A Mummers' Play (3 page)

Perhaps in his bedchamber? She opened an adjoining door to see a large tester bed with the handle of a warming pan poking out, and a nightshirt hanging on a rack close to the fire.

Two wardrobes and a set of dressing drawers offered many hiding places, but a bedchamber was open territory to servants, who had to clean all the corners and dig around in the drawers. He’d be a fool to hide his secrets there.

No, she thought, closing the door and turning back, it was much more likely that any incriminating material was hidden in the study where few would venture. In fact, it was probably hidden among the books.

She surveyed the tiers of shelves, almost overwhelmed by the task, but Charles had trained her well. Searches were not butterfly affairs—a peep here, a poke there. They were tedious and methodical. But in the end, painstaking precision brought results.

Making herself think of only one book at a time, Justina started at the glass-doored shelves to the right of the main door. She climbed the library steps, took down the first book on the top shelf, and riffled through the pages. Then she checked down the spine for inserts, and inspected the endpapers to see if they had been disturbed.

Nothing.

She replaced it and took the next.

She had worked her way down three shelves, remembering to check that the shelves themselves did not have false backs, and was standing on the carpet with a new book in her hand when Jack Beaufort walked into the room.

They stared at each other in shocked silence for a moment.

Then he snapped, “What the devil do you think you’re doing, ma’am?” Anger scorched through it, but leashed in a way that alarmed her more than open rage would have.

Justina pushed the glasses back up her nose and tried to calm her frantic heart. “Oh, sir! My lord . . . Your grace! What a fright you gave me.”

And that was the honest truth.

From a distance, his height had not been so apparent, or his broad shoulders and shrewd, steady eyes. She was suddenly reminded that Jack Beaufort had served as a colonel and been decorated for it.

He was undoubtedly a very dangerous man.

Stepping closer, he said, “I’m likely to give you a worse fright. What business have you in here?”

He was so close that Justina had to tilt her head back to face him. Anger was emanating from him like heat, parching her mouth, causing sweat to slick her palms. . . .

She managed not to back away, but she had to escape those furious dark eyes. To save a scrap of honor, she told herself she was looking at the book in her hand, seeking an explanation for her intrusion. To her relief, she found it was a gazetteer. There could conceivably be a reason for someone to want such a reference book late at night.

“I . . . I was looking for some geographical information, your grace. For her ladyship . . .”

“What ladyship?” he demanded.

After a quick review of his family tree, she picked a great-aunt of his who Maplethorpe said always attended this Christmas gathering. “Lady Dreckham.”

“Great-aunt Caroline?” Something in his tone let her risk a peep at him. She was right, his anger was fading. “Do you have the misfortune to be that woman’s companion?”

Justina looked down again, knowing how easily eyes revealed a lie. “Yes, your grace.”

“Poor you.” His tone was markedly more sympathetic. “She could have played the dragon’s part in the mummers’ play, couldn’t she? Well,” he added, with a startling touch to her bare hand,” ’tis the season for entertainments, it would seem. Let’s pretend we’re in a new play, one where a poor companion and a duke can meet as equals. Join me in some wine.”

Alerted by touch and tone, Justina looked up to find that he really was smiling at her. It was not the wild smile he’d worn while cheering on St. George, but a charming one with a certain wistfulness behind it.

Now she did step back, away from both touch and smile, clutching the book to her chest like a shield. “Oh, I couldn’t, your grace!”

“Scared?” He moved away, strolling lazily toward a tray holding decanters and glasses. “Yes, I’m a little drunk—I had to deaden my senses in some way—and I intend to become more so. But I’ve never been a bad drunk. I become a bit silly, and inclined to be indiscreet . . .” He stopped speaking to pour amber fluid into two glasses.

Justina, however, had the feeling that the action was the excuse for the pause rather than the reason for it. What in his words had so distracted him?

Her nerves were settling now he’d moved away, and so her wits were returning to their normal sharpness. He’d accepted her story. First skirmish to her. And drink made him indiscreet, did it?

If Lucky Jack Beaufort was about to be indiscreet, Justina Travers would be here to witness it!

He turned, glasses in hand, and if he had been disturbed in some way he’d overcome it. “Because of the indiscretion, I haven’t touched more than a sip of wine in three years. I’m making up for lost time. The freedom to get thoroughly foxed is the only advantage I’ve found in my change of circumstance.”

With another disturbingly charming smile, he offered one glass to her.

Justina took it with what she hoped was an appropriate simper. If her imaginary Esme Richardson had actually found herself sharing wine with a duke late at night in his private apartments, she would certainly simper.

Miss Esme would probably run screaming from the room, but that didn’t suit Justina’s plans at all.

She sipped the wine and let out a genuine gasp. “Oh, my! What is it?”

“Port.” That smile still lingered, muted in intensity but not in effect. “A new experience for you?”

“Yes, your grace.” It wasn’t a lie. “It tastes very strong.”

“I suppose it is, but I assure you, on my honor, that one glass will not turn you into a wanton woman. Won’t you be seated?”

A titter seemed to be in order, so Justina let one out as she perched on the edge of the seat of an uphol-stered chair by the fire.

He took the other chair with all the lazy elegance of a man in fine physical shape who was master of all around him.

Simon would be in equally fine shape but for him, Justina reminded herself. She needed to prick her mind back to its target, for her image of Lucky Jack Beaufort did not accord with this pensive, friendly Duke of Cranmoore.

Downing half his glass in one gulp, he studied her with those shrewd, experienced eyes. “Now, my companion-in-mischief, what is your name?”

“Miss Esme Richardson, your grace.”

“Esme.” Perhaps there was
a slight slur on it. The sooner he became indiscreetly drunk, the happier Justina would be. “A lovely name. You must have Scots blood.”

“My mother, your grace.” To be thorough, Justina had devised a complete life history for her character, but she hadn’t expected to have to produce it in a situation like this.

“And where were you born?”

“Rugby, your grace.”

He drained his glass. “Can I persuade you to not call me your grace?”

“What else am I to call you, your gr—”

Laughing at her slip, he said, “Cranmoore? No, too mannish, I see that.” He slid a little further down in his seat. She did hope he wouldn’t pass out without the indiscretion stage at all. “You could always call me Jack,” he said wistfully. “No one does these days.”

Simon had called him Jack in his letters. Jack was such fun. Jack was a knowing one. Jack was the best of all fellows.

“That would be most improper, your grace.” Why the devil couldn’t the man show his true stripes and be obnoxious? This bosky amiability made it hard to remember that he was her enemy.

“It’s improper to be here drinking with me,” he pointed out. “Consider it a wild adventure, my dearest Esme, and go the whole way. Call me Jack.”

Justina could find no way to refuse and stay, but it was only with great reluctance that she said, “Very well . . . Jack.”

He graced her with a devilish and even more dangerous smile, as if they were confidants engaged in mischief. “How very pleasant this is. Now, tell me what search for knowledge brought you here.”

Justina realized she still clutched the gazetteer in one hand. She placed it on a tambour table by her chair and took another tiny sip of wine, trying to think of a location that would require research. “Lady Dreckham wished to know where Senegal is, your . . . Jack.”

He blinked. “And where the devil is it?”

“On the coast of Africa.”

“Why would she want to know a thing like that?” With audible hope, he added, “She isn’t thinking of traveling, is she?”

Justina had to suppress a chuckle, which was alarming. Humor had no place here! “I don’t think so. I think it’s more a case of good works.”

“Poor bloody Africans. So, how long have you been her dogsbody?”

“A year.”

“An age. Is this your first visit to Torlinghurst?”

“Yes.”

He grinned. “You can’t bear to call me Jack, can you? And since I won’t let you call me your grace, you end up not calling me anything. Poor Esme, imprisoned in conformity.”

Poor Justina was aware that if this man wasn’t who he was, she would be sliding under the influence of his lazy charm like ice under warm water, and like such ice, melting.

She couldn’t melt, though. If she thawed, then like a child’s snow statue, she’d cease to exist entirely.

“I could call you sir,” she said crisply.

“You’re not one of my subalterns.” Suddenly sober, he added, “But call me Colonel, if you want. I still probably respond to that in my sleep.”

“No.”

“Why not?” His eyes turned steady. The effect of drink on him was alarmingly mistlike, and easily dispelled.

Taking a sip of wine as distraction, she muttered, “I don’t like to think of the war.”

“Lose someone?”

This was dangerous ground, for if she said yes he’d want regiment and engagement. “No one in particular. It is just that so many promising lives were lost.”

“True enough. Far too many. Far, far too many . . .” He tried to drink from his glass but found it empty, so pushed out of his chair to return to the decanters. Justina suspected that he, too, was seeking distraction. From what?

Grief?

Or guilt?

This time he brought the wine back with him, offering her more.

“No, thank you.”

He sat, then filled his glass to the brim before placing the decanter by his elbow. After downing about half the wine, he said, “At least the slaughter’s over. Tell me about your family.”

So. He didn’t want to talk about the war. Not surprising, if he had any conscience at all. But a guilty conscience didn’t absolve him.

However, Justina obligingly related her fictitious story of a parson father with a large family, of her stint in a girls’ school, followed by this post as companion to Lady Dreckham.

“And will you stay?” he asked, refilling his glass yet again. How much did he need to drink to become indiscreet? And how much to escape into insensibility?

“I suppose I must,” she replied, assessing his state.

He looked back at her over the rim of his glass. “You don’t seem the type for servitude, you know. I detect an adventurer beneath the mousy disguise.”

For a moment she thought he’d caught her out, but then realized it was merely an honest observation. It showed again that alarming shrewdness, however. “I have little choice, your grace.”

“Ah ha! You slipped up. I think I’ll make you pay a forfeit for each ‘your grace.’” He dug in his pocket, pulled out a sixpence, and placed it carefully on the table. “I’ll mark each one with a coin.”

“Nonsense.” He was right. Drink turned him silly. It was time to pump him before he drained the decanter and fell asleep. “Now you should tell me about your family, Colonel.”

Yes, Colonel suited him. He still had the physical and mental effectiveness of a good officer, even dressed in the height of fashion and blurred by drink. She had the strange thought that he, too, was in disguise.

Of course he was. Beneath it all he was a foul traitor.

“My family,” he repeated. “As ordinary as yours, really. My father was the grandson of the third duke, so he had no title, but he married well. Which means, he married money. He kept busy and out of the house as a member of parliament, even a minister now and then. Not a bad fellow, but he died when I was twelve, which left me in the clutches of my mother.”

“She was cruel?”

He laughed dryly. “Not unless it’s cruel to bore someone to death. She’s an amazingly stupid woman who loves to talk but has nothing to say that isn’t petty or malicious. She could find a bad side to a haloed angel. Mostly I could avoid her, though, which is more than can be said for my poor sisters. No wonder they all married young. All except Mary, who’s a hopeless case.” He grimaced at her. “See what I mean about indiscretion? I’m sounding as malicious as she is, and boring you with personal matters, to boot.”

“I’m not bored, Colonel.” Justina wanted to keep him talking at all cost, but she wished he wouldn’t go on about his family. She didn’t want him to be a human being with feelings and flaws, parents and siblings. She needed to see him as a black-hearted monster cackling over his ill-gotten gains.

He toasted her. “How polite you are, Esme. Anyway,” he continued contemplatively, “my childhood was pretty good. My brother and I had great fun in the schoolroom and then at Westminster, after which I went into the army and he went into the navy.” He sipped from his glass. “He died without glory in a storm off Portsmouth four years ago.”

For simple words, they carried a weight of stark grief that caught her breath. For a moment she wondered if this was his reason for sin, an excuse of sort. But no. Nothing could excuse treasonous murder, and why would the death of his brother turn him
toward
Napoleon?

“I’m sorry,” was all she could say.

He shrugged. “That’s war for you. Just one damned death after another, and most of them without glory.” After draining his glass, he added, “
I
didn’t die.”

“That is clear.” Since his wits were clearly now all adrift, she pushed a little closer to matters that interested her. “You must have made good friends in the army.”

“The best. They died, too. . . .”