Kate Moore (14 page)

“Your parents,” he began again, “may doubt you, Meg. Your mother will most likely fear for your reputation and your father, for your virtue. The truth is
you
have done nothing to damage either, but you may not tell them the truth.” He spoke now with earnest warning. “Any indiscretion on the part of someone in your father’s household could get back to the French. Croisset will come, and the only safe place for you to hide is among the
ton
.”

“I understand. I will tell them I ran away, that I found employment as a maid until, just recently, I came to my senses. I will tell them that in returning to them I met . . . met whoever it is you have found to escort me.”

“Very good, Meg, an admirable lie for your first independent attempt. It should serve.” He turned at last and faced her with wan smile. “Make yourself as elegant as you can. We meet your escort within the hour.” He moved toward the door, but she stood, allowing the cold pie in her lap to slide heavily to the floor. She blocked his way, trembling a little from her own boldness, but she could not bear to give up this last hour she might have with him.

“Then I will not see you again,” she said, speaking her fear openly, willing him to deny it.

“No,” he answered, his face was to the door, and she strained to hear some regret in that low syllable. Was he, like her, afraid to use his voice?

“But does it not seem odd to you that we should have shared such . . . an adventure and then not acknowledge one another? Surely our paths will cross, in London, perhaps. I know you have lived among the
ton
.”

“Meg,” he said, with some exasperation, “I abducted you, an act that is hardly a basis for . . . friendship.”

“You did, of course, but as neither my virtue nor my reputation has been affected, we need not dwell on the fact.” The words rushed out in her attempt to convince him.

“I said
you
had done nothing to damage them. I, on the other hand, have done things for which your father might reasonably wish to take a horsewhip to me. Or have you forgotten that night in the barn?” He did not look at her then, and she knew she was blushing.

“You have kept me safe through many dangers and ever put my comfort before your own,” she argued, conscious that she must defend him from himself.

“Dangers into which my own recklessness led you,” he said with some heat. “And how would you introduce me to your parents? ‘Papa, Mama, here is a man, a sometime soldier, with a talent for lying but no prospects, except for the occasional purse of a Frenchman. Though he abducted me and took advantage of my helplessness to press his attentions on me, we have become great friends. Pray permit him to run tame in your house.’” Somehow in this exchange they had drawn closer, as they had once before in Senhor Fregata’s drawing room. . . . She reached out to touch his face.

“Then you have compromised me and ought . . . and ought . . .”

But he flinched at her gesture and stepped back. “If I were a gentleman, Meg, I would be obliged to offer for you, but as I am a rogue and worse, I am under no such obligation, for marriage to me would only disgrace you, not protect you or serve as any reparation for what I have done.”

Margaret was silent. She had all but asked the man to marry her, and she was shaken to realize that that was what she wanted. Until just this very moment she had imagined that she merely wanted to continue to have his company. She had thought it would be enough to see him smile at her, to hear him tease, to feel him near. Now she recognized in herself a kind of hunger for him that could not be satisfied. She wanted his love as Ines had had Pedro’s, and she was sure that for her as for the Portuguese lovers a lifetime of that love would not be enough. So stunned was she by the strength of her feelings that she did not at first understand his refusal.

“Is that the truth then?” she asked.

“Oh, Meg, do you still have such faith in the truth? Tonight, I swear, you’ll learn that the truth can fail you.”

“Then you have won. I must lie.”

“Your life depends on it, Meg,” he said, more gently than he had yet spoken.

“In that then, you do injure me.” Some dignity she had not known she possessed allowed her to speak. “And it is no trivial injury as were all the others you charge yourself with, for in lying to my parents, my acquaintance, my future husband, I must go against my nature every day for the rest of my life.”

“You will soon be practiced in it,” he said.

She gasped at the cruelty. “Do you wish me to hate you then?”

“Yes.” He said it without hesitation, and she stepped back from him as if struck. But there was more, and she wasn’t sure she heard him right as he passed through the door. “At least, tonight, hate me.”

13

T
HE STREETS HAD
quieted when another hack brought them through the dark to a less decayed but still worn building. Outside was a closed carriage guarded by several burly footmen whose livery Margaret thought she should know. Her mind was numb, and her thoughts seemed to stick on such trivial details as if each were a difficult puzzle she must solve. It had required long minutes of concentration to tie the strings of her hood under her chin.

She was still considering the familiar chaise when they entered the building. A butler, she supposed, admitted them, but he was the most singular butler she had ever seen. He reminded her of Esau, and her mind went into another puzzling spin as she considered the butler’s odd appearance. The room they entered had pretensions, not the least of which was a gaudy mirror above a great mantel of wood painted to resemble black marble columns.

***

Margaret’s first impression was that they had entered some sort of gentlemen’s club, for the room was full of men at their ease, drinking and laughing animatedly. Then she saw that there were almost as many young women present, of varying degrees of harsh prettiness who, breasts bared, were engaged in rubbing, stroking, or playfully tugging whoever was nearest. Her thief was hurrying again, so she hardly had time to take in these details. They went up a flight of stairs, and he knocked once at a door in the dim corridor and entered.

It was a bedroom in a rather florid style with another ornate mantelpiece before which stood a tall gentleman with his back to the door. He wore a bottle-green coat, the quiet elegance of which seemed the more pronounced in such surroundings. That much Margaret observed before the gentleman turned to face them. Then she clutched the thief’s arm for support as understanding and recognition cut through the numb fog of her thoughts. The thief’s voice confirmed what she had seen at once and added that which she had never guessed.

“Miss Somerley, allow me to present my brother, Lord Durant, Viscount Lyndhurst.” The haughty man bowed coldly. “Cyril, this is Margaret Somerley, the baron’s daughter. You have no doubt heard of her disappearance from Haddon earlier this spring.” Margaret did not hear anything else as she was led to an oddly prim-looking gilt chair, for she was fully occupied in absorbing all that was meant by the connection and the contrast between the two men.

Here in this elegant lord were her thief’s features, but with a coldness, an immobility, a sharpness that robbed them of true beauty and any joy. The brothers were enough alike that the thief, Andrew Durant, as she must now think of him, had been able to impersonate Cyril at the meeting with Croisset, and yet they were unalike. The viscount was taller and thinner of face and body, and these proportions, while distinguished, were less handsome. The hair was a light brown with only hints of gold. The eyes were blue perhaps or gray. In short, Cyril Durant was a man whose appearance must please until one saw his brother, then one was conscious only of the flaws in the older man’s countenance, of the degree by which the whole fell short of the other’s perfection. And, observing those cold features, Margaret knew for a certainty that Cyril Durant hated the younger brother who so eclipsed him even in rags.

“Do you wish to explain yourself, brother?” the viscount asked. “In spite of your choice of meeting place, I do not think you called me here so that we might indulge in some sort of fraternal bacchanal.” He made a lazy gesture toward the floridly draped bed. It was the sort of movement the thief—Drew, she corrected herself—had mimicked perfectly.

“No, it’s an awkward circumstance, Cy, but I find I must apply to you for help. You are in a position to aid Miss Somerley, a damsel in distress, and I could hardly bring her to you in Bruton Place.”

“A baron’s daughter? Not your usual style, brother,” replied the viscount, raising a quizzing glass and examining Margaret through it. He let the glass fall. “My brother, Miss Somerley, is a thorough democrat. He prefers the company of stable hands to that of his own family and would rather make love in a barn than a bed. He has never understood what he owes our name.”

“
Owed
, Cy, as it is not my name any longer.”

“Just so, brother. Does it hurt you much?”

Margaret gasped. There was a pause in which she recalled the pained fragments of their conversation whenever she touched on her thief’s family. The taut scar across his side was the least of his wounds.

“Yes,” he admitted, and his brother smiled. “But you were not satisfied with that, Cy,” the younger man continued. “You wanted to embarrass the old man further. I had thought my fall from grace would have sated you.”

“It would have, brother, but, you see, the old man still grieves for you. Of course, he hides it from the world. He made a great show of stripping the house of your things, you know, your portrait, your clothes, your horses, your dog. All signs of you are gone. He never speaks your name. Indeed, to please him, no one speaks of you these days. I have not had to endure your praises for two years.”

“So I ask again, Cy, why were you not satisfied?”

“Ah, but do you know what I discovered? I discovered he wears your portrait on a chain around his neck, like some green girl pining for a lost love. Not my mother’s picture—he buried her—your picture.”

“Would you like me dead then, Cy?”

The viscount shrugged. “If you should suffer in the dying.”

“It can be arranged,” came the answer.

“I am interested,” was the cool reply. Neither man had moved. The elegant lord still lounged against the mantel. The young man in rags leaned as easily against the door. Yet it seemed to Margaret as if the fencers had just removed the tips from their foils.

“You see, Cy,” said the younger man, “I have met your man, Croisset. I did not give him the papers, however, but knocked him on the head, stole his purse—” Here, he dangled the empty leather purse. “—and spent his gold without giving fair return I’m afraid.” An oath escaped the otherwise composed Cyril. “And worse, his fellows have been chasing me about Portugal this past fortnight instead of following Wellington as they ought to have been.”

“Still playing games then, brother?”

“Exactly, Cy, and that’s what I wish to propose to you tonight—a game. Winner lives, loser dies.”

“Games are your forte, not mine. You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, but I am, and you can’t avoid this game, Cy. In fact, you are already playing. You see, the French believe
you
met Croisset, deceived him, stole his purse, teased the Viper with information you did not deliver and must still have. The French don’t know
I
exist. When Croisset comes, he will be looking for you.”

“I do not see the game in it, brother. What move is there for me to make?”

“Of course, it could be a different game. We could work together to expose Croisset and disrupt his network.” Margaret heard the faint hope in the words. They were answered by a barely perceptible shake of Cyril’s head. “Then you do prefer to play my game?”

“It seems I have no choice.” Cyril’s coolness was replaced by distinct irritation.

“You will like it, Cy, for it’s an easy game for you to win, a matchmaking game.” The viscount gave something like a snort. “You have only to restore Miss Somerley to the
ton
, to offer her your support in her reentry into society.” As Cyril turned his cold gaze on Margaret, the younger man continued. “When an announcement is made in the
Morning Post
of her betrothal to some eligible gentleman, I will give my self up to you, Cy.”
No
, thought Margaret, but Cyril’s gaze kept her from speaking. “You may offer me to the French, or, if you prefer a more public execution, you can expose my traitorous acts to English justice.”

“You paint an attractive picture of victory, brother, but might I not lose?”

“Yes. The French might find you first.”

“The thought occurred to me. Suppose Miss Somerley is nice in her requirements of a husband and cannot be satisfied with any of the proposals she receives?”

“But you must put charming men of good birth in her way and enlist the aid of her parents, who are most eager for their daughter to be advanced in the world.”

“Could I not simply marry the girl myself?”

“Unsporting, Cy. Besides, the girl won’t have you. She’s not fond of me above half, but she’s plagued with a conscience that wouldn’t allow her to do me in so quickly.” Unexpectedly the viscount whirled on Margaret, seizing her roughly by the chin and turning her face to the light.

“What is she to you, brother? Little innocent that she seems, is she your cast off?”

“Miss Somerley is nothing to me,” came the answer with an indifference that Margaret found convincing whether the viscount did or not. “A chance-met acquaintance. As you said, she is not in my style, hardly a girl to roll in the hay.” Margaret met Cyril’s gaze unflinchingly, for his cruel hold could not hurt her as his brother’s words did. For a moment she doubted the viscount would believe his brother, but then he dropped his hand from her chin and turned to the younger man.

“And Miss Somerley’s conscience is not too delicate for this game? We may trust her discretion?”

“I admit, there’s a bit of awkwardness to Miss Somerley’s position, for someone with a conscience, but she can hardly refuse your help if she wishes to be restored to her family, and it is not in her power to say how I should repay you for your gallantry. Besides, she has a most embarrassing absence to conceal from the
ton
.”

“Well, then, little brother, I will play your game, but remember—Miss Somerley will be within my reach should you play me false.” He offered his arm to Margaret with perfect civility, as if their whole bizarre agreement were the most usual sort of converse between two gentlemen. “Miss Somerley, will you accept my escort to Haddon?”

“Gratefully, my lord,” she lied. Drew Durant stepped to one side to allow them to pass, and Margaret meant to do so with her pride intact at least, but there was a moment’s delay at the door itself as the viscount reached for the handle, and she had to look one last time at the golden-haired man in rags. His gaze met hers and seemed to challenge her, as if to say,
How do you like the truth
?

“Good evening, Miss Somerley,” was all he said.

“Good-bye, Mr. Durant.”