Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (16 page)

But that’s all they did—fret. With Maggie, there was nothing really to
do
. The common understanding was likely that Maggie was supported through the ducal finances, but nothing could be further from the truth. With her brothers’ help, she’d begun investing upon attaining her majority. By the time she’d turned thirty, she’d been plenty wealthy enough to set up her own grand establishment, and yet she’d chosen a little place on a quiet back street.

“Does Kettering take advice from you, Sister?”

She glanced up from her teacup, her lips turning up in that unexpected, impish smile. “He’s a very amiable gentleman, also easy on the eye. We converse occasionally.”

“He’s also quite eligible, Maggie.”

“He’s a gadfly. Hasn’t the bottom for marriage, though he might acquire it in the company of the right lady. More tea?”

He let her pour him more tea—it truly was a lovely morning to be truant from ledgers and correspondence—and waited to see what topic she’d broach next. He had no doubt his sister loved him, but she wasn’t the type to go calling because she’d run out of pin money to shop with.

“I went driving with Mr. Hazlit recently. Lovely team of bays.”

This was
news
. “Benjamin Hazlit?” He kept his tone noncommittal with effort.

“The very one. There are rumors about him.”

It was a question, but Westhaven was damned if he could parse it out clearly. “What sort of rumors?”

“That he has a title; that he’s quite wealthy; that he has Hebrew or gypsy antecedents.”

“Would you care if any of that were true?”

She set her teacup on its saucer with more force than a lady ought to show on a polite call. “Gracious, Brother. How shallow do you think I am?”

“Not shallow at all, but you are human. What do you want to know?” It seemed kinder to brace her directly than watch her beating around the bush.

“Do you trust him?”

“Yes. Without exception.” He watched as she absorbed the immediacy of his answer.

“Is he a friend?”

A trickier question. “If he had friends, I’d be pleased to be counted among them, but neither he nor I are of a social bent.”

She rose, her expression impatient. “Do you
like
him?”

“I like him.” Westhaven rose, as well, falling in step beside her. “I suspect he does have a title, or he’s in expectation of one, though I know not if it’s a nominal barony or a fat marquessate. You might ask His Grace. I suspect Iberian bloodlines myself. And as to wealth, I’ve wondered.”

“What have you wondered?” She bent to sniff a daffodil and came up with pollen on her nose. It was incongruous, the little yellow smudge and her serious green eyes. He passed her his handkerchief and touched the tip of his nose.

She wouldn’t want him wiping her face. Probably clock him soundly if he tried.

While Maggie dabbed at the tip of her nose, Westhaven eyed the flowers and chose his words carefully. “I have wondered why, if the man is wealthy, does he take on for coin the missing daughters and misbehaviors of Polite Society? It’s a burdensome business, hearing confessions, carrying secrets, and knowing he’ll have to deal socially with the same people whose dirty linen he has laundered.”

Maggie passed him back his handkerchief. “Unless he likes it. Unless he enjoys knowing everybody’s secrets. There are people like that, and some of them are wealthy as a result.”

“Hazlit is not of that ilk. Their Graces would not have turned to him if his trustworthiness had been at all in doubt.”

This seemed to mollify his sister, but it did not mollify Westhaven. Maggie was in a taking about something, something that might involve Hazlit or might not. It might involve pig farms or peaches, and Maggie in a taking was not something he wanted to contemplate at length.

“If you needed something, Mags, would you tell me?”

“No. Everybody in this family tells you when they need something, when Anna ought to be your chief concern. Would you tell me if you needed something?”

He slipped his arm through hers and kissed her cheek. “Yes. It’s part of loving someone. You lean on them occasionally, and they on you. Devlin has abandoned us for the North and the arms of his countess, Valentine is more often than not spinning tunes out in Oxfordshire and admiring his new wife, while Sophie rusticates in matrimonial bliss with her baron in Kent. We who guard the treasury must stick together.”

She sighed as he drew in her flowery Maggie-scent. “Marriage does agree with you, Gayle. It agrees with you enormously.”

“I do recommend it with the right partner. Their Graces would, as well.”

She turned her head to peer at him, her mouth flat. “Hazlit is not marriage material. You will not suffer that rumor to be bruited about, please.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He escorted her back to the table at a leisurely pace. His world had changed radically when he’d married Anna, and it was changing even more radically with the birth of their first child. “You are dear to me, you know.”

She dropped his arm and reached for her gloves, merely nodding as if he hadn’t offered a sentiment of profound truth.

“What I meant to say, Mags, is I love you. I miss you when you don’t come calling, and yet I don’t want to make a nuisance of myself on your doorstep, either. Thank you for warning me off the Jamison project—I’d have taken the bait if you hadn’t come along.”

“Even a wormy apple can look shiny and red from the right angle.” She picked up her reticule and faced him. “Don’t work too hard.”

She would have moved off, but he caught her by the arm and drew her into a hug. She’d lost weight since last he’d hugged her. “Don’t be a stranger, Maggie Windham.”

“You could never be a nuisance on my doorstep.”

She offered that in a voice slightly above a whisper while hugging him back, a surprisingly fierce embrace from his usually reserved sister. She drew away and headed for the house, clearly not expecting her own brother to escort her to the front door.

Impossible woman, truth be known, but a sister was allowed to be impossible. He looked up a few minutes later to see Anna bustling in the gate from the mews.

“Beloved wife.” He rose and held out a hand to her, his eyes traveling over dark hair, gorgeous eyes, and a lush, lovely figure. “Have you bought out the entire Strand?”

“Of course. Are you rebelling against your ledgers, Westhaven? It’s a beautiful day, and this generally finds you planted at your desk.” She tucked against him as if it were her natural place in the world, which to him, it was.

“Am I really so stuck as all that?”

“You are so dedicated as all that. My guess is Her Grace came calling and blasted you away from your correspondence.”

“Maggie. She says marriage agrees with me enormously.”

Anna nuzzled his neck. “Perceptive woman, your sister. Shopping has left me a little fatigued. Have you time for a short nap?”

“Of course.”

But as he escorted his wife above stairs, Westhaven spared a thought to wonder why Maggie would be investigating the beau monde’s most trusted and discreet investigator.

***

To see the letter sitting among her correspondence was almost a relief.

Almost.

Maggie passed her gloves and bonnet to her housekeeper and felt a familiar icy calm descend—it was never very far from her, welling up from her innards whenever she called upon it. It wasn’t ducal. She suspected it was a legacy from a mother who was able to smile and spread her legs repeatedly for men whom she liked not at all.

Drunken men, men who neglected to wash, men with bad teeth and rough hands… Maggie pushed those thoughts to the edge of her mind, where they would lurk until the next time her imagination slipped its leash.

“I’ll be at my desk for the balance of the afternoon,” she informed Mrs. Danforth. It was the signal to leave her in peace.

Maggie dealt with all her other mail first, from her stewards and solicitors, from a friend she’d met in finishing school who’d married well and happily almost a decade since, from the widower neighbor with whom she kept in touch on farming matters. When her business was in order, she raised her eyes and looked out the window.

She had a small life. A life narrowly circumscribed by the strictures of propriety and by her own love for the family into which she’d been adopted. She had a measure of independence, if she was careful, and she wasn’t plying her mother’s trade. She’d soon be too old for that fear to have any credence in any case.

Her gut roiling with unease despite the reassuring internal litany, Maggie opened the letter, the page full of flourishes, curlicues, and ink blots to go with all the exclamation points.

Greetings, Maggie!

I adore spring! Spring means kittens in the mews and shopping! Mama says I’m to have a new wardrobe from the skin out, for soon I’m to start going about with her on calls. I’ll be fifteen soon, you know, and some girls are married at fifteen. We have gone to the milliner’s, too, where Mama ordered me the most cunning little toque, and, Maggie, I have to tell you, when Mama said from the skin out, she meant that very thing.

I never knew lace had such uses! And it comes in colors, too. Pink and even red! Can you imagine!

I have been reading a great deal on rainy days, though Mama says horrid novels are not what wealthy gentlemen are interested in discussing. My French is getting very good since our new lady’s maid—Adele is her name, though Mama calls her only Martin—has helped a great deal. I think Mama’s French must be quite rusty, for she doesn’t seem to understand when I use mine with her.

Or maybe Mama is just preoccupied with the coming season. She goes out sometimes, to the theatre and the opera. Someday soon, I will accompany her, and won’t that be exciting!

I miss you. You must write to me. Teddy says you’re in great good looks these days, but Thomas says you look tired to him. I must go. Mama is teaching me games of chance, and it’s ever so fun.

All my love forever and always,

Bridget

This was much, much worse than another demand for money, and worse than the last note, which had been merely chatty. Maggie considered ordering a cup of tea to steady her nerves, though what if she couldn’t keep it down? It wouldn’t do to make such a mess.

But perhaps this was only the warning shot, fired across the bow of Maggie’s finances and her nerves. Cecily no doubt read every word Bridget penned, and yet in this note, unlike the previous one, Bridget had managed to convey a great deal of information—all of it alarming. A demand for money would follow, a bigger, bolder demand than any of the previous springs.

And when that demand came, Maggie would pay it. She’d spent years of her life learning how to make money, just so she could always, always pay what needed to be paid when it needed to be paid. She was wealthy and getting wealthier by the quarter. The primary ingredient necessary to becoming wealthier still was to have coin to invest, and she did.

Thank God, luck, hard work, or the fates, she had coin.

And there was nothing else she’d rather spend it on, for no decent girl of almost fifteen wore red lace anywhere on her person.

***

“Mr. Hazlit to see you, my lord.”

Westhaven caught a smirk from his wife. They were taking tea in the library after a reviving little nap in the middle of the day. The butler had sense enough not to smirk, but Anna showed no such respect.

“I’ll just see about sending a fresh tray,” she said, rising. “Mr. Hazlit can’t possibly have anything to say of interest to me.”

“You’re abandoning me.” It was intended as a statement of fact, not a pout. His wife’s smirk became a grin at his peevish tone.

“Shamelessly. Seems even after a nap, I’m quite tired. The effects of getting up and down all night with your son.”

He rose and frowned down at her. “You and that baby.” Anna was even prettier now than when she’d been carrying, and he’d thought nothing on earth could be more attractive to him than his wife when enceinte. “You are the one getting up and down at night, but I am the one losing the most sleep. Go, then. I’m not fated to get my work done this day.”

“Perhaps not.” She kissed him on the mouth as Westhaven saw Hazlit looming at the butler’s shoulder. “I’ll see you in my dreams, husband.”

She patted his lapel and swanned off, only to pause before their guest. “Mr. Hazlit, a pleasure.”

Hazlit took her hand and bowed over it. “My lady, you’re in radiant good looks. His lordship must be attending to more than just his letters if you’re blooming so nicely.”

“Blooming?” She beamed at the man. “Westhaven, we must have Mr. Hazlit to dinner. He says I’m blooming.” She withdrew her hand. “I’ll leave you gentlemen to your business while I go blossoming on my way.”

She closed the door quietly, leaving Westhaven to watch the bemused expression fade from Hazlit’s face.