Unmasking the Thief, page 11
“Well, I’m not sure one has children at Venetian breakfasts,” Rebecca Dunne said. “Let us call it, instead, an impromptu, private al fresco. Viola has a carriage packed with food and blankets.”
“Then I hope it doesn’t rain,” Francisco said, seeing that his discreet meeting to convince Miss Mather of his credentials had got out of hand.
“So do I,” Lady Dominic said, scooping up one of the infants. “I’ll go and fetch the girls and meet you all in the park. Mr. Francis, might I have your escort to my carriage?”
Francisco could hardly refuse, though he eyed the child warily as he bowed them out of the room.
Her ladyship wasted no time. They were not even on the stairs before she demanded, “What is your business with Miss Mather?”
Francisco regarded her thoughtfully. “That is between Miss Mather and me. But I mean her no harm if that is what you are asking.”
“You had better not,” Lady Dominic warned. She stopped halfway down the stairs, forcing him to halt, too, and glared up at him. “I count Miss Mather a dear friend, and if you are prying into her affairs—”
“I’m not,” Francisco interrupted. “Nor can I imagine why you might think so.”
At least she had the grace to lower her voice, although there was no obvious sign of lurking servants. “I know what you do,” she said darkly and then frowned. “Or at least, I guess some of it. I think you are the shadier side of Mr. Dunne, and if I had known your focus was on Matty, I would never have taken you to my mother’s party.”
Francisco regarded her thoughtfully. For some reason, he was pleased by her protectiveness, proof that Miss Mather had friends looking out for her. “You are very defensive of your old governess.”
“She was never my governess,” Viola said unexpectedly. “I was beyond the schoolroom by the time she came to us. But it did not stop her teaching me, from making possible…” She caught her breath and closed her mouth. Her gaze refocused on him. “Dominic and Ludovic both believe you are a good man. Miss Mather is a good woman, and I would do anything for her. My sisters and my little brother adore her. My mother relies on her. And I…” Her rather lovely eyes grew defiant. “I would do anything for the woman who taught me to read at the age of nineteen years old.”
Whatever he had expected, it was not that, so he held his tongue.
Viola’s lips twisted. “She was the only one who recognized my condition, that my mind somehow transposes certain letters and makes reading not impossible but difficult. Without her, I would… Well, that doesn’t matter. I tell you this only so that you understand. I will go to any lengths to prevent harm befalling her.”
Francisco brushed an imaginary hair from his coat. “Why, there I believe we are in agreement, ma’am.” And that, if only she knew it, was the strangest fact of all.
*
Matty didn’t know whether she felt more panicked or relieved when Viola appeared just as they were about to leave for the park.
“I brought provisions,” Viola said briskly.
“For…?” Matty asked.
“Your al fresco party.”
“Hurray!” the girls cried.
“I didn’t know we were having one,” Matty said.
“We are. Mr. and Mrs. Dunne will bring their children, and I am bringing mine. Dominic may even appear later on.”
Matty swallowed. “We were just going for a quick walk in the park. I can’t keep the girls from lessons too long.”
“You were always good at the nature lessons,” Viola said wryly. “I’ll just explain to Mama while you all pile into the carriage.”
“We won’t all fit in the carriage,” Viola objected.
“And there’s Pup,” Susan added.
Most people would have banished Pup at this stage, Matty supposed, but she and the Doves made do. Susan, much to her delight, was sent to sit with the coachman. Everyone else squashed into the carriage, where Arabella sat with her feet up on the bench, her knees bent under her chin, to make space for Pup on the floor. Even so, he sat largely on Matty’s feet.
“Did you mention provisions?” Catherine asked.
“Strapped to the back of the carriage,” Viola replied. “Rebecca Dunne will bring more.”
It was not a long drive to the park, but several times Matty found Viola’s gaze on her and knew she would be asked some searching questions. Somehow, Viola had got wind of her supposedly casual meeting with Ludovic Dunne and turned the event into a party. Matty didn’t know whether to laugh or pray for strength.
In the end, as they all spilled out of the carriage at the park gates, she settled for calling after the girls and Pup, “Do not let him off the leash!”
She and Viola carried the food hampers between them, watching the younger girls run with Pup, while Catherine held on to her hat and hurried after them. Although it had all come to be normal to Matty, she saw from the shocked expressions of a haughty middle-aged couple that it was not.
“Pup is an unruly chaperone,” Viola remarked. “But the girls will be regarded as eccentrics, not hoydens.”
“Well, it did you no harm.”
“Only when I tried to pretend I wasn’t. Matty, what does Mr. Francis want with you?”
Matty was ready for the question. “He seems to want me to help with something, but of course, I don’t know him well enough to agree. He said Mr. Dunne would speak for him. I can trust Mr. Dunne, can I not?”
“Implicitly. But why does Francis want your help?”
Matty didn’t answer that, merely asked a question of her own. “Do you know him well? Does Lord Dominic?”
Viola shook her head. “Dominic says he is a gentleman, though of the more adventurous kind. He has land in England and Spain, but drifts in and out of society, for which he does not appear to give two hoots. Two years ago, scandal linked him to Emma Carntree, though she seems more attached to Anthony Thorne these days.”
“Does she?” Matty said flatly. She wondered if Marion knew, if Marion cared. Mostly, she recognized that if the likes of Emma Carntree appealed to Francis, Matty could not. A dazzling, brittle, adulterous social butterfly had nothing in common with a dowdy and dull governess with a sharp tongue, a basilisk stare, and a reputation to preserve at all costs. Somehow, it was small comfort that he trusted her enough to use her in his schemes.
And then, breaking through the trees on her left, she saw Francis himself, and her heart gave a funny little leap. He wore correct morning attire, buff pantaloons that hugged his muscular legs, and a well-fitting coat that emphasized the breadth of his shoulders. Every inch of him was the perfect English gentleman, handsome and fit, but that wasn’t what truly took her breath away.
It was the laughter in his face. She could even make out the crinkles around his eyes as he grinned down at the small boy who pursued him. She had never seen him so relaxed, so intent on mere…fun. Then he glanced across and saw her. His smile didn’t exactly die, but it grew distracted, and she didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry.
The child whacked him on the hip and bolted, yelling, “Tag!”
Mr. Francis set off in pursuit. The chortling boy ran up to a couple approaching along the path. Matty had never encountered anyone quite so elegant as the lady. Surely, she would give the boy a set down and spoil his fun if he grabbed at her skirts. Perhaps she would even tell Francis off, too, which Matty definitely wanted to see.
But the lady only smiled tolerantly as the boy skidded behind her, grabbing her skirts in passing to pull himself on to the gentleman’s coattails. The gentleman was tall and striking, his eyebrows dramatically dark, his hair a silver grey that at first made him look older. But as they grew closer to him, Matty saw that he could not have been much more than thirty years.
“Den!” the boy cried gleefully. “Ludo is Den!”
“Curses,” Francis exclaimed, twirling an imaginary mustache. “Foiled once more.”
“The child is Rebecca Dunne’s son by her previous marriage,” Viola murmured. “She and Mr. Dunne have another of their own, but she has been left with her nurse for the day.”
At first, Matty thought Francis had not seen them and wondered if he would be embarrassed to be discovered in the indignity of “tag.” But he turned straight from the Dunnes’ boy and bowed with perfect savoir faire, and she realized she had never seen him embarrassed by anything, not his disguises, his bad behavior, or his good. She had never encountered anyone quite so comfortable with himself. Not satisfied or smug like Thorne but accepting. Was that his attraction? Because he accepted her, too?
There was no time for these confused reflections, for Viola was introducing her to Mr. and Mrs. Dunne and their son Tom, who executed a perfect bow for a small boy, along with a delightful grin. Then, spotting the dog at last, his eyes widened.
“He’s huge!” he marveled. “May I pat him? Does he bite?”
“Only his dinner,” Susan said. “Pup, sit.”
Tom’s jaw dropped. “He’s a puppy?”
“Not anymore,” Susan assured him as the dog sat on her foot, “but the name stuck.”
Pup wagged his tail as Tom approached, dragging Mr. Dunne with him by the coat. The dog sniffed Dunne’s hand and wagged his tail harder on receiving a head pat. When Tom followed with a tentative pat, Pup slurped at his hand and then his face.
Tom bounded back, laughing.
“He likes you,” Matty assured him.
In no time, Pup was on his back, legs in the air to have his tummy tickled. Tom, laughing, released his stepfather’s coat, and Arabella demonstrated how to make the dog’s leg twitch with joy.
Even Mrs. Dunne stopped looking anxious.
Francis caught Matty’s eye and gave what looked like a wink before he addressed Mr. Dunne. “I’ll stay with Tom. Pup and I are old friends.”
“Are you indeed?” Viola murmured.
Matty found Mr. Dunne’s gaze upon her. He gestured with one inviting hand, and Matty moved with him away from the others.
“I understand I am to vouch for Francis,” he said mildly.
“If your conscience will allow it.”
“My conscience will allow me to tell you anything I know.”
“Does he truly work for the government?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
She stared at him. “You believe so? Don’t you know?”
“Not with absolute certainty. But I have found he knows information that could only have come from government sources. I have never known him to lie to me. I would trust him with my life, and more than that, with the lives of my wife and children.”
She nodded slowly. “You are friends.”
“We studied law together. And we occasionally help each other in our…professions.”
“Then you would advise me to trust him?”
He met her gaze. “If you have done nothing wrong, then yes. He is ruthless, Miss Mather, but he is not cruel.”
“And is he honorable?” she blurted.
“Deeply.” His lips twisted slightly. “Though it is his own honor, not necessarily yours or mine.”
She regarded him with some frustration. “Forgive me, Mr. Dunne, but you are not a great deal of help.”
“Perhaps if you were clearer about what it is you want to know…”
Why does he kiss me? “He says he wants my help,” she said hastily. “I suppose I want to know if I should give it.”
An odd expression passed across the solicitor’s face. “He has never asked me for help—it is usually the other way about. But if he did ask, I would give it unconditionally. He would not endanger you.”
She had never thought he would. Not the kind of danger Mr. Dunne meant, at any rate.
His cool, grey eyes were oddly piercing, assessing. “Speak to my wife,” he said abruptly and fell back. Matty could only blink as Mrs. Dunne stepped smoothly into his place.
Rebecca Dunne was one of those women who seemed to have been born not only beautiful but supremely elegant in all she did. That in rank she was a mere solicitor’s wife did nothing for Matty’s sense of intimidation. Not that she would ever acknowledge that to a soul, but it did incline her to look at this odd meeting through Mrs. Dunne’s eyes.
“You must find me very odd and very presumptuous,” Matty said. “Demanding your husband vouch for his friend.”
“I don’t find it odd at all,” Mrs. Dunne said. “To a sensible woman, Francisco is a difficult man to trust.”
One confusing fact surged to the front of Matty’s mind, that Francis trusted the Dunnes. “I have seen him as so many different people,” Matty blurted. “I don’t know which is real.”
“If any,” Mrs. Dunne said with the flicker of a smile. “To be honest, I suspect Francisco has the same trouble. He needs an anchor in life. So far, I believe that anchor to be his innate integrity. But that is a lonely life.”
It was a day of discoveries. “You worry for him.”
“I do.” Mrs. Dunne turned her elegant head and held Matty’s gaze. “He has helped save my life, risked his all for Ludovic, and given me sound advice aimed at my own happiness, even though it must increase his own sense of isolation. But I don’t believe anyone can tell you to trust him. In your heart, you already do or don’t, and nothing Ludovic or I can say will change that.”
While Matty no doubt gawped, Mrs. Dunne searched her face, a smile tugging the corners of her mouth.
“I see.”
Matty blinked. “What do you see?”
But the tete-a-tete was apparently over. “That breakfast is served.” She waved a hand toward a blanket spread out under ever-increasing plates of food and Matty’s charges. Lord Dominic had appeared from nowhere and was helping Arabella tie Pup securely to a nearby tree.
In something of a daze, Matty approached the blanket and knelt. She fixed a faint smile on her face, barely aware that the children were behaving with lively politeness and were looking after little Tom.
Why had she insisted on this? Because Rebecca Dunne was right. She did already trust Francis—Francisco de Salgado y Goya—though she had no clear idea why. Moreover, she most assuredly did not trust Sir Anthony Thorne, and with very good reason. In fact, she considered him a threat to her family in general and her sister in particular, and she knew suddenly she had always meant to help Francis.
He sat by her side, large, conspicuous, contentedly munching while exchanging occasional quips with the adults and banter with the children. They all liked him.
Matty liked him.
But she no longer knew how to join in with a group like this, save to keep her eye on the children, her charges, and their massive pet. For all but the Doves, she had become an observer of life, not a participant. Was that why she resisted Francis? Because he kept forcing her to participate?
And what the devil was all her hard-won independence for if she did not join in the business of life? Did not revel in the fun of this company, in the curious, intoxicating acquaintance of a man as overwhelming as Francis?
She frowned at the dainty pastry halfway to her mouth. Perhaps she was a tool in Francis’s mission. But he had seen her as more than that, more than the governess.
Slowly, she turned her head and found his turned toward her. Her heart skipped a beat, and not just because it tended to whenever she looked at him. Long ago, Thorne had destroyed her ability to trust her own instincts. But she was trusting them now to recognize that Francis was a good man. Beyond that, what else was possible?
“If you’re not going to eat that pastry,” Francis said, “we could instead let the poor hound stretch his legs and take his mind off all this food he can’t have.”
She could keep her dignity and instruct the girls to go instead. Or she could take the chance and participate.
“It would be a kindness,” she said, setting the pastry back on her plate.
“A few minutes without the whining might be nice,” agreed Viola, who sat nearest the dog. “Thanks, Matty.”
As Matty rose, she found Francis’s large, slender hand stretched down to help her. It would have been rude to refuse it. And a shame to miss the sensation of his strong, ungloved fingers closing around hers, drawing her lightly to her feet.
It was not a crime to enjoy the respectful touch of a man or the sight of him strolling past her toward the tree that anchored Pup. She could allow the intense awareness of him walking by her side, tall, masculine… and dangerous, though not to her.
To her heart, perhaps.
Oh, no, just live in the present, Matty Mather. Stop trying to think ahead…
“Well?” he said lightly when they walked in silence for almost a minute. “Has Ludovic induced you to trust me? Or has Rebecca?”
“No,” she said honestly, and since she glanced at him as she spoke, she caught an unguarded glimpse of his eyes before his black lashes swept down. Had she hurt him? She drew in a quick breath and spoke in a rush before her courage failed her. “But something Mrs. Dunne said made me realize I already do trust you. I have just grown unused to…believing in myself. I will help you with Anthony Thorne or with anything else I can.”
His eyebrows flew up. A flash of surprise lit his dark eyes, and then they softened, just as he let Pup draw him off the path. “That’s a very handsome offer. I confess you have surprised me.”
Pup was snuffling around, following the trail of whatever had led him in this direction in the first place. He halted for a proper, very delicate, and thorough sniff among some gnarled tree roots.
Francis said, “I am touched.”
She glanced warily up from the dog, expecting mockery or at least amusement. She found neither, only his warm, steady gaze that somehow made it difficult to breathe.
“You touch me in many ways, you know. All the time.”
“I d-do?”
As though seeing the sudden heat under her skin, he touched her cheek with the backs of two fingers. “You do.”
“Why?”
At that, a smile did spring into his eyes, and his fingers moved, cupping her cheek. “I don’t know. You are rather wonderful. Behind those prickles and dull, governess clothes, you are all light and color. I like that. I like it very much.”
