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“I thought you might restore your fortunes through marriage.”
Garrick reached lazily for the brandy bottle, refilling his glass. He offered it
to Henry, who shook his head.

“You sound like my mother,” Henry said. “She has already
proposed that I should wed Miss Mallon, but then I imagine she would probably
advocate a match with an elephant if it were heir to Templemore.”

“Probably,” Garrick agreed. “But she has a point.” He leaned
forward. “What is Miss Mallon like?”

Henry closed his eyes to ward off the memory of the vivid
sweetness of Margery’s kiss, to push away the recollection of her warmth and
silken softness beneath his hands.

She is exquisite. Seductive.
Delicious.

She is forbidden.

He opened his eyes to see Garrick studying him with intense
interest.

“Good try, Garrick,” he said.

His cousin laughed. “Why not marry her if you want her,
Henry?”

Not for the first time in his life, Henry wondered how Garrick
always knew everything. It was uncanny.

“Why not go to hell?” he replied.

“Indulge me,” Garrick said. “Explain.”

“Because Miss Mallon deserves better than me,” Henry said
shortly. “I’m too cynical. I’d make the devil of a bad husband.” He sighed, his
gaze on the brandy glass as he turned it round and around in his hand. “Miss
Mallon would wish to marry for love,” he said, “and that is something that I can
never give her.”

“Ah, the influence of the lovely Isobel,” Garrick said
ironically.

Henry shrugged. “Call it what you will. Truth is, there are a
hundred reasons why I cannot marry Miss Mallon. I’d be the biggest fortune
hunter in London if I did and I’ll not live off my wife’s money.”

“You have too much pride,” Garrick said, with the ghost of a
smile.

“Perhaps,” Henry said. Pride, duty, honor and service were the
virtues that had held his life together through all that had happened to him
since childhood. They were the principles he would never abandon.

“How did you know?” he was unable to resist asking. “How did
you know I had been with Miss Mallon this evening?”

Garrick looked so smug he wanted to punch him.

“You looked as though you had spent the past few hours in Celia
Walter’s bed,” Garrick said. “However, if you had, you would not be in such a
bad mood.” He shifted. “Then there was the fact that you were quite open about
your loss of Templemore but very reluctant to discuss Miss Mallon herself. At
first, I thought this was because you disliked her for taking Templemore away
from you. Then—” he steepled his fingers “—I thought the reverse was probably
true. You were reticent because you like her very much and you didn’t want me to
guess.”

“Bloody hell,” Henry growled. “Have you finished?”

“Almost,” Garrick said. “Finally, there is the fact that you
smell of rose perfume and that you have a hairpin stuck to your jacket.” He
grinned. “I rest my case.”

“Hell,” Henry said again. He stared blankly into the fire. “I
had no idea I was so easy to read.”

“You’re not,” Garrick said dryly. He rested his chin in one
hand. Henry felt his narrowed gaze on his face. “I have to ask, though. What
were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t thinking,” Henry said through his teeth. He felt a
sudden and unexpected pang of tenderness for Margery, as though he had failed
somehow to protect her. “At least not with my head.”

He thought of Margery, with her passion for Gothic romances and
her sweet starry-eyed generosity. He felt an utter cad for the way he had
behaved, deceiving her, damn near seducing her. It was unforgivable. He was
unforgivable.

He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Tomorrow I will tell
Miss Mallon about her inheritance, take her to Templemore and get back to my
work for Wellington—” He stopped, arrested by the expression on Garrick’s
face.

“Henry,” Garrick said slowly. “Did Miss Mallon know who you
were when you met tonight?”

“I—” Henry stopped. “Damnation,” he said, after a moment. He
could see all too clearly the point that Garrick was making. He wondered that he
had not thought of it before. He had felt guilt at deceiving Margery when she
had been so open with him. He had deplored his raging lust and his lack of
self-control.

He had not thought how Margery might react when she discovered
his real identity and that he had been heir to Templemore before her.

“Hell,” he said.

“That,” his cousin said dryly, “is exactly what will break
loose tomorrow when Miss Mallon finds out who you really are.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Ace of Swords: Change. There are battles to be fought

���M
ISS
M
ALLON
! M
ISS
M
ALLON
!”

Margery swam up through layers of sleep to find the face of
Jessie, the third housemaid, hanging over her. Even though Margery was now
awake, the girl continued to shake her shoulder as though she could not stop.
“Wake up!”

“I am awake.” Margery sat up and reached for her wrap. The room
was already bright with sunlight even though the battered little clock on the
shelf over the fire registered only eight o’clock. Margery’s head ached.
Normally she was up at six. She had overslept. “What on earth is the matter?”
She took in, for the first time, the pinched expression on Jessie’s face and the
fear in her eyes.

“Lady Grant is asking for you.” Jessie sat down heavily on
Margery’s little narrow bed, which sagged in glum protest. “There’s trouble. I
don’t know what, but it’s bad. Something terrible has happened.”

Trouble.

Margery felt a clutch of fear. Lady Grant seldom rose before
ten and only then in the direst emergency. Surely—her stomach did a dizzy swoop
and she felt sick—surely Lady Grant could not know what had happened last night,
could not know that her maid had behaved like a wanton, drinking ale in an inn
of ill repute, dining with a gentleman and then kissing him to within an inch of
her life. More than mere kissing, if she were truthful....

Her body heated to a burning blush as she remembered all the
liberties she had allowed Henry to take and the way in which she had responded
to him. For a second when she had awoken she had hoped that it was all a dream.
It was not.

But perhaps Lady Grant
did
know.
Perhaps someone had seen her with Henry in Bedford Square Gardens and reported
her for lewd behavior. Her mind spun and the ache in her head stabbed at her
viciously. She could imagine the outcry. She could even see in her mind’s eye
the constable coming to take her away. They would put her in the stocks and
brand her a whore. She grabbed the wooden rail at the end of the bed to steady
herself.

“Are you quite well, Miss Mallon?” Jessie was looking at her
with sharp curiosity. Margery knew that some of the housemaids resented the fact
that she had achieved the rank of lady’s maid so young. Some of them would not
be sorry to see her fall from grace.

“I am very well, thank you,” she said briskly. “Pray tell Lady
Grant that I shall be down directly.”

It took her only a few minutes to slip on her gown—thank
goodness she had one freshly pressed—and to braid her hair into a neat plait.
Those few minutes also enabled her to persuade herself that Lady Grant’s early
rising and the trouble that Jessie had referred to were in no way connected to
her. Of course they were not. It was both fanciful and presumptuous of her to
imagine it.

As she hurried down the stairs to Lady Grant’s bedchamber she
was aware of a strange atmosphere in the house. It was silent and yet it felt
tense, waiting. Margery shivered. Her hand shook a little as she knocked on the
oaken panels of Lady Grant’s door and turned the handle.

Lady Grant was in her nightgown in the dressing room, rummaging
through her chest of drawers, leaving all of Margery’s carefully arranged piles
of clothing in complete disarray. Her rich red-gold hair tumbled in artistic
profusion over her bare shoulders above the lace embroidery of her neckline. She
looked at once harassed and fragile, and when Margery came in she swooped on her
with a cry of gladness.

“Margery! Oh, thank goodness! You have no idea.... Mr.
Churchward is here—the lawyer—at seven-thirty in the morning! I sent Alex to
deal with him but he insists that I join them and I have no notion what to wear.
I simply
cannot
be expected to decide such matters
before I have had my morning chocolate....”

The door opened and Lord Grant strode in. “Joanna,” he said. “I
left you twenty minutes ago and you are no further forward now than you were
then.”

“Ten more minutes, my lord,” Margery said, pushing Lady Grant
gently but firmly away from the chest and selecting a range of undergarments at
the same time. “I promise.”

Lord Grant’s incisive gaze swept Margery from head to foot.
“Miss…Mallon, is it not? I think that you had better attend the drawing room
with my wife when she is ready.” He nodded to her, smiled at Lady Grant and went
out closing the door with a decisive click.

Margery’s heart gave a great, sickening lurch. Lady Grant was
staring at her as though she had suddenly grown a second head. “Well! What can
that be about?”

“I have no notion, ma’am,” Margery said woodenly. “Here are
your stockings, ma’am. And may I suggest the pink day gown and matching
slippers?”

She managed to get Lady Grant into her clothes with great
difficulty. It was like trying to dress a slippery fish, because her ladyship
was forever changing her mind about what she would wear, kept wriggling out of
one outfit and into another, and rushed to the mirror to check which colors were
most flattering to her morning complexion. Finally, a half hour later than
promised, they were both ready.

The challenge of getting Lady Grant dressed had distracted
Margery for a while, but as she trailed her employer down the broad sweeping
stair her anxiety returned, the feeling of sick dread intensifying with every
step she took.

She had no notion how she would defend herself against the
charge that she had behaved with lewd abandon the previous night. She could not
bear to see the disgust and shock in Lady Grant’s eyes when she heard what had
happened. For all Joanna Grant’s maddening butterfly mind, she was the kindest
and most thoughtful of employers. They respected each other, they liked each
other, and Margery could not bear to disappoint Lady Grant. Her throat felt dry.
Her tongue seemed to be sticking to the roof of her mouth. She swallowed hard as
the footman opened the drawing room door and she followed her employer
inside.

Immediately matters became a whole lot worse.

There was a man standing beside the long windows that looked
out across the terrace and the garden beyond. He was tall and broad and the
sunlight fell on his hair giving it a blue-black sheen. He was dressed
immaculately in a coat of green superfine and skintight breeches that emphasized
his muscular thighs. His boots had a high polish. His linen was starched, his
cravat a masterpiece of mathematical complication.

Margery could not see his face clearly; the sun slanted across
the room hiding the expression in his eyes. He turned to look at her as she
walked in and she thought that she was going to faint. She barely noticed Mr.
Churchward, who had stood up and was bowing over Lady Grant’s hand with
old-fashioned courtesy.

“I do apologize for disturbing you at this shockingly
uncivilized hour, Lady Grant,” the lawyer was saying. “Only the urgency of my
business can excuse it.” He gestured to his companion. “I believe you are
already acquainted with Lord Wardeaux?”

Lord Wardeaux.

Margery’s heart jumped. Not the gentleman Henry Ward, then, but
the nobleman Lord Wardeaux, whom she was already sure was no gentleman at
all.

“Of course,” Lady Grant said. “Henry is practically a member of
the family, since my sister Merryn is married to his cousin.” She was masking
her curiosity and her puzzlement behind her exquisite manners. “How do you do?”
She gave Henry her hand and Margery watched as he bent to kiss her cheek.

“My lady,” he murmured. “I hope you are well?”

Margery was far from well herself. She felt sick. She tried to
reverse out of the room but the door had been closed and her hot palms met
nothing but the cool wood. From a distance she could hear Mr. Churchward’s voice
and she realized that all four of the others were looking at her.

“I believe,” the lawyer was saying with careful lack of
emphasis, “that you, too, have already met Lord Wardeaux, Miss Mallon?”

Margery straightened. She was not going down without a
fight.

“Indeed I have,” she said coldly. “Although he was calling
himself something different at the time.”

A flicker of a smile touched Henry Wardeaux’s handsome mouth.
He bowed. “Miss Mallon.”

“My lord.” Margery was damned if she was going to curtsy to
him. She inclined her head the slightest inch and saw his smile deepen.

There was an odd silence. “Perhaps, Mr. Churchward,” Joanna
Grant interposed, “you might explain your urgent business? In simple terms, if
you please. I fear I do not function well without my morning chocolate.” She
reached for the bell pull. “In fact, let us order some more coffee—”

“Brandy,” Lord Grant said, his eyes on Margery’s face, “might
be more useful.”

His wife’s eyebrows shot up. “At this time of the day?”

“And
sal volatile,
” Alex said.
“Just in case Miss Mallon requires it. Won’t you take a seat, Miss Mallon? I
believe you are going to need one.”

Margery’s pulse was pounding so hard she could feel the tremor
of it through her entire body. Bonelessly, she slid into the chair that Henry
held for her. Mr. Churchward was fumbling with the fastenings on his battered
document case.

“I realize that this will come as a shock to all of you.” He
looked up, directly at Margery. “But most particularly to Miss Mallon.” He
hesitated.

“Out with it, Mr. Churchward,” Alex Grant said, “before my wife
and Miss Mallon expire with the anticipation.”

Mr. Churchward shuffled his papers. “Very well, my lord. Miss
Mallon…” He cleared his throat. “I have to tell you that you are, in point of
fact, not Margery Mallon at all but Lady Marguerite Catherine Rose Saint-Pierre,
granddaughter of the Earl of Templemore and heir to the Earldom of Templemore in
the county of Berkshire. You were lost when you were a child and the earl has
been trying to trace you ever since.”

Having finished his announcement, Churchward sat back in his
seat.

Margery had not really heard him. She had been braced for some
lurid revelation about her conduct the previous night, and looking up she saw
that Henry had read her mind and knew exactly what she was thinking. For a
moment she saw the secret amusement leap into his eyes before his expression
closed down again. Then Churchward’s announcement penetrated her preoccupation
and she looked at him in complete confusion.

“I… No… What? Lady Marguerite Saint-Pierre? I beg your pardon?”
It was scarcely coherent and glancing around she saw that Lady Grant was looking
almost as shocked as she felt. Lord Grant, who had obviously heard the tale
already, was not.

“You are heir to the Earl of Templemore,” he repeated.
“Congratulations, Miss Mallon.” He glanced at Lady Grant. “I do believe you have
achieved the singular attainment of silencing my wife, Churchward.
Unheard-of.”

“My lord,” Churchward said reproachfully. He mopped his brow on
a surprisingly frivolous spotted handkerchief.

“This is a joke,” Margery said. “A trick.” Her voice came out
louder than she intended and seemed to bounce off the walls of the drawing
room.

She looked at Henry. “You,” she said. “This is all your doing.
Who are you anyway, and why are you here? No, thank you—” She pushed away the
coffee cup he was proffering. “I do not want your coffee. I do not want anything
from you, you…you snake! You deceived me—”

Her voice broke and she could feel the tears pressing on her
throat. It was foolish, so very foolish, to want to cry now. Half her mind was
wrestling with the lawyer’s startling and impossible news while the other half
was grappling with the extent of Henry Wardeaux’s perfidy. The latter,
extraordinarily, seemed more important to her. All the previous evening, when
Henry had plied her with ale and questions abut her childhood, he had known the
truth. When he had held her in his arms and kissed her with such skill and
passion he had known he was kissing Lady Marguerite Saint-Pierre, not little
Margery Mallon. When he had so nearly made love to her, he had exposed her, body
and soul, but given nothing of his true self. He had deliberately withheld the
information from her. He had not told her who he was.

He had been lying to her from the first.

She felt sick and angry and betrayed.

Henry put the cup down gently on the table beside her. “Pull
yourself together, Lady Marguerite,” he said, with no discernible sympathy. “You
are made of stronger stuff than this.”

Margery wiped away a furious tear with the back of her hand. So
now she was expected to act like some bloodless aristocrat simply because they
had told her she was one. She glared up at him.

“Pig,” she said distinctly. “Snake in the grass.”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear,” Mr. Churchward was saying. “I knew this
would all come out the wrong way.”

“I am not sure,” Lady Grant said, “that there could have been a
better way, Mr. Churchward.” There was a rustle of silk as she moved to kneel by
Margery’s chair and took her hands in a comforting grip. “Margery,” she said.
“My dear, I know it is a shock.”

“It’s a trick,” Margery said again, faintly this time. “A hoax.
It cannot possibly be true.”

“Mr. Churchward does not play tricks,” Lady Grant said. “It is
not in his nature. Especially not over something as important as this.”

“Indeed not,” the lawyer said, heartfelt. “Jokes? I do not
think so.” He rooted around in the document case and withdrew a couple of items.
“You recognize these, I believe,” he said, laying two battered velvet cases on
the table in front of her.

Margery picked them up. The first case contained a big locket
in gold, engraved with a swirl of letters,
MSP,
and
a family crest. It was dull with dirt and age but Margery still recognized it.
She gave a little gasp.