The Handbook to Handling His Lordship (14 page)

“Yes he was. We’re not nobodies. Even if we were, we wouldn’t be. No one should speak to anyone like that.”

“That’s very progressive-minded of you. Don’t let any of our new peers hear you say that, or they’ll dislike you more than they do me.”

“I don’t see the bloody reason for encouraging them to discount you,” Nate retorted. “Do you mean to spend the remainder of your life taking coins you don’t need so you can find baubles they don’t need? You’re better than most of them. For God’s sake, you risked your life for nearly ten years for them.”

“Not for them,” Nate countered. “For you.” He cleared his throat as he caught his brother staring at him. “Now. Would you and Dandelion care to take a turn about Hyde Park? Or would y—”

“Dragon,” his brother interrupted. “If we’re all assuming the identities we choose, my damned horse wishes to be called Dragon.”

Nate chuckled. “Fair enough. Blue and I will race you to the Serpentine.”

“You and Blue will lose.”

He and Blue didn’t lose, but it was a near thing. After an hour of riding about and pretending to be absentminded to half of Society’s daughters and sisters who’d decided to drive carriages through the park, however, he’d begun to feel decidedly less victorious. Laurence showed well, though, all charm and warm wits, so he supposed that was worth something. If there had been any justice in the world, Laurie would have been the one to become the Earl of Westfall, and he might have been left to do as he pleased.

As they chatted with all the young ladies he kept a closer eye on their companions, or the governesses of any younger sisters they’d dragged into London for the Season. None of them came even remotely close to Ebberling’s description of Rachel Newbury. And as usual when he contemplated Miss Newbury, the portrait in his mind was that of Emily Portsman.

It didn’t seem at all likely that he would have found his quarry on his first attempt, but odder things had happened. And she had found him as much as he’d found her. After all, if she hadn’t approached the table again after seating them, he likely wouldn’t have looked at her twice. Not to begin with, anyway. But she had, and she’d made a point of seducing him and then asking all sorts of leading questions that only meant something if he happened to be of a suspicious nature, which he was.

Three days ago she’d told him to go away, but that hadn’t stopped him from thinking about her, from attempting to puzzle her out. To himself he could admit that it wasn’t only Ebberling’s task that kept him conjuring her, however. Because even if the sex had been a means to rattle his tongue or his brain loose, the act itself had been exceedingly arousing. He still wished to repeat it.

But he’d looked straight at her, gazed at her sharply, in fact, and she’d noticed that he hadn’t been wearing his bloody spectacles. And he’d been so surprised that she’d noticed, that he hadn’t said anything artful or amusing or sarcastic. He’d just looked at her stupidly until she walked out her door and closed it. And then one of those large Helpful Men had appeared, waiting until he dressed himself and then following him out to the public area of the club.

He’d felt like—he’d felt embarrassed. Certainly he’d done half-witted things before in his life, but during the past ten years they’d all been intentional. They’d lured someone into trusting him, or believing him capable of being duped—usually to that person’s detriment. This time he’d simply stumbled, and in the presence of a chit he liked. Of a lady who’d outsmarted him.

“Laurie, your friend Marty Gayle. Do you know the uncle with the membership to The Tantalus Club?” he asked abruptly.

“Not well. I’ve said hello to him when he came to visit Marty at Oxford, but nothing more than that. Why?”

“Could you convince him to take you to the Tantalus?”

Laurie drew Dragon to a halt. “Why?”

Nathaniel frowned. The only thing worse than being a fool was having to admit to it. “I may have stumbled somewhat. Miss Portsman—I think she realized that I’m looking for someone.”

“
You
stumbled.” Laurence stared at him, incredulity warring with amusement on his face. “You.”

“Yes. I only want to know what is said when you ask after her. Will you do that for m—”

“Just a moment. I’m savoring.” Furrowing his brow, his brother glanced in the direction of Carlton House at the edge of Hyde Park. “Oh, thank God. I thought the monarchy might have fallen because you admitted to making a mistake.”

Well, that was enough of that. Nathaniel kicked Blue in the ribs, urging the big gelding out of the park and back toward Teryl House. He still couldn’t quite bring himself to think of the large white building as home; he’d grown up outside London in much smaller accommodations, after all. At least he was becoming accustomed to it. Much as Miss Newbury had likely become accustomed to her new surroundings, her new means of employment, her new name, her new hair, and whatever else she’d taken up to protect herself.

A moment later Laurie caught up to him. “I’m not apologizing for gloating,” his brother commented, “but I’ll cease doing it if you’ll agree to stop getting your pantaloons in a twist.”

“I’ll agree if you’ll stop suggesting that I wear pantaloons.”

Laurence grinned. “Agreed. You almost sounded human there for a moment. I liked it.”

“Surely I’m not that bad.”

“Yes you are.” His brother rolled his shoulders. “So you think Miss Portsman is this Miss Newbury? That’s why you want to know about her?”

“I’m not certain yet.”

“But you think she might be. That’s cold-blooded, Nate.” Laurie’s smile faded. “You took her to bed. Did you do it just to get information?”

“Laurie…” Nathaniel trailed off. The chasm between imaginings about being a spy and actually being one was very wide and deep and full of sharpened stakes to murder the unwary. If he wanted Laurence well clear of his own path he could merely keep his mouth shut and let his brother draw his own conclusions. But he didn’t quite feel up to being painted as more of a monster than he actually was. Not today, anyway. “I allowed her to drag me to her bed because I wanted her,” he said quietly. “And I still do, which is troublesome because now I suspect her.”

“God’s sake, Nate. You
are
human. That’s frightening.”

“A moment ago you liked it.”

“Yes, but now you’re admitting truths to me. It’s a great deal to adjust to, all at once.”

Nathaniel mustered a smile at that. “Oh, shut up.”

“That’s better.”

The moment he stepped into the foyer of Teryl House, the butler held out a silver salver piled high with cards and invitations and notes and letters. “These arrived while you were out, my lord.”

“I was only gone for two damned hours, Garvey.”

“Yes, my lord. It was quite a busy morning. Several of them are for Master Laurence, however.”

“That’s something, anyway.” Evidently the Season had struck with a vengeance, and he no longer had the excuse of being in mourning for his cousin, or even of being new to the machinations of the London elite.

He took the stack of papers and flipped through it, handing Laurie the missives meant for him. “Your schoolmates, I assume?”

“I asked Rawley to keep me apprised of studies and to copy over his lecture notes for me, so I wouldn’t fall behind,” his brother returned. “I’ll have to charm my way into making up the exams, but at least I won’t have missed much before the term’s end.”

For a moment Nate gazed at his younger brother. He was so accustomed to excluding him from his own life that he’d forgotten that also meant missing out on Laurie’s. “You may be less frivolous than I previously believed,” he finally said.

“Yes, well, not entirely.” His brother had the good grace to blush. “I did have that chit in my room.”

This time Nathaniel sighed. “I suppose all I can ask is that you not repeat your mistakes.”

“You know, brother, if you surprise me one more time today you may give me an apoplexy. I’m going upstairs to attempt to decipher Rawley’s hen scratchings before that happens.”

Nate barely heard that last part of his brother’s comments. His attention was on the folded note toward the bottom of the stack. The return address at the top read only “The Tantalus Club,” while whoever had sent it had written only “Westfall” across the front, in a large, elegant hand.

“Thank you,” he said absently, turning his back on the butler and making for his office. He didn’t know why he bothered to pretend even for a heartbeat that he didn’t know who had sent it; no one else at the Tantalus would refer to him only by his title, without bothering to list the house where he resided or even the street on which it sat.

The question was, did the note state that he’d been banned from the club? Not wearing spectacles seemed a hugely minor infraction. In fact, it would mean that he had indeed found Rachel Newbury. And now he was hesitating to open the missive, damn it all. “Stop it,” he said aloud, as he sat behind the large mahogany desk.

What did it matter if he wanted to be wrong? Either he was correct and he’d spooked Portsman into revealing her true identity, or he wasn’t and he hadn’t. And staring at the bloody note without opening it wasn’t doing anything but make his head ache.

Growling, he pulled off his spectacles and set them aside, then broke the plain wax seal and unfolded the note. And blinked as he read the salutation. Perhaps he did need spectacles, after all, because this was not at all what he’d expected. “Dear stupid man,” he read to himself again, hearing Emily’s voice in his head, “Clearly you have never had a tiff with a lover before. If we are indeed finished, please return this note to me with a large
X
through my text so that you will not have to lower yourself to write any words to a Tantalus girl and I will know what’s what. Otherwise, I realized after I stalked off that I would indeed like to go for a drive with you, so you may fetch me at three o’clock this afternoon. Portsman.”

After a long moment Nate sat back in his chair. Perhaps he was wrong, after all. If so, in her own right Emily Portsman was a warm, witty, lovely young lady. If he was correct, then Rachel Newbury was absolutely remarkable, and he was in the middle of quite possibly the most interesting hunt of his life. Either way, it seemed he would be going for a drive at three o’clock this afternoon.

“Absolutely bloody remarkable,” he muttered. And then he laughed. He
had
discovered one thing about Portsman. If she was truly Rachel Newbury, then she wasn’t a murderer. No one short of a monster could be a murderer and play the game as she did—and Emily Portsman was no monster.

So instead of finding answers, he’d found more questions. And because the one thing he’d apparently discovered was that he’d begun to like Portsman a great deal—both in and out of bed—he had an even more pressing need to discover what, precisely, was afoot. The sooner, the better.

Chapter Eight

“Don’t hang about me, Grace,” Emily said, edging a few inches away from the Tantalus daytime butleress. “You’re making me nervous.”

“But you’re going outside,” Miss Davenport whispered, then had to walk forward to open the front door and admit Lord Duncanell and his twin sons. “Good afternoon, my lord,” she said with the smile that had garnered her a dozen proposals, three of them for marriage.

Yes, she was going outside, Emily reflected, not that she needed anyone else to remind her of the rarity of that deed. On occasion she’d ventured out to the lovely garden on the club’s grounds, but even those high walls had a gate—two gates—and that left her feeling distinctly vulnerable.

Of course today she would be leaving the grounds utterly, and in the care and company of the very man who might well drive her directly to Lord Ebberling. She shivered. Jenny Martine had given her two very vital pieces of advice, and she meant to make use of both of them. She’d said that Westfall would require proof before he acted, and she’d pointed out that only the guilty and the frightened hid behind stone walls.

She shrugged closer into her light blue shawl, then tugged the brim of her blue bonnet forward as far as she could. It wasn’t about hiding, she told herself. It was about being protected from the sun. That was to be her lie, after all, that she and the sun did not agree.

Grace returned to her side. “Are you certain you wish to go alone?” the butleress asked in that low, conspiratorial tone she’d been using since Emily had arrived in the foyer. “Lucille isn’t working this afternoon.”

“No,” Emily returned, too quickly. The last thing she needed was for Lucille and her wagging tongue and her jealousy over Westfall to accompany them on their drive. “I’ll be perfectly fine, Grace. It’s not as if I require a chaperone, for heaven’s sake.” She forced a smile. “And you have to admit, Lord Westfall is worth the risk of a skin rash.”

“He looks well enough,” her friend agreed, “but he seems rather dull to me.” A smile touched her own mouth. “I suppose the trick is to keep him too occupied for conversation.”

That would indeed be the trick, Emily reflected, if she could couple it with keeping him from thinking, as well. “Oh, I excel at that,” she said aloud, chuckling.

“You are so naughty,” Grace whispered, then moved away again as another shadow showed through the window by the front doors.

This time it was the Earl of Westfall who stepped into the foyer. From the dim corner she watched him for a handful of seconds as he spoke with Grace, all the while fiddling with his cane and his spectacles. Every ounce of him bespoke a mild, learned man—every ounce but his lean, fit body and the eyes behind those spectacles.

Jenny had named him a spy in the employ of the Duke of Wellington. Most would never know that, or even suspect it, but Genevieve Martine wasn’t most people. And neither was she, and neither was Nathaniel Stokes. His gaze found her, and he smiled, the expression rendering him even more sharply handsome.

“You said three o’clock, Portsman,” he commented, doffing his hat.

“And here I am. Shall we?”

For a moment he tilted his head, gazing at her. “You’re certain you wish to go with me?”

Was he offering her a way out? Or warning her that if she left, she wouldn’t be returning to the Tantalus? But only guilty or frightened people hid, and as far as he was concerned, she would be neither of those things. Emily grinned. “It isn’t you that troubles me,” she returned, straightening her wrap and walking forward. “It’s the sun. And it does seem to be rather hidden this afternoon.”