The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (19 page)

Nigel stood mute.

“I thought so.” Jeremy smirked. “So that is why you wanted me to investigate her. Here I thought I was helping to probe the Marchman case. Had me up all night. Lost a bloody fortune at White’s before sundown, and all you wanted to know was the pedigree of a skirt? Couldn’t you just ask her? Who is she? A teacher here?” He gestured toward the school. “A young lady of good family come down in the world?”

“You tell me. You are the one who carried out the investigation.”

“Would if I could, old man, but I didn’t find out a deuced thing about her. No one has ever seen or heard of your Miss Davidson.”

“She did not simply materialize from nowhere, like a ghost.”

“No.” Jeremy nodded after Kitty. “More like an angel.”

“Someone has to know where she came from.” Nigel tugged at his sleeves irritably. “And she is not ‘my’ anything.”

“That so?” Jeremy said, rubbing his chin and watching Kitty climb the steps to the front door of the school. “Good.”

Nigel felt a sudden urge to plant Jeremy a facer but got hold of himself before the impulse did. “I suppose you were too busy attempting to recoup your losses last night to carry out the investigation as I asked you.”

Jeremy’s face clouded over at Nigel’s sharp tone, then quickly took on a seriousness that was well known to Nigel. “I tried my best. I swear it. Haven’t slept at all. You said your need of the information was urgent, and I believed you. There just wasn’t any information to be found, Nigel.”

Nigel frowned. “No information. Probably means she is one of any number of young ladies of gentle breeding who have been so thoroughly buried in the country all of their lives that no one in Town has heard of them.”

“You are smitten with her, aren’t you?”

“Nonsense.”

“What else could cause you to overlook the possibility that she may be assisting Lady Marchman with her treachery?”

Nigel was stunned by his friend’s question, for there was no denying the fact that Jeremy was right. Nigel had dismissed Kitty as a suspect out of hand, even after he had learned yesterday that she was lying about her age. She was a terrible liar. Definitely not spy material. His fingers tightened into a fist. “Kitty Davidson is not a suspect,” he said firmly.

Jeremy hooted with laughter. Is she not a little too young for you, Nigel? She can’t be a day over fifteen.”

Nigel moved to his near horse and checked a strap he knew hadn’t a thing wrong with it. “Yes. She is too young, as a matter of fact. But maybe not for you. She’s eighteen. Though she’s pretending to be a good deal younger than that, and if you tell anyone I told you so you’ll be in for the thrashing of your life.”

“Is that the reason you wanted me to investigate her? Because you found out she was older than she let on?”

“Yes,” Nigel lied. “I know her real reason now, though, and it has nothing to do with Lady Marchman.” Nigel actually knew nothing of the sort, though he’d guessed accurately enough, he thought; it wasn’t hard to deduce her story. Oh, he might be missing one or two details, details he’d hoped Jeremy might uncover with his investigation, but one thing was absolutely certain: Miss Kitty Davidson was not a spy for Napoleon Bonaparte.

“I shall carry out a more thorough investigation when my task here at the school is finished,” he told Jeremy.

“I say”—Jeremy cut the air with the flat of his hand—”you don’t seem to understand, old man. I did a thorough investigation. There is no information to be had on the young lady. Not anywhere in London, anyway.”

Nigel was unperturbed. The lack of information meant only that Kitty’s parents must be more obscure, more lacking in status than he had guessed. The door of the school closed behind Kitty, and Nigel affected a bored stance.

“The ladies should be out in a few moments,” he told his friend. “We’ll be on our way to the park then.”

“The park? Ladies?” He backed away. “Oh, no. Jane and a schoolmistress chaperon?” He shook his head. “Not on your life, old man. I came here to make my report to you, not to squire some pinched, dried-up schoolmistress about town.”

Nigel pulled the strap tight and tucked it in. Then he looked at Jeremy seriously. “I’ve turned up something at the school that convinces me I need another pair of eyes here—yours. But you’ll be no help unless you have a good excuse to spend time here at the school. So . . . not only are you going to squire a lady about town, my friend, but starting right now, you are unofficially and diligently—yet falsely—courting her.”

“Now, Nigel . . .” Jeremy began with a ferocious scowl.

Nigel laughed at his friend and enjoyed watching him sputter and fume until Jane and Miss Davidson emerged from the school and Jeremy’s scowl suddenly evaporated. “I say!” Jeremy exclaimed. “That’s Miss Davidson, not some old spinster! Do you mean to cast me as Lady Jane’s suitor or as Miss Davidson’s?”

“Miss Davidson,” he said irritably. “Jane might decide she was in love with you, and then where would we be? You are to falsely court Miss Davidson until the investigation is over.”

Jeremy turned a speculative glance in the lady’s direction. “Falsely, eh?” he said,
sotto
voce
, before advancing and bowing too long over Miss Davidson’s hand.

It was Nigel’s turn to scowl.

SPRING HAD FINALLY decided to wrest winter’s hold on London, and the air had warmed to a comfortable level by the time they drove through the gates of Hyde Park.

The four breakfasted in the shade of a spreading plane tree. Blackshire produced a basket of delectables and Thomas spread a large buff-colored quilt over the ground. The food was delicious and the company merry, had Kathryn been in any mood to enjoy them, which she was not. Neither did she enjoy the walk they had after breakfast, the kite flying, the carriage racing, nor the icy lemonade Mr. Scott had bought for her from a vendor. She couldn’t even enjoy the flattering attention Blackshire’s friend was paying her. She was too busy being watchful for the arrival of Quinn, Lord Bankham.

And when that gentleman finally did make an appearance and Kathryn had practically got herself run over in contriving to make him stop his carriage long enough for Jane to have the desired formal introduction, Blackshire’s attitude was maddeningly unperturbed. For he seemed more concerned that Kathryn was unharmed than that Jane and Bankham had finally had their bow and curtsy.

But all through the morning’s diversions, not once did Blackshire say or do anything objectionable. There wasn’t even one sour glance. Blackshire was a perfect gentleman.

The easy nature of Jeremy Scott, the laughing, teasing eyes of Jane, and the sight of Thomas and Mr. Scott’s tiger frolicking as little boys should relaxed her to the point where she began to enjoy herself. It appeared that whatever deviltry Blackshire was bent upon, he was not determined to embark upon it today. The weather was fine, the company gay, and dear little Thomas was so very happy.

The lad’s praise for his new employer echoed in her mind, and she wrinkled her brow. She could understand Blackshire’s being able to pull the wool over Lydia and Jane’s eyes, and even over Auntie’s, but if Thomas were to be believed, Blackshire had all of London’s poor deceived as well. She wandered over to the boys, who were splashing barefooted in the Serpentine, intending to quiz Thomas for more details of what he’d heard about Blackshire, but Jane and Jeremy followed right along behind her. Talking to Thomas about the marquis was impossible without making it obvious she was fishing for information.

Nigel stayed in the shade and watched the five of them. What was Kitty doing? Suddenly, he chuckled, for she had shed her slippers and joined the boys in a hunt for tadpoles. He’d been very wrong about her. She was not the sort of miss who would shrink back and faint at the sight of a frog. At intervals, Kitty and the boys splashed Jane and Jeremy, who sat together on the bank, setting leaf boats to sail. The group’s shouts and pleasant laughter carried on the wind, and Nigel drew a deep breath as a memory came to him.

He was holding on to his mother’s skirts as she showed him how to find tadpoles, their shoes on the bank of a pond on his family’s ancestral estate, Havensham. It was one of the last days they spent together. How lucky he had been to have her at all!

As he watched Kitty Davidson cavorting in the water with the boys, completely unconcerned by the curious and sometimes disapproving stares of those who passed, he wondered if she longed for children of her own. He watched her bend over and peer into Thomas’s cupped hands, an exaggerated O appearing on her lips. She tousled Thomas’s head. She would be a wonderful mother, as his had been.

It was nearly eleven o’clock. Lady Marchman’s field trip to St. Paul’s Cathedral was today, and Nigel had been careful to ascertain that there were no visitors, French or otherwise, scheduled to call at the school that day. According to what he’d told Lady Marchman, his outing with Jane and Kitty was supposed to be an all-day affair, but he actually planned to return to the school when the students and their chaperones left early for St. Paul’s in the afternoon. He would search the house for the war plans then.

He’d decided that the spies must be using the house as a drop point to pass the plans. One spy would leave them there, and the next would pick them up again. He’d bet that “Madame Briand” was involved up to her eyebrows, and the library, cluttered as it was and public, was the most likely place to find the plans if they were there waiting to be passed. It’s the room he would choose for such a task. Finding the plans—if they were there at all—might take a while . . . but they wouldn’t be buried under a stack or out in the open. No, they’d be somewhere easily accessible yet out of the way. That narrowed down the search and would make the job much faster.

Jeremy would keep Jane and Kitty occupied in the garden as Nigel searched.

Nigel frowned. Though Jeremy had grumbled when Nigel had first asked him to pretend to be courting for Lady Marchman’s benefit, now his friend was all too willing. Nigel plucked a leaf thoughtfully from the ground and folded it. Kitty Davidson had formed an instant dislike for him, but not for Jeremy Scott. And why? Because she’d misinterpreted a perfectly innocent remark Nigel had made as some sort of improper advance. She would have to be stupid to miss Jeremy’s almost-too-enthusiastic interest in her now. He was practically sniffing her and thumping his tail. It was therefore plain to see that it wasn’t a man’s overt interest that bothered her.

It was
Nigel’s
overt interest in her that she couldn’t stand, which was fine with him.

He was not considering her romantically. Besides the fact that she appeared to wish him dead—or at least horribly maimed and doomed to searing pain for life—Nigel did not want to be the subject of the latest breakfast
on
-
dits
for buzzing around a nymph of eighteen. Oh, she was old enough to marry, all right. But she was the right age for a young buck of twenty-one, not a seasoned, world-weary thirty-year-old.

Nigel’s father had been a childless widower when he’d married a second time, taking to wife Nigel’s own mother, an eighteen-year-old beauty. The two were separated in age by twenty years. And look what had happened to them. They’d had different friends, different interests, a different perspective on almost everything. And their differences must have proved too much to maintain any sort of closeness. Father had taken a mistress close to his own age. And his mother . . . how had his mother felt? By all reports she’d been intense, high-spirited, intelligent. When her husband strayed, had her heart broken? Wouldn’t any young wife’s heart be broken by such a betrayal?

Kitty Davidson’s heart certainly would be.

Well . . . Nigel told himself that if Jeremy and Kitty got on well together, he would bloody well be glad of it. Hell, after Kitty’s performance with Bankham today—pretending to fall in front of the man’s carriage just so she could maneuver Bankham into an introduction to Jane!—he would bloody well gift Jeremy with the blunt for a special license. Kitty would be delighted. She would have her entree into the drawing rooms of the
ton
, and Jeremy would have a wife better than he deserved. The two of them were perfect for each other. Any fool could see that.

From down by the water Jeremy’s voice carried faintly to him on a breeze. “Oh, my pretty Kitty!”

Irritation stabbed Nigel. Why the devil was that rat using her first name? It was bloody well improper. But he resisted the impulse to tell Jeremy so. It was none of his concern what liberties Miss Davidson allowed. She couldn’t hope to do any better than Jeremy Scott, and if Nigel’s friend were foolish enough to encourage so prickly, so capricious, so mercurial, so . . . so frustrating a chit, then that was his own business, not Nigel’s.

Nigel closed his eyes and concentrated on emptying his aching head of everything but the ground beneath him and the wind in the trees overhead. The shadows shortened, and finally Nigel drowsed.

Then, something tickled his ear.

Nigel swatted at it, but it came back. It felt like a fluff of fur. Nigel instantly came awake, but he did not open his eyes. It was Jane, no doubt. Up to her usual tricks.

Just when he thought she had given up, he felt a wet, squirming something on the back of his hand. What was that? Something Jane had dipped in the Serpentine, perhaps.

“Mmm . . . m’darlin’,” he slurred, feigning sleep. “A lady kissing a man’s hand?” The wet sensation moved to brush his neck. “M’dear . . . how daring! Mmm . . .”

“Won’t you introduce us to your new lady friend, Nigel?” Jane’s voice assailed him from far to his right. Too far. Nigel’s eyes snapped open just as a weight came down on his chest, and Nigel fond himself staring into the moist brown eyes of a delighted mongrel puppy who dove for his face and planted an enthusiastic lick on him with her wet, pink tongue.

Jane and the others exploded into gales of laughter as Nigel tried to rid himself of his unwanted company.

Suddenly, a little girl of nine or ten ran to his side and scooped up the puppy. She brushed frantically at Nigel’s ruined, mud-printed cravat and waistcoat, spreading the mud and ruining his coat in the process.

“Oh, sir! I am so sorry. I tried to catch ’im, I did, but there were all o’ them others an’ I couldn’t catch ’em all.” She ran off after the other pups. “I’m that sorry, I am!” she shouted over her shoulder as she chased off, holding the sagging puppy under one arm.

“Be good lads and go help the little girl catch her puppies, won’t you?” Nigel asked the tigers. Thomas and James ran after the girl, nearly colliding in their enthusiasm to be the first one to her side.

Nigel rubbed his hands together. “Well, now. Since I have dismissed the boys, I shall have to serve luncheon myself.” And he did. As Nigel set out the meal, they all watched the children cavorting with the puppies, who were taking a suspiciously long time to be caught. Just when the last puppy made it into the box and the boys were walking dejectedly back, having finished their rollicking task, the little girl saw to it that her wayward puppies managed to “escape” once more, to the boys’ delight.

Jeremy laughed and bounded off to help round up the rollicking pups once more and see that they stayed that way, while Nigel and Kitty shared a smile at the girl’s obvious subterfuge. Their eyes locked and held for the briefest of moments, but it was enough. For in that single moment, Nigel felt a connection. There she was, just on the other side of the tentative bridge between them.

She flushed, and she looked a little scared for a moment, as though staring across a chasm she needed desperately to cross. Then she blinked and looked away. Nigel wanted to ask her if she had seen the bridge. Had she felt what he had? But of course he could not.