Unmasking Deception, page 19
Elated by her praise, Viola hugged her. “I will tell you everything soon, I promise!”
The note asked Mr. Smith to call on her at home the following morning at ten of the clock or as soon after as was convenient. She mentioned something had recently come to her attention that might well aid him in the matter of Lord Dominic Gorse.
Just writing his name felt strange. He had come to mean so much to her so quickly. But was he merely making use of her? Did he regard her in such a disrespectful light that he would make her his mistress? Was she supposed to be grateful for that? But no, he must understand that any such fall from grace on her part would damage her sisters’ chances beyond recovery, that she would never do that to them. Or did he imagine she was so stupidly in love with him that she would agree to anything?
No. Dominic, the Dominic she knew, would never think like that, never take advantage like that.
Only, she didn’t really know him, did she? They had danced at Maida. They had talked and laughed in the cellar. He had rescued her from Minton, and they had danced at Maida again. There had not been enough time for them to know each other. So how could she imagine she loved him?
Because I do. Because he cared enough to come after me when Minton abducted me…
By dinner time, she was almost at the screaming point, and her head throbbed like a constantly beaten drum.
That evening’s entertainment was a trip to the opera as the guests of the Earl of Wenning’s younger sister, Lady Barnton. Viola, who truly wished to cry off, was not allowed to by her mother, who insisted she had to show her face in public lest the unspeakable Minton started some whispering campaign of scandal.
At least the theatre was unlikely to be as crowded as at the height of the Season since by now, members of the ton were leaving town in greater numbers for their own estates or as guests at someone else’s. Or heading for the sea breezes of Brighton or Worthing.
So Viola went through the motions, smiling and replying, though she felt more like the old, silent Viola, afraid of breaking some obscure rule or other with her unguarded chatter. She roused herself enough to hope that she might meet Lady Barnton’s nephew, Frank Trewthorpe, at the theatre or even Rollo Darblay. But frustratingly, both were absent.
Sir Alfred Minton did make his way to the box to speak to her, but neither of them referred to his brother, who might well still have been in Buckinghamshire, though Viola didn’t believe he would stay there long.
From the box opposite, Lady Rampton troubled to smile and bow, and Viola civilly reciprocated. As did Lady Barnton, though she confided behind her fan, “Can’t stand the woman. Full of her own consequence, don’t you find?”
She certainly didn’t think much of Viola’s. “I barely know her.”
“Odd, you know, because before her marriage, she was a wild, unconventional creature and somehow caught the staidest man in London. But she’ll be a marchioness one day, and that clearly went to her head.”
Viola thought about that. All the family she had met yesterday seemed to be under the marquess’s thumb. Even the brothers’ amusement at Dominic’s clowning and their undoubted pleasure in seeing him had been subdued and quickly suppressed. Only Richard, who had been away at war for years, and Dominic seemed to be free of their father’s hold.
Viola wondered if it was the marquess who had warned her off through Lady Rampton. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
*
The following morning at precisely ten o’clock, Sarah showed Bow Street Runner, Mr. Barnaby Smith, into the downstairs reception room.
Viola turned from the window to greet him. “Mr. Smith, thank you for coming so promptly. Please sit down.”
Mr. Smith’s expression gave little away. But he bowed and sat at her request. Viola chose a chair close enough to him for confidentiality yet distant enough to maintain her superiority.
Mr. Smith wasted no time. “You said in your note that you’d thought of something to help us find the escaped prisoner, Lord Dominic Gorse.”
“Why, yes, I’ve learned a great deal, and it’s my belief the search for his lordship will soon be called off.” From the table beside her, she lifted three papers, which had been lent to her by Lord Richard, and passed them to Barnaby. “These show that Lord Dominic was likely asleep at the time of Mr. Crawley’s killing, and these show that Mr. Minton and Mr. Jarvey are, in fact, the last people to have seen Mr. Crawley alive. I’m sure you can also imagine how easy it would be for these gentlemen to place evidence literally at Lord Dominic’s door. In fact, it makes much more sense for them to have done so than for his lordship to place money and a well-known cuff link behind a plant pot when it would have been much simpler to have taken them up to his rooms if he had so wished.”
Smith perused the affidavits, a frown forming on his brow.
Viola gave him time to read them all, then said, “Nobody could blame you, of course. You were doing your duty with the evidence you had, and no one seems to have considered it necessary to collect more.”
“Except you,” Mr. Smith said curiously.
“Oh, I did not collect these. I believe it was a solicitor employed by Lord Dominic’s brother.”
Mr. Smith sighed. “Probably enough to get him off, especially if all the nobs are behind him now.”
“It must be frustrating for you. After all, someone clearly killed Mr. Crawley that night.”
“Seems these other gents want investigating.”
“I think so,” Viola agreed. “In fact, Mr. Minton is also guilty of another crime, of which I am not prepared to accuse him just yet. But this crime brought me into possession of this coat, belonging to Mr. Minton.” She indicated the greatcoat folded on the sofa opposite them. “And hidden in the pocket lining, I found this.”
From her reticule, she took the linen-wrapped sleeve button and passed it across to him.
Smith unwrapped it and stared. “That’s Crawley’s, the one that was found at Gorse’s door.”
“No, that will have passed to Mr. Crawley’s brother and heir.”
Mr. Smith raised his eyes to her face, and she saw again that he was no fool. “Show me,” he said abruptly.
Obligingly, she rose and fetched the coat, shaking it out and then turning to the cut lining. He felt around the lining. “No hole from the pocket. It was deliberately hidden.”
“Exactly. So you have a new and better suspect to arrest.”
“Except, of course, that I only have your word as to who this coat belongs to and no real explanation as to how it came to you.”
She nodded. “True. That is why we feel Mr. Minton needs to claim it for himself, before yourself and any other witnesses you and the law may require.”
Mr. Smith let the coat drop over the arm of his chair while he turned the cuff link in his blunt fingers, examining it. “I’m sure you have a plan to do just that.”
“Well, you couldn’t just invite him to Bow Street and ask him, could you? He would simply deny the coat and the button were anything to do with him. But if he came across it innocently—perhaps in the possession of some rakehell who said he’d acquired it from a highwayman—which isn’t true, by the way—he might just admit the coat is his in order to keep the button.”
“Because it’s proof of his guilt,” Smith murmured, keeping up. “And because it’s probably worth a fair bit, too.”
“And if you arrest him,” Viola pointed out, “you get the glory and the fee.”
“And what do you get, Miss?”
“The freedom of a friend,” she replied lightly. “And the payment of a debt.”
He considered that, and, rather to her surprise, said, “The debt being to the supposed highwayman who stole Minton’s coat.”
She nodded once.
“It ain’t up to me to decide who’s guilty and who’s not,” he remarked. “It’s up to me to catch the varmints and bring them before the court.”
“But with this evidence, providing he reclaims his coat, don’t you think Minton a varmint worth bringing before the court?”
“Maybe. But it’s still my duty to bring Gorse back in.”
“You are not the only Runner looking for him, are you? Someone is watching his father’s house, and it didn’t look like you.”
Smith did not reply.
She leaned forward in her chair. “All I am asking is a few days when you don’t pursue him while we try and bring Minton to the point he incriminates himself. I would keep you informed of everything.”
“And if he don’t incriminate himself?”
She took a deep breath. “Then Lord Dominic will immediately give himself up to you.”
“Will he?” Smith said sardonically. “Well, Miss, I wasn’t born yesterday, and it seems to me, I only have your word for that.”
She had an instant’s warning, like a shiver of awareness, before the connecting door to the larger salon opened, and Dominic strolled in.
“No, you have mine,” he said.
Smith jumped to his feet, and Viola’s fingers curled around the heavy vase on the table beside her. But the Runner didn’t immediately offer Dominic violence. He looked him up and down.
Dominic had arrived in his footman’s garb only minutes before ten o’clock and had been placed with her mother in the adjoining salon, with orders not to come out unless a show of trust was called for. Viola was not convinced that moment was now.
At least he had removed his footman’s wig and livery coat, although this meant he now stood before the Runner—and Viola—in his shirtsleeves and pantaloons.
“Well,” Smith observed, “don’t you look like a man with his feet under the table.” He glanced at Viola, who didn’t move her hand from the vase. “You do know this puts you in a lot of trouble.”
“Oh, I haven’t been staying here,” Dominic assured him. “In fact, I arrived only minutes before you.”
“Why?”
“Because our interests and that of the law coincide. And I think it’s time there was some trust between us.”
“Better tell me where you’ve been staying, then.”
Dominic smiled faintly. “I won’t do that,” he said reasonably. “But I will engage to meet you every day until this business is done.”
Smith cocked his head to one side, considering him. “Did you pinch this coat from Minton?”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because the lady he was abducting thought it was important to him. I wanted to know why.”
Smith’s gaze flickered from one to the other. “You’re telling me you’re not a bad man?”
Dominic shrugged. “I have not always been a good man. But I was never—er… a varmint. Was it you who shot me?”
“If I’d shot you, you wouldn’t be standing there,” Smith said scornfully. “I was a sergeant in the Rifle Brigade.”
“I always wanted to be a Rifleman.” Dominic extended his hand to the Runner. “Can we work together, Mr. Smith?”
*
Once she had seen the Runner from the premises, Viola walked into the adjoining salon where Dominic and her mother appeared to be enjoying a cordial tete-a-tete.
“He’s gone,” she reported. “But you should not linger here. We don’t know that he won’t send others after you.”
“And let someone else collar me?” Dominic said. “No, he’ll be skulking around the mews in the hope of following me to my lair.”
“Then you don’t trust him?”
“I trust him to keep his word as long as I keep mine. I also trust him to ferret out what information he can about me. It would only be sensible.”
“Well, the children are watching the garden and the mews, so they’ll tell us when he has truly gone. Are you really going to walk blatantly through the streets? Again?”
“Who looks at a liveried footman?”
“There is that,” she agreed, already edging toward the door. “But please take care. You must excuse me, I have other matters to attend to.”
She hurried from the room, slightly piqued that he made no effort to call her back, let alone follow her. Of course, Mama was present, and he could hardly be too forward, but it did reinforce all the doubts sewn by Lady Rampton yesterday afternoon.
She was being silly. She could not expect his family to welcome the notion of their prodigal son marrying a penniless nobody. After all, her own family didn’t want her to marry a poor man. She didn’t even mind being regarded by them as worthy only of a carte blanche. What truly bothered her was Lady Rampton’s question, “Did he ever say the word marry?”
She hastened to the laundry room and picked up the pile of fresh ironing. She spent some time distributing clothes among everyone’s chambers, then placed the clean linen in the linen cupboard and went to the dining room to store the tablecloths and napkins. She was placing the latter in the middle sideboard drawer when she sensed a presence at the door.
“Sarah, if you could—” Glancing up, she broke off, for Dominic stood there, his livery coat over one arm. She sprang up. “Come in before the servants see you!” she hissed.
Unhurriedly, he stepped inside and closed the door. His gaze never left her face. “It strikes me, you are no longer pleased to see me.”
“I have a great deal on my mind.”
He nodded. “That is what I thought, ever since my sister-in-law whisked you away yesterday afternoon. You have barely looked at me since. Have you had a change of heart since we danced at Maida?”
The knot in her chest seemed to burst apart at that, letting the memory flood her. “I have to be sensible! I cannot be drawn into unsuitable, wrong…”
“What is unsuitable?” he interrupted. “What is wrong? What exactly did Louisa say to you?”
“Nothing,” Viola snapped. “She showed me your mother’s porcelain.” Impatiently, she shoved the last of the napkins into the drawer and forced it shut. She gazed blindly down at the sideboard, trying to control her breathing.
This was ridiculous. She was defending this man’s honor to Bow Street Runners, to her own family. They were friends, and yet she was entertaining, even believing the words of a possibly embittered stranger over his.
“We are friends,” she said aloud. “Friends talk to each other, tell each other the truth.” She swung around to face him and found him right in front of her, almost nose to nose. And she couldn’t step back because of the sideboard.
“What do you want to know?” Lifting his hand, he brushed a stray lock of hair off her face.
She swallowed. “We are friends.”
“Without doubt.”
“What did you mean when you talked about making me an offer once your name is cleared?”
His fingers trailed down the edge of her ear to her chin, making her shiver. “You know.”
“Is your intention to offer me a carte blanche, my lord?” Mentally, she kicked herself, for she had meant to ask the other way around. Is your intention to offer me marriage? But she blurted the wrong words, revealing the nature of her suspicions.
His caressing fingers stilled on her chin. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. “Would you accept if I did?”
Until the disappointment in him swamped her, she hadn’t realized how little she had believed the accusation in her heart.
“No,” she whispered, catching at his wrist, desperate only to pull herself free of him, through the pain would follow her … And she had made him angry, she could feel it in the grip of his fingers, oddly stiff as they recommenced caressing her chin, her throat.
“Then it’s as well,” he said, bending his head so that his lips hovered over hers, “that the thought never entered my head. In a moment of spontaneity, I might do my very best to seduce you, even ravish you on the dining table, but I would never plan, never ask, for anything less than the honor of marrying you.”
She gasped, closing her eyes against the shame and the relief. She could taste his breath, coffee and buttered toast. She clung now to his wrist, not to pull free but to plead. She almost sobbed as his parted lips brushed hers, a merest instant of touch, and then it was he who pulled free and strode back to the door.
“Dominic.”
He paused, his hand on the door.
“The dining table? Really?”
His shoulders shuddered. He dropped his red and black coat on the floor and turned. Her heart thundered, her mouth went dry, for his eyes were clouded as she had seen them before when he kissed her. He prowled toward her, a large, predatory male, and he did not stop.
Reaching her, he put his hands on her hips and dragged her against him. Yet he kept walking, pushing her backward, three paces, four, and then he lifted her onto the dining table, sweeping her skirts upward so that he could stand between her legs. The hardness of his obvious arousal shocked and excited her, but she was so delighted he had not left her that she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him.
He let her, languidly moving his hips, spreading fire, until his hands slid up her sides to her face, and he took control of the kiss, and she moaned into his mouth, a feral sound of need.
“Don’t tempt me,” he whispered against her lips. “Never tempt me when I’m being good.”
“Because you’ll be bad?” she managed.
“Yes.”
“Are you being bad now?”
His lips stretched against hers. “Not bad enough.” Another wild kiss while one hand swept down the length of her body, caressing its way to her breast, where it lingered. His other hand held her head angled for his plundering mouth.
Viola gave herself up to the flames, understanding at last what they meant and what she truly wanted. He pushed against her, tipping her backward, and she welcomed that, too, only at the last moment he caught her, raising her back to a sitting position. He buried his face in her throat, his breathing hard and ragged.
Slowly, he eased his body away from hers and brushed her skirts decorously back down.
“You believed in me when no one else did,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t stop now.”
She touched her forehead to his. “I don’t think it was you I stopped believing in. I am no great prize in the marriage mart.”
