No Marriage of Convenience (12 page)

Continuing down the hall, she threw open the door to Lord Ashlin’s study without even knocking. He and Hashim were at his desk, going over some paperwork.

“What was my Runner doing here?” she asked.

“Hashim brought him here, but if I were you, I wouldn’t worry about him any longer,” Lord Ashlin said. “I just relieved him of his duties.”

Riley’s ill-humor flared into a hot temper. “You did what?”

“The man is incompetent. I sent him packing.” Lord Ashlin went back to his list, while Riley stood there, her foot tapping out a staccato beat. “Was there something else you wanted?”

She ignored him and turned to Hashim. “You let him do this? You went behind my back and let him do this. How could you?”

The pair gave her no regard.

“Do you have everything you need?” Lord Ashlin asked him.

Hashim nodded, then bowed slightly to Lord Ashlin and left the room, as if she weren’t even there.

“What have you done to him?” she asked Lord Ashlin. “You’ve turned him against me.”

“Hardly,” he told her, gathering up his papers and plac
ing them in a drawer out of sight. “Mr. Hashim is very concerned about your welfare, as am I. We’ve decided to work together to bring this matter to a speedy resolution.”

A speechless Saracen and an Oxford professor! They thought they could do what a professional Runner had been unable to do.

Riley closed her eyes and counted silently to ten. “This is none of your concern,” she protested, even though she could see her words were falling on deaf ears.

“I disagree. As long as you live in my house, you are under my protection and my concern.” He straightened and folded his hands behind his back, looking every inch the professor rather than the protector.

His protection.
Did he even know what that meant? Certainly he had saved her once, but even he had admitted it had been more accident than skill.

What if the next men her unknown enemy sent weren’t as cowardly as Clyde and his inept partner?

She glanced over at the Earl. The steely gleam in his determined gaze told her he was going to remain resistant to her every argument.

She decided to try another angle. “You can’t afford this.”

“Actually, by firing that nitwit you were wasting money on, I am saving you a healthy purse.” He smiled at her, as if daring her to try another charge. “With more money in your coffers, you should be able to repay me that much quicker.”

Riley crossed her arms over her chest.

Damn the man
. How dare he turn this into a joke, when his life may be at stake! Hashim she didn’t worry about overly much, for she had seen him on more than one occasion defend them in the rougher corners of Covent Garden—but Lord Ashlin?

What experience did he have in these matters?

“You can either stand there in a temper,” he told her, “or you can help us. While Hashim is a valuable partner, I think you hold the key to why someone would want you dead.”

She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you suggesting I know who is doing this?”

“Yes. Though you may not realize it.”

That was the most ludicrous notion she had ever heard.

Lord Ashlin sat back down at his desk. Pulling out several sheaves of paper and catching up his pen, he asked, “Who do you think is trying to harm you?”

“If I knew the answer to that, I would have told the watch and been done with all this a year ago when it started.”

Lord Ashlin scratched down a note.

She leaned over the desk. “What are you writing?”

“That this all began a year ago. Sometimes the obvious clue to something is in the smallest of details.”

She shook her head. “Anything else then, Lord Runner?”

Lord Ashlin took off his spectacles and wiped them clean. “Yes. Sit down, this may take a while.”

She groaned, but could see no other way around it. If she was to keep an eye on him, then she would have to cooperate with him. “Ask away.”

An hour passed as he grilled her on every detail of each incident, on her competitors, on her company. “Is there anyone at the Queen’s Gate who might have a grudge against you?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Has anyone left the theatre company who might have feelings of animosity toward you or the others?”

“No,” she said. “The only person who’s left is Miss
Gilden. She played some bit parts and sang occasionally, but she could hardly be the mastermind behind any of this.”

Lord Ashlin still took down her name. “How is that?”

“She’s not overly bright. Rather featherbrained.”

“That could just be her disguise.”

Riley laughed at the notion. “Lord Hobson’s youngest son proposed to her.”

“Oh, I see,” Lord Ashlin said.

“No, you don’t,” Riley told him. “She refused him and his thirty thousand a year to marry his valet.”

Lord Ashlin scratched that name off his list. “Anyone new to the theatre?”

Riley scratched her chin. “Daniel—he plays secondary characters. I doubt he would have anything to do with this, for he came to us only a few months ago and before that was with a travelling group for several years. The only other new person is Mr. Northard. He’s come around several times in the last year looking for work, but we didn’t need him. Then, when we decided to stage our current play, we gave him a chance. He’s rather good, though a bit haughty.”

“Do you know anything else about the man?”

She shook her head. “No. But he’s cast as the lead, Geoffroi, so he hardly has reason to see the play close. He’d lose his stage debut.”

Sitting back in his chair, Lord Ashlin ran a hand through his hair, studying the notes before him.

Riley leaned back as well. She couldn’t even remember why she’d come down in the first place. She knew one thing—if Lord Ashlin did find whoever was threatening her, all he had to do was tie the hapless fellow to this chair and start questioning him.

The poor bloke would be begging for transportation to Botany Bay in a matter of minutes.

Really, the only other times she’d felt this exhausted were after dress rehearsals.

Rehearsal
.

That was what she had wanted to ask him. She cleared her parched throat. “If the play is to open on time, I will need to attend rehearsals.”

“What?” he said, looking up from his notes.

“Rehearsals. I will need to go down to the theatre to practice if we are to open on schedule.”

“Of course you will not,” he told her. “That would leave you unprotected, and I haven’t the time to traipse back and forth to Covent Garden every day.” He held up his hand to stave off her next argument. “Neither does Hashim. He has other matters he will be working on from now on.”

Riley did her best to hold her temper in check. She was unused to having her life and freedom controlled by another, and she didn’t like it one whit. “You’ll never see your investment returned, for without practice the play will never open.”

“Hmmm.” He seemed to be weighing other options. Then he nodded. “Practice here.”

“Here?” she asked, wondering if he had any idea what he was suggesting.

“Yes, here. The ballroom should be sufficiently large enough.”

Riley smiled. It would serve him right. And she couldn’t help but wonder at Belton’s reaction when the entire troupe arrived on his sacred steps. For that alone she decided not to protest his unconventional solution, and she rose to leave.

“Um, one moment,” he said, ticking off one or two
things from his notes and then glancing up.

If she didn’t know better, she’d say he looked embarrassed. “Yes?” What more could he ask?

“What about a former…a former…” Lord Ashlin’s question trailed off as he struggled to find the right words.

“A former what?” she asked, weary of all the questions.

The Earl shifted in his seat. “You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t know—” she started to say, and then stopped.

A former lover.

“Yes,” he said, obviously seeing the pink heat on her cheeks. “A former.”

How could she tell him about such an intimate aspect of her life? Besides, she doubted he’d believe the truth.

“This is important,” he insisted. “Someone you cast aside. Perhaps left for another? Mr. Pettibone said you hadn’t anyone at present, but maybe a past…uh, paramour might feel he has reason to exact revenge.”

Gads, he obviously thought her quite the lightskirt. Then again, she hadn’t done anything to dispel that notion. “No. There are none.”

“Someone from Paris, perhaps?”

She shook her head. “No. There isn’t anyone.”

He took off his spectacles and studied her. “Riley, being shy in front of Del is one thing, but I know who you are. I know about your past. I am only trying to help. While it is obvious you have some regrets, you must tell me the truth and not hide behind this misplaced shame.”

Why of all the patronizing, arrogant assumptions…

“I have nothing to be ashamed of,” she told him.

“Of course not,” he said. “You can’t help your past.”

Riley’s temper sprang life. “You pompous, arrogant—”

“—You needn’t get into such a state,” he said. “I may
have been in Oxford all these years, but believe me, nothing you divulge within these walls will shock me. My father’s and Freddie’s misdeeds made sure of that.”

She threw up her hands and groaned. “That is what I am trying to tell you. There is nothing to divulge.”

“Riley, I made some inquiries about you, after you first came here. The betting books at White’s are filled with your exploits. Every young rake in town has a story to tell about you.” He picked up his pen and poised it over his list. “Why not just give me the names.”

Riley did that by standing before him in silence.

“This isn’t helping,” he told her. “Just tell me their names.”

“Fine!” she said. “You want names, then I shall give you names. Prinny? Is that a good one? The Dukes of Kent, Cumberland, Sussex, and…” She snapped her fingers several times. “Oh, dear, I always forget that freckled one. Oh, yes! Cambridge. Now after that successful entrée into good society, I believe I had a brief liaison with an entire company of Horse Guards—just the men, not the horses.” She smiled at him, then scratched her chin, considering who else to add to her mythical list. “Ah yes, and there was the week I spent with Lord—”

“Enough!” Lord Ashlin said, tossing aside his pen. “I am trying to compile a serious account of your past and this ridiculous oration is not helping matters.”

“But you didn’t want to hear the truth,” she said. “When I told you there are no names to give, you did not believe me. For you see, Lord Ashlin, I have never had a lover.”

He shook his head. “That is impossible. I heard from—”

“—You heard gossip and speculation,” she said. “Do you believe everything said about your brother? From what I heard, I doubt he ever slept.”

“Frederick’s accounts have been rather exaggerated,” he conceded.

“Then, Lord Ashlin,” she said, “you have two choices. Believe that I have made love to every man in London, or that I have never had a lover. Which will it be? For only one is true.”

Mason had been mistaken when he’d told Riley that nothing she confided to him would shock him.

Madame Fontaine had never had a lover? Unbelievable!

He was still trying to make sense of her preposterous confession when he returned home from his investigations several hours later and was met at the door by a grim-faced Belton.

“My lord,” the butler said, in that ominous grave tone of his. “He has gotten into the house.”

Mason groaned, for he knew exactly who Belton was talking about.
Del
.

Damn his persistent hide. He’d been by earlier in the afternoon, flowers in hand, demanding an audience with Riley, but Mason had flat out refused him entrance to the house.

Now it appeared the Viscount had managed another way to storm the Ashlin gates.

“Where is he?”

“The Green Salon,” Belton told him. “Miss Felicity has ordered tea brought round. Should I hold it off, or send it in?”

“Is Madame in there?”

Belton just cocked a brow in answer.

Of course she was. “Send it in,” Mason said. “Perhaps our poor fare will starve him out of here, since threats don’t seem to work.”

“As you say, my lord.”

Mason marched toward the salon, still pondering Riley’s confession that she hadn’t any former lovers.

How could that be true? He’d heard the talk at White’s, as well as at half a dozen other places. He tried to tell himself she was lying, that she had something to hide, but her pretty blushes and stammered confession hinted that perhaps the lady was telling the truth.

Or a damned good actress.

Then again, he considered all the gossip he’d heard about Freddie’s exploits—most of which he knew was utter rubbish. If that was true for Freddie, there was no reason to believe it couldn’t be true for the woman known as Aphrodite’s Envy.

So what did he really care whether she’d had no lovers or made love to half the
ton
? It wasn’t any of his business. His only concern should be getting Del out of his house and away from Riley. And then he needed to uncover who was trying to kill her. And find husbands for his nieces. And his own bride. And then he would worry about his finances.

He let out a frustrated sigh.

When had his life turned into this circus?

Oh, he knew. The moment he’d let Riley Fontaine in. The woman was a damnable distraction and overly bothersome.

But little brother
, he could hear Freddie saying,
when was the last time you had this much fun?

In the salon, Cousin Felicity sat before the small table, just starting to pour the tea the maid had brought in. Louisa sat half reclined on a settee in the corner, thumbing through a fashion magazine. Bea stood by the window watching the square, while Maggie sat on the long sofa beside Del.

Riley, he noted, had chosen the narrow, straight-backed chair well away from the Viscount. She looked as if she were sitting before the bench at Newgate instead of having tea.