A Little Scandal (39 page)

“Here it is,” Kate said, looking down at the slip of paper she held in her gloved hand. They were strolling, on foot, down a narrow street. To an observer, they might have looked like any happy couple, paying a call on friends or family. A closer inspection, however, would have revealed that the gentleman’s jaw was very firmly set, and that the lady seemed to fear for the fingers she’d slipped into the crook of his arm, as the gentleman kept tensing his muscles.

“Number twenty-nine,” Kate said, looking at the brass numbers by the unlit gaslight above the door. “This must be it.”

It was not a particularly bad street—middle class, Burke supposed. But it was not the sort of street on which he’d ever hoped to find his daughter hiding with her lover.

Then again, there wasn’t any sort of street on which he hoped to find his daughter hiding with her lover.

A lover who may—or may not—have killed.

One thing was certain: it had been far too easy to track him. The man had made himself conspicuous—much too much so, for someone who ought to have been doing everything in his power to avoid detection. Kate’s tearful confession—that it had been Daniel Craven who’d set the fire that had killed her parents—had been interrupted by a tap at the door. When Burke went to answer it, he discovered a man there to whom he had, while ordering their breakfast, put a few questions concerning newcomers to the neighborhood.

Sure enough, the man had found someone who, for a small reward, had been quite ready to admit that someone fitting Craven’s description—and Isabel’s, as well—had taken a nearby house.

“They’ve just rented it,” Burke had informed Kate, as she’d hurried to dress. “And they were most definitely there this morning. The fellow I spoke to said a milk delivery had been made there just an hour ago.”

“Well, then,” Kate had replied, with a bravery she had been far from feeling. “We’d best go then, hadn’t we?”

But now, standing outside the door, Kate looked a good deal less brave, and Burke himself felt nothing but a violent desire to punch something.

“Supposing,” he said, as they stood there, staring at the door. “She won’t come with us.”

“She will,” Kate said, though she did not sound very certain.

“And if we’re too late?”

She looked up at him. It was another grey day. Not raining, thank God. But unseasonably cold and dank. In spite of her fear, bright spots of color stood out on her cheeks, and the tip of her nose was pink.

“Burke,” she said, in a warning tone. “If we are, you mustn’t kill him. Do you understand? I don’t care if this is Scotland. They still have laws. You mustn’t commit murder. For Isabel’s sake, Burke.”

The sound of his name on her lips was almost enough to make him forget himself, and snatch her up, and rain kisses down upon that impossibly small mouth.

Almost.

The reminder of what she had almost gotten away with kept him from doing anything so sentimental, so foolish. She could only have known for certain that she was carrying his child for about eight weeks, or so. Two months. That wasn’t so terribly long to have kept it from him. But if Isabel hadn’t run off, and he hadn’t come looking for her—

She reached out and turned the crank doorbell.

Burke heard it ring, deep inside the house. After a minute or two, a step was heard behind the door, and then it swung open. A maid, no more than a child in a frilled apron and oversized cap, looked out at them expectantly.

“Yes, sir?” she said. “Mum?”

Burke wanted to speak. He wanted to do this part, at least, on his own, without Kate’s help. But he was perfectly incapable of forming the necessary words. All he could think of was taking Daniel Craven’s face and grinding it, as hard as he could, into some dirt.

“Hello,” Kate said sweetly to the girl. “Is Mr. Craven at home?”

“Oh, no, mum,” the maid said. “Mr. Craven is gone back to London.”

Burke had not been aware of how tense he’d become until Kate let out a little cry of pain, and drew her fingers away from the crook of his elbow, where they’d been resting. Apparently, he had inadvertently crushed them between his bicep and forearm.

Recovering herself, Kate said to the maid, “Back to London?”

“Yes, mum. You’ve only just missed him. He left not half an hour ago.”

Kate had not even realized how much she’d been dreading a confrontation with Daniel until she felt the relief that flooded through her at hearing he was gone. This was not, however, a feeling apparently shared by Burke, who looked staggered by the information.

“And … Mrs. Craven?” Kate asked, since it appeared that Burke’s disappointment in having to delay his pummeling of Daniel Craven had temporarily rendered him incapable of speech. “Did she escort Mr. Craven back to London?”

“Mrs. Craven?” The girl looked perplexed.

“There was a young lady with him,” Kate questioned quickly, not daring to look in Burke’s direction. “Was there not?”

“Oh,” the maid said, relief—and, if Kate wasn’t mistaken, a bit of scorn—in her rosy-cheeked face. “You mean the Lady Isabel?”

“Yes,” Kate said. “The Lady Isabel. Did she go back to London with Mr. Craven?”

An expression that could only be called indignant crossed the girl’s face. “Indeed not,” the maid declared, as if such an idea were preposterous—almost as preposterous as the idea of a Mrs. Craven.

“Then,” Kate asked, fighting for patience. The parlor maid had clearly not been hired because of her pretty manners, or sharp intellect. “Could you tell us where we might find her ladyship?”

The maid’s quick, darting glance over her shoulder, up the narrow staircase behind her, was all Burke needed. He thrust out a hand, giving the door a violent shove. The maid let out a startled shriek, and jumped hastily out of the way. It was a good thing she did, too, since Burke strode past her without so much as a beg-your-pardon.

“Where is she?” he growled, striding down a narrow, unattractively decorated hallway.

“See here,” the girl squealed. “You can’t come bustin’ in here like this. Who d’you think you are? The master isn’t goin’ to like this, not one bit—”

But Burke was already climbing the stairs, taking them two at a time. Kate hurried after him, steadying herself with one hand on the banister.

“Burke,” she called urgently. “Please—”

The first room he tried was empty. The second, however, revealed a figure slumped in a deep chair by a miserable fire. In the dismal light thrown by the embers, it was impossible to tell the identity of the person within the chair.

But the heart-wrenching sobs that wracked the figure’s shoulders could belong to only one person: Isabel.

And yet, to Kate’s astonishment, Burke did not fly to his daughter’s side. Instead, he hung back from the doorway, peering uncertainly into the room. At Kate’s questioning look, he murmured, “I can’t.”

“Burke,” Kate said softly, but he only shook his head.

“No,” he said. “She doesn’t want me. You go.”

It was Kate’s turn to shake her head. “But—”

“She won’t want to see me,” Burke assured her.

“Burke, that’s—”

“You don’t know.” His tone was flat. “You don’t know how it was when … when last I saw her. She won’t want to see me. You go.”

Kate, recognizing the perilous look in his eyes, said, “All right.”

And she went. Moved from the hallway into the darkened room, tugging on her gloves as she did so, so that when she knelt down beside the chair in which Isabel lay curled, she was able to place her fingers on the girl’s hand.

Isabel broke off from her noisy sobbing and peered at Kate through tear-swollen eyelids.

“Oh!” she cried, upon recognizing who knelt beside her. “Oh, Miss Mayhew!”

And in a flurry of lace and petticoats, Isabel threw herself from the chair, and wrapped her arms so tightly about Kate’s neck that she very nearly choked. “Oh, Miss Mayhew,” she cried again. The sobbing began again, with a renewed note of anguish.

Kate, stroking the girl’s tangled hair, attempted to comfort her as best she could. Bit by bit, Isabel spilled her pathetic story, beginning with an impassioned, “Oh, Miss Mayhew, if only I had listened to you! You never did like him, and I ought to have known you had good reason not to. Only he was so much more attentive than Geoffrey ever was, and he said he loved me, and you can’t imagine how wretched I was, after you left,” and ending with, “And then not an hour ago, he strode in and told me he was going back to London—going back to London without me. He wouldn’t let me come with him! And he wasn’t coming back. He said he’d had enough—enough of my being so spoiled and demanding. Only I wasn’t, Miss Mayhew! I swear I wasn’t! But he didn’t care. He abandoned me—in Scotland. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t imagine Papa would ever let me come home, not after … Oh, Miss Mayhew, I never imagined anyone could be so cruel! Why did he do it? Why?”

Kate, holding on to the girl’s quivering shoulders, tried to maintain a calm, rational demeanor. But inwardly, she was a good deal unsettled. Why had Daniel done it? What could he have been thinking? Because, if Isabel was telling the truth—and Kate could not believe the girl capable of prevarication, not in her impassioned state—they had not only not married, but Daniel had not laid so much as a finger upon her. The two had kept separate bedrooms throughout their journey together, a fact Isabel seemed to view as perfectly natural—an example of Daniel’s innate sense of “chivalry.”

But what Isabel called chivalry, Kate called suspicious. Daniel Craven was no gentleman. She knew that better than anyone. And as he was in no need of Isabel’s money, she had assumed—although it had been with some degree of disbelief—that the reason he’d embarked upon this wild scheme was that he had actually found himself attracted to the girl, and had been unable to think of any other way to get her.

But now it appeared that that had not been the case, either. So why on earth had he bothered? Why had he gone to all the time and trouble, if only to end up abandoning the poor child in the end?

But these were questions to which Kate was going to have to wait for an answer.

“What do you mean, you couldn’t imagine your father would ever let you come home?” She gave the girl a gentle shake. “Why, he’s been out of his mind with worry, these past few days.”

Isabel applied the handkerchief Kate had given her to the corners of her eyes.

“Oh,” she said shakily. “I knew what I was doing was wicked. Only I couldn’t stand it, being home with him. You never saw such a beast as he was after you left, Miss Mayhew.”

Kate smoothed some of Isabel’s tumbled hair back from her face. “Whom do you mean?” she asked, only half listening.

“Why, Papa, of course,” Isabel said matter-of-factly. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you a bit for leaving us like that, Miss Mayhew. I know how horrid he was that night … the night he caught you in the garden with—with Daniel. He was even more horrid to me, after you left. I suppose he wired you to come and get me, since he doesn’t want to see me anymore.”

Kate, conscious that Burke was standing in the hallway, undoubtedly overhearing every word, hurried to interrupt the girl before she said something that would cause irreparable damage.

“What utter nonsense,” she said briskly. “Your father’s right outside this door. He thought you wouldn’t want to see him—”

And then there was a great flurry of lace and crinoline as Isabel hurried to her feet, having finally spied her father lurking in the doorway. A second later, he stepped into the room, and she flung herself into his arms, with a delighted cry of “Papa!”

It was a joyous reunion. So joyous, in fact, that Kate felt it only proper to withdraw, and leave the two of them alone to enjoy it. Discreetly, she made her way down the hallway to the staircase, at the bottom of which she noticed the little maid, pacing back and forth across the foyer, looking furious.

Determined to discover the truth about Daniel’s whereabouts—or at the very least, his motives—Kate made her way down the stairs, trying to appear as unconcerned as possible.

“Oy,” the maid said, when she noticed Kate. “Listen here. You’ve got no cause to come bustin’ in here like you did. Dan—I mean, Mr. Craven’s not done anything wrong.”

“Of course he hasn’t,” Kate said soothingly, when she reached the bottom of the staircase. “No one is suggesting any such thing.”

“I don’t know what she’s been telling you”—the maid lifted a reproachful gaze toward the ceiling—”but it ain’t true. Mr. Craven’s a right gentleman, he is. He didn’t lay a finger on her.”

“So I’ve heard,” Kate said, pausing in front of an ormolu framed mirror to tuck a few loose strands of hair back beneath her bonnet.

The maid’s face, which Kate could see plainly reflected in the mirror, lost some of its pinched look.

“She told you that, then?” The girl nodded. “Well, it’s the truth. He’s got no interest in her. Not that way.”

It was quite evident from the maid’s tone where she believed Daniel Craven’s interests lay instead.

“Indeed?” Kate turned, and looked down at the young woman. “I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself. Kate Mayhew.” She extended her hand.

The girl blinked at the gloved hand for a second or two before taking it loosely in hers, and giving it a squeeze. “Martha,” she said quickly. Only because she seemed to have trouble pronouncing the th, it came out sounding like “Marfa.”

“How do you do, Martha?” Kate asked. She busied herself with rifling through her reticule, as if she were looking for something.

“I do all right,” Martha said sullenly.

“It’s strange, don’t you think, Martha,” Kate went on mildly, “that Mr. Craven should have left you so suddenly.”

The girl threw back her shoulders. “He only went,” she said importantly, “to settle a few business matters in town. He’ll be back by week’s end. He told me so.”

This was an entirely different version of events leading up to Daniel’s departure than the one told by Isabel.

“And the Lady Isabel?” Kate asked casually. “Was she to wait for his return?”

Martha’s expression turned scornful again. “Not her. He said she’d be well gone by the time he got back. He said her family would come ….” Martha’s blue eyes widened, and her mouth clamped shut. Apparently, it occurred to her that she had said too much.