Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (7 page)

“It is to me,” he shot back. “And as you well know, I choose among my potential clients. I serve at my own whim; I do not fetch on command like a handsome young footman trying to cadge his lady’s favors.”

“That was uncalled for.” Particularly when Maggie employed only the plain-faced variety. They worked harder and did not provide fodder for gossip.

Beside her, Hazlit took a deep breath, his broad shoulders heaving up then dropping down. “My apologies, but I am refusing your request.”

“I don’t believe that’s legal.”

“Of course it’s legal.” He turned to frown at her. “You have no hold over me, Miss Windham. I am a free agent. Like a barrister.”

She had to smile at him for that. A barrister, indeed. “You are contractually bound to me, sir.”

“I’m unbinding myself. I can give you the name of several other investigators who will be happy to work for you at much lower wages than I charge.”

“We have a contract,” she said, very sure of this point, at least. “You cannot unilaterally renege, or I’ll see you sued for breach, and I will win.”

“How will you prove such a thing when there’s not one word of our dealings in writing and we had no witnesses?”

“Offer, acceptance, consideration, and capacity,” she said, drawing the words out for him. “The elements of a contract are in place, and you are equitably estopped from claiming we had no contract just because there is no sealed document.”

That got his attention, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing in his present mood.

“What are you going on about?”

“My brother Westhaven read law. I consult with him on business matters, as His Grace has no time for ledgers and figures. I’ve borrowed some of Westhaven’s texts and consult with his solicitors when the mood strikes.”

“A damned bluestocking spinster. Blackstone is spinning in his grave.” Hazlit sounded amused, which was some relief.

“It isn’t complicated, not in theory. Besides, you have a point. There are no witnesses, but I could try you in the court of public opinion, and you would surely not win there.”

“You could,” he said, his tone thoughtful. “You’d have to go out and about to do that, Miss Windham, and I think you prefer a retiring life.”

“I very much do. Which is why I do not relish the idea of quizzing my staff, retracing my steps, quizzing the fellows in the mews, asking my friends and neighbors and family if they’ve seen my purse, and turning my house upside down to find what is precious to me. I feel like an idiot for losing it.”

He gave her another considering look then hunched forward, forearms on his thighs. “You might have started there. You might have tried to gain my sympathy before you bludgeoned me with common law.”

“And leave your pride a little fig leaf?”

“Maybe a not too little fig leaf. Maybe a fig bush.”

She smiled at his attempt at humor, though it could be interpreted vulgarly, if one had such a turn of mind.

“Mr. Hazlit, won’t you please, please help me find my reticule? It is one of my dearest possessions. I feel horrid for having lost track of it, and I’m too embarrassed to prevail upon anybody else but you to aid me in my hour of need.” She turned her best swain-slaying gaze on him in the moonlight, the look Val had told her never to use on his friends. For good measure, she let a little sincerity into her eyes, because she’d spoken nothing but the truth.

“God help me.” Hazlit scrubbed a hand over his face. “Stick to quoting the law with me, please. I might have a prayer of retaining my wits.”

She dropped the pleading expression. “You’ll keep our bargain, then?”

“I will make an attempt to find this little purse of yours, but there are no guarantees in my work, Miss Windham. Let’s put a limit on the investigation—say, four weeks. If I haven’t found the thing by then, I’ll refund half your money.”

“You needn’t.” She rose, relieved to have her business concluded. “I can spare it, and this is important to me.”

“Where are you going?” He rose, as well, as manners required. But Maggie had the sense he was also just too… primordial to let a woman go off on her own in the moonlight.

“I’m going back to the ballroom. We’ve been out here quite long enough, unless you’re again trying to wiggle out of your obligations?”

“No need to be nasty.” He came closer and winged his arm at her. “We’ve had our bit of air, but you’ve yet to tell me anything that would aid me in attaining your goal. What does this reticule look like? Who has seen you with it? Where did you acquire it? When did you last have it?”

“All of that?”

“That and more if it’s so precious to you,” he said, leading her back toward the more-traveled paths. “That is just a start. I will want to establish who had access to the thing, what valuables it contained, and who might have been motivated to steal it.”

“
Steal?
” She went still, dropping his arm, for this possibility honestly hadn’t occurred to her. She realized, as he replaced her hand on his arm, that she’d held the thought of theft away from her awareness, an unacknowledged fear. “You think somebody would steal a little pin money? People are hung for stealing a few coins, Mr. Hazlit, and transported on those awful ships, and… you think it was a thief?”

“You clearly do not.”

She was going to let him know in no uncertain terms that no, she could not have been victimized by a thief. She was too careful, too smart. She’d hired only staff with the best references, she seldom had visitors, and such a thing was utterly…

“I did not reach that conclusion. I don’t want to.”

Voices came to them from up the path. A woman laughing a little too gaily, drunk, perhaps. Another woman making an equally bright rejoinder, and then a man’s voice, or two men’s.

“Come.” Hazlit drew back into the foliage, his hand around Maggie’s wrist. He stepped behind a tree and drew her to stand before him, his legs on either side of hers as he leaned back against the tree.

“Remain still; breathe naturally,” he whispered right in her ear, very, very quietly. She did as he suggested, not wanting to be found in the darkness with him by people too inebriated to observe a little discretion.

And while she stood so close to him, the night breeze stirred the air, bringing Hazlit’s scent to Maggie’s nose. She puzzled over it, because it was faint but alluring.

Complicated, like the man who wore it.

Honeysuckle was the primary note, as sweet a scent as ever graced a bottle—and as intoxicating. She was marveling over that bit of deduction and deciding the undertone was bergamot, when she felt Hazlit’s hand in her hair.

Holding her still?

He gathered a few of the locks drifting over her right shoulder and rubbed them silently between his fingers.

When had he taken off his gloves?

Remain still; breathe naturally. It was good advice, when her heart wanted to pound, when she wanted both to run and to stand there forever, his fingers playing with her hair. His hand shifted so he brushed her hair back over her shoulder, just once.

Maggie’s heart started to thud in her chest. She wasn’t frightened, exactly, but she was rattled. Men never touched her, not if they knew what was good for them, and she ought to abhor being rattled like this. She held still, waiting for him to repeat that simple caress.

“They’re gone,” he said, still whispering. He took her by the wrist again and led her to the path, offering her his arm with perfect propriety.

They returned to the house without incident, and Maggie thanked every merciful god in the pantheon she and her escort had missed the dancing.

“Will you be going in to supper?” he asked.

“I’d prefer not to.”

And what had that business been with her hair? Was he going to pretend he hadn’t taken such a liberty?

“I’ll fetch your coach. Find your wrap, and if you brought one, your reticule.”

He offered her an ironic little bow and went off on his gentlemanly errand. Maggie was home and fighting her way toward sleep before she realized Hazlit hadn’t been pretending he’d never touched her hair.

He’d been letting her ignore the fact that she’d allowed it.

***

“You were off in the bushes with Maggie Windham,” Archer Portmaine said, passing Hazlit a glass with two fingers of brandy in it. “That’s two encounters in one week, Benjamin. What’s afoot?”

“My ruin.” Hazlit nodded his thanks for the drink and settled on the library’s leather sofa. “No sign of Lady Norcross this evening, at least not on my territory.”

“I picked her up at Lady Bonratty’s musicale, but she left in her own carriage and took it all the way home.” Portmaine pushed back to sit on Hazlit’s desk, his arse on a stack of reports.

“Wee, wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” Hazlit quoted the nursery rhyme.

Portmaine paused before sipping his own drink. “Did Maggie Windham strike you on the head?”

“No. She hired me, and it took me half my walk home to figure out what she’s truly about.”

“She wants to have her way with your tender young flesh,” Portmaine suggested. “You’re overdue to get your wick dipped, you know.”

“Your concern is touching, Archer.”

“You always get short-tempered when you’ve neglected your romping. Maybe you should go a round or two with Lady Norcross.”

“Maybe I should find a partner who can think beyond his next swiving.”

“I like swiving.” Portmaine pushed off the desk and refilled his drink, then came to rest on the sofa a couple of feet from Hazlit. “It’s normal to like swiving. Lady Norcross apparently understands this. You used to understand this. I certainly understand it. More brandy?”

“You’re outpacing me,” Hazlit said, smiling slightly at Portmaine’s predictable simplicity.

“And Lady Maggie’s outfoxing you.” Portmaine took a substantial swallow of his drink. “You usually avoid the society women, leaving me to console them on your unavailability. What’s afoot with Lady Maggie?”

“She doesn’t use the title, though she understands business very well, and while I assured her I wouldn’t take coin from a client then spy on that client, Maggie Windham is clever enough to recall that her parents retained me, not Maggie herself. If she wants to spike my guns so to speak, to make sure her parents won’t ever use me to pry into her life, then she has to hire me herself.”

Portmaine nodded in comprehension. “I always say women have the greater natural cunning.”

“If they do, it’s because men drive them to it.”

“You’re thinking of your sisters again. I knew something was putting you off your oats.”

“It’s spring, and for the first time in years, my sisters need not hide from the social pleasures that are their due, but the habit is already ingrained, and the mere acquisition of husbands hasn’t affected it. Avis, at least, has the excuse that she’s up in Cumbria, where the weather won’t moderate for weeks yet.” Hazlit eyed the rapidly dropping level of his drink.

“What kind of name is that for a female? Bird. What of the other one, the governess?” Archer tossed back his drink and remained where he was, like some happy, handsome gargoyle sitting on Hazlit’s tidy desk.

“Alex says she’s too busy being a mother to her stepsons. I suspect she’s increasing already.”

“So it isn’t your sisters plaguing you, specifically,” Portmaine said. “We’re back to my theory. I’m guessing Maggie Windham has indulged in a discreet liaison or two. You might broach it with her.”

“She’s a client.”

“And what is it you’re supposed to do for this client?”

“Find her reticule.”

Portmaine’s brows rose, and his smile was devilish. “Not very original, finding her reticule. Did she last see it in the vicinity of, say, her spread knees?”

“Your puerile tendencies are showing, Archer.”

“I’m tired. My creativity is at low ebb. So why, if you’re not going to swive the lady, are you letting yourself be led on this dance?”

“Because I’m contractually obligated.”

“Are peers tried in the Lords for breach of contract?”

“We’re not going to find out.” Hazlit got up and went to the decanter to freshen his drink. “As I handed her up into her coach, she paused and looked around to make sure no one could hear us. When she was assured we had privacy, she gave me one last bit of instruction.”

“Say on.” Portmaine gestured with his empty glass. “We’re not getting younger, and the tale grows interesting.”

“She said I must promise not to look inside this reticule. Not even to peek.”

Portmaine studied Hazlit by the firelight. “Peeking is what we do best. Well, one of the things we do best… but you promised, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“Because in that moment, Archer, the lady’s guard dropped just for an instant. She’s good, maybe even better than I am, at keeping her reactions under control.”

Portmaine shrugged. “She’s a duke’s by-blow. Maybe she’s had to be.”

“Maybe, but beneath her pretty looks and sharp wits, Maggie Windham is one very scared lady.”

***