Lady Caraway's Cloak, page 18
“Ah, now that puts a different complexion on the matter, and I would have to see the banns first to believe it!”
“And if you do not?”
“And if I do not,” the dowager uttered slowly, “if I do not, Serena, then I do believe I might enjoy being at the center of a delicious little scandal! Lord Robin Caraway is not what he seems. He is a villain and a scoundrel, not to mention an impostor and he should be taken from Caraway in chains.”
“I thought you wanted to see the banns?”
“Well, of course I do! If he marries Julia, the whole situation is really quite different.”
“He will no longer be a villain and a scoundrel?”
“Certainly not, for who shall dare to call into question someone I have endorsed?”
Serena very nearly said “half of London,” but bit her pretty little tongue smartly. If Robin was, as she suspected, acting as an English agent, he would not want his activities to be examined too closely.
“My lady, you are wrong. Lord Caraway is no pirate, though I believe it is sometimes an effect he hopes to achieve. Any close examination will show as such, and I am very much afraid that if you are identified as the informer, you shall look a fool, besides risking his wrath.”
“What care I for his wrath?”
“You live at the dower house by his grace.”
“Nonsense! By entitlement! I am, after all, your brother’s widow.”
“Then I shall say it again, it is by his grace. It was my brother’s first countess and her progeny who are entitled. Spencer added that as an addendum to his will upon his marriage, never thinking he would not have sons. He was thinking of the entail, you see.”
The dowager’s eyes were cold, but Serena, pitying her slightly, noticed that her fingers were trembling and the stick of her fan was about to be snapped into two. “You shall have to prove that.”
“I don’t have to prove anything! Prove it yourself. I am sure it is an open secret at Caraway. Consult the records if it pleases you, or call in Mr. Wickens, who handled my brother’s affairs.”
“It is a passing strange arrangement.”
“Indeed, I thought so at the time, but I am not at fault for that.”
Lady Caraway glared. “What do you want, Serena?”
“Nothing at all, save the preservation of the good name of Caraway. If you accuse the earl you will become the laughing stock, my lady, and whilst we might have our differences, I do not wish that for you. Take my advice and not only drop these scurrilous claims, but make an effort to scotch them yourself!”
“And what if this doesn’t suit me?”
Serena shrugged her shoulders. “If it doesn’t, you take a great risk, Fanny.”
“You threaten!”
“Nonsense, I merely suggest, I have not the power to threaten.”
“Yes, you do! I have seen the way he looks at you!”
“I do not know what you are talking about!”
Serena’s words were hot, but her heart had begun beating slightly faster. Did he look at her differently? Julia had said as much, but oh, he was just a flirtatious rake. He looked at everyone so! She could refine nothing on the matter.
The dowager rapped the table with her fan. “I think you do, but I shall not quibble. It is obvious from the first you have had designs to become the next Countess of Caraway! A snake I have nurtured in my very bosom!”
“Do not talk such fustian, ma’am! If you must swoon, please do so after I have spoken with you. I have a very bitter pill for you to swallow, and I want you to swallow it with grace, for truly there is no turning from the matter.”
“Now you are going to tell me that my beloved—my one true delight, the angel of my heart, my little baby, is attached to some loathsome creature without a penny to his name!”
“It is not so bad as that, Lady Caraway. Julia is betrothed to Captain McNichols, who, as you know, is of very good family and I have it on the best of authority that he is quite wealthy in his own right.”
“Wealthy, wealthy, that is not the question. Is he rich? And what do you mean he is betrothed? He has not my permission!”
‘No, but he has the earl’s permission, which is perfectly proper as the male head of family.”
“I won’t have it! You are all conspiring against me. I always knew Julia was an ungrateful little wench!”
“Nonsense, when you have recovered from the shock you will realize that she is ... well, she is the angel of your heart, your true delight, your ... what was it you said? Your little baby ...”
“Oh, don’t try and flummox me! I feel very out of sorts and if I get the sick ache, I shall have you to thank!”
“I am very sorry for it indeed, and can concoct you a potion directly.”
“Can you? For really, after today’s shocks ...”
“Yes, very troubling. I have a mint and juniper balm that Redmond can rub into your forehead. It will revive you instantly.”
“Oh, nothing can revive me, Lady Serena, nothing at all, but I shall take your balm all the same ...”
“Then you will consent to the match?”
“What more can I do when I am positively being bullied at every turn? I am not a well woman, you know.”
Serena suppressed her smile—for the dowager countess was in the very pink of health, if she could just, for a moment, forget her grizzles—and pushed home her advantage.
“And the earl? You will do all that you can to scotch those silly rumors? I cannot think where they came from—pirate indeed!—but you can be sure it will drag the Caraway name—including our own—through the mud. You cannot, I am certain, wish for that.”
“No, indeed, though the earl is far enough removed for the scandal not to reflect on me ...”
“Can you take that risk? Think of poor Lady Amelia Watford, who was forced to withdraw from the Season when her cousin—just her cousin, mind you, was big with child.”
“Scandalous! It was the underbutler, you know, though she tried to pass it off as one of the Marquis of Fane’s many brats ... !”
Serena groaned, for Lady Caraway was dangerously missing the point. “Yes,” she replied as patiently as she could, “but that is another story altogether. What I am saying is, the matter was not Lady Amelia’s fault, yet it was she who suffered.”
“You mean ... yes, I see. If the earl is hanged for a pirate or a smuggler or whatever the damn hell he might be, I might not get invited to court.”
Serena privately thought the chances of the dowager countess ever being invited to court were minuscule, pirate or no pirate, especially if she used such offensive language, but she kept the thought to herself.
“Precisely, madam. It would not look good for Queen Charlotte or the Prince Regent to greet the family of so dire a rogue. He could be sent to Newgate, you know, or even as you say, hanged.” This was not possible, Robin being a peer of the realm, but Serena saw no need to mention this.
“They say they rot in Newgate.”
Serena tried not to shudder at the thought, and to focus firmly on her belief that Robin was a risk-taking, rakish, altogether too handsome king’s agent, not the villain the dowager countess tried to portray. She had only her judgment and a small Latin verse to confirm this notion, but it seemed not to falter, even in the face of Fanny’s obvious belief in the worst.
“They shall sell off the estate, first. All the furniture, the fittings, the tables, the carriages ...”
“Enough!” The countess, cornered, relented. She was not a stupid woman, despite her foolish airs and graces, and she knew very well where her bread was buttered. If she could be evicted from the dower house at any moment, and if there was the smallest grain of truth in Serena’s comments, that changed the gravity and complexion of things greatly.
Truth to tell, in the month she had lived at the dower house, she had rather enjoyed the place, for there she was undoubtedly mistress of all she surveyed, and everything she surveyed was of the finest and the most expensive, thanks to her quick-witted foresight in removing most of the earl’s prized marbles to the dower house, and in ordering a complete refurbishment whilst the incumbent earl was absent. Which reminded her, she still had a few bills stuffed in her bureau drawer and they must be attended to.
“I have some bills and notes of hand ...”
Serena sighed.
“Give them to me. I shall see that they are attended to.”
“And my stipend?”
“That shall remain, naturally, while you are at the dower house, though it is not me you should be conversing with, but the earl.”
“Hmph!” The dowager narrowed her eyes and opened a new vial of sal volatile while she thought.
Serena coughed and stepped back, for Fanny was absentmindedly wafting it under not only her own nose, but under Serena’s, too.
The dowager looked blank, but under that vacant stare was a mind of steel. If Julia—silly chit that she was—was going to throw herself away on a mere handsome face, no title, then she must wash her hands of her—pointless crying over spilt milk; one must, after all, observe appearances. So then! Her initial scheme had to be revised.
The earl was not going to marry Julia and he was not going to marry her. Though why not, she couldn’t tell, for at five-and-forty she really had scarcely a wrinkle to her name, and though she would never dream of boasting of such a thing, even the Prince Regent, to whom she’d been presented, had said she was a fine figure of a woman. But she did not think she could live with his lordship’s unfortunate sense of humor and strange, unsympathetic manners. Besides, it was obvious to all but a blockhead that his sentiments were engaged elsewhere.
She had had dozens of letters from Lady Bradbury and Lady Bowbeck, all very annoying, and all alerting her to the very same thing. After she had hinted there would be a match between Julia and the earl! Oh, it was all very irksome. Well, Serena could have the castle! It was sorely in need of a mason, the plaster was peeling in places, and nothing short of a small fortune would really save it from becoming yet another ruin.
Not that she doubted, of course, that the earl had the means, for his clothes, by all accounts were very fine, and he was far too generous with the servants. Still, it was not her problem any longer. She would cut her losses while she could and ingratiate herself with Serena, who was about to become the future Countess Caraway.
Serena would have been astonished to know the convoluted workings of the dowager’s mind. As it was, she slipped below stairs and skillfully blended the promised mint and juniper whilst the Lady Fanny reflected on the pros and cons of turning informer. All in all, despite the lure of a reward, there was really no contest if she were to live out her days at Caraway. The rumors must be scotched directly! She would go right to Ermentrude Bowbeck at once, and even to Lady Howe, who owed her several favors.
Serena never knew whether it was the healing effects of the balm, or the curious effect of Fanny coming, at once, to her senses, but whatever the cause, she was docility itself when Redmond brought in the tea service.
As a matter of fact, she seemed to have rallied, for it was with a good deal of vigor that she decided to make a few social calls around the neighborhood, and answer an affirmative to Lady Middleton’s ball in London. After all, as she said, there was no need to stay with that meddlesome Lady Bowbeck, when a hotel was perfectly comfortable, and she was quite certain the earl would not wish her to stint on expenses. She called for her writing implements and declared her intention to write an eloquently nasty letter back to Lady Cavendish, who’d had the gall to first allude to the privateer business in the first place.
Serena could not help noticing that even Fanny’s vocabulary had undergone a transformation, for what once was “pirate” and “villain” was now “privateer” and “gentleman.” Whatever the reasons for this miraculous change of heart, she was glad, at all events, to have wheedled the dowager over. When she departed, clutching a fist of bills and swallowing hard on some vile orgeat the dowager had insisted she drink, she was well satisfied with her day’s work.
Chapter Sixteen
It was a trifling matter for a man of Robin’s diverse skills to break into the bailiff’s quarters. If he had stopped for a moment to consider, he would have realized he carried a key, for one of Lady Serena Caraway’s first acts upon his return to the estate—apart from slapping him, of course—had been to hand him a ring of keys he could hardly get his head around, so vast were they in their content. All in all, it was easier to break in, and this he did, with supreme ease, and with none the wiser, for he had approached from the sea rather than from the usual avenue of trees to the south.
His eyes rested almost immediately on the letter, neatly inscribed in Addington’s hand. It no longer bothered him that his heart leapt at the very sight, or that certain other passions were aroused by the vision of that neat, calligraphied script. All that mattered was that his own name be visible upon the wafer.
He turned it over, almost caressingly, and stared at the seal. To rip it open, or not to rip it open? That was hardly the question, for my lord did not hesitate, other than to smooth over the folds. He did not rip, precisely, but his customarily languid air had all but vanished.
The letter did not take long to read, but was also not dated, leaving him ignorant of the fact that Serena was but a stone’s throw away, at the dower house. He smiled. How like her to practically order him to employ some unknown tenant in the very letter she was tendering her resignation! And how like her to care enough to do so, and to warn him yet again about the dowager’s greed, and to care enough for Julia to ensure her a decent dowry.
But the Dowager Marchioness of Penreith? Lord Robin, who had had dealings with this aging denizen in the past, could only laugh out loud. He wondered where Serena had dreamed her up from, and what she anticipated happening with his eighty pounds. Naughty scamp! But when could she have written this?
She had, to his certain knowledge, never had a single day to slip from his watchful eye. Well, certainly not long enough to undertake a day excursion like this. When was this note written? The ink looked fresh, but one could never tell with these things. He opened a drawer. No clue, there, either. Just neat ledgers—ledgers he had familiarized himself with during his first week at Caraway. He looked more closely. Yes, the self-same hand as the script he had come to know as Addington’s.
Serena must have been single-handedly running his affairs for at least a year. But why had she been so secretive about the matter? Why had she shied away from him, turned every subject, purposefully made herself seem a fool? The only time she had ever disappointed him was when she was feigning a silly ignorance to match Lady Caraway’s or even, to some extent, Miss Waring’s. Why persist in disappointing him? Why?
Robin, still dressed in slightly theatrical clothing, for he had cast off his role of the Earl of Caraway on boarding The Albatross, cast his mind about for the answer. He was inordinately glad it was Serena who was Addington, and not some upstart second son who had somehow beguiled her, stolen her heart, and then circumspectly left when threatened with the incumbent earl’s return. Such a scenario had haunted many a thought, especially when Serena was at her most annoying.
He couldn’t bear her lying to him, but did her the justice of believing there must be good cause. Her motives were obviously not base. He had thankfully established that they were not driven from matters of the heart, or worse, to cover some tawdry, ill-fated love affair.
What then? What, what, what? He had given her every opportunity—ample opportunity—to be straight with him. Why had she not been? He fingered one of the ledgers and stared at one of the bills of sale. The indigo ink was long dried, but it was not the ink he was looking at, but the hand. How could he have missed such an obvious clue? He was more of a fool than he thought!
For there, as clear as day—had he but taken the time to peruse it—was not the signature of one Gabriel Addington, as he had supposed, but of a certain Serena Addington Winthrop Caraway. He had seen the same signature a dozen times, upon a dozen slips of notes of hand, promissory notes, and bills of sales. He had seen it, and noticed only the Addington. True, this was emphasized, the Caraway being merely a scrawl in comparison, but curious, nonetheless. Strange how the mind picked out only what it expected to see.
His thoughts now flew back to the day Serena had been disturbed writing her journal. He had noted something strange at the time, but had been too enthralled by her presence to pursue the matter carefully enough. It had been that same careful lettering on the journal cover. Serena Addington Winthrop Caraway. She must have remembered, for he recalled the breathless way in which she had slammed the diary into her cloak. He had been foolish enough to hope there was another reason she hadn’t wanted him to see that journal....
And by God, unless his mind had really turned to jelly, there was the cloak! The very cloak he remembered, carelessly thrown on the back of the hard, ornately carved oak chair. He could not mistake it, for he had privately laughed at her flirtatious impudence in purchasing precisely one of the shades he admired. Gone were her muted colors of mourning, and he had watched her transformation with whimsical interest and a half suspicion, half hope that he had been the cause.
He loved her all the more for it, of course, notwithstanding the perfectly feminine wiles she was using to keep him riveted. For she was, he was perfectly certain of it, though Adam might tease him for a coxcomb. Whatever the attraction between them, it was a mutual blaze, not a fire all on his side and a miserable taper on hers. He could feel it, beneath her intelligence, and her laughter, and her teasing manner, and yes, even beneath all the little indiscretions and the strange urge to veil all her cleverness and her incredible achievements at Caraway beneath a garrulous guise of silliness.
She was just fortunate that he had not, for a moment, been fooled! The only thing that perplexed him was why she found it necessary to go to all the trouble of this subterfuge. Why could she not have straight out written to him as Lady Serena? He checked himself. The answer to that was obvious enough—society prohibited it. It would have been extremely unfitting, not to mention unpardonably forward of her to have approached him, even by correspondence.
