The Marriage Trap (10 page)

Jack nodded. “I remember reading about it. The murder happened, what, two weeks ago? Why have they taken so long to bring it to your notice?”

The ambassador shrugged. “I got the impression that they have more important cases to solve, and actresses don't rate as highly as sober-minded, industrious French citizens. I, of course, have no authority over the French police. It's only because Robbie is a British subject that they told me anything at all.”

Jack was puzzled. “Why do they suspect him? There's nothing unusual in young men making fools of themselves over opera dancers and actresses. I did my share of fawning when I was a stripling. It doesn't mean anything.”

“Ah, but this
is
unusual. You see, out of legions of admirers, Mlle. Daudet chose him, a young, penniless Englishman, to be her lover. He was there at the theater every evening. Their affair was no secret.”

“You must be joking!” Jack exclaimed. “I read the papers. Louise Daudet was at the peak of her profession. She was greatly sought after. Why would she take a callow youth to be her lover?”

Sir Charles shrugged. “Who can say? At any rate, her interest did not last long. She told her manager that she was retiring from the theater and was going to live abroad. He did everything he could to make her change her mind, but she would not budge. When he asked her whether she was going off with Brans-Hill, she laughed at him. Someone else had replaced Robbie in her affections, some older man, but she wouldn't say who.”

“And the authorities think that the boy found out and killed her in a fit of jealousy? I can't believe it! What does he have to say?”

Sir Charles shrugged again. “He cannot be found. What is known is that the day following the murder, Robbie was treated by a doctor at one of the local hospitals for a knife wound that he claimed he had sustained in a brawl. Hear me out, there's more to tell. What looks bad for him is that Mlle. Daudet seems to have put up a fight before she was stabbed to death. A chair was overturned; there was blood on the wall. No knife was found, so the murderer must have taken it with him.”

“That means nothing,” said Jack. “That doesn't place Robbie at the scene of the crime.”

“I know, but what is damning is that he seems to have gone into hiding.”

Jack considered for a moment, then said, “Wouldn't he go to Ellie for help?”

“More than likely, but she is not here and cannot be questioned.”

“What about Cardvale? Would Robbie turn to him?”

Sir Charles replied dryly, “I see you have not followed the history of the young Brans-Hills since their father died. Cardvale is all right in his way, but his wife is a Tartar. She was no sooner married to Cardvale than she practically turned them out of the house. There's no love lost there, so you see, Robbie might well become the prime suspect in the burglary of the Cardvale diamonds, as well. So far, the authorities don't know of his connection to Ellie, but if it becomes known, you can see how they will add things up, and she may be incriminated, too.”

Everything within Jack rejected this line of reasoning. Certainly there was a mystery here that was more complex than he had first realized, but nothing would convince him that the girl he knew in that long-ago summer could be involved in a criminal act.

The ambassador went on, “You are no doubt wondering why I am telling you all this. Well, the fact of the matter is, I think Robbie did turn to Ellie for help. I think she spirited him out of harm's way when she left Paris. They'll be in England now, friendless and alone. My responsibilities keep me here, or I would go to them.”

A sinking feeling settled in the pit of Jack's stomach. He knew where this was leading. The ambassador wanted him to take both Ellie and Robbie under his protection when he returned home. This was far more involved than he'd anticipated. It was no longer a simple case of looking up a woman he hardly knew.

He leaned forward slightly in his chair. “What is the legal position?” he said. “Can Robbie be forced to return to France to stand trial if it comes to that?”

“It's quite possible, especially in these sensitive times when we are trying to prove to the French that we are their friends.”

“But he is a British subject. Doesn't that make a difference?”

“I know what you're thinking, that Wellington is commander of the army here and can decide Robbie's fate. But whether he will choose to intervene is debatable. All that aside, the boy cannot go through life with this infamy hanging over his head. He must clear his name.”

Sir Charles set down his glass and rested his linked fingers on the flat of his desk. “Don't look so bleak. There are other suspects besides Robbie—Louise Daudet's other lover, for instance, the one who wanted to take her abroad. There is also her dresser, a young woman named Rosa, who, like Robbie, has disappeared without a trace. There may be others. All the same, it seems to me that Bertier—he is the chief of police—has already made up his mind that the lad is guilty. I don't see him exerting himself to chase down the other suspects. However, I have my own corps of men who can investigate the case—discreetly, of course. But I need to know what only Robbie can tell me. I need someone to question him, someone who knows the family well, someone like you, Jack.”

“Easier said than done,” replied Jack. “And with all due respect, sir, I don't think you understand how things were left between Ellie and me.”

“Indeed?” Sir Charles sat back in his chair. The warmth in his smile had faded. “I understood you were coming here today to get her direction so that you could make your peace with her.”

There was only one person who could have told the ambassador that, and that was Ash. “Lord Denison was here?”

“To take his leave of me before he returned to England. He has only just left.”

Sir Charles got up. “However, if I'm asking too much of you—”

“Sit down, Sir Charles!” Jack rudely ordered.

There was a silence, then Sir Charles obeyed. “Yes,” he said, “you feel the obligation as keenly as I do, don't you, Jack? Austen Brans-Hill and his wife Mariah were exceptional people. We can dismiss them by saying they were too unworldly to be of earthly use, but we know better.”

Jack's tone was dry. “It was a privilege to know them, I'll give you that.”

“They touched many lives for good.”

“As I am well aware.”

“Were it not for Dr. Austen Brans-Hill, I would never have made anything of my life. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you could say the same.”

Jack ignored the bait. “Just tell me,” he said, “where I can find Ellie and what you want me to do.”

In his rooms at the Palais Royal, Jack stood at the window that overlooked the courtyard. It was well past midnight, but there was still a throng of pedestrians below his window, coming and going, pleasure-seekers for the most part. The trouble with pleasure was that it was fleeting. There had to be more in life.

He made a small sound of self-mockery and, with glass of brandy in hand, ambled over to the chair in front of the fire. He was allowing Sir Charles's flowery eulogy of Dr. Brans-Hill to color his thinking. It made him wonder what the good vicar had done for Sir Charles to earn such high praise.

His own case was different. He'd failed his examinations. The good vicar had tutored him, then he'd passed with flying colors. There was nothing unusual in that. It happened to many young men at university.

Except in his case, passing his examinations had been a turning point. After that, there was no holding him back. Not that he had the makings of a scholar. It was something inside him that changed. He expected to succeed when he set his mind to something, and he did.

Dr. Brans-Hill had told him how it would be.

Yes, he felt the obligation, though not perhaps as strongly as Sir Charles. Now Robbie was the same age as he had been when he'd come under the vicar's influence. Who was there to influence Robbie? Who would look out for the boy's interests?

Ellie?

Himself?

He didn't think he was up to it, but if he didn't do it, no one else would.

London

Lord Cardvale was wishing that he'd ignored his wife's summons and escaped to his club. Her lovely features had hardened unpleasantly as she studied her reflection in her dressing-table mirror.

“When I told you,” she said, “to rent a house in town, naturally I was thinking of Mayfair. Hans Town is home to lawyers and doctors and people of that class. I'd be ashamed to have my friends call on me here. The house is too small. The upholstery is shabby. As for the furniture, it belongs in a museum. Have you no taste, Cardvale?”

He replied mildly, “This was the best my man of business could find at such short notice. And it's only for another month, until the workmen are finished with our own house.” The dull ache behind his eyes became more intense. “There was no pressing need to come home. We should have stayed in Paris until the house was ready.”

She threw down her comb and swiveled to face him. “We couldn't stay and you know why. We became laughingstocks. My diamonds gone! And my betrothal ring! We know who the thief was, but did you take steps to have her arrested? Oh no. Your cousin Elinor can do no wrong.”

“She had an alibi! Raleigh vouched for her. The authorities were satisfied.”

“Well, I'm not satisfied!”

She pushed to her feet and stood before him, a beautiful woman, he conceded, but one who left him unmoved. That was the source of all their problems. They'd married for the usual reasons, he because he had a duty to his House, and she because she wanted security and a position in society. Neither was satisfied with the result.

He touched his fingers to his furrowed brow. “What are you saying, that you don't accept Raleigh's word?”

“I'm saying that your cousin may have had an accomplice. What if someone else stole the necklace and hid it where she could find it?”

“The hotel was searched and nothing was found.”

“That doesn't mean anything. Maybe the search wasn't thorough. What we
should
have done was search Ellie's boxes before she left that last morning. Instead”—she threw him a withering look, then sat down at her dressing table and turned her back on him—“you gave her a purse stuffed with gold coins.”

“It's the least I could do. She
is
my kinswoman.”

“And I am your wife. Your first loyalty should be to me.”

It seemed pointless to argue the merits of Ellie's character, that he'd known her all her life and knew she was innocent, so he merely remarked that he didn't know why she should bring this up now.

“I'll tell you why.” Her eyes glowed with triumph. “I know something now that I didn't know then. Your other precious cousin, Robert, was in Paris at the same time. Ellie never mentioned it to Lady Sedgewick. Don't you think that's odd?”

“Who told you about Robbie?”

“Lady Sedgewick. I met her by chance the other day in Bond Street. They left Paris shortly after we did, and for the same reasons. They couldn't go anywhere but they were besieged by people asking them questions about the theft.” Her quick smile was edged with malice. “Lady Sedgewick was telling me about her friend, Mrs. Dailey, whose nephew was in Paris recently with a friend. She asked Lady Sedgewick whether their paths had crossed. The nephew's name is Milton and his friend's name
is—can you guess?—Robbie Brans-Hill! Of course, Lady Sedgewick had not met them, but she distinctly remembers Ellie saying that her brother was in Oxford at the time.”

He was amused. “Young men don't go to Paris to mingle with their mother's friends. And I'd be surprised if Ellie knew Robbie was there. She would have sent him straight back to Oxford.”

“I disagree. I think it adds weight to my suspicions. Robbie and Ellie could have been in this together.”

He rarely lost his temper with her, and not only because he didn't like scenes. He was indifferent, and that made him immune to both her dislike and her temper tantrums, but this attack on Ellie was going too far.

In a voice that left her in no doubt of his resolve, he said, “I'd advise you to keep your suspicions to yourself. I mean it, Dorothea. If I hear one word from anyone about Robbie and Ellie being behind the thefts, we shall leave London at once and spend the season at Broadview.”

Satisfied that he'd made his point, he walked to the door. “Don't expect me for dinner,” he remarked casually, as though there had been no harsh words between them. “I'll dine at my club.”

She waited until she heard his steps recede along the corridor before she vented her temper. Her silver brush was at hand. She reached for it and threw it hard against the wall. From the corner of her eye, she caught her reflection in the mirror. She hardly recognized herself—the hard eyes, the shrewish set to her mouth and features. This was what marriage to a man like Cardvale could do to a woman.

She'd learned the trick of mastering her emotions. All she had to do was bring past triumphs to mind. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts wander. The happiest day of her life was the day she had married Cardvale, not because she was wildly in love with him, but because she was the envy of her peers. It wasn't every day that a country squire's daughter ensnared an earl. She'd achieved everything she'd ever wanted—a position in society, a husband who gave her a free hand, and all the luxuries that came with marriage to a wealthy man.

Her little exercise wasn't working. The tension was still tight across her shoulders. Her neck was stiff. If she opened her eyes and gazed at her reflection, the same discontented woman would stare back at her.

She felt betrayed, displaced by Ellie Brans-Hill. Cardvale would not hear a word against his dear cousin. What did people see in her? She was a frump. She was eccentric. And she was a deceiving witch.

Vicar's daughter be damned! She was a born actress. Aurora. What decent woman would tart herself up and go gallivanting in the Palais Royal? A clever woman. She had almost snared herself a rich husband.

Even as a bride, she'd had to put up with Cardvale's cousins. He'd taken them into his own home before he married. She'd clothed them, fed them, provided for all their needs. No one could say that she had not done her duty. And what thanks had she got? None whatsoever. Ellie had soon come to see that there could not be two mistresses in Cardvale's house, so she had left with her crest lowered.

He wasn't the same man she had married. Once, he'd been putty in her hands, now, he was revealing a core of steel she hadn't known existed.

Perhaps if she'd had a child things would have been different. Her hold over him would have been absolute. But she had never wanted children and had taken steps to make sure that she never had any. Now he never came to her bed, and it was too late to change her mind.

The thought of children made her shudder. Her own mother had borne eight children, and she wouldn't wish that on any woman. Mama was old before her time. When she was in the family way, she couldn't go anywhere, couldn't receive visitors. She'd lost interest in her looks and in her life outside the walls of her own little domain. Her children grew up despising her.

No. The lack of children was not something she regretted. What she regretted was befriending a conniving young woman who had managed to turn her husband against her. Ellie Brans-Hill had been a thorn in her side from the start.

She thought about Ellie for a long time. Gradually, the knot of tension across her shoulders relaxed.

When she had finished with Ellie, Cardvale would despise his cousin. No one would have a good word to say about her. At last, people would know her for what she was. Her eyes glittered in anticipation of Ellie's downfall, and not only Ellie's, but her brother's as well.

But before that happened, she had things to do, plans to make.

She'd learned more about Cousin Ellie than she'd told Cardvale. Ellie had lodgings somewhere in the district of Marylebone. But Robbie's whereabouts remained a mystery.

On that thought, she got up and walked to the bellpull.

The young maid who answered the summons was small and slender. Her color was dark and her eyes oddly blank. Cardvale had brought Morri into their home when he found her half-starved and roaming the countryside. She was slow-witted and spoke little. Cardvale suspected that she'd escaped either from the workhouse or from a cruel master, and hoped to place her in service in a suitable home. However, when Dorothea discovered that her credit had risen considerably among her acquaintances because she'd given a home to a half-wit, she'd kept the girl on.

Morri's duties were not onerous. She fetched and carried for her mistress. She ran errands. Her most valuable asset, in Dorothea's eyes, was that Morri served her with slavelike devotion.

“How nice you look in your uniform, Morri.” Dorothea's smile was warm and inviting, the gracious mistress. It had taken some persuading to get Morri into a bath and away from the rags she wore. “I told you that you would get used to it in time and I was right.”

Morri's eyes warmed a little and she dipped a curtsy. “Yes, ma'am.”

“Are the other servants treating you well?”

The maid bobbed her head.

“Good. Good.” Dorothea lowered her voice. “Has his lordship left the house?”

“Yes, madam.”

Dorothea smiled encouragingly. “You know Mr. Derby, don't you, Lord Cardvale's man of business?”

Morri nodded.

“I want you to tell me when he comes in. But don't tell the other servants I want to see him. It's our secret, Morri, yours and mine. Understood?”

Morri's eyes glowed. She loved secrets. “I won't say anything.”

“Good girl. I knew I could count on you.”

Five minutes later, Morri returned. “Mr. Derby is in his office,” she whispered.

Dorothea allowed another five minutes to pass before she left her dressing room.

Paul Derby was young for the responsible position he held, only in his mid-twenties, and had stepped into the job when it was vacated on his father's death. The elder Derby had been a slow, plodding fellow and cautions to a degree. Paul was the opposite. He was ambitious and eager to advance his career.

His rise to power was matched by an equal decline in his regard for his master. In Derby's opinion, Cardvale was incompetent not only as a master of a large estate but also in his role as a husband.

Since all Derby's actions were governed by self-interest, he had cultivated the favor of the real master of the house, Lady Cardvale. In the last several months they had become lovers.

His temporary office in this rented house was at the back, a small room that was not much bigger than a broom closet. There was a desk, two chairs, and a stack of ledgers on the floor. His sleeping quarters, until the house in Cavendish Square was ready, were with the servants in the attics, which made it difficult for the lovers to carry on their affair—difficult, but not impossible for two determined people.

“Paul,” said Dorothea as she entered his office, “I want to talk to you about the renovations to the Mayfair house.”

“Yes, your ladyship.”

The bold, crooked grin made her breath quicken. “Shut the door,” she said.

He did as she asked, then turned to face her, his bold eyes raking over her.

Now that no one could hear them, she dropped the pretense of discussing renovations. “I've learned,” she said, “that Cousin Ellie has taken lodgings somewhere in Marylebone. If we find her, she'll lead us to her brother.”

She did not bother to elaborate. He wasn't stupid. He knew what to do.

He nodded slowly. “Leave it to me.”

She trembled in sudden arousal. Here was a man who knew how to be a man. She sensed danger, power, and a will to match her own. He didn't disappoint her. He locked the door.

His hands dragged her skirts up to her thighs. His voice was low and thick. “I can't think when you look at me like that.”

“Then don't think.” She held his head steady with both hands and nipped his bottom lip with her sharp teeth.

When she released his lip, he said hoarsely, “What about your husband?”

“Morri will tell me when he comes in. Don't worry, Paul. I've thought of everything.”