A Scandalous Countess: A Novel of the Malloren World (48 page)

“But you could lose your life.”

She understood him. Her life in the beau monde. If Perry couldn’t clear her name and spiteful people stirred new trouble, she might lose the battle.

She shrugged. “We all have many lives. You’ve made a drastic change twice. Once when you went into the navy, and once when you left.”

“A third, when my parents died. Not as drastic as it might seem, as they were often away and Dracy Manor was my second home.”

“Tell me more about your boyhood, then,” she said, and enjoyed listening as they left the Tower and returned to Mayfair in the Perriam carriage.

They arrived back only just in time for dinner, and Perry was already there.

“You went out in that thing?” he asked, looking at her dress.

“Why not?” She enjoyed his surprise and then his exaggerated shudder when she confessed to visiting the Tower. Such a plebian amusement, but she didn’t care.

Their parents didn’t dine at home that afternoon, so there were just the three of them. They took chairs at one end of the long table.

“The letter?” Georgia asked as she started her soup. Perry would know how to discuss the matter with the servants in mind.

“As
we thought, but I don’t know the source. I’ve set that in hand. Our friend wrote, or rather scrawled, some specifications for a new pair of pistols.”

So it wasn’t Vance’s writing. She smiled at him. “That’s delightful to hear.”

“Isn’t it?” he replied.

“You do know these waters,” Dracy said, looking at Perry rather coldly. Lud, not more acrimony over her.

“Navigated them all my life,” Perry said, “and showed a natural talent from a young age. I would have been all at sea in the navy.”

“I’m not sure Arthur isn’t all at sea there,” Georgia said, referring to her youngest brother.

“Could be time for a different line of work, yes.”

They served themselves from the other dishes and talk turned to the heat, the limited amusements in the rapidly thinning Town, and some quirks of fashion. It was unbalanced, for Dracy knew little of such things and cared less, so she shared the story of the water problem at Danae House and the possibility of a fish blocking the pipe.

“A fish,” Perry said, feigning horror, but he had the same curiosity as she, and soon they were all discussing London’s erratic water supply.

When the dishes were removed and the second course laid out, she dismissed the servants. As the door closed behind the last of them, she took some veal sweetbreads and fried artichokes. “Now we can talk.”

“We were talking,” Perry said, selecting from the dishes, “and most enjoyably. But yes, if you need confirmation, the letter is a forgery and not in Vance’s hand. I assume Sellerby, if it was he, didn’t have a sample and didn’t think it would matter, Vance being far, far away.”

“Do you have any idea where Vance is now?” Dracy asked. “He would be the best witness to a number of things.”

“None at all,” Perry said.

Georgia saw Dracy’s irritation. Perry’s light matter could have that effect. “What effort has been made to find him?” he demanded.

“Every effort, from the first,” Perry said crisply, “and even now there are people at all consulates and embassies with both his name and a reasonably accurate illustration of his face. We have also made known a substantial reward.”

Dracy still looked irritated, but he said, “I apologize, Perriam. Of course you and your family would have made every effort.” He looked at Georgia. “Will it distress you if we talk about the duel?”

It would, but she wanted these tangles loosened. “I can endure it, but the facts are clear. There’s no mystery to it.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Why?” Perry asked.

“It seems peculiar to me,” Dracy said, “and has from the first. Perhaps it’s only that I don’t understand your world, but everyone agrees that Lord Maybury wasn’t a quarrelsome man.”

“Nearly any man can be goaded into issuing a challenge,” Perry said, “especially in his cups and before his friends.”

“But why did Vance goad him?” Dracy asked.

“Because he was mad enough to think that if Maybury was out of the way he’d have a chance with Georgia.”

Dracy looked at her. “But he didn’t, did he? Sellerby had a reason to believe that, but Vance?”

“None at all,” she said, “as I’ve been trying to make clear all along. Truly, we hardly met.” Dracy nodded, but then he went still, staring past her. “Dracy? Is something amiss?”

“By God,” he said, still staring.

“Are you struck by an apoplexy,” Perry asked sharply, “or about to strike us dumb by solving the mystery entirely?”

Dracy looked at him. “Either I’m struck by insanity or about to do just that. Not here, however. A servant might return.”

Georgia’s heart rate rose. Was it possible? Could she be cleared?

She stood up. “The small drawing room. Do either of you want tea or coffee?”

Dracy rose, still lost in thought. “Coffee, I think, and perhaps brandy too.”

“Oh dear,” Perry said. “I believe we are about to be shocked half to death.”

Dracy almost sleepwalked to the small drawing room, with its rich green wallpaper and gilded plasterwork, where they soon had coffee and brandy to hand, and the door firmly shut. By silent accord they’d said nothing since leaving the dining room.

“Now,” Georgia said. “Explain.”

He’d put the pieces together in his head, but could it really be true, and would it make sense to the others?

“If you remember, I said that while Vance had no reason to think you would marry him if you were a widow, Sellerby might.” He looked at each in turn. “What if he thought precisely that?”

Georgia frowned. “That if I were a widow I would marry him? I suppose it’s possible.”

Perriam was looking as struck as Dracy had been. “By God…”

“What?”
Georgia asked, looking at them. “One of you explain!”

Dracy wondered too late how she’d react to the new picture, but there was no retreat. “My insane thought is that Sellerby might have brought about your widowhood by hiring Vance to kill your husband in a duel.”

She went deathly pale.

All he could think to do was to push on. “Why else did Vance do it? On the surface, he gained nothing except
exile. We agree that any notion of him trying to win you is unbelievable. A few days ago, I was told about a man called Curry who might have been paid to try to kill the Marquess of Rothgar in a duel.…”

“No,” Georgia said. “No, no,
no
!”

“Definitely no,” Perriam said, going to her side and taking her hands, chafing them. “I’m willing to entertain the possibility that Sellerby had a letter forged in an attempt to clear the field, but murder? He’s the least bloodthirsty of men. He turns pale at the sight of blood. I’ve seen him faint because of it.”

“He didn’t have to see any blood,” Dracy pointed out. “Georgia…”

She seemed lost in horror, thrown back to her husband’s dreadful death.

What a fool he was to speak of this in front of her. He went to her, pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t think of it.”

She burst into tears, deep, racking tears.

Dracy stroked her back, looking helplessly at her shocked brother. “Georgia, don’t. Your husband died by the sword, and that hasn’t changed, but you’ve grieved that and mourned that.”

She wailed and sobbed on.

Heaven help him, what should he do? “He died quickly. He may not have known what happened to him.…”

She looked up at him, breathing hard, tears streaming. “You don’t
understand
! If you’re right, everyone’s right. I’m to blame!”

She thrust away from him and stumbled back. When he reached to balance her, she swatted his hand away.

“Don’t you
see
? Don’t either of you
see
? All this time I’ve taken comfort from one thing—it was nothing to do with me. Whatever caused Dickon to challenge Vance, it couldn’t have been about me. Whatever drove Vance to kill, it couldn’t have been me. But it
was
me. It was
all
me.
Dickon was killed because of me!
”

“No.” He
went to her, but she beat him away with her fists.

“Don’t. Don’t come near me! You were right to call me Helen. I get men killed. I won’t…I can’t…” She looked wildly between them and then ran out of the room.

Dracy took a step to follow, but Perriam gripped his arm. “I’ll go. I’ll make sure she’s cared for. Wait here, if you will. We have much to discuss.”

Dracy was left alone, wishing he’d kept his damned mouth shut.

Georgia ran toward her room, but she’d be found there. She ran up to the unused schoolroom with its neglected toys and over-read books and stood there, beyond tears now, unable to see any way forward.

She turned at a footstep, but it was Perry.

“Don’t argue with me,” she said. “It’s true.”

“Even if it’s true, the fault doesn’t lie with you.”

“Does it not? It’s not only my appearance. You know that I like to flirt, to charm, to bewitch, even. You warned me more than once about my court. It was a sin of carelessness, not deliberation. But I killed Dickon.”

“It’s a wild guess. There may be nothing in it.”

“What if there is? And I can see it, Perry. Sellerby has become more and more peculiar in his behavior. Maddened by me.”

“Georgia, you have a leveler head than this.”

“Have I? I can’t see it any other way.”

“The way, as always, is forward. What’s between you and Dracy?”

She put a hand to her face, shaking her head, unable even to find words.

“He loves you.”

“To his peril.”

“He seems a man able to take care of himself. And take care of you.”

She laughed at that, a bitter sound. “Until some other man who desires me plots murder!”

“Madmen are rare.”

“Except that I create them, like the enchantress who turned men into swine?”

“Yes, the Greeks knew a thing or two, but come down from the heights, love. If Dracy’s right, it’s a terrible thing and Sellerby will pay, one way or another, but it was his sin, not yours. You have your life to live, and I don’t think you’re suited to a convent.”

“What am I suited to, then?”

“Perhaps Dracy.”

Georgia couldn’t believe Perry was suggesting such a thing. He, more than anyone, knew her nature. “I’d bankrupt him in a year.”

“I’m sure you’re capable of being frugal if you try.”

“But I don’t want to try! And if I suffered frugality for him, he’d know it and be miserable. I can’t face him. He’ll have to leave. Oh, I don’t know what to do!”

“You need to get away from here,” he said steadily, “for your safety as much as anything else. If Sellerby is a mad murderer, he might try to do you harm. Where do you want to go? To Winnie’s?”

“With Eloisa Cardross there?”

“No,” he agreed with a smile. “Where, then?”

Georgia saw one path clearly. “To Brookhaven. To Lizzie Torrismonde. Now. I want to go now.”

So she could avoid Dracy. So she wouldn’t weaken. Before spending another night under the same roof.

“I’ll make the arrangements,” Perry said.

His calmness spread to her, but didn’t they talk about a dead calm? She couldn’t think, and couldn’t see her future beyond one point, the point she clung to, Lizzie and Havenhurst. Calm, sensible Lizzie and her tranquil home. Lizzie’s steady, amiable husband. Her children. There was hope of sanity at Havenhurst, and perhaps even a path beyond.