Unmasking the Hero, page 14
Leyton flushed, then paled in rapid succession. “Did Grace see me?”
“If she did, she didn’t mention it to me. Phineas had it from someone or other. Who is she?”
Leyton sniffed haughtily, then sighed and gave in. “Frances Caldwell. She’s quite a well-known actress, and God help me, I love her to distraction. But I can’t marry her, can I? So we meet discreetly, including at occasional masked balls at Maida. It’s about as public as we can risk.”
“Sorry,” Wenning said sincerely. “I’ll try and think of a way to help.”
A smile of affection flickered over the serious face. “I know you will, and I’m grateful. But your own problem is rather more urgent. Marital suspicions are one thing. Attempted murder is quite another. Have you approached the authorities?”
“I’ve persuaded Bow Street to set a couple of Runners to watch over Grace. But my thought is, it has to be someone who was part of your party.”
“And who knew you were there,” Leyton pointed out. “Did you come across anyone with a white rose in their domino who might have recognized you?”
Wenning shook his head slowly. He didn’t want to believe the suspicion forming in his head. But discovering the truth would inevitably have a price.
Chapter Thirteen
Finding her husband’s note made Grace smile. Which was odd. Only two days ago, she would have immediately set about avoiding him. Today, she asked the servants if his lordship would be home for dinner, and learning that he would, she set about bathing and dressing for the evening, while a knot of excitement formed in her stomach.
She felt like the girl she had been the night after she had first met him and knew she would see him again at the ball. A whole new world of hope and the beginnings of love had seemed to be opening up for her. Well, she was no longer that naïve, but love might still be possible.
She was just regarding herself in the glass when an abrupt knock sounded at the door. Her heartbeat quickened, but when the door swung open, it was her graceless brother, Rollo, who strolled in.
“Oh, good, glad I caught you,” he said by way of greeting. “Where are you off to?”
“The opera. I don’t imagine I shall see you there.”
Rollo shuddered. “Not likely.” He threw himself into a chair and regarded her. “Everything well?” he asked.
“I believe so,” she replied steadily. “To what do I owe the honor? Apart from brotherly concern, of course.”
He grinned. “Of course. Thing is, pockets to let, debts to pay, and I—” He broke off as the earl strolled into the room.
Oliver’s gaze seemed to caress her, catching at her breath. But he paused to bow and turned, smiling faintly toward her brother.
“Rollo,” he said, holding out his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met since I returned.”
Rollo regarded the hand for a moment, then rose reluctantly to his feet and shook it briefly. “Been avoiding you,” he said bluntly.
Oliver’s lips twitched. “I’m glad the matter is rectified. Have you come for dinner?”
“Lord, no.” He frowned. “Though I suppose it would be cheaper. But, no, I’m promised to friends.”
“What a gracious refusal,” Grace murmured.
Rollo ignored her. “Just came to ask Grace something.”
“Don’t let me hold you back.” Oliver strolled to the window, and Rollo scowled after him, for he was hardly out of earshot.
“I’ve forgotten the question,” he said lamely. “Must be the brandy.”
“I believe dinner is ready to be served,” Grace said. “So either join us or shove off, Rollo.”
“Suppose I’ll shove off,” Rollo said without offense.
His eyes twinkling, Oliver bowed them out ahead of him. Rollo, very uncharacteristically, almost seized Grace’s hand into the crook of his arm and all but galloped ahead to the stairs.
“Thing is, I find myself short,” he muttered. “Any objections if I sell that damned pin you won from Boothe?”
“None. I gave it to you.”
“Excellent,” Rollo said, slowing up and releasing her. “Then I wish you joy of your caterwauling! Your servant, Wenning!” With that, he ran off downstairs, leaving the others slightly bemused.
“By caterwauling, he means opera?” Oliver hazarded.
“Sadly, yes. My brother is a philistine.”
Oliver followed her into the dining room, which had been refurbished and lightened in his absence. “My compliments on the redecoration. I hope Rollo is not in trouble?”
“Lord, no. Well, no more than usual. He has run out of money—again—and wanted my permission to sell a trinket I gave him.”
“What does he do with himself these days?” Oliver held her chair for her, and she sat.
“Rackets about town in the best family tradition. Papa won’t let him near the management of the estates.”
“Do you blame him?”
“Actually, yes. Papa’s stewards haven’t exactly excelled at it, and at least Rollo is interested. Besides, if he were in the country, he couldn’t be going to the devil here, could he?”
“I suppose not.” He waited while the soup was placed in front of them, and their wine poured out before he added, “I understand you are quite a dab hand at estate management yourself.”
She shrugged. “That was easy. Your land thrives and makes a profit, and you have good people in place to manage it. I had little cause to intervene.”
“But when you did, it was with purpose.”
“I insisted on a few repairs and looked after a tenant in trouble. The cost did not require me to sell your silver or even curtail my dress allowance.”
“I wasn’t criticizing,” he said mildly. “It was, in fact, a compliment. You cannot be unused to those.”
“I am unused to you.”
He met her gaze. “I am glad we begin to remedy that.”
“As am I.”
“Then tell me about this tenant in trouble.”
The conversation, at first stilted by the past, by unfamiliarity, and by the presence of servants, grew gradually easier and more interesting. She told him about the estates, what she had done and why, mingled with a few amusing anecdotes. He told her a little about his journey, about the fascinating culture and beauty of China. So, by the time dinner was over and the carriage awaited, Grace was much more comfortable. And eager to know more.
Unwilling to upset this fragile truce, she did not ask the awkward questions to which she was desperate to know the answers. She did not mention last night’s shooting, and neither did he. Instead, on the journey to Covent Garden, they discussed singers and operas.
“Tell me,” he said in the carriage, “have you ever seen an actress called Frances Caldwell?”
“Why, yes. Never in the leading role so far, but she undoubtedly has talent. I look out for her name when deciding what I want to see. Why?”
“Between ourselves, Leyton just confessed to me he has a tendre for her. I’m not talking about the more common relationship between a gentleman and a lady of the stage. He wants to marry her.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed, remembering. “I wonder… I saw him with someone once. At Maida Gardens. But surely, he will not marry her?”
“He is aware of all the reasons he shouldn’t. Not least that if he does, her life will be miserable, for his own society will never accept her.”
“It is unfair.” She frowned, remembering Leyton’s unfailing if distant kindness to her, and glanced at her husband. “He has looked out for me, you know. Sir Ernest.”
Oliver seemed to hesitate. Then, “He would have, in any case, because that is his nature. But I confess I asked him to.”
“Why?”
“Because I could not.”
“Did not,” she corrected.
His lips quirked in rueful acknowledgment, but before he could respond, the carriage came to a halt before the theatre, and the door was opened for them to alight.
When he spoke again, they were in the theatre foyer. “I’m afraid you will be the center of attention again. Our first public outing together.”
She shrugged. “I thrive on the attention, my lord. Ask anyone.”
“I would rather ask you.”
Despite the light, bantering tone they both employed, she sensed a seriousness behind it. He didn’t want merely to be reassured that she coped. He wanted to know what she felt.
“It takes a little courage at first,” she murmured. “And then it becomes a game of pretend. I have grown into my pretend character so that I can no longer tell the difference. In short, let them look.”
He settled her hand on his arm with a brief squeeze, and together they made their stately way up the staircase, nodding amiably to acquaintances and along the passage to the Wenning box, where there was more bowing to do to those in other boxes.
“I fell in love with you at the opera,” he recalled unexpectedly. “Or at least that was when I acknowledged it to myself.”
“What a pity.”
He blinked. “Pity? Why?”
She was saved from answering by the arrival of her invited guests, who included her mother and Sir Ernest Leyton. Private speech with her husband was over for the time being, and while that was frustrating, she was also relieved. She did not wish to quarrel, to break the frail truce they had begun, with all its possibilities. And yet, she could not pretend that his sudden departure on their wedding night was pleasant, excusable, or right.
But if she could not ask Oliver such blunt questions, she could speak to Sir Ernest. During the first interval, when her mother moved seats, she found an opportunity to be relatively private. A little space formed around them, and the chatter in the box served to drown out their own conversation from all but each other.
“Wenning told me,” she murmured, “that when he left for China, he asked you to watch over me.”
Sir Ernest looked slightly hunted. “He asked me to have a care for you, not to spy on you.”
She smiled. “Oh, I understand that and am grateful. You saved me from many a Town pitfall just waiting to swallow an unwary bride.”
“You learned quickly,” he said uncomfortably.
“Fortunately for both of us,” she observed. “Tell me, sir, did he request this of you after he left or before?”
“After,” he admitted. “He wrote from Southampton, just before the ship sailed.”
She drew in her breath. “Tell me, did he give you a reason, then or later, for changing his mind about China?”
He met her gaze with reluctance, but his eyes were as open and honest as ever. “In two years, you never asked me that.”
Her lips twisted. “One has to pretend one does not care.”
“You should be having this conversation with Wenning.”
“How can I when I do not know—” She broke off. “Before I can even begin to make this right, I need to know if there’s a point. Was he somehow forced into marriage with me?”
“Of course not!” Sir Ernest looked shocked at the very idea.
“Then why did he change toward me?”
Sir Ernest shifted in his seat. “I don’t believe he ever did, not in his heart. He discovered something that shocked him. A letter you had written to another man that seemed to convince him you had married him for nothing more than money. Please, don’t ask me any more.”
At that moment, Grace was incapable of saying anything at all.
She had never, to the best of her recollections, written to any man. Unless one counted Rollo or her father. Or all the letters she had begun to Oliver and torn up without sending. She had certainly never written a love letter. In fact, unless she counted the second footman when she was thirteen, or one of Rollo’s friends who had stayed during the school holiday when she was fourteen, she had never even imagined herself in love with anyone. Until Oliver.
Then their separation had been caused by nothing but a lie. A lie Oliver had believed. Because the letter must have been convincing, but where on earth could such a letter have come from? There could have been no misunderstanding there of something she had written. So, who in the world would have played such a cruel trick?
A chill began to creep through her blood. The same person who tried to shoot us?
The second act had begun before she was again aware of her surroundings. And Sir Ernest was still beside her.
“Thank you,” she whispered beneath her breath.
He cast her a distracted smile.
“I would return the favor,” she murmured. “Would it help if I called on Mrs. Caldwell?”
His eyes widened in panic. “He told you!”
“I saw you together at Maida Gardens.”
“The Countess of Wenning cannot call on an actress,” he said bluntly.
“But I would like to meet her. If she is agreeable.” She became aware that her mother and several other people were glancing toward them and lapsed into silence.
*
The Honorable Rollo Darblay, impatient with the staid nature of the established clubs in St. James and bored with most of the entertainments offered by the ton, had discovered a pleasant home from home in the back streets of St. Giles.
Here, he had honored the Orange Tree Club with his membership. It had a lot to recommend it. Congenial, if rough company, cheap food and drink, women, gaming. Here, you were more likely to run into prize fighters and lowly born entrepreneurs than aristocrats, although there were a few of those, too. And the female company was not the kind one introduced to one’s mother or sister. It also held a permanent hint of danger that appealed to Rollo’s jaded heart.
The Orange Tree—named for the incongruous stained glass window in the main room—was not troubled by constricting rules of behavior, but the play was fair. And although Rollo was pretty sure to be rubbing shoulders with known criminals, thieving on the premises was dealt with very harshly by the two amiable brutes who guarded the doors.
One could also take care of small matters of business, such as selling or pawning valuables. The motive for providing such services was clearly so that patrons would then spend their newly acquired money on play at the club, and Rollo was certainly willing to oblige on that score. Once he had paid off his debts of honor, of course.
“There’s no need to be in such a hurry, Rolls,” his friend Mr. Meade said uneasily. “I can wait for my money, you know. Not going to dun a friend!”
“Not the point,” Rollo said, taking the sapphire pin from his pocket. “Besides, we should have a damned good evening on the proceeds, too.”
Having been there less frequently, Meade was a lot less comfortable at the Orange Tree than Rollo. “They’re bound to cheat you, Rolls,” he murmured warningly.
“Nonsense. Got a pretty decent price for my watch last month. And I won enough to get it out of pawn again the next night.” Rollo dropped the pin in front of the man known as the Pawnbroker, although Rollo was fairly sure he doubled as a fence. This discreet but somewhat shifty individual sat casually at the table near the door, chatting with friends and drinking from a glass of gin at his elbow.
He broke off his conversation to glance at Rollo’s pin and picked it up. “Pretty,” he observed. “You pawning or selling?”
“Selling.”
“Rolled up again, Darblay?” said a superior, drawling voice close by.
Phineas Harlaw sat with Nash Boothe at the next table, in company with a pair of young women who smiled winningly at Rollo. Rollo would have smiled back, except he was annoyed to find any connection to his sister here, and Harlaw and Boothe were among his least favorite connections to her, though for different reasons. Harlaw, he just didn’t like. Boothe, he didn’t trust to be a gentleman either—an odd objection in surroundings like this, but Rollo couldn’t abide pretense.
“Temporary embarrassment,” Rollo said, as the pawnbroker put a glass to his eyes and held up the sapphire pin to the light.
“Wait a moment,” Harlaw exclaimed. “I know that trinket, don’t I? Where have I…? Ha! It’s Boothe’s! How did you get your hands on it?”
“It isn’t Boothe’s, it’s mine,” Rollo said impatiently. “And you needn’t make me sound like a damned thief!”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, dear boy,” Harlaw assured him with a quizzical glance at Boothe. “It is yours, isn’t it? Did you give it to Darblay?”
Rollo, suddenly uneasy, scowled at Boothe, daring him to bring Grace’s name into this.
Boothe, who seemed more affronted by the idea that he would make such a personal gift to a man, snapped, “Of course I did not.”
“Well, now,” Harlaw observed, looking about him.
Annoyingly, they seemed to have attracted a little too much attention. A couple of drunken young bucks untangled themselves from their female companions to see better. One of the large individuals known as the Thief-Catcher—although Thief-Ejector might have been more accurate—ambled closer.
“Not directly,” Meade said unexpectedly to Boothe. “But the pin was given away by you and ended up with Darblay. I know because I was there.”
“Were you? I don’t recall you,” Boothe said nastily. “But I do recall giving the pin not to you, Darblay, but to your lovely sister, Lady Wenning.”
Fury rose in Rollo’s blood. His hand clenched, and he longed to crash it into Boothe’s disrespectful mouth. And yet he couldn’t call Boothe out over Grace’s name; that would only make everything worse.
“You lost a wager,” Meade said. “Recall it very well.”
“We all do,” Rollo said savagely. “But the problem is, this piece of excrescence just called me a thief.”
Boothe flushed, half rising from his chair until Harlaw closed a hand over his arm.
“Steady on, Rolls,” Meade said uneasily. “In any case, fairly sure that was Harlaw. Come on, it’s all cleared up now. Let’s play.”
“Damned if I will while that primped-up ape sits there calling me a liar and a thief to my face!” Rollo didn’t much care now whether he caused a duel or not. His main aim was to move the quarrel away from Grace.
His insults had clearly riled Boothe, who flung off Harlaw’s restraining hand. “Be damned to you,” he snarled. “And as for you, Darblay, you needn’t think your connection to L—”
