Kate Moore (8 page)

He was not courting Juliet. Of that Susannah was sure, though her aunt was in a flutter at the prospect and he seemed to want the world to think so. Susannah knew the signs of a gentleman’s interest in a lady and did not see them in Lord Warne’s behavior toward Juliet. He was too rational, too shrewd. No, from Juliet he wanted information about the young man who had given out his card. Perhaps Susannah ought to volunteer what she knew, but she suspected society’s impression of the marquess was accurate. He was ruthless and would offer an enemy no quarter. Their young rescuer had done nothing serious after all, and it had been Evelina who spread the story abroad. The highwayman could not be blamed for that. No, she would not tell Lord Warne anything. The episode was over, the young man had done them a kindness, and in time Juliet would forget him. Susannah would concentrate on finding Juliet a husband.

***

Warne swore at the thick, damp fog that slowed the pace of his morning run. His white running clothes were soaked and clinging to him, and he wanted the burn of a hard run. He needed to push himself today. Yesterday the thief had handed one of the cards to a clerk at Coutts’s bank. The clerk called his superior, but the man slipped away as soon as the alarm was raised, and the clerk’s recollections of the thief’s appearance were vague. It seemed that Warne’s best chance of catching the fellow was still Miss Lacy and his call upon her had only frustrated him. The girl was hiding something. The mother seemed incapable of adding two and two to make four, and he had twice missed his chance to learn anything from the sober chaperone, Mrs. Bowen.

At the Shalford ball he had been distracted by her obvious desire to dance and had wasted his opportunity to question her, a lapse in concentration fatal to success. And Mrs. Bowen knew it. He would not make the same mistake again. At the very next opportunity, he would question her directly about the incident on the heath.

***

The wet black trunk of a tree emerged from the mist in front of her, and Susannah halted and found the path again where it swerved around the tree’s thick roots. She was picking her way over a gnarled root when pounding footsteps startled her. She lifted her head, trying to locate the sound in the mist. Then a man all in white burst through the curtain of fog at a run. Susannah stepped back, caught her heel on a root, and staggered. The runner shortened his stride and swerved, but Susannah stumbled directly into his path. They collided with a thump and went down in a tangle of skirts and limbs.

She lay on her back in the thick damp grass and looked up into Lord Warne’s startled blue eyes.

“Mrs. Bowen . . . good morning,” he said, his warm breath visible in the cold air. She could see the pulse in his throat and the fine dark stubble of beard along his jaw.

“Let me up.”

“Of course,” he answered, but he made no move to do so. He was looking at her as if he hadn’t quite seen her before.

“You’re not wearing your cap,” he said.

She frowned and considered whether she might push him off of her. His sleeveless cambric shirt was mist-dampened and clung to his body, and the heat of that body, its weight pressed to hers, was melting her limbs. She raised her hands and shoved against his chest, but her arms had no strength.

When she let them fall, he pushed himself up with a quick pump of his powerful arms, but his hips and legs still held her pinned to the grass.

His eyes seemed to see her weakness, and she averted her gaze. “You must let me up, my lord,” she said, striving for a command she did not feel.

He said nothing, and she studied his left arm, noting the course of a dark vein along the smooth curve of muscle as his breathing slowed.

When she dared to look at him again, the expression in his eyes had changed. “You were with Miss Lacy when the highwayman gave her my card,” he said. He seemed to take no notice of the intimacy of their situation.

“Yes.” Susannah tried to wriggle out from under him, but the weight of his hips against hers made a mockery of the attempt.

“What can you tell me about this man?”

“My lord!” she insisted. She balled her hands into fists and pressed against his chest. He did not budge.

“Age, manner, speech? Height, weight, mount? Features? Weapon? Left—or right-handed?”

“Let me up,” she demanded.

“When you promise to answer my questions,” he countered. He sank lower, resting now on his elbows, covering more of her body with his own. Her breath caught in her throat.

Warne knew he had to release her. It was foolish and not the part of a gentleman to take advantage as he was, but his mind seemed unable to command his limbs. His body, recognizing what his mind had sought to deny, urged the small movements that would bring him closer still. She grew quiet under him as if she understood what he was feeling. Her wide sweet mouth beckoned him.

“I’m going to kiss you.”

“No,” she said, but her pulse raced in answer to his words.

He took her chin and held it. She closed her eyes, willing herself not to tremble. His mouth touched hers, lightly. A stinging tear welled up and rolled hotly down her cold cheek. She had not been kissed in ten years.

Immediately her captor released her, pushing to his feet. She sat up and brushed away the tears. He held out a lean hand to help her up, but she shook her head. He stood there, his white garments clinging scandalously to his lithe form, and she averted her gaze, determined not to let him touch her again.

“That was unpardonable of me, Mrs. Bowen. Please allow me to help you up.”

She shook her head again and folded her legs under her, rising to her knees, tugging at the tangle of her skirts. When she was on her feet, she bid him good day, but he stepped into her path.

“If you wish to see your charge
safely
wed, Mrs. Bowen, then you cannot want her to have any connection with the man I am asking about.”

“It was likely some wager,” she said. She stood, conscious of the marquess’s scrutiny, and turned her attention to the state of her cloak and skirts.

“I doubt it.” He looked at her as if weighing his next words. “My cards were stolen from the printer a fortnight ago.”

Susannah looked at him directly. It was plain why people could think him hard and call him the Iron Lord. She was used to the blue of Juliet’s eyes or even Aunt Evelina’s, but blue eyes lighted by the marquess’s intelligence and will were something else, cold as a March wind, she thought.

“Very well,” she said.

“Let’s walk then,” he suggested.

She nodded, and he offered his arm, apparently forgetting that it was quite bare. When she only stared, he laughed, and the harsh blue disappeared at once.

“A stolen kiss and the impropriety of offering a lady an uncovered arm. Will you forgive me for that, too?” he asked.

Susannah lowered her gaze, determined not to blush at his easy reminder of their kiss. He bowed for her to precede him, and when she did, he followed.

“Your highwayman is young, well-spoken, gentlemanly in manner, acquainted with Shakespeare,” she told him. “And I suspect, of a romantic disposition.” She gave him a measuring stare. “We could see little of him in the dark, but he is of your height at least and deep-voiced. He must be accounted a fair shot, for he winged our other attacker neatly, and you may acquit him of cowardice.”

“He said nothing of his purpose?”

“Nothing. He was dressed for the adventure and must have followed us from Staines. Perhaps he saw Juliet there. She was making a fuss.”

“Has she seen him in London?”

“Of course not.”

“You would recognize him?”

“The height, the voice, I think. He had a . . . touch of a Scot accent.” They negotiated a rough place where the path crossed more roots, and Susannah thought of the way the rumors about their adventure had been distorted by gossip.

“Let me ask you a question, my lord.”

“Ask.”

“Could you have a son? An unacknowledged son?”

“No.”

Susannah said nothing, only looked at him.

“Mrs. Bowen, I am not claiming unsullied virtue. You, at any rate, would not believe me. But the man you described to me must be near twenty. My sins are of more recent date. A little arithmetic clears me of being the father of your highwayman.”

“Then why the note on the card?” she asked.

“It refers to my father, not my son,” he said stiffly. “He and I were at war for nearly seventeen years.”

So it was true, Susannah thought. He had bought his father’s vowels, ruined his own father. She wondered what had caused such bitterness. “But your father is dead now, isn’t he?” she asked.

“Yes, but the rule he lived by—
no score left unpaid
—seems to explain the cards. I think the highwayman meant to repay me for an injury I did my father. Eight or nine years ago, I held up my father’s mistress on Hounslow Heath one evening.”

“You think your father arranged some revenge beyond the grave?”

“He had friends, Mrs. Bowen, who were ruined with him. I am investigating them.”

They had come to one of the main paths, and the fog was lifting a little. Susannah halted and turned to him. “I am sorry, Lord Warne, if my aunt’s indiscretion contributed to your trouble with this thief. I have told you what I know, and I wish you luck in finding the man.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Bowen.”

“Good day,” she said.

Warne watched her stride off. He had got what he wanted from Susannah Bowen, an account of Miss Lacy’s meeting with the thief. Now he wanted more.

***

Hill’s Boxing and Fencing Academy in Stanhope Street drew precisely the patrons Kirby was looking for—young gentlemen who wanted to improve their skills before attempting Jackson’s, and fighters of promise who would leave Hill’s to make their names at establishments like Cribb’s Parlor. Unlike Jackson, Hill did not spar with his students. Rather he observed them carefully and set matches for them with each other, and for the Sunday match he picked the week’s best. He was a small man with a pitted face, a loud harsh voice, and a genius for abusing his students until they could make of violence a dance of light feet and quick hands.

Among the young gentlemen Kirby introduced himself as an equal, claiming to be one of a numerous if obscure family from Yorkshire, educated at Edinburgh in the classics. It was sufficient disguise for such company as there were no scholars in the group and no one knew Warne by sight. It helped, too, that he could speak of Miss Lacy. He saw that he might gain entry into the ballrooms of London in the company of these new friends.

They dubbed him the Sinister Scot for his left, and he set to work to make the Sunday match so that Hill would bring him to Cribb’s notice. Tom Cribb would remember Warne. With Cribb he would leave his father’s card.

10

When Susannah next saw Lord Warne, he was in a party of a dozen or more ladies and gentlemen moving about the dim shed that housed Lord Elgin’s marbles. Evelina pointed out the exceptionally pretty girl in Warne’s party as the heiress Miss Nevins.

“Surely, Warne isn’t thinking of her,” Evelina whispered to Juliet. “If she’s the least like her mama, he’ll be sorry. There’s Esther, dears, I must talk to her.”

“Let’s just wander, Susannah,” Juliet suggested. She looked about with apparent interest. It had been Juliet’s idea to visit the exhibit, and Susannah, though surprised by her cousin’s desire to see the statues, had been more than willing to go. She watched Juliet stroll off and saw her greet an old gentleman, leaning on a cane. Really, her charge was behaving better than she had expected.

Susannah took her bearings and crossed to one end of the frieze. She was marveling at the ancient world carved in stone, the figures so lifelike it seemed they might spring from the marble, when she became conscious of a gentleman at her side. She turned to find Lord Warne.

“Do you think Parliament should pay Elgin the asking price for his treasures?” he asked, looking not at her but at the frieze.

“They are priceless.”

“They give you pleasure?”

“Oh yes.” She glanced up. He was watching her with a steady regard, and she lowered her gaze again.

“As your morning walk gives you pleasure?”

Susannah nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on the arm of a reclining figure, surely one of the gods. Had Warne seen her this morning? She had not noticed him in the park though she had been conscious every time she walked that he might be there. Always the park reminded her of him, and now the naked male arm in front of her with its swell of muscle and stretch of sinew recalled Warne’s arms as she had seen them that morning.

“Lord Warne,” she said briskly, shaking off her foolish awareness of him. “Why are you talking to me? I told you what I knew of your card thief.”

“But, Mrs. Bowen,” he said, taking her arm and drawing her along to stand before the figure of a tall, headless goddess. “Should we not acknowledge one another? After all we have a common aim this season and must compare our progress.”

Susannah gave him a frankly incredulous look. “What aim could we possibly share?”

“Each of us is choosing a spouse,” he said.

“I’m not looking for a husband,” she protested.

He seemed to be enjoying her astonishment. “You are choosing for your cousin, I for myself,” he explained. “Of course, that means I am likely to be more successful than you, since I need only please myself, while you are endeavoring to please another.”

“We are neither of us buying hats, my lord,” Susannah said with some asperity.

Warne laughed, and Susannah could not help but admire the pleasant way laughter altered his face. “That’s a good thing.” He traced the rim of her gray silk bonnet with one finger. “Your selection of suitors for Miss Lacy so far speaks of extreme caution, Mrs. Bowen.”

“And yours, Lord Warne, speaks of remarkable modesty. Do you think only the most mercenary or the most insensible will have you? I thought you had a better opinion of yourself.”

His face took on a wry expression. “I have it on good authority that my reputation limits my choices. What do you think I should be looking for in a wife?”

“My lord, I would not presume to advise you.”

“But you’ve been married, Mrs. Bowen. Surely, you have some opinion of the qualities that promote marital felicity?”

Susannah looked at him. It was another of his traps. “You want me to say love, my lord, and then you will ask me what—”

“—what
could
Brentwood possibly have to do with love?” he finished.

Susannah composed herself. “Love is dangerous. There are other grounds for marriage.”

“Such as?”

“Such as respect and amiability and . . .”

“Desire,” he offered.

Susannah made the mistake then of looking up into his eyes. The heat in them reminded her of the moment in the park when he had bent his head to hers. He too, was clearly thinking of that moment. His gaze dropped to her lips.

“Warne,” a female voice called. He glanced over Susannah’s shoulder.

“Excuse me, Mrs. Bowen,” he said. “I hope you enjoy the exhibit.” He strolled off as if they had exchanged the merest commonplaces, while Susannah stood quite still trying to calm a quivering in her nerves.

***

Warne stared out the window of his breakfast room. Mrs. Bowen had avoided him this morning. There was no mistaking that slim brown shape or the concealing hood. And there had been that slight pause in her stride, a check and a change of path. He should not mind it, yet he did. He had no doubt that she was the cause of the current irksomeness of his self-imposed celibacy. He was unable to rid himself of recollections of that startling moment in the park when he’d found himself lying on her in a parody of his true desires.

Even away from her his mind seemed to have lost its quickness and staying power. Bellaby’s absence did not help. Neil always credited Warne with the intuitions that had made them rich, but Warne wondered if his friend’s ideas weren’t more necessary to his thinking than he had realized. Without Neil it was proving difficult to solve the puzzle of the card thief.

In a fortnight he had achieved little. True he had cut the man off from the banks, and even the pawn shops, but after the episode at Coutts’s, the fellow had not been seen anywhere. He, meanwhile, was no more successful in his search for a bride. Girls making their come-out were, as Bellaby had predicted, too shy for his taste. Those who had been on the town more than a season, or widows like Ann Trentfield, seemed too calculating. He was made aware that his title, wealth, and ability to sire an heir were the qualities women were weighing against the rumors of his ruthlessness. Still others seemed to wonder if he would be interested in a different sort of arrangement. Meanwhile, Susannah Bowen surrounded her cousin with Brentwood, Atwell, and their ilk.

Warne turned from the window and poured a cup of coffee. He had had a letter from Bellaby, detailing what Neil had discovered in Berkshire from the servants who accompanied Miss Lacy and Mrs. Bowen to London. It told essentially the same story Mrs. Bowen had finally revealed. A young man with a touch of the Scot about him had stopped the Lacy coach. He saved the ladies from two low thieves and requested a kiss from Juliet Lacy, but had yielded to Mrs. Bowen’s protests and merely left the young lady with one of the stolen cards.

The young man, whoever he was, had set out to hold up a coach. His clothes, the time and place, and his weapon proclaimed his intention. That much Warne believed the fellow had been hired to do, but he suspected that the would-be highwayman had departed from instructions, distracted by the loveliness of Miss Lacy. No more cards had appeared in a fortnight, and Warne could only conclude that whoever was behind this scheme of revenge was dissatisfied with the highwayman’s performance. Warne’s own investigation had revealed that Jopp was not behind the appearance of any of the stolen cards. Jopp had suffered an apoplectic fit of some sort and retired to his sister’s farm. That still left his father’s man of business, solicitor, and bailiff, all men who had remained loyal to the old marquess and suffered with him as Warne succeeded. And perhaps some lord who had been ruined with the old marquess.

A knock on the breakfast-room door interrupted his thoughts at this point, and when he answered, Madsen, his secretary, entered.

The young man was one of Rumsford’s nephews, with a good head for numbers, and like Bellaby, an eye for detail. His fair head was bent, and he was frowning at a letter he held in his left hand, his blue eyes shifting back and forth as they did when he was thinking hard.

“Sir, you’ve had the oddest letter come, from a Mr. Meyer.”

“The tailor?” Warne asked.

Madsen nodded. “He respectfully requests that he not be made a party to the sort of economic warfare in which your lordship and your late father indulged. He asks that your son’s custom not be a cause for reprisals against established tradesmen honestly plying their trades.” Madsen looked up as if he had something very important to communicate.

“Go on.”

“It made no sense to me, sir, but as I looked at this month’s duns, I found six from tradesmen you’ve never patronized. That is, I’ve never seen their bills before.”

“Six?” asked Warne, reaching for the sheets his secretary was holding.

“Not just Meyer, but Davidson, Poole, Pike for trousers, Townley . . .” He handed over the sheaf of papers. “There are bills for a coat, two pair of pantaloons, a full suit of evening wear, boots, a hat, gloves, and other furnishings—all from establishments you’ve never traded with, sir.”

Warne examined the papers. All were dated since the theft of his cards. He stood up. “Madsen, call on these tradesmen and find out what you can about the person who made these purchases. Each will likely produce one of my cards. Settle any accounts, and if they are willing, collect the cards and bring them to me.”

Madsen looked surprised. “Settle, sir? You never . . . That is I should not like to put out money for goods you never received.”

Warne smiled. “A sound principle, Madsen. Nevertheless, do this for me.”

“Of course, sir,” the young man replied. He gave a nod, accepted the papers, and withdrew.

So it was not over after all, Warne thought. The round of cards to tailors furthered his suspicion that his father had planned this revenge. Who else knew the steps their war with one another had taken? But the thief or his accomplice had made one mistake. When Madsen returned, he would be able to tell Warne exactly what the fellow looked like—down to the size of his boots. And that information Warne would take to Miss Lacy and Mrs. Bowen. Which ball would they be attending tonight? He thought of the stack of invitations on his desk. It should be an easy matter to determine Evelina Lacy’s preference for the evening.

***

Kirby fumbled with the lock. His fingers were stiff, every muscle ached, the cut over his left eye stung, and he was hungry again. From across the landing came a savory smell, to which his treacherous belly responded. Mrs. Hayter had fed him more than once in the past fortnight, but he couldn’t accept another meal from her even if there was no food in his rooms. He hadn’t had time this week for any of the odd jobs that filled his purse, and he had spent the last of his blunt in a display of careless generosity, buying drinks for his friends from Hill’s. That had been a piece of foolishness which had obliged him to listen to Alan Garrett describe the pleasure of dancing with Juliet Lacy. It was plain she was having a fine season and had forgotten her highwayman. Kirby had not had time to seek her out as he’d planned, and she had not returned to Lackington’s though he had gone as often as he could.

He reminded himself that revenge was his purpose. He had purchased a gentleman’s wardrobe with his father’s cards and had earned a spot in Hill’s Sunday match. If he had had a setback at Coutts’s bank, if he seemed alone in the world, if he was sure Miss Lacy had forgotten him, those were tests of his resolve. He dropped the key and swore under his breath. Behind him Mrs. Hayter’s door opened.

“Kirby,” she called softly.

He turned to face her. “Evening, ma’am.”

“Ma’am?” she said. “Oh dear, we’re back to that.”

“Not at all . . . Molly,” he assured her, but he felt his face heat. He had not embarrassed himself in her presence again, but those breasts disturbed his dreams. If he fell asleep imagining Juliet Lacy, he would wake roused and dreaming of Mrs. Hayter’s creamy flesh. Tonight she was dressed for an evening engagement in a diaphanous gown of white, a deep green silk shawl about her shoulders. Her hair was up, like the ringleted ladies of Attica, he thought. Except that those beauties of long ago would have bared and rouged their breasts, his mother had explained. He looked away.

“You’ve been at Hill’s?”

Kirby should have guessed that she’d know. She seemed to know everything about the people in the lodging house. He nodded.

“Then,” she said, “you must need a glass of wine and a bath.”

“A bath?” He retrieved his key, covering his surprise at the offer.

“Of course, and something for that cut above your eye. Come on.”

“But you are going out, aren’t you?”

“Only to Draycot’s,” she said with a shrug. “And I need not hurry.”

The din of one of Draycot’s parties was already discernible, coming up from below.

It was easy to give in. From the open door behind her came light and warmth and the smell of stew, and there could be no harm in
looking
at Mrs. Hayter. She was dressed and the shawl covered her breasts. He followed her.

One of her hovering maids brought wine, and the second brought a tray with a steaming bowl and slices of bread. He was encouraged to eat and tell the tale of his fight.

“Not thinking of a career in the ring, are you?” she asked.

“Nae,” he answered, but offered no more.

“Yet you made Hill’s Sunday match,” she said. “You must not be modest but tell me all about it.” She pressed the wine glass into his hand.

As before he found it easy to talk, and when she reminded him of the bath, he heard himself agree. The wine made him feel light-headed and lazy. She led him from her drawing room down a hall toward the back of the suite and pushed open a door, and the scene that met his gaze brought to mind lines from Odysseus’s great adventure—“A maid came with richly colored rugs to throw on seat and chairback. A second . . . mixed wine as tawny-mild as honey . . . another came bearing water, and lit a blaze under a cauldron. By and by it bubbled, and when the dazzling brazen vessel seethed she filled a bathtub to my waist . . .” He could not remember where in the hero’s adventures Odysseus had met such luxury, but surely its equal was before him in Mrs. Hayter’s bedroom.

The floor was carpeted with the rich, dark patterns of Turkey or Persia. A fire burned brightly in the hearth, a copper tub gleamed in its light, steam rising from the shimmering water. She led him to a bench with a folded towel, and the maids pulled a standing screen to one side of the gleaming tub.