well, if it isn’t Kate Mayhew.”

That voice. A shudder of revulsion ran through her. How could he? How could he saunter up to her—Daniel Craven always sauntered. He was much too lazy to walk at anything but a leisurely pace—and say her name, as if nothing—nothing at all—had happened since the last time they’d met … Where had it been? A dinner party, she thought. A dinner party, in her very own house, a few nights before the fire ….

“They told me you had moved away, or something,” he said, in that voice that turned her stomach. “But here you are, looking, I must say, as delectable as ever.” He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, his lips cool.

She said nothing, but inwardly, her mind raged. It had been him. It had to have been him, all those times she’d thought she’d seen him. He had been following her. He had!

Kate, who stood with her gaze downcast, could not see Lord Wingate’s expression, but she supposed he must have looked taken aback, since Daniel said to him, in his flippant way, “Oh, don’t worry. Kate and I are old, old friends. Aren’t we, Kate? Here, introduce me to these nice people, like a good girl.”

Kate did look up then. She looked up, right into his pale blue eyes, and said, in a voice that surprised even her with its coldness, “I didn’t know you were back in England, Mr. Craven.”

“Oh,” Daniel said, with a shrug. He was a big man, almost as English-looking as Freddy, though Daniel’s hair was a trifle darker blond, and he wore no mustache. Still, he had the same loose-limbed lankiness, a sort of rawboned quality that made him look out of place in a ballroom. His place, quite obviously, was on a horse, pursuing foxhounds, or possibly in the wilds of Africa, hunting rhino. It was a deceiving quality, however, for as much the sportsman as Daniel looked, he was a shrewd businessman … and an even shrewder observer of human behavior.

“Yes, well,” he said, with the same easy smile that, seven years ago, had sent so many heartstrings humming—including, briefly, Kate’s. “I only just got back. From Botswana, I mean. Miserably hot country, Africa. Simply horrid.”

Geoffrey Saunders, who had come up behind Isabel, their dance being over, asked, having overheard the last part of Daniel’s statement, “South Africa, you mean? Whatever were you doing there?”

That smile grew—to Kate’s eye, at least—distinctly reptilian. Yet the gaze Daniel turned upon her wasn’t without warmth. That, Kate knew, was the most dangerous thing about Daniel Craven. He appeared, to the casual observer, to be human, capable of experiencing such emotions as compassion and remorse.

Kate, however, knew better.

“Diamonds,” he said. “Or, rather, a diamond mine.” The look he gave Kate was apologetic. “There really was one, Kate,” he said. “All along. Not where I originally thought, but not far off—not far off at all.”

She nodded. Of course. Of course the mine existed. Close to the one in which Daniel Craven had convinced her father and all of his friends to invest … but just far enough from it that the diamonds in it did not, technically, belong to them. Oh, no.

“But whatever are you doing here, Katie?” Daniel asked, reaching out and seizing both her hands. “It is still Katie, isn’t it? I shouldn’t be miladying you, should I? I know how persistent that young fellow—Whatever was his name? That young earl who was so besotted by you. Surely you and he must be married by now—” He broke off, looking down at her questioningly. “Why, Katie, whatever is the matter? You’ve gone white as a sheet. And are you shaking?”

To Kate’s utter surprise, Lord Wingate reached out and pried her fingers gently, but firmly, from Daniel’s hands. “Miss Mayhew is unwell, as you can plainly see. Please excuse us.”

Daniel looked startled. He had noticed Lord Wingate’s presence surely, but had apparently dismissed it—though how anyone could dismiss a presence as formidable as the marquis’s, Kate could not begin to guess—and now, he seemed taken aback.

“Just a moment—” He blinked a few times. “I mean, Kate and I were just—”

But the rest of what he said was lost to Kate’s ears as Lord Wingate steered her from the ballroom. He did it quickly, with the ease of a man long practiced in escaping crowded rooms. It was a good thing, Kate thought, that he kept a hand on her elbow, or she might have stumbled, he was moving that swiftly.

He threw open a door, and she felt a rush of cool air on her face. They were, she saw when she lifted her head, on a stone terrace, overlooking a night-shrouded garden. Crickets chirped in the dark, but so softly that they were nearly drowned out by the strains of the orchestra back in the ballroom.

Crickets, Kate thought, finding the discovery, in some detached part of her brain, hilarious. In the middle of London. Crickets!

Her knees suddenly too weak to support her anymore, she dropped down onto a rough stone bench, where she sat with her head bent, taking in the fragrant air, hoping she didn’t sound as if she were gulping, or worse, sobbing.

Roses. She smelled roses. There must have been a vine of them, climbing along the terrace wall. The rain had stopped, but the bench beneath her was still damp.

“Here.” Lord Wingate thrust a glass of something beneath her nose. “Drink this.”

“No, really,” Kate said. “I’m feeling much—”

“Drink it.”

It was a voice she didn’t dare disobey. She took the glass, and brought it to her lips. Claret, rich and warming. She drank it all.

“That’s better.” He took the glass from her and set it aside. Then, before she knew what he was about, he’d peeled off his coat and settled it about her shoulders.

“Oh,” she said, startled by the sudden weight, not to mention the sudden heat. “No, I couldn’t—”

“Nonsense.” He sat down on the bench beside her, careful, she noticed, to keep about a foot of distance between her crinoline and himself. “You’re trembling.”

She was, of course, but she’d hoped he hadn’t noticed. Still, much as she didn’t want to admit it, the warmth his coat provided was very welcome, indeed—even if it did smell of him, mingled odors of freshly laundered shirt and, more faintly, tobacco, odors Kate recalled only too well from that embarrassing moment in the library, when he had embraced her ….

Not, she imagined, that that was likely to happen again. He was bound to give her the sack anyway, after this. It wasn’t enough that Daniel Craven had ruined her life once. No, he had to keep on doing it, again and again.

She sat there in abject misery, thinking this, listening to the crickets and the occasional shriek of laughter from inside the house. Isabel’s voice was clearly audible, even at this great a distance. Hearing it, Kate tensed, preparing to get up again, and at least attempt to perform the duties for which Lord Wingate had hired her ….—

But he laid a restraining hand upon her arm, saying, “Isabel will be all right with Mr. Saunders for a moment or two. As long as we can hear her, we know she’s not up to anything too mischievous. And frankly, I think we have more important things to worry about, you and I.”

Kate said, all in a rush, “I can’t pay back the fifty pounds you advanced me, Lord Wingate. I already spent it.”

The look he cast her—she could see his face quite plainly in the light thrown from the glass panes in the French doors that led to the terrace—was inscrutable. He said, “I don’t recall asking for your advance back.”

“But if you’re going to dismiss me—”

“I don’t recall saying I was going to dismiss you, either.”

She blinked up at him. Inside the ballroom, Isabel could be heard to shriek, “Oh, I never!”

Kate stammered, “I just … I just assumed, after ….”

Lord Wingate said, “I admit I would be interested to know, of course, how it is that a young woman such as yourself, whom I imagined had led something of a sheltered life, comes to be acquainted with so many gentlemen in a single gathering—”

“Not so many,” Kate interrupted. “Two. Two gentlemen. And I explained to you that one of them—Lord Palmer—was an old family acquaintance ….”

“Ah, yes.” The marquis nodded. “So you said. And the other?”

Kate, who hadn’t been expecting him to put the question so bluntly, found herself murmuring, “He … he was a business partner. Of my father’s.”

“A business partner,” Lord Wingate said carefully. “Of your father’s.” At Kate’s vigorous nod, he added, “A business partner of your father’s, at whom you were staring as if he were a ghost”

Kate swallowed. “It … it’s been some time since he and I …. I hardly expected to see him here. He’s been out of England for quite a while—”

“So I understand. In South Africa, I believe he said. Looking after a diamond mine.” Lord Wingate’s tone was as dry as when he’d addressed his daughter on the subject of whether or not he was enjoying the ball. “Your father must be spectacularly well connected, Miss Mayhew, if he is acquainted with earls and owners of diamond mines.”

Stung, Kate hurried to her feet, even though, truth be told, her knees were still shaking. How stupid she’d been. How could she have thought, even for a moment, that he wasn’t like the rest? She had been duped by his kindness, by a single glass of claret and the loan of his coat. Well, she would not make the same mistake again.

“I’ll thank you, Lord Wingate,” she said, with all the dignity she could muster, “to refrain from using that sarcastic tone of voice with me. I am not, as you seem to think, a liar. If you choose to believe so, that is your—”

“Sit down, Miss Mayhew,” the marquis said, in a bored voice.

“I won’t,” Kate said. She was so close to tears that she could feel them gathering at the corners of her eyes, but she went on, as haughtily as she could. “I don’t choose to remain in the company of people who doubt my word—”

“I don’t doubt your word, Miss Mayhew,” the marquis said. “On the contrary, I think it entirely possible that the parents of a chaperone—who was, after all, a governess when I first met her—might possibly have been friends to an earl.”

She must have looked incredulous, since he added, “Well, I assume that, like yourself, Miss Mayhew, your father is an educator, and that in that capacity, he would certainly know many of the parents of the boys whom he teaches. But,” he added, “from the look on your face, apparently I’m wrong in that assumption.”

Kate, feeling a little ashamed of herself—and surprised that, after everything she’d gone through in the past few years, she still cared what anyone thought of her anyway—said, in a voice that was considerably less haughty than the one she’d used a few moments before, “No, you are not wrong. At least”—she shrugged—”not so wrong as to make it worth mentioning.”

“That’s gratifying to know.” Lord Wingate climbed to his feet. “But what it doesn’t explain is the look of utter terror that appeared on your face when that gentleman approached you back there.”

Kate felt her cheeks heat up. Now that she was safely out of Daniel Craven’s presence, she was able to chide herself for having behaved so foolishly in front of him. It was ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, this idea that he had been following her, that he had been in her home the night her parents died, that he was somehow responsible for their deaths. Now that his pale blue gaze wasn’t on her—wasn’t anywhere in sight—she was able to see how silly she’d been even to think it. Daniel Craven was a swindler, certainly. He was also a flirt and a skirt-chaser. But he was no killer. Why, he was far too lazy for something so complicated as murder.

“It …” Kate struggled to come up with an explanation, any explanation, that might sound plausible. Since anything other than the truth—that she thought him a cold-blooded killer—was that, this was no great difficulty. “It’s only that I haven’t seen him—Mr. Craven—since before my parents died. To speak with, I mean. He and my father were very close, but he … Mr. Craven did not even bother to come to the funeral. So I thought it impertinent of him to speak to me the way he did—so familiarly. And then to have done it in front of you … I was sure you’d dismiss me on the spot, particularly after what had happened with Freddy, and I got … well, I got nervous.”