A Little Scandal (20 page)

And it went without saying that now that he’d found her, he’d find a way to ruin her, somehow.

She could not say how she was so certain of this. After all, her own personal dealings with Daniel Craven had always been pleasant ones—up until, of course, the day he’d run off with all that money.

And the night of the fire, of course.

What did he want? What did he want from her? There had been a time—very brief indeed, and seven years ago—when she, as well as several of her friends, had rather admired her father’s handsome young business partner, and had giggled about him with one another. And at the time, Kate had fancied that Daniel, flattered by her schoolgirl crush, had quite enjoyed flirting with her.

Was that why he had sought her out again? Did he think that, seven long years later, he could take up flirting with her again, as if nothing had happened?

If so, he was in for a shock. Kate had not only ceased admiring him, she suspected him, in her weaker moments, of being her parents’ murderer ….

That could not, she told herself, be what he wanted. Daniel Craven was a manipulator, and what possible use could she be to him now? She hadn’t any money, not like seven years ago. Was it possible he planned on duping Lord Wingate, the way he’d duped her father, and hoped to be able to use her to do so?

Well, if that was what he was thinking, he had something else entirely coming ….

Another stone rattled against the glass, this one louder than the others. Kate started at the noise, thinking it was bound to wake other members of the household … even Isabel, right next door. What could she do? If Lord Wingate found out, he would have no choice but to sack her. It didn’t do for one’s daughter’s chaperone to have gentlemen paying midnight calls ….

Another stone smacked against the window, this time with enough force nearly to break the glass.

That was it. She hadn’t any choice now. If she didn’t go down and see what he wanted, he’d wake the entire house. Swallowing hard, Kate turned around and went to fetch her peignoir and slippers. Flinging both on, she opened the door to the hallway and looked out. No one was about, of course. It had to be after three in the morning. With any luck, she’d be able to get rid of him, and get back to bed before anyone awoke ….

There were two sets of doors leading out into the garden. The first was in his lordship’s library, the second in the breakfast room. Kate used the library door, since it was the first she came to. Though the entire house was dark, she hadn’t needed a candle, since enough moonlight shone through the windows to light her way. She moved past the gloomy shadow that was Lord Wingate’s desk, and unlatched the French door that led to the garden steps. She could see the fair-haired man quite clearly now through the panes of glass, and what she saw caused her to hesitate.

Because, of course, it wasn’t Daniel at all, but ….

“Mr. Saunders!”

Kate stood in the moonlight, her hands on her hips, glaring down at the young man who, even as. she watched, was drawing back his arm to launch another volley of pebbles at her window. Startled at the sound of her voice, he dropped the stones, and stared up at her.

“Miss … Mayhew?” he whispered. “Is that you?”

“Of course it’s me.”

Her relief was like cool water on a hot summer day. It isn’t Daniel Craven, was all she could think. Thank God, it isn’t Daniel Craven at all. Her heart returning to something like its normal rhythm, she berated herself for having thought it was Daniel Craven in the first place. Daniel Craven had no reason—no reason at all—to seek her out, and wouldn’t. Not ever again.

Geoffrey Saunders, on the other hand …. Now, what was his reason for this midnight visit?

Kate came down the stone steps to the garden, her diaphanous robe billowing out behind her like a lace-trimmed sail. “Mr. Saunders, what in heaven’s name do you think you’re doing?”

He gaped at her. He was a handsome man, but gaping, he looked as foolish as anyone.

“I ….” he stammered. “I ….”

“If you’re looking for Lady Isabel,” Kate said, keeping her voice low, “I must say your aim leaves something to be desired.”

He looked up at her windows. “Oh,” he said, recovering himself somewhat. “Did I get the wrong room, then?”

“You most certainly did.” Kate might not have been so short with him had she not initially mistaken him for Daniel Craven—and he had not happened to wake her from the particular dream she’d been having at the time his pebbles struck. As it was, however, she was now in an extremely impatient state of mind, and not in any mood to be trifled with by handsome young ne’er-do-wells.

“Mr. Saunders,” she said imperiously. “I confess myself ashamed of you. How dare you come sneaking onto Lord Wingate’s property in the dead of night, like some kind of thief?”

He grinned at her, a bit foolishly, but charmingly, nonetheless. He was a very charming young man.

“What can I say?” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “I am a man in love, Miss Mayhew. I throw myself upon your mercy. It’s been nearly a week since I last heard from her. Am I forgotten, Miss Mayhew? Am I to be cast aside like a soiled glove?”

Kate snorted. “You’d have done better to have confessed to drunkenness, Mr. Saunders. Spare me your poetic meandering. The Lady Isabel has been abed with a cold for the past five days.”

His face lit up. “A cold? The deuce you say, Miss Mayhew. Oh, it was good of you to let me know, and not lead me on, as other women might have.” His grin grew crooked. “I told you we’d make an excellent team, you and I, Miss Mayhew.” His blue eyes roved over her peignoir. “And might I add that I find your current ensemble simply smashing. It’s too bad you didn’t wear that to the baroness’s. You’d have had to beat all the fellows off with a stick.”

Kate thought about slapping him. Instead, she coldly folded her arms across her chest, since it appeared to be her decolletage toward which his gaze was straying. She had had inserts sewn into all of her ballgowns, but it had never occurred to her that anyone might see her in her nightclothes, and that they would ever be considered too daring for a chaperone.

“Mr. Saunders,” she said. “Leave this property at once. If I ever hear of you attempting to contact Lady Isabel in such a manner ever again, I shall go straight to Lord Wingate.”

“Not, I hope,” Mr. Saunders said, “dressed as you are. Otherwise, I fear Lord Wingate would be quite as incapable as I am of attending to your words ….”

“Perhaps,” Kate said, lowering her arms, her cheeks flushed hotly, “you’ll attend to this, then.”

On the word “this,” she trod as hard as she could upon the young gentleman’s foot. And since she happened to be wearing slippers with a pointed heel, she had the satisfaction of seeing Mr. Saunders gasp and seize his booted toes.

“Consider that, Mr. Saunders,” she said, with as much haughtiness as she could muster, “just a sample of what you’re likely to receive from Lord Wingate, should he happen to hear of your behavior here tonight. More likely he’ll put a bullet in that thick skull of yours, and I, for one, shan’t weep a drop at your funeral.”

She spun around and headed back up the steps to the French doors. Behind her, Mr. Saunders hopped about, keeping from crying out with pain with an effort that must have cost him plenty. Once Kate was safely indoors again, the latch secured against his following—had he been of a mind to do so—she watched his painful writhing for several moments. She wanted to believe that she had instilled enough fear of Lord Wingate’s wrath in him that he would climb back over that garden wall he’d evidently scaled. On the other hand, a desperate man did not always make the wisest choices. She would keep watch, she decided, until she was certain he was going away ….

It was just then that Kate heard the knob to the library door turn. She whirled around, and a second later, Lord Wingate, holding a candelabrum, strode into the room.

“Lord Wingate,” Kate said, when her tongue came unglued from the back of her throat, where it had flattened itself the moment she’d seen him come through the door.

Lord Wingate threw her a startled glance. He had not seen her, and Kate realized belatedly that she might have escaped unnoticed, if only she’d kept her mouth shut.

On the other hand, if he had noticed her, and she hadn’t yet made her presence known, he might have thought she was trying to hide something. Which, indeed, she was.

“Miss Mayhew?” Lord Wingate’s vision, unlike her own, was not accustomed to the moonlight, and he had to hold the candelabrum aloft before he could make her out, standing before the French doors. When he did so, his eyes widened perceptibly, and his hand fell away from the doorknob, which up until that moment he’d still been holding.

“Miss Mayhew,” he said, in a tone of such astonishment that it almost seemed to suggest that, despite the fact that she’d been an inmate in the house for the past several weeks, he had never actually considered that a possibility might arise wherein they would encounter one another by chance within it. “What … ?”

Are you doing in my library at three o’clock in the morning, was how he’d undoubtedly meant to finish that question. He was, however, obviously much too surprised to go on, and could apparently only stand there and stare at her. It was, of course, an awkward meeting, considering how they were dressed, Kate in her peignoir, and Lord Wingate in a dressing gown. But Kate couldn’t help thinking that her employer’s extreme incredulity was quite out of proportion for the situation. After all, it was not as if she were naked.

This thought, of course, reminded Kate of the last time she’d seen Lord Wingate, and this, in turn, caused color to flood her face. Good Lord! Her dream! She’d quite forgotten her shameless dream. And here they stood, the two of them, in a library—not the same library they’d stood in during her dream, but a library just the same. Worse, they were wearing a good deal less clothing than the last time they’d stood together in a library. No wonder the man was so flummoxed—although he couldn’t have had the same dream, nor could he have known about hers ….

Kate, realizing with a start that her employer was waiting for an answer of some kind from her, said the first thing that came to mind, which was, “My cat.”

Lord Wingate looked, if such a thing was possible, even more perplexed. “Your cat, Miss Mayhew?”

She remembered herself, and replied, as lucidly as she was able, which was not very, “Yes, my cat. I heard cats fighting in the garden, and I thought Lady ….” Her voice trailed off as she remembered she’d never told Lord Wingate her pet’s ridiculous name, and that there really wasn’t any reason for her to do so now. She cleared her throat. “I thought my cat might have gotten out.”

In the glow cast from the candelabrum, Kate saw Lord Wingate’s dark eyebrows lift. It had never occurred to her before, but she realized suddenly that her employer had a slightly diabolical look about him, with his dark complexion and sharp features. When he raised his eyebrows in the candlelight, she was put in mind of paintings she’d seen of Lucifer.

“And?”

Lord Wingate’s commanding voice shook her from her imaginative musings. “What?’ she stammered stupidly.

“And,” Lord Wingate said, with an impressive degree of patience, “was … it … your … cat?”

Kate glanced over her shoulder, and had to stifle a groan. The idiotic Geoffrey had actually sat down upon a stone bench, pulled off his boot, and was scrutinizing the toes she’d trod upon, looking, she hadn’t any doubt, for breaks. Fool! Did he want to have his head blown off? Because that was surely what would happen if the Marquis of Wingate found him there ….

“Oh,” Kate said with an airy laugh, turning her face away from the glass panes. “Oh, no, it wasn’t, after all. But what”—she moved away from the French doors, hoping to distract Lord Wingate’s attention from what was going on just outside them—”brings you to the library at such a late hour, my lord?”

The marquis’s gaze, as she’d hoped, followed her. He was staring at her as warily as if he was convinced she was demented, and might at any moment make a sudden dash for a fire iron, with which to skewer him.

“I came down,” he said cautiously, “because I was having trouble sleeping, and the book I’m currently reading was not proving particularly … restful.”

“Oh?” Kate, still not comfortable about his proximity to the garden, sidled up to him, and glanced at the book he’d removed from the pocket of his dressing gown. “Oh,
Last of the Mohicans
. Yes, I can see what you mean.”

Lord Wingate’s gaze seemed riveted to her face—a fact which Kate, under the circumstances, did not mind a bit. He cleared his throat. “I’m having a bit of trouble getting into it. I can’t seem to get much past the preface.”

Kate wrinkled her nose. “Preface? What are you bothering with the preface for?”

It seemed to her that Lord Wingate looked more astonished than ever upon her uttering those words. But, convinced she now had him thoroughly distracted from the French doors, she didn’t care if he thought her a plebeian for eschewing prefaces. In fact, she reached out and took the book from him, saying kindly, “What you need, my lord, is something to put you to sleep. And you know, I have just the prescription. Where do you keep the ‘S’s?”

He continued to stare down at her. His eyes, in the candlelight, looked greener than ever. “The what?”

“The ‘S’s” She pointed at the book-lined walls. “They are arranged by author, I assume?”

“Oh.” He nodded toward the wall to the right of the fireplace. “Over there.”

“Excellent.” Kate thrust her hand into the crook of his elbow—a bold move, certainly, but under the circumstances, a necessary one, she thought—and began to steer him in that direction. He did not resist, and Kate began to think that the evening might possibly end without a murder after all.

“Let me see,” she said, squinting at the titles before them, which were stacked on shelves that ran from floor to ceiling. “Hold the light a little higher, would you, my lord?” He complied instantly, and she said, “Oh, that’s better. Now, what have we here? Sab, Sal, Saw … Ah, here we are. Sc. Way up there. Oh, dear. I see we shall have to do some climbing.”