Unmasked by her Lover, page 14
“But I do have something very particular to ask you.”
She sighed. “Then ask so that we might move on.”
“You and your sister are very alike, are you not?”
Whatever she had expected, it was not that. However, although her gaze flew involuntarily to his in surprise, she raised one sardonic eyebrow. “You cannot need me to answer that. You have only to look.”
“Yes, but I can’t, can I?” He looked about him ostentatiously. “Where is your sister?”
She shrugged, hiding her unease. “Mending her gown, I imagine. Calvert trod on her hem with unaccustomed clumsiness.”
“Of course he did. And when she finally returns, you will be gone, busy about something else.”
Her stomach twisted. It was inevitable someone would notice eventually. She just wished it had been anyone but Ives. “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she said, allowing a hint of impatience into her voice. “Are you accusing me of something? Or Meg?”
He smiled in a way that made her itch to slap him. “But they are the same, are they not? You are Lady Meg.”
She laughed. “How wonderful! Even now, people cannot tell the difference.”
“But I can. I don’t know why it took me so long—perhaps because the idea was so preposterous. But it was you, Lady Meg, who spoke to me from the window, who attended the card party. Lady Calvert is not here.”
“You should sit down, Mr. Ives,” she said solicitously, coming to a halt. “You are clearly not yourself. Shall I send for your carriage?”
His smile only broadened. “Yes, you are very good, and it really does sound insane. But I was just talking to that fellow Garrow, and when I asked him to think about it, he could not remember one occasion when he had seen you both in the same room.”
“Then his memory is faulty,” she said, doing her best to sound merely amused, for Ives was quite malicious enough to spread his discovery. “For of course he has. Everyone has.”
“I haven’t.”
“Of course you have.” As though irritated by his persistence with this idiocy, she removed her fingers from his arm. But he quickly seized it, all but slapping it back on his arm and covering it. Her whole body seemed to buzz with warning as she gazed, frowning into his triumphant eyes.
“We both know that isn’t true,” he said softly. “But of course I understand why you and Calvert don’t want it spread around that your sister has bolted. Which is why you will meet me tonight, so that you may finish what Lady Martha began.”
“You make no sense,” she said coldly. “Unhand me this instant.”
A quick glance to either side showed her Calvert close by but deep in conversation and paying her no attention. Harry, looking right at her, set down his glass and began to walk toward her.
“Or what?” Ives sneered. “Never tell me Calvert cannot tell the difference between you? Or doesn’t he care?”
With a hiss of outrage, Meg snatched her hand free. Slightly surprised that he made no effort to hold her this time, she followed his gaze to the drawing room door.
Where Martha stood in Meg’s gown, with Meg’s hairstyle of the evening, a faintly mischievous smile on her lips as she gazed around her until she found her sister.
Chapter Fourteen
For an instant, their eyes met. Emotion surged through Meg so quickly that it emerged as laughter.
She cast one last haughty glance at Ives. “I find you as offensive as you are ridiculous.”
Then she walked away, fiercely pleased by his open-mouthed astonishment as he finally realized what a fool he had made of himself. To say nothing of revealing himself as an utter scoundrel. But she had more urgent concerns, the chief of which was to prevent Calvert from charging straight at his wife as if he had not seen her for more than a week.
Which, of course, he hadn’t.
He was looking wildly from Martha to Meg, as though to assure himself that they were both really here. She caught up with him and took his arm. “Yes, her gown is fine, my dear. And Meg never bears grudges. Allow me a word…” With a quick, apologetic smile at his companions, she drew him away.
“For God’s sake, stop gawping,” she murmured, “or you will undo us at the last.”
“But when…how…?”
“I imagine she must have met with Mathews.”
“I shall go mad,” Calvert announced. “You are she, and she is you.”
“It’s clear you never grew up with us, or you would take such minor confusion in your stride. There, Harry has her.”
“Wait until I get hold of her,” Johnny murmured, pausing beside them.
“Not your place, old fellow,” Calvert said, dragging his gaze away from his wife.
“Yes, it dashed-well is,” Johnny insisted. “I was worried sick for her.”
“You should have listened to me,” Meg said. “I told you she was fine.”
*
Whatever her concerns, Meg knew she could not come between the husband and wife in the inevitable confrontation. When the party was over, she studiously avoided Martha’s apartments and entered her neglected bedchamber to discover it full of people. Martha sprawled on the bed. Johnny sat at the bottom with his back against the post. Harry rose from a nearby chair, and Mathews, scowling at everyone impartially, was hanging gowns in the cupboard.
“Oh no,” Meg groaned, although it flustered her to find Harry here, even among her siblings. “Do we have to have the family fight here? Have you any idea how tired I am?”
“Don’t flap, Meg,” Johnny said lazily. “Harry came to keep the peace. Though I told him it wasn’t proper for him to be in an unmarried lady’s bedchamber.”
Everyone gazed at him.
“Is that really Johnny preaching propriety?” Martha said faintly.
“Yes, he’s suddenly very strict,” Meg agreed.
“I have always been strict where you two are concerned,” Johnny said with dignity, although he spoiled it by adding, “when I remember to pay attention. The point is, we seem to have got away with the masquerade, and no one knows you bolted. How are you going to make it right with Calvert?”
Martha shrugged. “I didn’t come back for Selwyn.”
“For Meg?” Johnny asked.
Harry said, “If you aren’t going to quarrel, I shall go. Meg, shall I take him with me?”
Johnny opened his mouth to object, but before he could speak, they heard a scratching at the door. Everyone looked at everyone else.
“Oh, Meg,” Martha breathed. “Do you have an assignation?”
Johnny leapt off the bed and charged to the door. He threw it wide to reveal Calvert, who blinked several times.
“Apologies, Meg.” Calvert gazed beyond her to his wife. “I thought I would find you here, although the rest of you—”
“We are just leaving,” Harry said, shoving Johnny in front of him. He cast a quick glance back at Meg, eyebrow raised as though asking if she was happy for him to go. Touched, she nodded, and his lips quirked before he left the room in Johnny’s wake. Mathews scuttled after them.
Martha met her husband’s gaze.
Uneasily, Meg looked from one to the other. She stood beside her sister, but Calvert didn’t look angry.
“May we talk?” he asked abruptly.
“Tomorrow, if you please,” Martha replied with perfect calm. “I am far too tired tonight. I just need two minutes with Meg, and then I am going to sleep for hours and hours.”
It was hardly the answer guaranteed to pacify an irate husband, but Calvert looked more miserable than angry. He bowed. “Very well. Tomorrow it is. I’ll bid you both goodnight.”
As the door closed behind him, Meg released her pent-up breath. “Well, it could have gone worse. But you’re only postponing the inevitable.”
She shrugged. “I don’t need to be afraid when I care for something more than him. You are right. I needed the time to think but running away solves nothing. The child will need us both, and I will not bring him—or her—up in scandal.”
Meg let her mouth drop. “Then you came back for something I said?”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” Martha advised.
“Oh, I won’t. But you did come back at exactly the right time! That vile Ives was trying to force me to an assignation to buy his silence, even though he suspected I wasn’t you. Seriously, Martha, he is not worth even a civil greeting.”
She waved it away, saying only, “I didn’t know he was that bad. Though I’m sorry he spoke to you so. I suppose we cannot cancel his invitation to the ball without talk.” She yawned and stood up. “You must be even more shattered than I. I take it you made it home undiscovered?”
“Yes. Calvert doesn’t know I left. But you must be careful around Captain Garrow. And Mrs. Garrow. We think one of them must be up to no good, might even be a French spy, though we can’t work out why such a person would come here. And Ives might have shared his suspicions with him about you and I being the same person for the last ten days.”
“And Their Graces arrive tomorrow?”
“So we believe. Which is another reason I’m glad you’re back!”
“To bear their wrath?”
“To share it with me. I’m in trouble for bolting with Harry. They sent Johnny after me.”
“It could have been worse,” Martha sympathized. “They might have sent Peter, who would have been much more Friday-faced about the whole thing.” She paused at the door. “Thank you for holding all this together. I didn’t know I needed you to do it, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“So am I.” She smiled. “Go to bed, Martha, before I drop!”
*
Harry entered his chamber, yawning, his mind full of Martha’s return, Meg, and a dream of the future now tantalizingly within his grasp. So long as no one tried to force Meg to marry him, he was winning.
Smiling, he unbuttoned his coat and threw it over the back of the chair before removing the diamond pin from his cravat. It had been a gift from his mother, one of his few valuable possessions in terms of either sentiment or money, and he opened the smallest desk drawer where he had been keeping it. Still thinking of Meg and her delicious softness in his arms, he dropped the pin on top of his coin purse. And frowned.
Dewar’s ring was not on top of the purse where he had left it. Opening the drawer fully, he rummaged, took out his money, purse, and pin, even felt down the back of the drawer in case it had slipped. It hadn’t. The ring was gone.
Harry straightened, rare anger uncurling in his belly. He strode to the door, for he knew exactly who had taken it, and he would get it back. Again.
He paused, already grasping the door handle. He was blaming Garrow because the man had followed him last night and because Meg had told him about the ring. He could have stolen up here during the party and taken it. But so could Aline. And if he wasn’t mistaken, Aline had taken it before with her highwaymen’s attack. Only they hadn’t seemed to be looking for the ring then. Perhaps Aline and her husband were working together, after all.
Releasing the door, he walked back and sat down on the bed while he slowly removed his shirt. For a moment, he even wondered if the incident at the inn had been staged for his benefit. But no, Aline’s anger and outrage had been real, and Garrow, all too drunk and obnoxious. She would never willingly have exposed her child to such behavior.
It made no sense to Harry. They were interested in poor Dewar. In what Dewar might have told him or given him. Did the ring contain some kind of secret Harry knew nothing about? He cared little. His only concern had been to carry out his friend’s last wish and give the ring to his beloved wife. And he would let no one get in the way of that.
However, if there was some danger to his country, he had to take care of that, too.
But impetuosity never won a battle, let alone a war. Tomorrow, without disturbing Martha’s other guests, he would get the ring back and find out what the devil was going on. For now, his hip ached, and he was tired. And with his mind made up, he would sleep like a dog.
If he was lucky, he would dream of Meg.
*
He did. He woke happy and determined, but somewhat later in the morning than he had intended.
Washed and dressed, he threw back the curtains on another sunny day. He was about to stride from the room to see if the Garrows were partaking of breakfast when a little group of walkers caught his attention.
Aline Garrow and Johnny, Lord Fishguard, walked to a bench and sat down near where little Basil played with the nurse.
An involuntary smile curved his lips. In that case, I shall collect the ring, and then, madam, we shall talk.
Accordingly, he left the room and strode along toward the Garrows’ accommodation. He didn’t bother to hide it. Encountering a chambermaid in the passage, he asked, “Captain Garrow in his room?”
“I couldn’t say, sir. I haven’t been in.”
He nodded and passed her. Meg had seen to it that they had separate chambers, and he rather doubted he would find Garrow snoring in Aline’s. However, he knocked once before he went in. It was indeed empty.
Aline kept the room neat, which made his task easier. Methodically, he went through the drawers and jewel cases of the dressing table. Then, he rifled the little desk under the window, but it seemed she did not correspond with anyone. There were no received letters, no half-finished correspondence, which he was quite glad of, for, despite his self-imposed mission, he would have been uncomfortable reading anyone’s private letters.
Finding nothing of interest in the desk, he moved to the cupboard, then felt under the pillows and mattress on the bed.
Straightening, he scowled in frustration. Either she kept it with her, or Garrow was the culprit. He moved to what he suspected was a connecting door to Garrow’s room, but it was locked.
With a sigh, he walked instead toward the passage door.
Before he even got there, it opened, and Aline Garrow walked in.
At the sight of him, she froze. He held her gaze, refusing to be embarrassed, and an instant later, she smiled and closed the door.
“Why Captain Harry,” she said huskily. “What a pleasant surprise. I had supposed you devoted to Lady Meg.”
“I am,” he said, almost surprised to hear the pride in his voice.
“Then I am at a loss to know what I can do for you.”
“You can stop lying and tell me what the devil you are doing at Calvert Court. And you can give me back Major Dewar’s ring.”
Her brow twitched at such straight-talking, but she did not look afraid. Her expression was more assessing.
“Sit,” she said abruptly, indicating the chair by the desk, while she sat in the armchair. “I gather this ring is missing. Why should you imagine I stole it?”
He did not take the chair but kept standing, watching her every movement, every expression. “Because nothing else was taken. No one but you and Garrow knows of its existence. And you’ve taken it before.”
“I have?” she asked, amused.
“The highwaymen. They were yours, were they not?”
She considered him once more. “Not mine, as such, but allies, yes.”
“At last, we get somewhere. Allies in what?”
“First things first,” she said, frowning. “We—my allies and I—were not looking for a ring. I did not take it from you here. You suspect Garrow?”
“Lady Meg told him about it.”
“One moment.” She rose, taking a key from her reticule as she walked to the connecting door. As she unlocked it and went in, Harry followed her to the doorway, watching as she went straight to the washstand and opened the little drawer in the table. She took something from it and walked back, closing and locking the door behind her.
She held out Dewar’s ring and dropped it into Harry’s palm.
“I know his hiding places,” she said mildly.
“Are you really married to him?” Harry blurted.
“Lord, no. He hired me to play his wife so that he would seem more respectable. And so that I could seduce you.”
Harry blinked. “You haven’t tried.”
“What would be the point when you only have eyes for Meg? Besides, what Garrow doesn’t understand is that I meant him to hire me. You think me a spy for the French because of my ancestry. But in fact, I was Wellington’s spy. I still am.”
Harry gazed from her to Dewar’s ring. “Even if I allow that to be true, what the devil is his interest in me? In Dewar? What is yours?”
“Someone from headquarters gave information to the French. And at Toulouse, Garrow was sent with orders for your colonel to move his position. Those orders never reached your colonel, which is how your men took such a pounding.”
“We held,” Harry said fiercely.
“But you shouldn’t have had to. Major Dewar and countless others should not have died there.”
“Dewar was going for orders. He should have met Garrow.”
“Perhaps he did. Perhaps he shot Dewar. Perhaps Dewar knew.”
Harry sank on the bed. “But Dewar would have told me. He would never have kept such knowledge to himself. Even so grievously wounded, he would have found a way to tell someone.”
“Perhaps he did. Look at the ring. I have one—or at least I did—with a secret catch. You can hide tiny notes inside it.”
Blinking, Harry felt around the smooth outside and inside. “It’s too plain. There is nowhere to hide that kind of a catch.” All the same, he passed it over to her, let her look. Inside, he was suddenly numb with the knowledge that Dewar hadn’t trusted him.
“He did not tell me…”
Aline, having examined the ring, passed it back to him. “In the shock, I expect he didn’t know who he could trust.”
“And so he took the secret to his death? No.” Harry shook his head violently. “He would not.”
“That is the general feeling. Which is why we thought he might have told you or given you something.”
Harry pocketed the ring, staring blindly ahead.
Aline touched his shoulder. “Think about it. Think of everything he said to you after you found him. Any word could have a different meaning to the one you assigned to it. Anything you put down to raving might have been true.”
