The Bride Wore Pearls (24 page)

Lady Treyhern and Mr. MacLachlan rose at once to their feet, applauding. On the sofa, Anisha and her party followed suit, further gossip now out of the question.

“Encore!” said Geoff, who was now standing by Rance at the hearth.

“Ladies, take a bow,” said Mr. MacLachlan. “That was truly extraordinary.”

Frederica Rutledge blushed. “I fear I did nothing but turn the pages,” she said, coming to join them in the parlor. “My niece is the virtuoso.”

Smiling, Mr. MacLachlan strode toward the sofa and leaned across the back. “Maddie, love, perhaps we’d best go?” he said, setting a hand affectionately on her arm. “Lady Anisha is doubtless tired, and—”

But Mrs. Rutledge suddenly spoke over him. “Chip?” she sharply interjected. “Chip, where is Lucy?”

Anisha looked around to see the young man rouse from a stupor in a chair some yards distant. “Couldn’t say, Mamma,” he said, his lids heavy. “ ’Fraid I was enthralled by Emmie’s music.”

Mrs. Rutledge’s eyes were darting through the room. “I beg your pardon,” she said, “but has anyone seen my daughter? Or Lord Lucan?”

Suddenly sick, Anisha leapt to her feet. She had been searching for Lucan earlier when . . .

Oh, dear God.

“Charles Rutledge,” said his mother sternly, “you were supposed to keep up with Lucy!”

The young man shrugged. “I haven’t seen her since just after din— ”

“Lucy just left,” Miss de Rohan interjected in a bored voice. “I believe Lord Lucan is showing her the picture gallery. One of the footmen went up with them to unlock it.”

Anisha’s gaze swept the room. Higgenthorpe and both the footmen stood in the depths of the withdrawing room. Her eyes returned to Miss de Rohan’s, questioning.

But Miss de Rohan’s smile was placid. “Perhaps, Lady Anisha, you should go up and fetch them?” she continued. “Your footman is likely needed belowstairs, what with all that plate to be washed. Geoff and I mean to stay here and finish the last of this excellent champagne. Come, the rest of you, and give us one last toast for good luck!”

“What a good idea,” said Lady Madeleine, settling back onto the sofa.

“Excuse me, then,” said Anisha, moving toward the passageway.

Setting away his whisky, Rance pulled away from the hearth, his eyes narrowing. “I need to stretch my legs,” he said.

Her lips in a hard, thin line, Mrs. Rutledge went out into the passageway, too.

“Now this picture gallery,” Rance murmured suspiciously. “Which way is it?”

Anisha looked back and forth between them. “We haven’t one,” she confessed. “Remind me never to play cards with Miss de Rohan.”

“The devil!” Rance swore. “I thought not.”

Mrs. Rutledge turned white. “And the footman?”

“We’ve only the two behind us,” said Anisha tightly. “But trust me, they will be enough to carry my brother’s battered corpse down to the coroner’s once I’ve found him. Please, Mrs. Rutledge, for Lucy’s sake, go back into the withdrawing room and pretend you are unconcerned. If anything is amiss, Lord Lucan
will
make amends.”

Mrs. Rutledge blushed furiously. “Perhaps you oughtn’t blame him,” she whispered. “Lucy is . . . dear God, I think she just breaks hearts for sport. And Chip is worse. I’m just grateful he was asleep in your chair, and not your parlor maid’s bed. They are loving children, but . . .”

Rance seized Anisha’s arm and propelled her toward the stairs. “I swear to God, I will thrash Luc,” he muttered as they hastened up the stairs. “I will put that boy over my knee and give him what he deserves.”

“Alas, he is not a boy,” said Anisha grimly. “He is nineteen—and I daresay he’d much prefer your thrashing to the lifelong sentence he’s apt to get.”

Anisha threw open the library door. Nothing. Raju’s study was the very same. As were the next two rooms. With Rance taking one side of the passageway, and she the other, they searched every room, then went up another floor.

There they opened every door, checking under beds and inside cupboards, and finding nothing save a little dust the housemaids had missed. The last room was Tom and Teddy’s. Inside, both were soundly asleep. Milo’s cage had been brought up from the conservatory and covered for the night.

They backed out, and Rance quietly closed the door, casting his gaze to the attics. “Surely not the servants’ rooms?”

Anisha shook her head. “It must be the conservatory,” she said. “It’s so cold this time of night, but . . . yes. Quick, down the servants’ stairs.”

Once back down, Anisha made her way quietly through the rear of the house, circling away from the parlor. The conservatory jutted out into the back gardens and was generally shut up for the night.

The door, she saw at once, was unlocked. Her heart going still, she pushed through.

At first, the long wicker chaise was just a shadow in the moonlight. Then her eyes adjusted, and she saw unmistakably the back of Luc’s head, and a vast expanse of Miss Rutledge’s ivory bosom as she lay back against it.

Gasping, she threw up a hand to stop Rance. “
Lucan
!”

“Bloody h—!” In one motion, Luc lifted his head from Lucy’s nearly-bare breast and leapt to his feet, shifting to block the view. “Knock, Nish, for God’s sake!”

“Knock?” Anisha stalked toward him. “Knock?
That
is your answer? And Miss Rutledge! Kindly make yourself presentable.”

“I’m p-presentable,” Miss Rutledge cried, obviously tugging at her gown. “Really, I was never n-not presentable. Not
entirely
.” Her voice ending on a hysterical note, she elbowed Luc hard in the thigh. “Oh, Lord Lucan, do
move
!”

Luc moved. Lucy jerked to her feet, blinking against the lamp Rance carried in from the passageway. “Lord Lazonby!” she murmured, curtseying. “I beg your pardon.”

“It is not my pardon you should be begging,” said Rance, his voice tight. “It is your hostess. Your parents. And your cousin, Miss de Rohan, whose evening you’ve nearly ruined. Lucan, you will come with me—and be quick about it.”

Lucy Rutledge set a tremulous hand to her mouth and began to sob.

Chapter 8

My salad days, When I was green in judgment.

William Shakespeare,
Antony and Cleopatra

H
is temper barely in check, Lazonby dragged his quarry from the conservatory and pitched him headlong into the first room he saw—which was, thank God, Higgenthorpe’s thick-walled service pantry. Luc hit the counter, rattling the racks of china.

Resisting the urge to slam the door, Lazonby shut it and shot the bolt, the sound cracking like a rifle in the small room. “Now
what,
” he said, rounding on the boy, “in God’s name did you think you were doing just now?” he roared.

Luc cringed but stood his ground. “Just . . . kissing Lucy,” he said. “She—she didn’t mind.”

“She didn’t
mind
?” Lazonby marched across the narrow room. “What has that to do with anything? Lucan Forsythe, have you any idea the hellfire you’ve just rained down on your own head? Or the shame you’ve caused your sister?”

“We were just
kissing,
” Lucan repeated, looking mulish. “Kissing, I mean—for a while, but—”

“Christ Jesus, Luc, do you think these people are
nothing
?” Lazonby cut him off. “Do you think they’re just simple country folk who’ll let you maul one of their daughters like a ha’penny whore, and throw her back at them again?”

“It—it wasn’t like that!” Luc cried, backing up against the counter. “We just—she just—I lost my head. Rance, that’s all it was. She’s so pretty, and we were bored, and I just thought—”

“You didn’t think, you grass-green fool!” Lazonby roared. “A cockstand cuts off the blood to your brain—good God, has Ruthveyn explained
nothing
to you?”

Anger sketched across Luc’s face. “No, he’s been too busy gallivanting around fixing all the world’s problems.”

“Aye, then, he’s a fool, too,” Lazonby returned. “And speaking of that brain-draining appendage, I trust I have sufficiently withered it by now?”

The rest of Luc’s color drained. “S-Sufficient for what?”

“Sufficient for you to go back in that room, get down on one knee, and do the right thing by Miss Rutledge.”

Luc’s eyes tripled in size. “M-M-Marriage?” he managed. “B-B-But I’m just nineteen.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Lazonby retorted, “legally, and gladly.”

“No. No. I shan’t do it.” Awkwardly, Luc seized the wooden countertop behind him. “You’ve taken leave of your senses.”

Lazonby took a step nearer, clutching his hands behind him lest he give the boy the pummeling he deserved. “Lucan,” he said grimly, “my temper has grown increasingly short with you these past months. You’ve been little more than a trial to your sister. And that, my boy, has just come to an end. Anisha deserves your help, not your hindrance. She has two fatherless children to raise, for God’s sake. And if Ruthveyn cannot take you in hand, rest assured that I have no such scruples.”

At last, Luc hung his head. “I’m bloody damn tired of everyone criticizing me,” he muttered into the floor. “I just wish my mother were alive.”

“Aye, so that she could keep telling you the sun rises and sets in the crack of your arse, I do not doubt,” said Lazonby sourly. “But in spoiling you, she did you no favors, my boy. You are as ordinary as the rest of us, and you will do right by that poor girl. Your brother left you in my keeping and it’s my decision to make.”

Lucan’s head jerked up, his eyes glittering angrily. “Oh, like you’re a candidate for sainthood!” he said. “That’s rich, Rance. Truly.”

Lazonby bit back his first retort and drew a steadying breath. “Whatever I am, Luc, I have never debauched an innocent.”

“And I have never murdered anyone and gone to prison for it,” said Lucan nastily. “Besides, Lucy won’t have me. She doesn’t want to be married.
Ask
her.”

“Oh, trust me, my boy, she’ll want it when her mamma and cold, hard logic seize hold of her,” Lazonby answered. “Do you have any idea who that girl is?”

Lucan shook his head, his golden curls springing out a little wildly now.

“Her uncle is Lord Treyhern, a man you
do not
want to cross,” said Lazonby. “And his brother-in-law, Miss de Rohan’s father, is one of the most dangerous men in the Home Office. As to Lucy’s father, he wrote the book on hellfire. The last two chaps who crossed Bentley Rutledge got bullets for breakfast and didn’t live to complain about it.”

Luc’s throat worked up and down. “I . . . I didn’t know,” he whispered. He forked all his fingers through his mass of golden hair, as if it might stimulate his brain. “God, you’re right. I didn’t think. B-But marriage?”

“Aye, by God, marriage,” said Lazonby grimly. “And your only hope—and I do mean your
only
hope—is that your sister and I can hush this up and that Lucy’s parents will realize you are too damned green to make the chit any sort of husband at all.”

Luc was visibly shaking now.

Lazonby closed the distance between them and set a hand on Luc’s shoulder. “Now, Lucan, my boy, you must think carefully,” he said, his voice hard, but more kind. “You are a little spoiled, yes, but you are a gentleman at heart. In that, I do not doubt you. And this is what a gentleman does when he makes a grave mistake. He owns up to it. He does the right thing. I will stand by you, but it must be done. So go get it over with.”

Head hanging, Lucan went.

Lucy Rutledge was still snuffling on Anisha’s shoulder when they returned. Without preamble, Luc dropped to one knee—more in front of his sister than Lucy.

“M-Miss Rutledge,” he managed, “I fear I let your beauty overwhelm my sense of pr-propriety. Will you do me the honor of becoming Lady Lucan?”

“Oh, I just don’t
know—
!” she sobbed into Anisha’s sari. “Must I? Just for a little kiss? Have I no choice?”

It was on the tip of Lazonby’s tongue to say that it had looked like a good deal more than just a kiss. But Anisha urged her gently away. “Whether you must is up to your parents, Miss Rutledge,” she said, looking the girl straight in the eyes. “But you are a lovely young woman. We would all of us welcome you into our family.”

“Lucy,” said Lucan, his voice withering to a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

But Lazonby could not escape the notion that all Lucan was sorry about was the fact that he’d been caught. Still, he cleared his throat and smiled. “Well done, all!” he said, as cheerfully as he could. “Now let’s have no more tears, Miss Rutledge. Go back into the drawing room and kiss your cousin’s cheek. This is her night. Then, tomorrow morning, Lucan will call upon your mother and settle this business.”

At last, Lucy turned to look at Lucan. “Will you?” she asked pitifully.

Lucan opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His hair looked like a wild, golden halo now, and his shirttail was half out of his trousers.

“He will,” said Lazonby. “And I suggest, Miss Rutledge, you prepare her.”

A
nisha returned to the withdrawing room, her heart in her throat. She could feel herself trembling inside. She tried to control her breath, tried to still her mind and take herself to a calmer place, but for once it was no use. She had to fist her hands to keep from flying at Luc with her nails. And, truth be told, she wanted to rail at her elder brother, too.

She had come here in large part for Luc’s sake. She had believed Raju could tame the boy and turn his life around. But things had only gone from bad to worse with his incessant gaming and carousing. The extravagant bills. The flagrant flirtations. Luc’s behavior toward Grace during her early days as governess had been especially egregious, once even compelling the poor girl to jab him with a fork under the dinner table.

And now this—potential social humiliation for all of them—when Anisha had meant only to do the right thing.

Inside the withdrawing room, however, social humiliation did not seem especially imminent. Everyone had crowded, laughing, all around the sofas, and chaos seemed at hand. Miss de Rohan was leading the guests in a game, of all things, and lumbering about with one hand curled like a snout, and the other twitching behind like a tail while everyone shouted wildly.

“Good God, charades?” Lucan muttered.

“Horse!” Rance shouted, nonchalantly resuming his position by the hearth.

“Elephant!” cried Lady Emelyn. “Lord Lazonby, isn’t she an elephant?”

“No, she’s an anteater,” Geoff declared.

“An
anteater
?” Lady Madeleine turned to look at him incredulously. “After all we spent on your education?”

“I should have guessed aardvark,” Chip Rutledge drawled.

Still trundling awkwardly about, Miss de Rohan grunted.

“Pig!” screeched Lady Emelyn.

“Yes, pig! Pig!” someone shouted.

“Oh, foul!” declared Mrs. Rutledge, keeping one eye on Lucy. “You cannot make sounds, Anaïs! That’s cheating.”

“Cheat! Cheat!” Chip shouted. “Anaïs always cheats.”

Miss de Rohan smacked Chip hard on the back of the head, then fell onto the sofa beside her Aunt Treyhern, laughing hysterically.

“
Ça alors!
We have descended into absurdity!” declared Lady Treyhern, shoving her off. “Get up, you buffoons. We must go home before we humiliate ourselves in front of everyone, especially Lady Anisha and her brother, who have been so very hospitable to us.”

The lady’s graciousness made Anisha only feel worse. Within ten minutes, however, only Miss de Rohan, Geoff, and Rance remained, Lucan having at last slunk upstairs to lick his wounds, and Higgenthorpe having gone to bed at Anisha’s insistence.

As the last of the Gloucestershire guests climbed into their carriages, Anisha closed the front door and fell back against it, exhausted. She yearned for her quiet space and her comfortable clothes; wanted to sit and focus solely on her
pranayama,
purging her mind of these last hours.

In the entrance hall, Geoff cut a sidelong glance at his bride-to-be. “Well,” he said quietly, “do the three of you want to let me in on this? Or is it better if I know nothing? And by the way, Nish, if you’ve a picture gallery in this house, I’d like to know where.”

Miss de Rohan rolled her eyes. “You must excuse my cousin Lucy,” she said. “She has never had much luck remembering that prayer book bit about ‘leading not into temptation.’ ”

Geoff smiled wanly. “I suspected as much when you began carrying on like a lunatic to distract everyone,” he said.

Miss de Rohan blinked. “To distract everyone?” she said innocently. “I beg your pardon, my love. I adore charades. Indeed, I could play it every night of the week.”

“And all that berating your kin over their poor skills?” he murmured, staring down at her. “Cheating? Going out of turn? Flailing at one another? Nothing unusual in any of it, eh?”

“Indeed, we are a happy, boisterous family,” said Miss de Rohan, stifling a yawn with one hand. “
And
we play to win. Besides, it’s too late to buck up about now, Bessett. You proposed too quickly, and you know what they say—marry in haste, repent at leisure.”

“
Hmm,
” said Geoff. “We shall see who does the repenting in this marriage.”

At that Rance guffawed. “I can place my wager on that one now.”

Unperturbed as always, Geoff leaned into Anisha and kissed her cheek. “Thank you so much, Nish, for this evening. It was lovely.”

Anisha felt a smile curl her mouth. “I believe I should thank Miss de Rohan,” she said. “That was quite a set of countermeasures, my dear. I think almost no one realized my brother was busy attempting to debauch your cousin.”

Miss de Rohan patted her on the arm. “Oh, don’t fret over Lucy,” she said. “She’s like a cat, and always lands on her feet.”

“Regardless,” said Rance, “Lord Lucan will wait upon your aunt tomorrow to grovel deeply. I’ll send word to Ruthveyn as soon as the date is fixed.”

But Miss de Rohan’s eyes turned to saucers. “As soon as the date is fixed?” she echoed. “Oh, no. Lucy would just run off with a traveling circus—
not,
of course, that Lord Lucan isn’t a lovely young man.”

Anisha felt a stirring of hope amongst the ashes. “You imagine the Rutledges will refuse Lucan’s suit?” she asked. “I vow, I do believe they are both too young and too selfish to marry happily.”

“Practically speaking, we’ll all lay low and see if scandal bubbles up,” Miss de Rohan predicted. “If not, Lucy will be put back on a tight leash, or sent off to wait hand and foot on some elderly cousin for a few months, and that will be the end of it. Oh—wait, I almost forgot.” Snapping open the beaded reticule that swung from her wrist, she extracted a fold of paper and pressed it into Rance’s hand.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“A name,” she said. “One of my father’s most trusted—well, no, most
knowledgeable
—associates.”

“And?” said Rance, tucking the paper away.