A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (27 page)

“Charlie’s a good sort, milady.”

“Good. Tell him he’s to slip it to Miss Cardross and say it’s more than his job is worth to say who gave it to him, other than that it was a titled gentleman.”

“Very well, milady, but are you up to mischief?”

“This is a very serious matter, so don’t fail me. I’ll tell you all about it later.”

When Jane had left, Georgia extinguished her candle and went to the window. The illuminated garden looked lovely from here, and the lights floating on the pond
could be admired to the full. She would like to know just how that was done.

She could see her five friends on the terrace, chatting as they waited. A few other people were out there, but the music continued for the dance. The ball was winding down, but no one would leave until dawn provided light.

She moved over to stand by her door, listening for footsteps. She hoped Eloisa would come, for she needed an enemy to fight. Still, she knew much of the damage would linger unless she forced Eloisa to confess her spiteful lies. She wasn’t sure she could do that to anyone.

Ah, someone was coming. The footsteps went past, and a door along the corridor opened and shut.

Georgia hurried to the window and waved her handkerchief, and then she returned to open her door. She waited until Dracy joined her and then went to knock on Eloisa Cardross’s door.

Eloisa opened it eagerly, but then gaped.

Georgia went in. “A word with you, Eloisa.”

“What? Who? I’m innocent!”

Georgia was startled but then realized that Eloisa thought they’d found out about the tryst.

“Innocent?” Georgia said. “We have proof that you’ve spread malicious lies about me during this ball.”

“What?”
Eloisa exclaimed, but the new tack had changed her completely. Now she was bold. “Are you here to protest your innocence, Georgia? That won’t wash.”

“I
am
innocent. Of everything. I know Millicent will have told you things—”

“No excuses,” Dracy said, cutting her off.

True, she’d been about to plead Eloisa’s case for her.

Dracy took the reins. “Miss Cardross, we know you have deliberately spread a lie this night about a letter that would incriminate Lady Maybury if it existed. We require you to put right the wrong by telling as many people as possible that you were mistaken.”

Eloisa had stared at him throughout, but now she laughed.

“Has she duped you too, Lord Dracy? I haven’t lied about anything.” She turned to a drawer, opened it, and took out an unfolded letter. “There—read that. It does, as you say, incriminate Lady Maybury of the most heinous sins.”

Chapter 16

G
eorgia snatched it out of his hand and worked through the execrable handwriting.

“Lies,” Georgia said as Dracy took it from her. “Every word is a lie.”

“It seems genuine to me,” Eloisa said, smirking.

Georgia had to admit that it did. The letter itself had the battered appearance of one that had traveled far and been handled by many hands.

Dracy turned it to inspect the address and place of dispatch. “Cologne, and addressed to Major Jellicoe.”

Georgia couldn’t read his expression.

“You see!” Eloisa said.

“But it’s all lies,” Georgia protested again, feeling as if she’d fallen into a nightmare. “I made no pact. I rarely exchanged a word with Charnley Vance!”

“I know that,” Dracy said. “Either Vance wrote this for his own malicious reasons, or it was forged to do you harm.”

“
Forged?
By the dowager?” Georgia shook her head. “Impossible. She’d have shown it if she’d had it.”

“So she never had it,” he said.

“That letter is real,” Eloisa snapped, “and it identifies you, Georgia, as if your name was stated. How long can you keep up this pretence? Faith! You sent that letter to bring me here!
You
are the forger, Georgia Maybury, and wicked to the core.”

Georgia wanted to slap her, but Eloisa probably did believe every word, and the letter…the letter was a disaster. Now she truly was ruined.

“You’d be wise to guard your tongue, Miss Cardross,” Dracy said. “This letter is a forgery, and by spreading word of it, you’re an accomplice to a wicked act.”

Eloisa went from triumphant to stricken. “I didn’t…She…”

“A wicked act,” he repeated. “Who gave you this letter?”

“I don’t know!” Eloisa cried, pale now. “It was brought to me by a footman.”

“The cover,” he demanded.

She scurried to the drawer and produced the sheet of paper. Georgia wasn’t surprised that Eloisa had crumbled. Dracy was terrifyingly stern.

He looked at both sides of the paper and then handed it to Georgia. “Do you recognize the hand?”

She studied the name on the front and the single sentence inside.
Use this as you see fit to right the wrong.

“It’s
carefully written,” she said. “As in a child’s copybook.”

“A way of disguising the natural writing.” He looked at Eloisa, who was sniveling into a handkerchief. “You may want to consider how Georgia’s family will regard your actions.”

“You won’t tell them. Georgia, please!”

“Come, Lady Maybury.” He steered her out of the room.

Georgia heard Eloisa burst into tears but could take no comfort from it.

“I have no defense! I know the letter is false, but others will believe it. Thus, they’ll see me as my husband’s murderer!”

He grasped her shoulders. “You can’t fail now, above all times. We are going below, and you will be Lady May, disdainful of all suspicion.”

“I can’t!”

“There’s no limit to what we can do if we are brave enough. Remember, you are innocent.”

She stared at him. “You believe in me?”

“Completely.”

“Why? You hardly know me.”

He smiled. “I know you well enough for that. I knew you were honorable at our first meeting.”

She remembered. “At Herne. Yes, you did. It strengthened me then, when the challenge was so small.”

“Let it strengthen you now. Anyone who knows you knows all foul rumors to be false.”

She laughed a little. “Then very few know me.”

“A wise woman told me once that the human heart can cherish only a few. Too wide a circle makes a shallow pond.”

“Which makes the beau monde little better than mud.” She took a deep breath. “Very well. I am restored. At least the lions can’t actually eat me.”

“Rats,” he
said. “At worst, they can only nibble.”

“I believe I’ve heard of people nibbled to death by rats, sir. But onward.”

Lizzie and Babs were waiting around a corner. “What happened?” Babs asked. “We heard some yells, and you look dreadful.”

“Full of dread, yes. Eloisa didn’t invent the letter. It’s real and unfortunately it looks believable.”

“Forged, of course,” Dracy said, giving Babs the letter.

Georgia wanted to protest, but it was already done.

“Forged!” Lizzie gasped. “That’s a hanging offense.”

“Only forging money, I think,” Babs said, reading.

Georgia turned her mind to the encounter. “I wonder why she didn’t show people the letter but only spoke of it.”

“Too bold for her,” Dracy said. “She’s a rat that wanted to stay behind the wainscoting. You saw her face when I mentioned the reaction of your family.”

Georgia did, and felt pity, but only a little.

Lizzie was reading the letter too. “Oh, Georgie, what are you going to do?” From her expression, she was thinking of such things as fleeing the country, or at least scuttling back to Herne.

“Find out who’s behind all this,” Georgia said, “and stamp the rat into the ground.”

“You must burn that letter,” Babs said.

Dracy said, “Trust it to me. It’s evidence. I won’t let it escape.”

Georgia longed to burn the vile thing to ash, but she wouldn’t squabble over it now. “Very well, but we must all return below, and not in a group.”

“Are you sure?” Lizzie asked.

“What else can I do? Go.”

Lizzie and Babs left, and Georgia turned to Dracy. “We can’t go down together either.”

“Very well, but meet me on the terrace.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“
In full view of others. We can’t dance again, but we need to discuss this further. And I can’t abandon you to the rats.”

She shivered at the thought. “Very well. On the terrace, shortly.”

With her new knowledge, Georgia expected an attack of some sort, but of course that wasn’t the way of the beau monde. She passed through the house and out onto the terrace without any interruption at all, almost as if she didn’t exist. Cold or even angry looks would have been a relief. Even though it would ruin the dress, she wished she had a warm woolen shawl.

When she joined Dracy, she said, “It’s as if I don’t exist.”

“You exist for me and for your true friends.”

“That’s a very little world.”

“Plague take the person behind this.”

“Eloisa—”

“Not her. Whoever sent her the letter, here, where she’d be unable to resist speaking of it.”

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Georgia looked back at the pretty, illuminated house. “There’s another person there who hates me. Why?” she asked, turning back. “Why? I swear, I’ve never intentionally hurt anyone. Or unintentionally, to my knowledge.”

“I believe you. You have a kind heart. May I fight in your cause?”

“A duel! Never!”

“No, no. A poor choice of words. Fight to vindicate you. We must find the sender of the letter and the forger who created it, but above all, we must find Sir Charnley Vance. Then I’ll get the truth out of him.”

She smiled at him, but sadly. “Dear Dracy, but many have tried to find him and he’s eluded all of them. Perhaps he did shoot himself in Cologne.”

“Even corpses turn up. Who might know Vance’s hand?”

“
You think you can prove that letter a forgery?” she asked, allowing a flicker of hope.

“It
is
a forgery, so why not?”

“Sent from Cologne?”

“Perhaps that’s forgeable too.”

“I had one thought,” she said, “though perhaps because I want the letter to be false.…”

“Tell me.”

“The writing is rough, but the language, the phrasing, is not. I hardly knew Vance, but I don’t think he’d express himself in those words.”

“Ah. When I think about it, you’re right. We need to find this Major Jellicoe and discover if Vance wrote any sort of letter to him. Do you know him?”

“No, but he served as Vance’s second at the duel. His regiment shipped to India a month later.”

“In July.” He took the letter out of his pocket and tilted it to catch a little light. “I thought so. Dated October the nineteenth.”