How To School Your Scoundrel, page 12
Strange, really, how a simple shared half hour made one feel capable of almost anything. This morning, weighed down by thoughts of the countess’s jewel box, by the deadly silence in the room next to hers, she had needed the reassurance of ordinary human contact more than ever.
And then the newspaper had appeared next to her plate, emblazoned with her sister’s unsettling tidings.
“I think she’s pretty. Don’t you think she’s pretty?” Annabelle tilted the paper helpfully.
Luisa smiled. “Oh, very pretty. Very lovely indeed.”
“But that duke what she’s marrying! Isn’t he a sight! With that . . . that mask to one side of his face, like a pirate. And that white hair!”
“He might be blond.”
Annabelle peered closely, nearly brushing the paper with her long nose. “No. No, I’m sure it’s white. What a frightening cove he looks. I think she could do much better, and her a princess.”
“I’m quite sure she could.”
“He’s fearfully rich, however. That’s what Mrs. Plum says. I suppose that makes a difference, if you ha’n’t got a proper fortune anymore, like her. Though he looks such a pirate, p’raps she means him to go back to her own country and fight the anarchists for her.”
Luisa’s fork froze at her lips.
“He’d settle their hash, wouldn’t he, a great big fellow like him. He looks as if he might as well kill you as look at you.”
“Yes,” Luisa whispered. She lowered her fork back to her plate and stared at the remains of her breakfast.
Good Lord. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
If she could win Somerton over. Confide in him, convince him to take her side. He’d take action faster than Olympia, that was certain. None of this waiting about, fiddling with spies and intelligence, waiting for the so-called right moment, as if such a thing existed when one’s country was controlled by despot revolutionaries.
He’d settle their hash, wouldn’t he?
If the upright and honorable Duke of Ashland could make anarchists cower in his path, what might an all-powerful and entirely unscrupulous Earl of Somerton achieve?
But would he help her at all? Could she trust him with her secret? What promises would he ask in return? What could she offer him, other than herself? What might he take for himself, if he rousted out the Brigade by his own hand?
“But the thing I wonder is,” said Annabelle, oblivious to the racing thoughts in Luisa’s head, “where has the other princesses got to?”
“What’s that?” Luisa forced her hand in the direction of her teacup.
“The other princesses. This one’s turned up, but where are the others?”
“I . . .” Luisa drank a sip of tea. “I can’t imagine.”
“I daresay they’re hiding out somewhere, in some poor cottage in the moors,” said Annabelle.
Polly piped up from the other side of the table. “I think they’re in some crumbly old castle by the sea, huddling around a single peat fire and attended by a loyal old servant and a . . .”
Annabelle clucked her tongue. “You’re reading too many of them novels, Polly Green, that’s what. What do you think, Mr. Markham?”
Luisa swallowed the rest of her tea, dabbed her mouth with her napkin, and rose to her feet. “I think I’m likely wanted upstairs by now. If you’ll excuse me.”
• • •
The Earl of Somerton, as she suspected, was already dressed and sitting in the chair before his desk when she strode through the doorway five minutes later. The gilded jewel box still sat to one side, next to the leather blotter, gleaming in the morning sunshine. He looked up with his characteristic expression of glowering disapproval, as if—as he had suggested—last night’s meeting had been banished from his mind.
“Mr. Markham. How good of you to join me.” He cast a pointed gaze at the clock above the mantel.
She followed it. “It’s only a quarter past eight, sir. I’m not expected until eight thirty.”
“Having left such a parcel for me to discover last night,” he said, nodding at the box, “did you not then consider the necessity of arriving early this morning, in order to deal with the consequences?”
“I did not, sir, as I cannot directly read minds, despite my multitude of other talents.”
“Insolence, as usual, primary among them. No, don’t sit. I have an errand for you.”
“I am at your service, of course.”
Somerton returned his attention to the paper before him. The scratch of pen filled the vast stillness of the study, in a percussive duet with the ticking clock. “You will this evening, at half past seven o’clock, attend her ladyship, who I presume will be found in the nursery at this hour, reading to our son. You will present my compliments, and inform her that I require the honor of her company here in the study on a matter of great urgency.”
Luisa cast an agonized glance at the jewel box and swallowed back the bitterness at the back of her throat. “Sir, I . . .”
“Did you not imagine that some account must be made of the contents? Or did you not trouble to inspect them?”
“I found the portrait, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily mean . . .”
Somerton looked up. “I beg your pardon. Did I ask for your opinion on the meaning of another man’s portrait in my wife’s jewel box?”
“No, sir, but . . .”
He folded up the paper with brusque strokes of his fingers and reached for a stick of black sealing wax. He held it next to the blue flame of the gas lamp. “Then have the goodness to communicate this simple message to Lady Somerton at the appointed hour. In the meantime, you will take this note to Mr. Nathaniel Wright, of Wright Holdings, Limited, in London Wall.” He pounded the seal into the melted wax and held out the note to her.
She held it between her fingers and examined the seal. “Rather archaic, isn’t this?”
“A convenient way of ensuring that one’s messages are read only by the intended recipient.”
“Your lordship, I don’t know what it is you’re planning, but I must forcefully advise you—”
“Advise me? My own secretary, advise me?”
“—that revenge of this kind, for an offense of this kind, invariably hurts the man who inflicts it. Can you not contemplate—”
“What I cannot contemplate, Mr. Markham, is why you have the effrontery to imagine that I either care or heed what you have to say.”
“Because I want you to be happy, sir!” The words exploded from her mouth and disappeared into the wood-paneled walls of the study. “I want you to be good,” she finished in a whisper.
Somerton’s face did not betray the slightest flicker of reaction. “How kind of you, Mr. Markham, to take such an interest. And since you demonstrate such a ravenous appetite for afternoons of leisure, you may take the rest of the day off once you’ve delivered Mr. Wright’s note, so long as you return in time to deliver the message to her ladyship.”
“That’s not necessary. I . . .”
“I shall see you here this evening at half past seven o’clock, Mr. Markham.”
The voice of finality.
Luisa tucked the note into her inside jacket pocket. Her mouth had gone dry. “Will there be anything else?”
Somerton smiled his mirthless smile, baring his even white teeth. “I think that’s sufficient for one morning, don’t you?”
• • •
The Duke of Olympia held the paper above the steaming teakettle with a pair of efficient steel tongs.
“This does not sit well with my conscience,” said Luisa.
“You’ll find that sort of squeamishness dries away soon, my dear. You’ve done the right thing, bringing this to me.”
She watched him tilt the note to a precise near-vertical angle. His hands were perfectly steady. “Only because I’m afraid of what he might be planning. What it will do to him—to all of us—if he succeeds.”
“Yes, he is a rather unscrupulous chap, isn’t he? But not beyond reform, I believe.” Olympia lifted the paper away from the teakettle and popped away the seal with the tip of his knife.
“You’re quite certain you know what you’re doing? Won’t this Mr. Wright know that the seal’s been opened?” Luisa peered anxiously over his brown-tweed shoulder. She had found him out riding in Hyde Park, as he usually did at ten o’clock in the morning, in case she had any message to communicate too urgent to wait for Sunday afternoon.
Not that she had accosted him directly, of course. She had made the agreed-upon signal and proceeded to the agreed-upon pub on a street near Piccadilly, where a secretary on his business about town might reasonably be expected to wet his thirst on a pint of good English ale. This was the first time she had visited this agreed-upon back room behind the agreed-upon wood panel, and she was suitably impressed by the efficient array of professional tools laid about the cabinets and walls. Including, it seemed, a teakettle and a humble gas hob.
“Quite certain,” said Olympia. He read quickly, refolded the note, and opened a small drawer filled with neat rows of sealing wax in various colors.
Luisa made a noise of outrage. “You’re not going to let me see it?”
“Of course not. It has nothing to do with your situation, my dear.”
“Then what has it got to do with?”
“Matters that do not concern you.”
She put her hands to her hips. “Uncle, I am a head of state, if you’ll remember. Besides, I’m quite sure it has something to do with poor Cousin Roland.”
“You’re quite right about that. But there’s nothing to fear. Lord Somerton is only doing exactly what I hoped, and exactly when I hoped it. It’s all going quite according to plan.” Olympia was rummaging through a cardboard box filled with seals, examining each one. “With any luck, Penhallow will be safely out of the country within a fortnight, and—”
“With Lady Somerton?”
“Questions, questions. Ah! Here we are.” Olympia held up a seal triumphantly and set the box aside. With his other hand, he held the wax stick next to the hob, until it gleamed a rich tar black.
“Well, is he?”
“I suppose that remains to be seen, doesn’t it? In any case, none of these activities has to do with your own case. Another matter entirely, and one of the highest possible secrecy.” He stamped the seal into the wax and held out the note to her. “Now, off you go, and never fear.”
“But you’ve already involved me. I need to know—”
Olympia shrugged his overcoat back over his shoulders and replaced his hat on his gleaming gray head. “My dear, you have it all wrong. The less you know, the safer for everybody concerned. Most especially your own valuable self.” He took her hand, kissed it, and winked. “Trust your old uncle, eh?”
• • •
The rest of the afternoon off.
Luisa sank into her chair and removed her gloves. Her hands, so cold in the bitter February air outside, now prickled with perspiration in the typically overheated atmosphere of another of the ubiquitous ABC tea shops.
What had Somerton meant by that? Nothing good, of course. He must be planning something particularly dastardly, if he wanted her away from the premises, unable to interfere.
She should interfere. She should go back right now and . . . what?
She looked down at the cup of tea before her, the anemic watercress sandwich. Actually, she detested watercress. She wasn’t quite sure how she had come to order it; she had been moving along like an automaton ever since leaving Olympia’s secret Mayfair bolt-hole at noon. She hardly remembered delivering Somerton’s note. If someone had asked her to describe the offices of Wright Holdings, Limited, or indeed Mr. Wright himself, she would have answered, with difficulty, that both the offices and the man were discreetly magnificent.
He had given her a sharp and searching look. That had nearly jolted her out of herself, awakening her protective instincts with a start. Gray eyes, very keen, the only vivid memory she had of the entire errand.
No doubt he’d been curious because she had insisted on delivering the note in person, had had him pulled from some sort of meeting that was no doubt essential to the delicate nerves of Britain’s financial markets. “From Lord Somerton,” she had said, thrusting the note toward him.
He had broken the seal, read the note, and looked back at her in that examining way.
“Will there be any reply?” she said, eager to be done with the whole sordid task.
“Does his lordship expect one?”
“I am not privileged to know that, sir.”
“My compliments to his lordship, then,” Mr. Wright had said, or something like that, and he had turned without another glance and walked back to his meeting, without even the courtesy of offering her refreshment.
They were all alike, weren’t they? Somerton and his friends. Not a worthy bone in their bodies.
She’d been a fool, really. Allowing herself, over the past few months, to develop a sort of sympathy for him, mired in his loveless marriage, his proud loneliness. Yes, she could admit it now. It was perfectly natural, after all. She’d lost her sisters, her husband, the extraordinary privilege of her life in Holstein Castle. Her commanding father, to whom she had always looked in hushed admiration, desperate for a crumb of approval or affection. She’d been cast into constant intimacy with the Earl of Somerton, who despite the errors of his character was a man who radiated power and a kind of dark charisma, whose shoulders were broad and thick and whose austere face she’d caught herself studying far too often. Whose soul seemed to contain an aching hole of which she had been allowed only the briefest and most tantalizing of glimpses.
Compelling. He was compelling.
Only natural, then, that she—a healthy young woman of childbearing age, deprived of her own near male relatives—should find herself . . .
Attracted to him.
There. She admitted it.
She curled her hands around her teacup. Her stomach rumbled, though not quite insistently enough to make the watercress sandwich the least bit tempting. She hadn’t finished her breakfast, she remembered. She really should eat something.
She picked up the sandwich and nibbled at the edge. The taste of butter and tired watercress rested on the tip of her tongue, not quite so unpleasant as she’d feared. She took another bite and swallowed.
She had to find another situation. That much was clear. She would come back this evening, collect Quincy and her things, and be gone by morning. She could go to the house in Battersea and wait there for Olympia or Miss Dingleby. She would demand, in any case, that they allow her inside their plans.
She would be an active participant in her own rescue, from now on.
Another bite of sandwich, and another. The bread was really quite good. Almost enough to counterbalance the watercress, which had not been sprinkled plentifully anyway.
A small black fly landed on the edge of her saucer and crawled a cautious quarter inch down the slope, before dashing away.
The rest of the afternoon off.
Well, Luisa? She drummed her fingers on her teacup. What are you going to do with the hours allotted to you? Sit and stew in an Aerated Bread Company tea shop?
Or do something?
In a brisk motion, she stuffed the rest of her sandwich in her mouth, bolted the rest of the tea, and wiped her mouth.
“Thank you,” she said to the approaching waitress, and she tossed a shilling on the table and walked out of the shop.
ELEVEN
The Duke of Olympia’s London house occupied a prime slice of Park Lane, a hundred or so yards to the north of Wellington’s noble posture. Luisa leaned against the rough bark of a tree in the park opposite, London Baedeker’s in hand, and studied the stately ducal windows over the crisp edges of her guidebook.
Her heart beat smartly in her chest. She could almost taste its energy at the back of her throat. Somewhere behind one of those heavy-draped windows sat her sister Emilie, perhaps reading a book, perhaps pacing the elegant floorboards of her allotted room. Perhaps sitting with her duke, the one with the strange mask and the white hair. Perhaps peering out the window and wondering who stood outside.
Despite the cold February air, the unfashionable time of year, the house was bustling. A stream of people eddied around the entrance steps, laden with flowers and parcels and musical instruments. Several vehicles lay alongside the curb, horses’ necks all lowered at the same resigned angle. Just outside the massive front entrance, a man in livery directed the flow of traffic, stopping each man, delivering instructions. All this activity must be preparation for the ball tonight, for Emilie’s engagement ball. No doubt the mews entrance at the rear was even busier.
If Luisa knew where Emilie was—if all London’s tradesmen apparently knew what was taking place at the Duke of Olympia’s town house tonight—then so did the conspirators. Those agents of the Revolutionary Brigade, who were supposed to be in England this instant, hunting the princesses down—where were they now? Were they among the alarming swarm of men entering and leaving that grand marble portal? Were they among the drivers hunched atop the delivery vans just outside, any one of which might contain enough ordnance to blow up the Houses of Parliament?
Or that portly fellow walking up the path, looking occasionally to the right, for example. Was he glancing with a tourist’s curiosity at the magnificent houses bordering Hyde Park? At the extraordinary activity along Park Lane? Or did his gaze have a more sinister purpose?
Olympia claimed that Emilie was safe and well guarded in his house, but if that was the case, why hadn’t he kept the three of them here from the beginning? How could Emilie possibly remain safe in the middle of all that anonymous and businesslike humanity?
The man walked by, continuing toward Marble Arch without a pause. Luisa watched his wide woolen backside diminish innocently between the trees. At the last instant, just before her head and her attention turned back to the house across the street, she caught a glimpse of movement from the edge of her vision.
Slowly, idly, so as not to draw any particular attention, she adjusted her posture against the tree and returned her gaze to the section of path to her left.
