Shady Lady (13 page)

Chloë was missing. She was the friend Jo was worried about and the reason for this precipitous trip to town. According to what Harper had found out, Lady Webberley had waved good-bye to her servants a fortnight ago, and she had not been heard from since.

Chloë and Jo. He couldn’t imagine them as friends. The Chloë he knew—and who didn’t know Chloë?—was a high-flyer, the life and soul of every party. He couldn’t see Jo as a party girl. But he could see a connection between Chloë and the
Journal
. Who better to tell tales on friends and acquaintances than the ever-present, much-in-demand worldly widow?

She had to be Lady Tellall. It all made sense.

His thoughts drifted to Eric and the heated words he and Jo had exchanged. She didn’t know all the circumstances, and he could not explain them. As a consequence, she thought he was finding fault with her, and nothing could be further from the truth. He was well aware that she was genuinely attached to the boy. And that was the problem.

He got to his feet when he heard Mellowes open the door to Ruggles. He was dining with his friends at the Bell in Covent Garden. That was just around the corner from Soho Square. He could easily drop in on Jo on his way home. It was more than time that they had a heart-to-heart talk about Chloë Webberley.

C
hapter
12

T
hat same evening, as dusk was falling, Jo arrived at Chloë’s house with maid in tow—twelve-year-old Maggie, a novice housemaid, and a sop to Waldo’s edict that she never go out without a chaperon. She wasn’t trying to circumvent the rules Waldo had laid down. It was simply that Mrs. Daventry didn’t have a surfeit of servants, and Maggie was the only one who could be spared.

After conferring with Mrs. Paige and explaining the reason for her visit, Jo climbed the stairs to Chloë’s chamber with Maggie at her heels. No one would object to what she was about to do. Chloë had always made it perfectly clear to her servants that Jo was like a sister to her and should be treated as such.

She had devised a plan for being accepted by Chloë’s friends as one of their own. The first step was to dress the part of a fashionable lady of the
ton
. All the garments she required could be borrowed from Chloë’s extensive wardrobe. And it wouldn’t be the first time she’d borrowed the odd gown from Chloë. A nip here, a tuck there, and no one would know that the gowns were not made for her. They’d know, of course, if she wore them in Stratford. Chloë’s garments turned heads; Jo’s garments were . . . practical.

What she really wanted was to move in to Chloë’s house so that she could be on hand when visitors called. This was tricky, because she needed Waldo’s permission and that meant she would have to take him completely into her confidence. She was tempted, but she couldn’t ignore the warning in Chloë’s note or the coincidence of Waldo appearing on the scene just when Chloë went missing. And if he refused her permission to go on with the investigation into Chloë’s disappearance, she didn’t know what she would do. No doubt he’d lose his bond or she would be back in Bow Street.

Though she’d always told herself that Chloë’s gowns were a little too dashing for her taste, she found herself sighing with pleasure as she shook out first one outfit then another. The colors were rich, the fabrics sensuous to the touch. It didn’t take her long to choose what she wanted. Maggie’s words expressed exactly how Jo felt.

“I never seen anything so fine,” the little maid breathed out.

Jo nodded her agreement. The bed was spread with garments in amber velvet, dark blue kerseymere, emerald taffeta, silver gauze, and a ravishing red silk evening dress with a matching long-sleeved cropped jacket that fastened below the bosom.

Though she knew, with her red hair, that she should not wear red—hadn’t her mother always told her so?—her mouth began to water. Holding the dress in front of her, she stood in front of the cheval mirror, trying it this way and that as she gazed at her reflection. It was only a trick of the light, she told herself, but she actually looked elegant.

“Oh, mu’um, that dress was made for you,” Maggie whispered reverently. “You look beautiful.”

Jo sighed. Regretfully, she laid the dress aside. To Maggie’s bewildered look, she replied, “It’s new. I’ve never seen it before. I’m sure Lady Webberley would kill me if I borrowed it. Pack it away, Maggie.”

Maggie sighed her disappointment and gathered the dress in her arms.

“Wait!” cried Jo. She fingered the silk and admired the way it shimmered in the candlelight. “It wouldn’t hurt to try it on,” she said.

Maggie beamed.

Off came the serviceable kerseymere and on went Chloë’s red dress.
Elegant
wasn’t the word for it. The silk clung to Jo’s curves and hollows like melted wax. The wide expanse of white bosom that rose above the low bodice left nothing to the imagination. Now she knew why her mother had warned her not to wear red. She didn’t look elegant; she didn’t even look like a lady. She could quite easily have passed herself off as one of Waldo’s light-skirts.

Maggie held out the cropped jacket. “This should make you look decent, mu’um.”

Jo ignored the suggestion. Decent was the furthest thing from her mind. She loosened the ribbon tying back her hair and combed her fingers through her fiery tresses. Shameless coquette, she silently told her reflection, and batted her eyelashes. She dipped a curtsy and did a little pirouette. When she saw Maggie’s face, she slowly, slowly, floated down to earth.

“If he could see me now,” she said, “it would rock him back on his heels.”

“Who, mu’um?”

She was thinking of Waldo. “Why, my prince, of course. Don’t look so stricken. It’s just a game, Maggie. Haven’t you ever played dress-up?”

Maggie nodded. “When I was little. Shall I pack the dress away now?”

Jo was reluctant to give up the dress. “Let me think about it,” she said.

Libby arrived at that moment with pincushion and pins. Her gaze roamed over Jo. “Not the red dress,” she said doubtfully.

The maid’s determination to deprive Jo of the red dress made her all the more determined to keep it. “Especially the red dress,” she said emphatically. “I always wanted a red dress but was never allowed to have one.”

When the selection was made, she was loath to don her drab little frock that made her look, in her opinion, like a country bumpkin, so she chose instead to cover herself with one of Chloë’s diaphanous negligees. Then, with candle in hand, she floated out of the room.

She didn’t go far, only next door to the bedchamber she occupied when she came for a visit. This room was not under Holland covers. It looked as though it had been made ready for her. She could smell the beeswax from the highly polished furniture, the lavender from the bedclothes and from the crystal bowl of potpourri, made by Chloë herself, that sat on the table in front of the window.

There was a candelabra on the mantelpiece, which she lit with the candle she’d taken from Chloë’s room. The candles flickered then flamed, casting a golden glaze on the interior. It was a feminine room, done in green and apricot, but not too feminine. There were no frills or flounces. Everything was restrained.

Restrained. That was the story of her life. Just once, she’d like to break out of her mold and be the kind of woman Waldo would admire, the kind of woman she saw reflected in the cheval mirror. She didn’t look like Jo Chesney or feel like Jo Chesney. She felt liberated, utterly feminine, and ready for anything.

This was how a woman of the world would look before her lover took her to bed. He would kiss her passionately, touch her intimately, and she would return his caresses in full measure.

She smiled and closed her eyes, enjoying the fantasy. When she realized that in her dream those were Waldo’s lips and hands taking liberties with her person, she gasped and pulled back from the looking glass.

The knock at the door made her jump. “Come in,” she called out breathlessly.

Mrs. Paige entered with a tea tray in her arms. “Would you like me to light the fire?” she asked as she set the tray down.

Jo cleared her throat. “That won’t be necessary.” She felt embarrassed, as though the housekeeper could read her mind. “I won’t be staying long.”

Mrs. Paige didn’t seem to be aware of Jo’s changed appearance. She didn’t even blink, and Jo felt mildly disappointed.

“Tea and crumpets,” said Mrs. Paige briskly. “I know they’re your favorites.”

Jo injected some warmth into her voice. “How lovely. Thank you, Mrs. Paige.”

When the housekeeper left, Jo crossed to the table and looked down. Tea and crumpets—now, that was more in her style. Dress-up time was over. She helped herself to the tea and left the crumpets. As she slowly sipped the hot tea, she thought about Chloë.

Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed. She had the oddest feeling that if she retraced her steps, she would find Chloë sitting at her dressing table, brushing out her dark curls.

She inhaled deeply, gulped down a long swallow of tea, then another, and set the teacup down on the table in front of the window. This room was at the back of the house with a fine view of the garden, not that there was much to see at this time of night. She separated the gauze drapes and looked out.

The garden was Chloë’s pride and joy. Sykes did all the heavy work, but Chloë did all the planning and a good part of the planting. She had no patience with the formal gardens of France, with their neatly laid-out hedges and borders. She was a disciple of the English landscape espoused by Capability Brown and other famous English gardeners. If one wanted to pick a quarrel with Chloë, all one need do was make a disparaging remark about Capability Brown.

The garden wasn’t in darkness. Chloë enjoyed walking in the garden of an evening and had lanterns judiciously set out to light her way to points of interest—the lily pond, the grotto, the gazebo, the marble fountain, and, of course, the conservatory. When Chloë was away from home, as now, only a few of the lanterns were lit.

Another odd moment of disorientation gripped her. When she couldn’t find Chloë in the house, she invariably found her in the conservatory. She shook her head. Chloe wasn’t in the house and she wasn’t in the conservatory. No one knew where she was or what had happened to her.

She’d talked to the inside servants, but she had yet to talk to the gardeners. Maybe they knew something that the house servants did not. And at least one of them must be about or the lanterns would not be lit. Just then she saw a shadow move. The shadow became a man and entered the conservatory. It must be Sykes or one of his helpers.

She picked up her skirts and ran from the room. In Chloë’s room, the maids were still working. On the bed was her own drab dress. She couldn’t talk to Sykes in only a negligee, so she shrugged out of it, stepped into her own gown, and left again without exchanging one word with the startled maids.

When she came out of the back door, she halted. It had started to rain, not heavily, but enough to make her hesitate. There was a huge stretch of turf between the house and the conservatory. If it started to rain in earnest, she would be soaked.

“Sykes!” she called out. “Sykes!” There was no answer, but there was a light in the conservatory. She unhooked one of the lanterns at the back door and set off. When she was halfway across the sward, the light drizzle turned into a downpour, and within moments she was soaked to the skin.

That annoyed her. She should have had more sense than to come out in the rain without her coat or an umbrella. Her annoyance was swallowed up in alarm when something landed on her cheek.

Her panic subsided when she saw that it was only a moth that had fallen from a tree. All the same, her instincts were now humming. The few lanterns that were lit hardly made an impression on the Stygian darkness. There could be an army of men out there, hiding in the bushes, and she would never know it.

If she hadn’t felt like a half-drowned rat, she would have turned herself around and hared back to the house. After all, she could always question the gardeners in the morning. As it was, she slowed her steps when she reached the entrance to the conservatory and soundlessly slipped inside.

It was like stepping into a tropical forest—not that Jo had ever been in a tropical forest, but that’s how Chloë described the atmosphere inside her hothouse. It was balmy, it was humid and, Jo supposed, a perfect habitat for snakes and lizards, but, thankfully, Chloë had a dread of snakes and lizards. Jo had never liked the smell, something between a musty carpet and farmers’ fields after a flood had receded. When the weather warmed up, it was different. The furnace was allowed to go out and the pipes went cold. She could tell by the temperature that the furnace must be going full blast.

A pool of water was forming at her feet. At this rate, she’d get pneumonia. She couldn’t stay here. She had to go back to the house or go forward.

The rain was drumming on the glass roof. A wind was getting up. Someone was moving around up ahead. He was carrying a lantern. It had to be Sykes or one of the gardeners. She mustn’t allow her imagination to run away with her. On that bracing thought, she raised her lantern high and went after the man ahead of her.

C
hapter
13

T
hough her lantern did not shed much light, the conservatory wasn’t in complete darkness. Light from the lanterns outside filtered in, silvering the fronds and the trunks of palm tress that soared to the roof. There were paths going off in every direction, but Jo held to the one she was on, the one that led to the very center of the building, where she could hear the murmur of the miniature waterfall. This was Chloë’s favorite haunt.

“Mr. Sykes?”

Her voice came out a hoarse croak. She breathed in and tried again. “Mr. Sykes?”

There was no response, but the light ahead of her suddenly went out. The silence that stretched out seemed to blanket everything—the sound of the waterfall, her breathing, the rain on the glass roof. All she could hear was the soft tread of footsteps coming her way, slow and stealthy.

Her mouth went dry; her heart leapt to her throat. The flickering shadows, the great Gothic arches, and the oppressive atmosphere brought all her instincts to the fore. He was stalking her as a predator stalks its prey. If she made a run for it, he would pounce on her.

On that thought, she blew out her lantern and stepped off the tiled path onto the boardwalk that ran behind the tiered flower beds. If he attacked her, she would use the lantern to bash his brains in.

If only her hand would stop trembling.

Moments went by, then a shadow moved, took the shape of a man, and flitted by her. She waited until she had control of her breathing, then she took the opposite direction, toward the waterfall.

She had spent many hours in the conservatory with Chloë, so she knew every nook and cranny. To get to the nearest exit, she had to leave the protection of the boardwalk and pass in front of the waterfall, leaving herself exposed. It was a risk she had to take. She had to get back to the house before he blocked her retreat. Soundlessly, she edged her way forward, her lantern held at the ready.

She screamed when a man’s shadow loomed up in front of her.

Now was the moment to swing her lantern and bash his brains in. She couldn’t do it. Instead, she threw down her lantern, gave him a mighty shove, and leapt past him. In the next instant, he grabbed her from behind and swung her round. She stumbled over something and she bumped her head as she went down. Stars exploded in front of her eyes.

“Jo,” said Waldo Bowman, “what the devil’s going on?”

She recognized his voice. “You,” she breathed out. “You’re the intruder.”

He knelt beside her and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”

“Yes! No!” Her voice sounded as though it came from a long way off and she didn’t know why. “I should have brained you with my lantern for frightening me like that!”

He sounded as angry as she. “You’re lucky I didn’t brain
you
. What do you think you’re doing, creeping around in the dark?”

“I thought I saw Sykes!”

He raised her to her feet. She sniffed and looked up at him. She wasn’t frightened now.

He stripped off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. “You’re soaked through.” His arms went around her in a comforting embrace. “What you need is a stiff brandy.”

“No.” She was trembling, but it wasn’t only because she’d had a fright. Vestiges of the woman she’d seen in the mirror were still hovering at the edges of her mind, and the feel of that lean masculine body against hers intensified the image. This was Waldo, the man she wanted as she’d never wanted any man.

His hands were curled around the edges of his coat. It took very little effort to draw her closer. His voice was husky. His breath warmed her lips. “Then what do you want?”

“This,” she replied, and she kissed him.

Her impulsive kiss caught them both off guard. There was a moment when she might have changed her mind, but his arms clamped around her, bringing her flush against his hard length, and her mind emptied of everything but the sensation of his lips on hers.

It was just like the first time he’d kissed her. She found herself yielding, not to him, but to something in her own nature that she had only come to know in the last hour. She didn’t feel like a novice; she felt like the woman in the red dress, desirable, ravishing, eager for her lover’s embrace.

She sucked in a breath when his fingers undid the buttons on her bodice. But that was as nothing when he cupped her bared breast and his thumb brushed over one hardening nipple. She swallowed a whimper and flung back her head in helpless abandon.

He was the one who broke the embrace. His chiseled face was right above hers, and though they were in shadow, it seemed to her to be clenched in pain. “This is madness,” he said. His chest was heaving, his breathing was harsh. He gave a mirthless laugh. “I’m not usually so clumsy. It’s the wrong time and the wrong place. We have to talk.”

She shivered, not in fear but in anticipation. She didn’t want to talk. Every inch of her body ached for his touch.

He held her at arm’s length. “My God,” he said. “What am I doing? You’re shivering. You’re in shock. I should be horsewhipped for taking advantage of you.”

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “It’s not your fault.” And that was not what she wanted to say. She felt crushed. One moment she was flying, the next she had fallen to earth with a thump.

“Jo, are you all right?”

“I feel . . . dizzy.” And that was the truth.

He tightened one arm around her waist and swept her high against his chest, then, muttering curses under his breath and without breaking stride, as though his lame leg had been miraculously cured, he carried her to the house.

There is nothing like a warm fire, a glass of hot toddy, and a change of clothes to bring a woman to her senses
. This was Jo’s thought as she cast veiled glances in Waldo’s direction. She was thinking of the red dress. If it hadn’t belonged to Chloë, she would have bundled it up and tossed it in the fire. She’d heard of being seduced by a man, but no one had told her she could be seduced by the feel of silk on her skin. She’d never worn red before, hadn’t realized that it would make her feel bolder, freer. Now that she was wiser, she vowed never to wear that dress again.

There was something else troubling her—John, the man who was supposed to be the love of her life. She knew that John wouldn’t have minded her taking up with a good, decent man like himself, but this unhallowed longing for the embrace of an experienced man of the world would, she was sure, have shocked him as much as it shocked her.

She couldn’t blame Waldo. In fact, he had acted like a perfect gentleman. Now, if only she could remember that she was a lady.

They were still in Chloë’s house, in the morning room. She was reclining on a sofa in front of the fire, with one of Chloë’s voluminous velvet robes covering her, and Waldo was standing with his back to her, a glass of brandy in his hand, gazing out at the gardens as Sykes and one of his helpers combed the grounds and conservatory for signs of an intruder.

She was torn between gratitude and annoyance by his unexpected arrival on the scene. He’d been spying on her. That’s what it amounted to. Ever since he’d rescued her from Bow Street, he’d had someone watching her to make sure, in his words, that she did not abscond with the boy and land herself in
real
trouble, especially when he was not there to smooth things over. Naturally, the watchdog had followed her to Chloë’s house, and Waldo’s sharp mind had put two and two together. He knew that Chloë was Lady Tellall, he knew that she was missing and that she, Jo, had come up to town to find her. And because she was still shaken after what happened in the conservatory, she’d answered all his questions. So now he knew about Chloë’s cryptic message as well. In fact, he knew as much as she did. But that didn’t stop the barrage of questions. He was like a bulldog. Once he got his teeth into something, he wouldn’t let go.

When he turned from the window and it looked as though the questions might begin all over again, she hastened to forestall him. He wasn’t the only one who wanted his questions answered.

“Why didn’t your guard dog rescue me tonight? Isn’t that what he’s supposed to do?”

“My—” A smile curled his lips. It seemed they were fated to strike sparks off each other. He had a good idea when it would stop, but he thought Jo was a long way from acknowledging why she used her sharp tongue to keep him at arm’s length.

He took the stuffed armchair beside the fire and regarded her quizzically. “Didn’t I tell you? I called him off. However, if I’d known that Chloë had sent you that alarming note, I would have doubled the guard. How one slip of a girl can get up to so much mischief boggles the mind.”

Stung, she replied, “That’s hardly fair. I didn’t go looking for trouble. It found me.”

“I believe you.” Before she could snap at him again, he went on, “It was sheer luck that I came here. After dinner, I called in at Greek Street, and your aunt told me you were visiting Lady Webberley.”

“My aunt
told
you? You must have browbeaten Chloë’s name out of her!”

“Why the indignation? I thought you were glad to see me.”

“I was, but I almost brained you with my lantern!”

Laughter filled his eyes. “Instead, you kissed me. Now, what am I to make of that?”

She should have known he wouldn’t be able to resist gloating. “Nothing,” she retorted. “I would have kissed a troll at that point if I thought he was rescuing me.”

He shook his head and let out a long sigh. “Little liar! Jo, that kiss was wanton. No, no more fencing with me.”

In fact, the kiss had gone a long way to dousing his annoyance when he learned that the reason she hadn’t confided in him was because she suspected him of having something to do with Chloë’s disappearance.

If she’d been afraid of him, she would have run away. Instead, she’d initiated an embrace that had taken him completely off guard. Everything had faded from his mind—his reasons for being there, Jo’s rain-slicked gown, the housekeeper waiting anxiously for word, the gardener combing the grounds—and if he had remembered, he wouldn’t have cared. He was sucked into Jo’s passion like a man drowning in a whirlpool.

She was a dangerous woman, Jo Chesney, and if he had any sense, he would take to his heels.

After taking a swallow of brandy to hide his smile, he said, “I’m still not satisfied that I’ve grasped all the subtleties of your story. Let’s start at the point where you surprised a burglar at the
Journal
’s offices.”

They’d been over it all before, but whenever she deviated from her original story, he would pounce and ask her to clarify what she’d told him. So she went over everything in minute detail—Chloë’s cryptic note with no dates or postmark, the intruder, the missing file, and what she had learned from Lady Langston of the Brinsleys’ house party, and finally, she told him about the scheme she’d concocted for infiltrating the ranks of Chloë’s friends.

His brows lifted. “So, you’re willing to cast off your widow’s weeds?”

She didn’t correct him. His error saved her the mortification of explaining that the garments she wore were the finest she owned. “I’ll do whatever is necessary to find Chloë,” she said.

He nodded. “I’m not sure, though, about letting you move into Chloë’s house. Let me think about it.”

Though she kept her tongue between her teeth, she fumed. He had the upper hand, of course, but once Chancery settled Eric’s guardianship, the threat of Magistrate Vine and her returning to Bow Street would be removed.

A flicker of a smile touched his lips.

She frowned. “Did I say something amusing?”

“Ah, no.” In an altered tone, he went on, “How many people knew that Chloë was Lady Tellall?”

She was glad to change the subject. “Only three: Mac Nevin, who is my managing editor, my aunt, and myself. Chloë didn’t want people to know, because they’d be afraid to say anything in her hearing in case she published it in her column.”

“Well, someone knew she was Lady Tellall, someone with something to hide.”

“I know.” She shivered and reached for her glass of hot toddy.

He went on gently, “Let’s leave that for the moment. Tell me about Chloë’s note again, not the content, but the date it arrived.”

“I told you. The letter arrived not long after you left my office, the first time we met.”

“And by that time the Brinsleys’ house party was long over, and Chloë had been missing for at least a week?”

“More like two weeks. What’s your point?”

The faintest shadow of a smile touched his lips. “Patience, Jo. I’m simply trying to visualize what might have happened to delay delivery of the letter.”

“Perhaps she gave it to someone to post and they forgot.”

“Perhaps.”

It was the content of the letter that disturbed her. Waldo said they should keep an open mind on what Chloë intended. He was trying to keep her hopes up, she supposed. That’s how she’d felt until she’d talked to Lady Langston. Now, after tonight, she was convinced that Chloë was in some sort of danger.

Someone at the Brinsleys’ house party had wanted to hurt Chloë. No. It was worse that that.

“What is it, Jo?”

She was feeling overwhelmed again, unequal to the task she’d taken on. “I was thinking . . .” She gave a helpless shrug. “Maybe it’s time to call in the authorities. I’d hoped that that wouldn’t be necessary, that it was just a misunderstanding and that Chloë would turn up at any moment. But after tonight, I’m beginning to fear the worst.”

He spoke slowly and gently. “Leave it to me. I’ll speak to Magistrate Vine and advise him that Lady Webberley is missing. But don’t expect him to drop everything to look for Chloë. His jurisdiction doesn’t stretch to Oxfordshire, and it’s quite possible that that’s where she went missing.”

He had the kindest eyes. She’d never noticed that before.

Or maybe it was just a trick of the light.

She thought for a moment, then said, “What about Special Branch? They can investigate wherever they want, or so I’ve heard.”

“True, but—you’ll forgive me for being so blunt—without a body, there’s not much they can do. Now, if she were a spy or a threat to national security, Special Branch would undoubtedly be interested.”