The Scandalous Life of a True Lady (35 page)

He went when Harry explained that more of his hand-picked intelligence officers were less than fifteen minutes away, in Griffin Woods, for just such emergencies. They had riders to carry messages, armed men to keep England safe.

When Daniel returned, the party was louder. Daniel’s blonde was draped around the defrocked vicar like a clerical collar. Spenser was in the card room. His mistress, Miss Hanson, was sitting at the pianoforte in the music room, entertaining a baritone from the opera.

“Where’s Fordyce?” Daniel asked Harry.

“He looked into Gorham’s library, according to the footman guarding the safe. Then he asked if I had been here in Richmond the entire time.”

“This damned plot is about you?”

“The threads are connected perhaps.”

“I say we bash his head in and be done with it.”

“Not yet. Besides, a dead man won’t give answers. He’ll be followed wherever he goes. We have to deal with Spenser first.”

“Don’t look at me. I won’t do it. I told you, I hated acting like a brute, shaking the truth out of prisoners. You get Rex to come interrogate the dirty dish.”

Simone was looking from one to the other, wondering what they were talking about. “What does it matter who does the asking? He won’t admit he’s a traitor anyway.”

Harry put another strawberry in her mouth, then wiped the drip of red from her lips. Daniel sighed and said he’d go.

Daniel’s reputation for being one of the Army’s dreaded Inquisitors preceded him. Spenser refused to go apart with the much larger man. So Sir Chauncey spilled his wine glass in the banker’s lap. Sopping wet, he had to leave the card room.

Daniel had him out in the garden almost before his feet touched the ground, where Harry had two soldiers in uniform waiting behind a wall of shrubs. He and Simone stayed on the terrace.

“Shouldn’t you be helping?” she asked.

“What, Harry Harmon dirty his hands with political intrigue? Never.”

Daniel came back smiling. “The fellow pulled a knife on me.”

Simone rushed out of Harry’s arms to turn Daniel’s face to the lantern light so she could see he was all right.

He smiled at her concern, but gave her a look of disbelief for doubting his prowess. “It was a little knife.” He rubbed his knuckles. “Sorry about your questions, Harry. He won’t be answering any time soon. Weak jaw, don’t you know. The soldiers are taking him back to their camp.”

“That’s fine as long as Fordyce doesn’t know he’s not getting paid for whatever he’s hired to do.”

“Most likely to kill you,” Daniel said cheerfully.

Simone gasped.

Harry frowned at Daniel for frightening her. “He won’t get the chance, my dear. I’m here, remember. Thanks to you, everyone in London knows exactly where I am.” He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her.

Daniel shook his head and wandered off. “Love. Bah! They better have some of those oysters left. And an opera dancer for dessert.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Many hours later, after showing the crowd that they were still there, and showing the gentlemen that they had no chance with Miss Royale, Harry finally led Simone up to their room.

Dawn was almost breaking, but Simone still wanted to know the surprise.

Harry was ready for sleep. “Now? But you won the dance contest.”

“We won. Tell me anyway. I was a help tonight, wasn’t I? They were speaking Spanish, you know. Not every female could have translated for you.”

“You mentioned that before. Twice. Yes, you were invaluable. Spotting Fordyce, overhearing the conversation, knowing Spanish.” He rolled over, on his side of the bed, the dog between them. “In fact, if you hadn’t sought a new career, we’d never have known Fordyce existed.”

“Amazing, isn’t it? If I hadn’t lost my last position, I never would have met you.”

“Amazing.” He fluffed up his pillow. “Fate. Luck. Magic. Good night.”

She ordered the dog off the bed and rolled close enough to breathe in his ear. “Harry.”

He tried to pull the covers over his head, but Simone held onto them. “Very well, you were excellent. And your brother is coming to London. Now go to sleep.”

Go to sleep? Simone sat up, pulling all the blankets with her. “What? When? He mustn’t know about us!”

Harry sighed and rolled onto his back. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you now. You’ll worry yourself sick. There was a fire at his school, and the boys were sent home early for the summer holiday. He had no address for you, so the headmaster wrote to Viscount Rexford, Auguste’s new guardian. Rex is fetching him to town, along with the earl and Lady Royce. And Rex’s wife, and the twins. Your brother will be ensconced in one of the finest homes in London, among people of impeccable reputations, now.”

“Now?”

“The earl did father an illegitimate son, you know. He was also suspected of tampering with justice once. His wife left him and lived apart for decades. His heir was despised in the army, then became a morose hermit. Rex’s wife was accused of murder, but she didn’t do it. Oh, and the twins were born a bit early.”

“Are you sure it’s a good place for my brother?”

“It’s far better than the Kensington house, don’t you think?”

“What if he finds out? About us.”

“He won’t. But if he discovers that you were willing to sacrifice yourself to save him from the mills or the mines, he’ll be grateful.”

Simone thought her brother would be furious that he wasn’t the one to make the sacrifice. She had to get him out of London, fast, away from Harry’s family, who had to know something. Lord Rexford must wonder why he was named guardian, after all. “I can understand about the viscount fetching Auguste, which is very kind of him when my brother could travel by coach to Royce Hall in the country. But to drag his wife and children to London? And Lord and Lady Royce also?”

Which was precisely what he did not wish to discuss, and why he was sleeping as far from Simone and temptation as he could get without falling on the floor. He wished he could lie for once and mention errands in town, a session of Parliament, plans to renovate Royce House for the next season when Daniel’s sister was having her come-out. They all might be true, but those were not the reasons the Royce clan was coming to London.

“They are all coming to rescue you, I fear. Daniel felt he had to tell them. The oaf can’t even lie in a letter. They have decided that Miss Ryland’s reputation will be safer if you stay with them in Grosvenor Square until the countess or Rex’s wife can find you a governess position. Perhaps one of them needs a companion.”

“That sounds ideal. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I still need Noma Royale for a few more days and you’d start acting like a proper female again.”

And because he knew what they all expected, nay, what they would demand. Simone was too innocent to realize, or she did not know the rules that governed polite society. Or else she decided that her sojourn as a light-skirt meant they no longer applied. He always felt his bastardy kept him from those lofty precincts and the laws that held sway there.

But she was not like his own mother, an opera dancer who was not born to respectable gentility, not educated like a lady, not a blasted Ryland of Cumberland. They were
not
going to let him forget he was a gentleman, despite his tainted birth.

Simone was thinking about how to get Auguste away from Harry’s family. With the winnings she already had, plus her salary from Harry, she did not have to work for a
while. “Perhaps Auguste and I can go to Brighton for the summer, or rent a country cottage somewhere.”

“You’ll be invited to the coast when the family returns there. Your brother will love it. Rex can teach him to sail and ride and fish.”

“Will you be there?”

“I went once, for the twins’ christenings.” That was all he was going to say about the matter. “Now go to sleep. We’re going to Richmond tomorrow, and then you have to perform at night.”

“I can’t win, so why bother?”

“Fine. Then the countess will find you a position. She knows everyone in town.”

Simone did not cherish the idea of proper employment the way she used to, not with a small fortune in sight. Governesses, even ladies’ companions, made a pittance in comparison. “I am ahead now, but Claire will win the talent contest. And she’ll also take the Quality judging. She looks like a queen, and acts like one, too.”

“But you act like a lady.”

She put a hand on his chest. “I don’t feel like a lady tonight.”

He set her hand back on the covers. “Well, you are one. You’ll spend a sennight as a courtesan, no more, and it is just an act. An act,” he repeated, more for himself than for her.

“No one will know if we stop pretending.”

“I will.” Lord, he could almost taste her lips, but he imagined his father’s disappointment. And the countess’s disgust. Even Rex, the half-brother he had come to cherish, would be angry. And what of Mrs. Harrison, the woman who had raised him to be better than a bastard, and his own housekeeper, who believed him honorable, if not saintly?

Dammit, they all lived by society’s rules, he told himself. He did not. Then he recalled that Simone ought to. He kissed her chastely, briefly, brotherly. And cursed to himself for another hour.

*

They were a much smaller crowd going to Richmond than originally planned. The banker was gone, of course. His mistress, after learning of his arrest and undergoing an interview with that lummox Daniel Stamfield, packed her bags, and a few of Spenser’s, to leave with the visiting baritone. Miss Hanson felt she might as well go, since her pianoforte playing had little chance of winning the talent contest.

Sir Chauncey Phipps’s bedeviled ballerina, who had higher odds of earning a few guineas, left after the ball with the wealthy young viscount, a surer bet. Sir Chauncey himself was suffering a morning-after headache that could only be relieved by more of what caused the pain, so he never left Gorham’s library.

Alice suffered morning sickness too, so Lord Comden stayed back with her.

Claire did not wish to visit the maze. Or see any of her guests. Gorham told her Spenser had taken ill, rather than have her suffer the ignominy of another spy or swindler at her house party. Maybe she was right to go to Cornwall, he thought. Even though he hated the idea, the scandals might not reach there. He stayed at Griffin Manor to keep her company.

Harry and Simone rode. The rest drove. Since there’d be no contest at the maze, the men took to betting on whose curricle was faster. Sir James Danforth was so determined to win he took a turn too sharply, struck a signpost with his rear wheel, and had to pull over to inspect the damage. He blamed Sandaree for distracting him with her stupid screaming. Lord Ellsworth took her up in his phaeton, leaving Danforth shouting at his groom, his horses, the conditions of the road, and the damned house party.

Harry took a shortcut, he said, through Griffin Woods. Simone hoped he meant to have a private picnic, or a private tryst. Instead he met an officer in uniform and exchanged a few words she could not hear.

At the maze, Maura and her lover got lost, but everyone could hear her giggling, so shouted directions. Danforth never showed up. Lord Ellsworth with his cane and Mr. Anthony with his years, argued over who was to escort Sandaree. Two couples decided to stop at an inn for ale rather than bother with the exercise. And Ruby and Lord Bowman got in an argument over his not letting her handle the ribbons of the curricle he’d bought her. Everyone heard that, too, so their party was being well noticed, which suited Harry.

He led Simone into the maze at such speed she was nearly out of breath when they reached the center. Again she hoped his haste meant he was eager to get her alone, but all he did was gather a folded note stuck under a bench there, and start back out.

“Harry, are you angry with me?”

He was angry with himself. This was a crucial time for his plans, for the country. Every second he thought about taking her in his arms, peeling away her clothes, spreading her glorious hair through his fingers, was a second—hell, it was minutes and hours—he was not concentrating on his job. He almost sympathized with Danforth. Besides, today he could not afford to be out of sight of the company, whether he wished it or not. “Of course I am not angry at you. Let us stop at that inn the others found. I am thirsty.”

Of course he was angry, Simone decided. Why else was he so cold and unfriendly? He didn’t want her as his mistress and she’d been too forward. He was foisting her off on his family because he did not want her as anything else, either. He didn’t trust her with his plans, wouldn’t reveal any of his messages or notes, and hurried to be done with her company.

She’d failed at winning his affection as surely as she’d fail at winning the contest.

*

Claire made the introductions. She had regained her confidence, with Gorham’s help. What could compete with her singing? Silhouettes? Whichever song or dance Daisy or Simone could perform? Hah. The ballet might have been in the running, but that was eliminated now, along with the harp and the violin. The Shakespeare? Doubtful. The jig or the card tricks? Never. The nearly obscene Indian dance? Even the men had to have more respect for culture than that.

She gave Daisy a wide smile.

While Captain Entwhistle looked on fondly, Daisy stepped to the front of the music room where she’d placed a trunk. Claire whispered to Gorham, “Lord, I hope she is not going to put on a sheet and strike poses of Greek goddesses or something.”

She didn’t. Daisy excused her lack of brilliance. She could sing a little, she explained, and dance a little, even play wooden pipes, but all without the overwhelming talent of the others. So she did what she did best. Or second best, she added with a blush and a glance toward the captain, which drew a laugh. She opened the trunk and brought out an entire layette for Alice’s infant: tiny gowns and caps, swaddling clothes and blankets, bibs and knitted socks so small they might have fit a man’s thumb. Baby things were often plain and serviceable, but these were smocked and gathered, embroidered with miniature rosebuds, trimmed with bits of lace and ribbons contributed by half the women. The blanket from the wool Simone had bought now had a fringed edge, and a bonnet to match. Alice passed each garment around, while she wept. So did most of the women, including Claire, who fondled every little item.