Unmasking Sin, page 13
She had no reason to stay here and every reason to remove Tom from danger and fight for her lost reputation at the same time. It would be uncomfortable and difficult, but she had unexpected new allies, and God help her, she was tired of doing nothing but accepting whatever was flung at her. She wanted to fight.
“Goodbye, Mr. Napper,” she said and turned her back on him.
Chapter Twelve
Informed in advance of His Grace’s plans, Ludovic arrived at Calvert Court the morning after the duke. Since it was only around eleven o’clock, he expected to be taken up to Dearham’s room or at least forced to kick his heels until the ducal fast was broken.
But to his surprise, he was left only a few minutes in the hall before the duke strode across the tiled floor, stretching out his hand. “Mr. Dunne, you are prompt! Come, we’ll use Calvert’s study. He won’t mind.”
Ludovic followed him into a cozy, comfortable, very masculine room. He doubted much studying went on here, but it was definitely a male hideaway. He laid his document case on the empty desk and took from it his short report, which he passed to Dearham.
“I did not bring any documents or copies to back up my conclusions,” he told the duke. “Mainly because they prove the girl is not your cousin. She was indeed adopted, but by the sister of her natural mother, and her age at christening is noted in the parish register. She is only sixteen years old, which makes her, I believe, at least four years too young to be the child born to your cousin.”
“Damn.” Dearham sighed. “Where did my people even come up with this name as a possibility?”
“Perhaps because your cousin did indeed live briefly in the same village.”
“Did she, by God?” Dearham glanced through the report and folded it thoughtfully. He glanced at Ludovic. “Perhaps I should be employing you in this search.”
“I could not devote much time to it for several weeks,” Ludovic said. “And your own people might yet come up with a likelier candidate.”
Dearham shrugged, leaning back against the desk. “There is no great rush after all this time. Probably.”
Ludovic drew in his breath. “About the other matter I broached with Your Grace?”
“Lady Cornish? Sent my sisters round to make friends. They like her.”
“Thank you,” Ludovic said sincerely. “Do you believe her position has improved?”
Dearham straightened. “Ask her yourself. Breakfast?”
*
For Rebecca, the days she had spent at Calvert Court had worked out much as she had imagined. She had caught a few leery or outraged looks. One woman had even drawn her skirt out of the way to avoid Rebecca’s touching it. Another had deliberately placed her embroidery frame on the seat next to her own to prevent Rebecca from sitting there. And a dowager seemed very intent on preventing her unmarried son from going anywhere near her.
But there had been no direct rudeness, not even from Mrs. Belfont. And the marriageable young man who had taken her into dinner last night had even flirted with her in a mild and courteous way. As had the duke himself when he arrived late that evening.
“I knew we had met before,” he claimed with his engaging smile and a definite twinkle in his eyes. “But why on earth don’t I know you better?” He was, of course, ridiculously charming, and Rebecca could imagine all too easily how women fell into his lap. However, her days of succumbing to easy charm were well behind her, and she found it surprisingly fun to laugh at him and turn his compliments back on him.
None of this attention did her any harm in the eyes of Lady Calvert’s other guests. Lady Henry, known to her friends simply as Meg, said a few days of this would make her “human” again in their eyes. As would odd glimpses like this: her son playing with three other little boys, being watched by Annie and the Calverts’ nurse.
Rebecca knelt on a blanket on the lawn, ignoring her book while she watched Tom play. He was a little in awe of the slightly older children, particularly fascinated by Meg’s twins who looked so much alike. But he was clearly having the time of his life with other children nearly always on hand.
He was ambling after the ball as it rolled past Rebecca and grinning as she encouraged him. And then his gaze went beyond her, and the grin widened as he sped up and ran right past the ball.
Turning with some amusement to see what puppy or interesting object had caught his erratic attention, she saw him hurl himself at a gentleman’s leg. And looking upward, her mouth already open to apologize, she beheld Ludovic Dunne.
Her heart gave a funny little dive that caught at her breath. Shock, she assumed, that he would follow her even here, as she tried to retrieve her life in order to make Tom’s better, to prevent the uncles using her reputation against her.
If he had noticed her, he gave no sign of it. Gazing down at the child with a tolerant smile, he rustled Tom’s hair. “Greetings, young sir. You seem in fine form.” And he actually crouched down to be on the same level as Tom.
“The country is wonderful,” Tom enthused. “There are children and puppies and horses and—” He spun around in a circle. “A huge garden! With sheep and cows! Mama says we can’t stay forever, and I have my own big garden with sheep and cows and puppies.”
“Don’t you remember it?”
“Not very well,” Tom admitted without noticeable regret.
Mr. Dunne reached out and picked up the ball. He threw it to the other children all haring toward him now, and Tom ran off chortling.
Ludovic Dunne raised his gaze to Rebecca’s. God, she had forgotten the piercing quality of those hard, gray eyes. How could eyes be so cool and yet so…intense?
He smiled. “Good morning.”
“It was,” she said frostily, turning her head to watch the children once more.
She was vaguely aware of him moving behind her, for the hairs stood up on the back of her neck. Why was even that not unpleasant around him? Then he stood beside her without blocking her view of the children.
“I have spoiled your morning by my mere presence?” he inquired.
“I have nothing to say to my husband’s uncles.”
“Neither do I.”
She cast him a contemptuous glance. “Then what are you doing here, if not spying on me?”
It should at least have made him think, but it didn’t. “Completing a small commission for His Grace of Dearham. And before you start imagining some huge conspiracy involving your uncles, the duke’s entire family, and me, perhaps you and I should talk.”
“I have nothing to say to you,” she snapped, although it wasn’t strictly true, and there was little conviction in her voice. She drew in her breath. “Sit or go away. I cannot bear to be loomed over.”
He sat as smoothly and gracefully as he seemed to do everything. But he did not crowd her. There was a reasonable twelve inches of blanket between them.
She attacked immediately. “You ask me to believe—although it is obviously none of my business—that you are the Duke of Dearham’s solicitor?”
“No, I am not. He merely gave me one task for which my talents are well suited.” His lips quirked. “Much of my work is made up of such short commissions.”
“I see. So, what was the short commission given to you by my husband’s uncles?”
“I cannot answer that,” he said steadily. He met her deliberately scornful gaze, though he seemed unmoved by it. “Though, as I hoped I had made clear by my offer to help you, I completed that commission and ended my association with them.”
“How can I know the truth of that?”
He sighed, with just a hint of weariness. “I suppose you can’t.”
He had saved her from the uncles’ trap at Maida. His man had saved them from burglary, and he had wrung the truth of the break-ins from Renwick while doing his best to put a stop to them.
“Are you expensive?” she asked abruptly. “For those short commissions?”
“I can be. It depends.”
“What did Theo’s uncles pay you?”
His lips twitched upward. “Nothing as yet. I believe we had a slight misunderstanding about the exact nature of my commission.”
“What sort of a misunderstanding?”
“That my task is always to discover the truth as best I can, not to guarantee that my clients will like it.”
A sudden warmth seeped through her bones. Was he saying he had told the uncles the truth? That her reputation was innocent of all save misjudgment and that she had not been responsible for the death of her husband? Either of her husbands! The uncles would have been furious because they had imagined they had bought someone to manufacture evidence to suit them.
Or was this yet more lies?
“I have never lied to you,” he said steadily, as though he had read the thoughts behind her searching gaze. “Or to them.”
An adult had joined the children’s game. Major Lord Henry de Vere, known to his family as Harry, kicked the ball and chased the four small boys up the lawn in pursuit of it. Tom, who found himself keeping pace with the twins’ father, grinned up at him.
Rebecca’s heart hurt. There were decent men in the world for her son to look up to. It was conceivable the man beside her was one of them, though she doubted she would ever know for sure.
Lord Harry managed to organize the boys in a ring and got them throwing the ball to each other. Then he strolled toward Rebecca and Dunne and flopped casually down on the rug.
“He’s a great little fellow, your Tom,” he observed to Rebecca with a smile. “Game as a pebble.” He glanced at Dunne and offered his hand. “Harry de Vere.”
“Ludovic Dunne.”
They shook hands.
“Dunne,” Harry said. “Very glad to meet you at last. I heard what you did for Dominic Gorse.”
“The truth was not hard to find,” Dunne assured him, but the name Dominic Gorse suddenly made Rebecca frown.
“That was your doing?” she blurted. “You were responsible for freeing Lord Dominic Gorse?”
“Well, he rather freed himself,” Dunne said humorously. “But it was a simple matter to find evidence that he couldn’t and didn’t commit the crime.”
“Simple or not, the Gorses are very grateful,” Lord Harry said. “Are you a friend of Calvert’s too?”
“Regretfully, I have not met either Lord or Lady Calvert,” Dunne said. “I had business with the Duke of Dearham.”
“I suppose one has to pursue Johnny round the country to get anything done,” Lord Harry murmured.
Dunne avoided comment by reaching out to grab the escaped ball and throw it back to the children. He wouldn’t, it seemed, discuss the duke’s business either. Not necessarily a conspiracy against Rebecca, merely a professional courtesy of confidentiality. And when he got up to teach the boys how to play piggy-in-the-middle, another thought came to her.
Tom likes him.
I like him. That’s why I am so angry, why I feel betrayed.
And even hating him for that treachery, his kiss had been nectar, melting her bones. She realized she was touching her lips and hastily dropped her hand back into her lap.
*
Discovering Rebecca Cornish here was an unlooked-for pleasure. Coming closer to a truce with her was better yet. As was seeing her in the midst of such a party. The support of Dearham’s family would go a long way to rehabilitating her with her peers. Not that it should have been necessary, but one had to work with the hand one was dealt.
Ludovic slipped quietly away from the children’s game and from the adults wandering out into the sunshine. Returning to the house, he was just crossing the hall to the study where he had left his empty document case when his eye was caught by a familiar red and gold military uniform.
An army officer was sauntering down the stairs. For an instant, Ludovic was blinded by the sun shining directly in the tall staircase window. And then, as the officer continued down, his gleaming gold hair and perpetual, self-satisfied smirk became visible.
It had been some years since Ludovic had encountered Captain Peveril Dauncy, but his stomach still twisted so violently it made him nauseous. He saw the instant Dauncy recognized him, too, for his foot actually faltered, and the smirk vanished from his face for almost a full second.
It was not in Dauncy’s nature to ignore him. A sneering smile curled his full, over-soft lips. “Well, well,” he drawled, continuing his leisurely descent. “If it isn’t the ubiquitous Mr. Dunne. In a gentleman’s house.”
Ludovic contemplated the cut direct. To look through the man and simply turn his back and walk out. Dauncy had kindly presented him with the opportunity. On the other hand, Dauncy’s very presence offered a greater opportunity than a petty social insult.
“But then, I have always lived in a gentleman’s residence,” he said gently.
Dauncy’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps as the footman,” he sneered. “Not so different from the jumped-up little lawyer you now pretend to be. Why don’t you run along and crawl back under your stone?”
“You know, Dauncy,” Ludovic said gently, “you should really be careful about insulting the other guests of your host. Bad manners.”
“Guest?” Dauncy threw back his head and laughed. “If that’s true, which I doubt, Calvert can’t be aware that your brother was executed for treason. Someone should tell him.”
Once, the red fury would have blinded him at such words. Now, he was used to the pain. “Perhaps someone should also mention your own military record.”
Dauncy stepped closer. His too-pale blue eyes were bloodshot, and his breath reeked of last night’s brandy. “I am a viscount’s son, a war hero with friends at Horseguards as well as among all the best aristocratic families. You are nobody, a grubby little lawyer. Which of us would come off best in that little contest of tattle-tale?”
“Do you want to find out? Preferably after your recourse to the tooth powder.”
Dauncy’s hand clenched, and part of Ludovic’s heart soared with ferocious joy.
And then voices and footsteps reached them as several people came in from the garden talking about walks and bonnets and other trivia. It was Dauncy who stepped back, unfurling his hand and forcing a smile to his face as he strolled over and bowed to the ladies. Who included Rebecca Cornish.
“Dauncy throwing his weight around?” the Duke of Dearham murmured beside him.
“Trying to,” Ludovic replied, dragging his gaze away from Rebecca and trying to recover his equilibrium. His hands still ached to hurt Peveril Dauncy. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“Barely know the fellow. I presume Calvert does. And speaking of whom, allow me to present you to your host, Lord Calvert. Calvert, Mr. Ludovic Dunne.”
The good-looking man beside the duke held out his hand. “Ah. You’re the gentleman lawyer who got Dominic Gorse off. How do you do?”
Ludovic shook his hand. “His lordship only got off because he didn’t do it. No one else had troubled to look.”
“Hmm, the law needs a bit of a shake-up,” Calvert observed. “At any rate, you’re very welcome. Martha didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“Oh, I’m not. I had business with His Grace, now concluded. I must thank you for your hospitality and be on my way.”
Calvert looked faintly amused. “Where’s the rush? I’m sure my wife will regard your presence as something of a coup, so I hope you’ll stay. Got baggage?”
“It’s in the chaise, which is waiting—”
“I’ll have my people dismiss it, and I’ll introduce you to my wife.”
Ludovic hesitated. His gaze flickered to Dauncy’s back and Rebecca’s distant, smiling face. It seemed he had two reasons to stay. And he could not resist either of them.
*
When Rebecca went down for dinner that evening, her mind was too much on Ludovic Dunne and not enough on the time. On previous evenings, she had timed to a nicety her entry to the pre-dinner gallery gathering so that her host or hostess or one of their siblings was always present. Tonight, she was early, and only the Belfonts and a young debutante with her mother were present.
Since they must already have seen her, she could not turn tail and run. So she kept going, murmured “Good evening” without glancing at their glassy faces, and roamed around the gallery examining portraits of long-dead Calverts until the room filled up. A footman offered her sherry or ratafia, and as she took the former, she saw over his shoulder that Ludovic Dunne was now among the assembled guests.
Her heart lurched. So, he was still here. The silly thing was, instead of minding, she was actually almost…excited. Perhaps because she had been reconsidering his offer of help and wondered if she dared accept it. She doubted she would ever trust him enough, and yet other people did. The Duke of Dearham, for one. Lord Dominic Gorse for another. Could she really blame him for investigating her on the strength of the uncles’ story?
“Who is that Friday-faced old weasel?” asked a voice in her ear.
A strange zing passed through her whole body, leaving her warm and breathless. How could only his voice do this to her?
Forcing herself to actually see the portrait she was staring at, she said, “I really have no idea. He is singularly ill-favored, is he not? Otherwise, I would assume him to be an ancestor of our host.”
“Great-grandfather, perhaps,” Mr. Dunne guessed, eying the extravagant wig. “I expect he was a charming fellow once one got to know him. What we need to do is locate his wife, so we can discover where Calvert’s good looks come from.”
“Inner purity,” said Lord Calvert himself, appearing between them with a bottle of brandy with which he topped up Mr. Dunne’s glass. Fortunately, he seemed quite happy for his guests to abuse his ancestors. “Besides, he’s only a great-uncle, perhaps with a few more greats. I only leave him there to frighten the children. Anyway, Dunne, why on earth would you be looking at the old goat when you have this beautiful lady at your side?”
“For fear of being dazzled once more,” Dunne said promptly.
“Better,” Calvert allowed, clapping him on the shoulder as he passed on to his other guests.
