Kathryn Caskie - [Royle Sisters 02] (7 page)

“The walk will do your constitution good.” Laird kept his gaze straight ahead, even as Apsley drew alongside him.

“I am in fine shape. All the ladies tell me so.”

“I am sure they do. Until your coat, waistcoat, and shirt are dropped onto the tester bed, and your
chére amie
glimpses your corset.”

“No need to bite.” Apsley stopped walking. “And it is not as if most gentlemen do not use a corset to achieve a flat stomach.”

Laird lengthened his stride. “Most gentlemen of a
certain
age anyway,” he murmured, just loud enough for Apsley to hear.

“I say, MacLaren, not all of us are blessed with the physique of Michelangelo’s
David
.” Apsley trotted along the pavement behind Laird.

“Good God, I would hardly label
David
as wholly
blessed.
”

“Mac, forgive me. I’ll make it up to you.”

“I know you will. I have a plan.”

“You know I will help. Whatever you ask, I will do. I swear it.” Apsley stretched out his arm, grasped Laird’s coat sleeve, and yanked hard, forcing him to spin around in the opposite direction. “But how do you know she will go along with your scheme?”

“She has a name, Miss Anne Royle.”

Apsley scratched his temple. “Why does that name sound so damned familiar?”

“Because she is my bloody betrothed!”

“Oh, right.” Apsley picked up his trotting pace to match Laird’s lengthening stride. “Now that I have apologized, more or less, will you explain why can’t we board your carriage? It is bloody well right there—following us like a great shadow!”

Laird shrugged off Apsley’s hand and resumed walking down the pavement. “It is in use.”

“Pacing us?” Apsley hurried to catch Laird up.

“Transporting something for me.”

“What?” Apsley’s face contorted in confusion. “What is in the cab that is so damned all-important that we have to walk all the way to Berkeley Square?”

“A gift.” Laird grinned to himself. “For my
betrothed
.” He reached out and slapped Apsley on the back. “Pick up your pace, man, only another mile to go.”

Berkeley Square

The ladies sat in the parlor awaiting Lord MacLaren’s arrival.

He hadn’t bothered to send a card informing Anne of the hour he might be expected. That might indicate he possessed manners, and of course he had none. And so they waited. Two hours so far. Two mind-numbing hours during which Anne was left to fret and imagine the absolute worst endings to the evening.

As was her habit, Aunt Prudence slept in the chair beside the fire, sucking the remnants of cordial from her withered, wine-stained lips.

Cherie, the petite, silent maid-of-all-work, gently lifted the half-empty crystal of cordial from the ancient woman’s palsied hand. She settled it on the old sterling salver that MacTavish, the family’s gray-haired butler, extended to her, and then quit the room with him.

“Lotharian should have sent word to us by now.” Lady Upperton slipped her hand between the drapes, parting them, and peered out the window to the street.

Anne’s elbows were propped upon the mantel, and she glanced up, catching movement in the gilt-framed mirror that hung above it. She turned to see Elizabeth entering the room with Mrs. Polkshank, former tavern maid, now their household cook.

“Are you sure of your facts, Mrs. Polkshank?” Elizabeth was asking.

“Oh yes.” The cook nodded, sending both her chins and her pendulous breasts bobbing. “Lady MacLaren gave all the staff the night to themselves—the day, too. And not just the serving staff, all of ’em. From the butler right down to her own fancy frog of a lady’s maid.”

Lady Upperton pulled her nose back from between the drapes and addressed the cook. “And Lord Lotharian was made aware of this—you’re certain?”

“Oh, sure as a wench like me can be. Took the message to him meself.”

“You?” Anne had never liked the uncouth cook, and she knew the feeling was more than mutual.

Mrs. Polkshank had always preferred Mary, the frugal eldest of the Royle triplets. Mary had hired her, without references, mind you. And paid her handsomely for her ability to steal society guest lists from randy footmen whose brains obviously resided in their breeches.

Now the bawdy cook expected payment for every secret she obtained on behalf of the Royles—which would not be so worrisome, had the cook’s requests for payment not doubled each time she was needed to perform…a special service.

Mrs. Polkshank smiled cheekily at Anne. “I did. And he, bein’ the fine gentleman he is, invited me to sit and take tea with him in the library. He didn’t give a fig that I am naught but a cook. He knows a real woman when he sees one. Why, we chatted, just like I was Quality, for at least an hour.”

Lady Upperton brought her hand to her crimson-painted lips, concealing a faint smile, then abruptly returned to her post at the window. “Oh my!” She lurched backward suddenly and spun around on the very high heels of her satin slippers. “I never heard the carriage wheels. Dear heavens, the earl is here, and he’s brought Lord Apsley with him!”

The percussion of the brass knocker slamming to its base fired through the house like a pistol shot.

Elizabeth raced across from the parlor, grabbed Anne’s arm and flung her onto the settee, then took a seat beside her. “Mrs. Polkshank, the tea.”

“No, no. Arrack punch.” Lady Upperton’s pale blue eyes were wild as she leapt up into the wingback chair opposite Aunt Prudence.

“Wait!” Anne held her voice to a hush. “Brandy. That’s what they were drinking last night.”

“Yes, Miss Anne. Best idea yet. Men do enjoy their brandy, and I ought to know.” Mrs. Polkshank poked her chest proudly with her thumb, and then hurried from the parlor.

Despite the disturbance, Aunt Prudence did not awaken. Her eyelids never even fluttered. Her breathing remained slow and steady, whistling softly each time she exhaled through her long nose.

Within an instant MacTavish appeared in the doorway with the gentlemen callers, but stood silently, looking at Lady Upperton, then Aunt Prudence, and then at the Royle sisters.

It was clear that the dyspeptic, ill-tempered Scotsman her penny-pinching sister Mary had
engaged as butler—also without a single reference—was unsure which of the ladies to address first. Then, much to Anne’s horror, she saw his lips move, and he seemed to silently say:
Ah, sod it
. “My ladies, the Earl of MacLaren, and the Viscount Apsley.”

The women instantly came to their feet, with the exception of their great-aunt, of course, who continued to sleep.

Bloody hell.

Laird brought his glass to his mouth and tipped back the rest of his brandy. He and Apsley had endured the pleasantries for nearly half an hour, and not once had Lady Upperton, Miss Royle’s sponsor, left her side.

It was time to put an end to this farce. Everyone in the room knew the truth of their betrothal anyway. It was time to act.

“Miss Royle,” he blurted, somewhat louder than he meant. “I would have a word, please.”

Lady Upperton inserted herself between him and the gel, but before she could manage a protesting word, he reached over the short older lady to Anne and drew her around to his side. “Please.”

Elizabeth started forward, but Anne waved
her off. “’Tis all right. Really.” She looked up at Laird with those startling golden eyes, and for several brief seconds he quite literally forgot what he was about to say.

“This way, my lord.” She led him into the passage, meaning certainly to take him to another room, but he stopped her there.

“I have a plan,” he told her, trying to look confident that this would work and that she had nothing to fret. “One that will benefit us both, I assure you.”

Miss Anne smiled, a true smile, then exhaled her great relief. “Oh, thank heavens, you’ve seen the reason in it.”

“Reason in what?”

“Why, my crying off, of course.”

“Oh, that. Yes, I agree.”

Miss Royle relaxed her delicate shoulders. “I am so relieved. You cannot possibly imagine.”

Laird laid a vertical finger across her lips, quieting her. “Only you can’t cry off just yet.”

She grasped his hand and pulled his finger away. “Oh. Then when? Friday? The
Times
is published on Saturday. I am sure the
on-dit
columnist would love to run the story of our short-lived plan to marry.”

“You may cry off at the end of the season. I think that should be sufficient time.”

“Season’s end?” Twin blossoms of pink bloomed on her suddenly anger-pinched face. “That is an impossibility, my lord. How many seasons do you think I have left before I am considered withered on the vine and too old to marry?”

Laird shrugged, knowing any number he gave, any word he spoke just then, would only make her more agitated.

“Well, I shall tell you, my lord. I haven’t one to spare! Not one, if I wish a good match in this lifetime.” She reached into the placket opening in her skirt, whisked out the betrothal ring she’d hidden there, and slapped it into his palm.

He snatched up her hand and shoved the ring onto her finger once more. “I do apologize if this impedes your husband-hunting endeavors this season, but I am afraid you really do not have an option, Miss Royle.”

“My, you are arrogant. Of course I have a choice. And I will not do it.” She turned her chin defiantly up at him.

“Yes, you will.” He slipped his hand around her slim waist and hurried her to the front door.
“Come, my dear. I have something to show you just outside. I think it might convince you otherwise.”

Though she walked along with him easily enough, she struggled against his firm grip.

Laird flung open the front door and gestured to his gleaming town carriage waiting on the street. “See for yourself, lass.” With a flick of his finger, Laird signaled the footman to open the cab door.

“I vow that there is nothing that could possibly entice me to change my mind, especially now, you brute!” she snapped as she turned her head and gazed toward the street.

But the moment the carriage door opened, and the footman’s lantern illuminated the interior, Miss Royle stopped thrashing and became utterly still.

The color that had risen into her cheeks drained away, and she became instantly pale.

“Except
that
,” she conceded.

A
nne stared with disbelief at the three Old Rakes sitting across from a burly, truncheon-waving Bow Street Runner in the interior of the earl’s town carriage. The elderly trio was dressed entirely in black, and, at the moment they were trussed up like hens about to be roasted over a cooking fire.

The earl released Anne from his grip. “So, we are in agreement, Miss Royle? You will assist me until the end of the season? I don’t expect my needs will extend beyond then.”

Anne tore her gaze from the Old Rakes and glared up at the earl standing at her side. “I do not know what this could possibly be about, but it is clear that you believe you have me at some disadvantage and that I have no
alternative but to follow your dictates.”

“You have the right of it.” The earl cleared his throat. “Though you do have two choices.”

“As many as that, two?” Anne folded her arms over her chest.

“We can stand here while I explain why your and your sister’s guardians are on their way to Bow Street for questioning tonight. But detailing the events for you might take some time, and who knows who might happen by.” He glanced dramatically from side to side as if searching the square for interlopers.

“What is my second choice?” Anne huffed.

“You may simply agree to pose as my betrothed for the duration of the season, and the Old Rakes will be set free. Choose this option and we shall all go inside to discuss my requirements of you this very moment.”

“Oh, good Lord.” Anne called out to Bow Street Runner, “Put down that bludgeon of yours and let them go, please!” She glowered at the earl. “Now, may we all go inside the house?”

The earl held his hand to ear. “Excuse me, I haven’t heard you say—”

“I agree—
I agree
. I will do whatever you ask.” Anne looked around the square to be sure no one
of account had witnessed the exchange. “Please, my lord, let us all go inside.”

“Absolutely, my darling.” The earl grinned, and then waved to the Bow Street Runner sitting inside the carriage. “Cut them loose.”

Lord Lotharian rubbed into his chafed skin the salve that the maid, Cherie, had slathered on his rope-raw wrists. “The fault of our capture was Gallantine’s entirely. I was hoisting myself from the bedchamber window when Gallantine came swinging past, tangling our ropes like a deuced spider’s web!”

“Do you think I did it a-purpose? Lilywhite released my line far too quickly. It was either grab for you or shatter my bones on the terrace below.”

Lilywhite’s plump face glowed like a beacon. “It was your screaming like a schoolgirl that drew the Runners. So I agree with Lotharian. The fault is yours, Gallantine.”

The earl chuckled at that. “Actually, the Runners were already in the garden. I engaged them to watch the house for intruders since the staff had been allowed the evening to themselves.”

“Why were the guards there to begin with?” Anne asked.

Lord MacLaren lowered his head and looked down at his hands, clearly not wishing to reply.

Apsley settled his hand on his shoulder. “His father was attacked and killed just over a year ago by burglars-
thugs
. They ransacked the house—and then it happened again just one week ago—just before Laird opened the Cockspur town house for the season. I made the report myself. I was passing by when I saw lights inside. Thought MacLaren had come home earlier than expected, but he hadn’t. Everything in the house had been turned topsy-turvy. Bloody mess. There were papers everywhere.”

“Wait a moment.” Elizabeth looked back to Laird. “The burglars killed your father?” she asked gently.

Laird nodded slowly. “He likely surprised them as they were just beginning, for they didn’t take anything of note. Much like, I suspect, the Runners surprised the three of you this night, eh?”

“More brandy, my lord?” MacTavish asked during the momentary lull in the conversation.

Laird allowed the butler to fill his crystal with brandy. “When I returned home, after seeing my mother to the Lady Fustian’s musicale, imagine
my astonishment when a Runner headed me to my garden just as Lilywhite was lowering himself down from the rooftop, by means of some contraption.”

“It was a crate hoist I secured from the West India Docks.” Lady Upperton was beaming. “Well, not exactly a crate hoist, but rather my miniature adaptation of one that might allow for greater vertical mobility.”

“For burglary
. Clearly the four of you, for it seems I must now include you in their number as well, Lady Upperton, spent a goodly amount of time planning this burglary. One might think that the prize would be very dear.”

Lotharian and other two rakes exchanged convert glances.

Laird rose from his chair, reached into his coat pocket, and withdrew an ivory blade. “And yet this small letter opener, or page cutter, perhaps, is all that was removed from my home—and that, it seems, from beneath a loosened floorboard in my bedchamber.”

He realized that the Royle sisters had not seen the blade before. Their eyes were curious, and they jockeyed for a better position to see it.

Slowly Laird turned the blade over in his hand,
again and again, aware that every eye in the parlor was fixed on it. “This leads me to believe the blade has a greater significance than its utility in opening letters or separating book pages.”

“Might I—” Lotharian crossed to Laird and reached for the ivory blade.

Laird lifted his brow. “Am I mistaken? I was told that the object was found in your possession, Lord Lotharian. Surely you have seen it.”

“Well, of course I have. The blade is mine.” Lotharian reached out to take it, but Laird whisked the ivory cutter cleanly from the old man’s reach.

“Ah, really?” Laird slid the ivory into his pocket again. “Then, pray, my lord, what was etched into the blade?”

Lotharian raised the back of his bony, reddened hand to his forehead and sighed forlornly. “Alas, I do not recall. I am but an old man. My memory is failing.”

Miss Anne stepped between Laird and Lotharian. “Enough of this cat-and-mouse game. I told you I would do whatever you asked. Please, just give him back the blade if it is not yours.”

“I never claimed it was mine.” He watched her face as he slowly grasped the handle of the
blade and withdrew it from his pocket. “But it may be
yours
, Miss Royle.”

“Mine?”

Laird took her hand, turned her palm flat, and laid the blade upon it. “Do you see? Oh, there are other letters, and numbers, too, but look just there, near the edge of the handle.”

Her golden eyes grew wide. Whirling around, Anne hurried to the mantel and held it before the flickering sconce. “R-O-Y-L-E.” Her gaze sought out her sister. “Elizabeth, come and see.”

Elizabeth rushed to her sister’s side. She took the blade from Anne’s hands and turned it over in the candlelight before pivoting back around to face the congregation. “Why, you are correct, Lord MacLaren. This must have belonged to my father. His name is marked on its edge.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “But why would it be hidden beneath the floorboard in your bedchamber?”

“I was hoping Lotharian might be able to enlighten us. For it is plain that he knew it was there.” Laird nailed the old man with a steely gaze.

“On my honor, I did not know it was there.” Lotharian’s piercing gray eyes stared back at Laird.

“Do you take me for a fool, Lotharian?” Laird took a step toward the man, hoping to intimidate him. Lord Lotharian was tall and broad-shouldered, much like Laird himself. But the years had dissolved what muscles might once have defined his flesh, and physically, Lotharian was no longer a threat. But the old man was shrewd, a gambling legend at White’s and Boodle’s. “You broke into my home through my bedchamber window, opened the floorboard, and stole the blade.”

Apsley sniggered at that. “Well, obviously he knew
something
was there. The ivory is all he managed to retrieve, it seems.”

“He didn’t know the blade was there, didn’t know anything about it.” Elizabeth rolled her eyes in frustration. “He thought, we all thought, that
letters
were hidden beneath the floorboard.” Realizing her faux pas, Elizabeth slapped her palm to her mouth and said nothing more.

“Letters? What letters?” Laird glanced from one person to the next to find his answer, but only blank expressions met his questioning gaze. He softened his gaze and turned to Anne. “Miss Royle, will you tell me?”

Anne walked slowly from before the hearth to stand beside Laird. “Letters to Maria Fitzher
bert—from the Prince of Wales.”

Lady Upperton gasped. “No, dear! Say no more.”

“No, I think he must know. After all, he is bound to hear society’s whispers if he has not already.” Anne raised her chin, the adorable way he noticed she always did before saying something bolder than was true to her nature. “The Old Rakes are convinced that your father had taken possession of several letters the Prince of Wales had written to Maria Fitzherbert when the two were separated for a time early in their relationship.”

Laird huffed a laugh at that, but no one joined in his amusement. “Why would my father possess these letters? The notion is utterly ridiculous! It is common knowledge that the Prince Regent hated my father with a passion.”

“Because, lad, it was not always so. Like Lotharian, Gallantine, and I, your father was once an intimate of Prinny’s.” Lilywhite lifted his glass to his lips and sipped a bit of brandy, as if he were bracing himself—or perhaps waiting for someone else to say something more.

That was Gallantine. “It’s true. Your late father was once Prinny’s closest friend. So completely
faithful that he was entrusted with couriering the prince’s most private words to his secret Catholic wife, Maria Fitzherbert. Until, some say, his ambition got the better of him, and rather than delivering some of Prinny’s letters to Maria, he pocketed them. Rumor is, he hid them away to use as leverage within Parliament. I daresay there are those who believe the accusation to be fact as opposed to innuendo. This, I fear, might have marked the beginning of the rift between the prince and your father.”

Laird’s swig of brandy seemed to drain from his mouth and into his lungs instead of his belly, sending forth a hail of coughs. “Wh-what madness is this?”

“Sit down, MacLaren. This is quite a lot to digest.” Lotharian waved Lilywhite back from the chair opposite Aunt Prudence, and gestured for Laird to be seated. “You were not aware of any of this, my lord?”

Laird shook his head. None of this made any sense to him. This had to be a mistake.

“Your father did the prince a great service once, something that might have endeared him to the Crown for life.” Lotharian caned his way to the settee and took his place beside Lady Up
perton. “Do you wish to hear of this? I will tell you now, though when I have finished, your view of your late father may change—and not for the better.”

“I do wish it.” Laird leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, reluctant to miss a moment of this unbelievable revelation. “Tell me.”

Lotharian nodded, and once the butler refilled his glass, he continued. “When the king was enduring his first prolonged delinquency of the mind—”

“He went
mad
,” Lady Upperton clarified.

“Now then, I was saying…Pitt, the prime minister, succeeded in muting the seriousness of the king’s condition to protect his place in Parliament.”

Lady Upperton waved a finger in the air. “He covered it up! Had one of the doctors write optimistic accounts of his progress, rather than report the truth.”

Lotharian groaned. “Your father sided with the Whig leader, Charles James Fox, whose own strength in the House was growing. Soon MacLaren and Fox became a driving force in convincing Parliament to vote to present a bill to
make the Prince of Wales regent.”

“Oh, do let us speak plainly,” Lady Upperton suggested. “He and Fox
bribed
them, though publicly the money was issued as pensions and gifts.”

“Eh…thank you, Lady Upperton,” Lotharian murmured. “Prinny made it clear to Fox and your father that he wished to publicly declare his marriage to Maria Fitzherbert, a Catholic. As long as the king ruled, however, this was an impossibility. But if Parliament could pass a bill that would transfer rule to the prince, the prince thought he might be able admit his marriage to Maria.”

Lady Upperton broke in again. “Of course, this would never happen, because if the prince’s illegal marriage to Maria Fitzherbert was exposed, the nation would have been scandalized.”

“Exactly,” Gallantine said, while madly scratching his forehead beneath his wig. “Any parliamentary proposal to aid the prince would have been doomed. But with the prince made regent, Fox’s and your father’s influence in Parliament would be boundless—their futures assured.”

“I think this was all the motivation they
needed,” Lotharian added, reclaiming the conversation. “Somehow, the evidence that Pitt claimed to possess that exposed the prince’s secret marriage
disappeared
. Fox proclaimed the story of marriage a calumny. And eventually, due in large part to your father’s efforts, a bill appointing the Prince Regent was passed shortly thereafter.”

“Do you mean to tell me that my father was responsible for transferring rule from the king to the Prince of Wales?” Laird was flabbergasted.

“Well, yes, in great part. But he did so with the utmost secrecy.” Gallantine slid his auburn wig back farther on his visibly sweating head. “What he, and Fox of course, achieved was no less than miraculous. Pitt and his supporters had fought long and hard to maintain the king’s image and strengthen their position in Parliament,” Gallantine explained. “But your father’s cleverness and ingenuity tipped the balance in the prince’s favor.”

Apsley walked to the mantel and leaned against it. “But Prinny never did declare his marriage to Maria Fitzherbert.”

“No, he didn’t,” Miss Anne answered for Gallantine. “He was a weak man, and folded to
pressure to marry another in exchange for payment of his debts.”

Anne looked straight into Laird’s eyes. “This is why those letters or whatever evidence your father possessed are so very important.”