Unmasking Deception, page 12
“You can’t leave the party,” Dominic growled. “And I don’t need an escort.”
“You mean, what use is a lame, one-armed man in a fight?”
“No, I mean you’re still damned annoying.”
“Gentlemen, quarrelling will not help,” Viola broke in. “Won’t Dominic be less conspicuous on his own as a footman about his business than walking with a gentleman who resembles him uncannily?”
“Fair point,” Richard allowed, scowling. “But for God’s sake, go, Dominic. I’ll talk to you later.”
Dominic swiped up his wig and all but flung it on his head before walking back to Viola and taking her hand once more. His eyes gleamed as he bowed and lightly kissed her fingers, making her blush all over again.
In retaliation, she straightened his wig.
He laughed. “Good night, Viola.”
“Good night.”
She watched him go with a very odd mixture of happiness and anxiety.
“What on earth made him come here?” Richard demanded.
She walked forward, taking his proffered arm. “He seemed to think we had quarreled and came to make it up.”
“He seemed to be succeeding.”
She cast a quick glance up at his harsh face. “Do you mind?”
Surprisingly, he appeared to think about it. “No. Though I should warn you, even without a murder conviction dangling over him, my little brother is not considered a good catch.”
“Neither am I,” Viola said and, for some reason, wanted to laugh and run all the way down the staircase to the ballroom.
Chapter Ten
Dominic likes me.
A gentleman of noble family who, under normal circumstances, had his pick of beautiful and wealthy women, liked her.
Viola did not normally let such foolish things go to her head, but this knowledge made her almost unbearably happy. She knew it would not work, that they each must marry money, but that he even looked at her in such a way made her smile. As for his kisses…
She drifted through her morning tasks in a dream. The children declared life a little flat without their cellar guest, but Viola only laughed. She would not think beyond discovering proof of his innocence. For the moment, it was enough to grasp that he, of all men, knew the worst of her and still liked her. Somehow, her dread of the rest of the Season, that had hung over her like a dense cloud, had lifted.
So that when Sir Alfred Minton was announced, she was quite happy to receive him, even with Mama, blatantly smug, beside her.
Sir Alfred bowed with a flourish to both ladies. “I wonder if I might prevail upon Miss Dove to take a drive in the park with me?” He smiled at Viola, then turned to her mother. “I have my own curricle at the door, and I promise to have her safely back within the hour. I am accounted a tolerable whip.”
“Of course, one knows that,” Mama said with just a little too much enthusiasm. “Viola would love to join you in a turn around the park. Would you not, Viola?”
“Let me just fetch my bonnet,” Viola murmured.
She did not particularly care for Sir Alfred, and she most certainly did not wish to marry him, but as he handed her into his curricle, it struck her that not only should she enjoy this drive, but experiment with being herself in his company, rather than the over-proper young lady she believed Society demanded.
In fact, after the initial exchanges about the weather, she said bluntly, “Tell me, sir, do you invite me to dance and to drive out with you merely to annoy your brother?”
Sir Alfred blinked but recovered quickly. “I confess I did so at first. He is so easy to annoy. But his preference for you is about the only sign of taste and intelligence I have yet discovered in him. Why, do you like him?”
“He is an interesting man,” Viola allowed. “Was he not a friend of Lord Dominic Gorse who recently escaped from Newgate?”
“Well, they certainly wasted their time and money in the same gaming hells.”
“Goodness. Then did he see Lord Dominic kill that other man?”
“I can’t imagine he would have gone on to play cards if he did.”
“He played more that night?” Viola demanded eagerly. “After he left Lord Dominic?”
Sir Alfred cast her a curious look. “I imagine so, for he had only just gone to bed when I arrived at seven to tell him our mother was on her way up to London.”
“Why did you call on him at seven?” Viola asked, distracted.
“To annoy him, of course. I am an early riser, and I’d heard he was at that so-called club until late with Dominic Gorse.”
And yet Dominic claimed to have said good night to them all at two. Could the others really have gone on to Crawley’s rooms without him?
“George wouldn’t put himself out to clear Dom, you know,” Sir Alfred said conversationally. “He was always jealous of him.”
Which gave her yet more food for thought.
*
Although Jarvey had insisted there was nothing to worry about in Lord Richard’s questions last night, George Minton grew increasingly convinced that Dominic’s family suspected the truth.
“Nonsense,” Jarvey said comfortably. “It’s just a brother’s natural curiosity. Bit late in the day, if you ask me, after Dom’s been tried and convicted and sentenced.”
“And escaped,” George pointed out.
“I don’t see what difference that makes. Happy for Dom if he makes it to America. He’s the sort of chap would do very well there.”
“What do you know about America?” George scoffed. In truth, what really worried him was that Dominic Gorse was a stubborn fellow and unlikely to throw in the towel, whether he escaped to the United States or stayed in England. He didn’t want him stirring things up and provoking investigations when everything was already neatly tied up.
It could be that George would soon need more powerful allies than Alfred. If Alfred could even be counted as an ally. So, it was probably time he stepped up his courtship of Viola Dove.
Accordingly, he tied a fresh cravat and sent for the curricle and pair he kept at his brother’s expense.
At the Doves’ front door, he was not pleased to be informed by a maidservant that Miss Dove had already gone driving with another gentleman.
“Mrs. Dove is having a lie-down, sir, or I’d ask you to come in and wait.”
“No, no, I won’t do that,” George said hastily. The last thing he wanted was to be stuck with the mother for an hour or more. “Who did Miss Dove drive out with.”
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the maid replied quite properly.
George thought of bribing her, but he had a feeling he’d need the readies for more important matters. He turned away and returned to his curricle, fuming.
He had clearly taken it too much for granted that he was Viola’s only admirer. Without fortune or great charm, her connection to the Earl of Wenning just wasn’t enough attraction. For although it was generally considered likely that Wenning would do something handsome for his cousin upon marriage, it was no means assured, and Wenning already had a parcel of expensive in-laws hanging on his coattails. Such fools lacked imagination.
Wenning could be compelled. And for himself, he rather liked Viola’s quiet beauty and her tendency to agree with him on every matter. A gentle, submissive wife with relatives he could bleed constantly was attractive to George, and he wasn’t about to give her up. Certainly not when the relatives concerned also had influence enough to save his neck.
Accordingly, he drove about the surrounding streets until, finally, he saw a rather smarter curricle than his own drive up Bernard Street from the square and halt at Viola’s front door. A tiger jumped down and held the horses’ heads while none other than Alfred alighted to hand Viola down. He bowed over her hand, curse him, and George was appalled to observe her laugh before she ran up the steps to her front door with rather more animation than he was used to seeing in her.
God damn it, George thought in rage. Alfred was seriously pursuing her. More than that, he seemed to be succeeding. He was cutting George out with the only plan he had to gain the support of a nobleman. And it couldn’t have come at a worse time, with Dominic Gorse on the run, and Richard, the bloody hero of Waterloo, asking pertinent questions.
There was nothing else for it. Drastic measures were clearly called for.
So, avoiding his brother by turning into the mews lane, he returned to his rooms and composed a pleasant, unthreatening note to Miss Dove.
*
Dominic was pacing again, like one of the wild beasts caged at the Exchange. His wound no longer pained him when he did, and he was itching to get out and do something.
“By all means. If you wish to wait in Newgate while we discover the truth of the matter,” Richard said politely. “Of course, there is no guarantee they won’t execute you before we gather enough evidence—”
“Yes, yes, I take your point,” Dominic interrupted. He threw himself onto the sofa. “I’m not very good at doing nothing.”
“Prison must have been a trial to you,” Richard observed. It was said without sympathy, and yet Dominic knew it was there.
“It could have been worse,” Dominic said. “I had the books you sent. And Napper to discuss military strategy with when he wasn’t too busy.”
As if on cue, Napper marched into the room. “Addressed to you, Major,” he said, holding out a sealed missive. “Delivered by hand.”
Richard took it and broke the seal, while Dominic rose again and walked restlessly to the window. The street below was too quiet to interest him.
“It’s from Dunne,” Richard said. “The man I hired to see what he could find out about your case. He says…”
Dominic whipped around, as much at attention as Napper.
“He says he has some evidence that points to your innocence. He plans to gather more proof if he can and offers to present us with his findings late tomorrow afternoon.”
Dominic sat down abruptly in the window seat.
“This is good news!” Napper exclaimed.
“It should be,” Richard agreed. “I’m going to bid him come to Sedgemoor House tomorrow. It’s time we included my father in this.”
“Then I’ll come with you,” Dominic said at once.
“No, you won’t. Not until I see what this evidence is and if we can present it to the Crown to have you released.”
“I can’t just stay here, twiddling my thumbs, while other people—”
“Other people who should have done more a long time ago,” Richard said curtly. “God knows why we didn’t, but we owe you, Dom. Sit back and take it, or I’ll pummel you. Don’t think I couldn’t.”
“I don’t,” Dominic said in surprise, watching his brother limp out of the room.
*
“And so you are driving out with the other brother today?” her mother said in a voice of faint anxiety. They had just returned from making morning calls and discovered a note from Mr. George Minton. “Do you not think people will talk if you are seen with both of them?”
“I really don’t think people will notice what I do,” Viola said dryly. “A debutante is about to snare a duke’s heir, and a certain widow was discovered in flagrante behind the plant pots at a certain ball. To say nothing of the marquess’s son escaped from Newgate. I really doubt driving out with Mr. Minton is of any moment to anyone.” Even Mr. Minton, she suspected, for he had never seemed exactly warm in his admiration.
“We have time to send a note of regret,” Mama observed. “He will not call until five. It is Sir Alfred you should encourage, not the younger son.” Another anxiety clearly struck her, and she glanced warily at Viola. “You have not developed a tendre for the younger son, have you?”
“No,” Viola said firmly. “But I will accept his invitation to drive in the park.” Unfortunately, it would be at the fashionable hour when Hyde Park would be heaving with carriages, riders, and pedestrians “on the strut,” as Adrian called it. But she could not refuse an opportunity to pick his brains further about the murder of Mr. Crawley.
It was only as she climbed the stairs that a new possibility hit her. Up until now, she had been concerned with proving Lord Dominic couldn’t have done it. But someone clearly had, and if George Minton and Mr. Jarvey had been with Crawley after Dominic had left them…could Minton be responsible?
She stopped dead on the stairs. An unpleasant shiver ran through her. Minton’s eyes were cool, oddly expressionless. Unlike Dominic’s, which constantly seethed with restless emotions. And when he kissed her, they grew hot and cloudy, like the sun trying to break through a misty day…
“Viola, Matty’s home!” Susan’s voice penetrated her distracted daydream.
She blinked, smiling with sudden pleasure, and ran the rest of the way up to the schoolroom, where the children were clustered around their governess Miss Mather while Pup ran around them all in excited circles.
“Matty,” Viola greeted her with a hug. “Welcome back! How are you? How is your mother?”
“On the mend, thank goodness, and I am well, as you see.”
Miss Mather, known to her pupils as Matty, was young for a governess. Perhaps in her late twenties, she dressed austerely and, no doubt for professional reasons, contrived to look older than her years and more severe than her kind and secretly fun-loving nature. She had inspired a desire to learn in Arabella and Susan and encouraged Catherine’s already huge love of books while tempering it with a little sensible training in the ladylike accomplishments of music, dancing, and watercolors. She had even helped Adrian when he was struggling with his Latin. So she was, in many ways, an unusual governess.
And she was the savior of Viola’s self-respect. Because she could not read, she had been regarded as stupid by her despairing mother, aunts, uncles, and a succession of teachers. The fact that she was quick with figures and with understanding everything that was spoken, stood for nothing until Miss Mather.
Little by little, as she began to understand what her brain was doing with certain letters, she had begun to put them into the right order and make sense of the words they formed. It was taking time and practice, but when she was calm, she could read whole pages at a time. Even when Matty was away visiting her sick mother, even when Dominic was hiding in the cellar, Viola practiced every day.
Dominic did not seem to hold her reading disability against her. Dominic…
Hastily, she dragged her wayward mind back to the present. Where there was no possibility of the children doing lessons.
“You’ll be tired after your journey,” Arabella told Matty with a quick, pleading glance at Viola.
“Of course, there is no point in lessons before tomorrow,” Viola said obligingly. “But run down to the kitchen and ask Sarah to bring tea.”
When it was time for Viola to go and change for her drive, she was quite surprised when Matty followed her into her bedchamber.
“How goes the Season?” Matty asked, helping her to unfasten the hooks of her gown. “Are you enjoying it any more than before?”
“Actually, I am,” Viola replied, almost in surprise. “I’ve stopped caring if people find me odd or unsuitable, and that seems to work much better.”
“And you have an admirer?”
For an instant, Viola’s mind leapt to Dominic. Surely the children would not have told her about his sojourn in the cellar? And surely they couldn’t have known about the kisses?
Of course not. She meant George Minton.
“Or is it two admirers?” Matty asked lightly.
Viola wrinkled her nose. “Neither, I suspect. One pays me attention to annoy his brother. The brother is not really interested in me either, so I’ve no idea why he calls or takes me to the park. It is certainly not a passionate courtship!”
“Would you like it to be?”
“No,” Viola said fervently.
“The Season is coming to an end.”
Viola was miserably aware of that. Aware of her failure and of relief at that failure. She’d been naive to imagine she was bound to fall in love with whoever chose her, that she could marry anyone who seemed to like her. And yet, her family still needed her to marry well.
“Mama talks of going to Brighton.” She threw the carriage dress over her head and let Matty fasten the hooks. “To extend my chances.”
“And what do you think?”
“That it will make no difference. I have met nobody I could bring myself to marry, even if they were to ask.” Except Dominic.
Don’t. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about love…
Too late. Now she would think of nothing else. Impossible as it was from every view-point. She had not known him a week. He was just a charming rake, grateful for her help. This was a mere, contrary attraction, nothing like a lasting love.
And yet, while it persisted, she could consider no one else.
“You seem…different,” Matty observed.
Perception made her an excellent governess, though a difficult friend. “In what way?” Viola asked lightly.
“I’m not sure. Self-confidence, perhaps. Or happiness.”
I am happy, she thought with awe. I am happy because I love Dominic.
Except, of course, she didn’t—couldn’t—really love him. And if she did, she was doomed to heartache.
Hastily, she brushed out and repinned her hair, and then Matty accompanied her downstairs to the salon where she and her mother had once received Barnaby Smith, the Bow Street Runner. What a pity she couldn’t tell Matty that story. Yet.
“Is that your admirer?” Miss Mather asked from the window.
Viola moved near enough to glance over the governess’s shoulder. George Minton was alighting from his curricle and striding toward the Doves’ front door. He was smartly dressed, a perfect gentleman. With cool eyes covering a cold soul.
Where had such fanciful thoughts come from? “Yes, that is Mr. Minton. I had better go. But I’ll see you at dinner, Matty.”
Mr. Minton was his affable, civil self, handing her into the curricle and making polite conversation as they set off in the direction of Hyde Park.
