Unmasking Deception, page 3
As quietly as she could in the gloom—the only light was the stars and a lantern by the kitchen door of the next house along—Viola slid the large key into the lock of the cellar door and opened it.
“Be careful,” she murmured. “There are stairs only a couple of feet inside, so stand still while I close the door and light the lantern.”
Lantern and flint were where they had been left, and she quickly managed to supply some light to guide them downstairs to the “cottage” the children had made here in the spring. A dusty sofa graced the “parlor” and in the “bedchamber” beyond stood a truckle bed and a chest of drawers with one drawer missing. Some books had been arranged on makeshift shelves, a chipped vase of artificial flowers to one side.
“You’ve done this before,” his lordship observed.
“My siblings were amusing themselves during a rainy spring. I hope the bed is not too uncomfortable.”
His lordship cast off his domino cloak and eased himself onto the sofa. “I’ve just come from prison. Trust me, anything is comfortable.”
“I won’t be long,” Viola said hurriedly and ran back up to the garden. Letting herself into the darkened house through the kitchen door, she dropped her cloak and mask over a chair and set about collecting candles, the medicine box, and a clean towel. She poured previously boiled water from the kettle into a bowl and crept out with her treasure.
When she returned to the cellar, his lordship’s coat and waistcoat had been removed, and his shirt hung from one shoulder. He sat on the sofa while Napper peered at the wound in his side.
Viola set the bowl of water beside Napper on the floor, placed the box and towel on the sofa beside his lordship, and set about lighting more candles. Although vaguely aware that both men had finally removed their masks, she kept her gaze averted, less from squeamishness than a sense of his lordship’s privacy. But she felt his gaze on her face as she brought more light for Napper to work by.
Leaving them again, she crept back to the house to purloin a few clean sheets and blankets, then set about making up the bed for the wounded man. Vaguely, she was aware that Napper was sewing up the convict’s skin with all the care of a seamstress. His lordship hummed to himself, never uttering the least complaint or even a hiss of pain.
“There,” she heard Napper say to his patient, just as she straightened from the bed, “that should do you. There’s some laudanum here you—”
“No, I hate that stuff. I’ll be right as rain after sleep,” his lordship said impatiently, though he softened it with a quick, “Thanks, Nap.”
Viola walked briskly from the “bedchamber” to the “parlor.” “The bed should be comfortable now and clean. Fortunately, it isn’t really damp down here, but it does get a bit dusty…” Her words trailed away as she found both men regarding her.
In the light of the several candles she had set up, Napper looked both younger and more scarred than she had imagined. But it was the wounded man who held her attention. Masked, he had been oddly pleasing, as well as mysterious. Unmasked, he took her breath away.
She didn’t know why. Framed by fair golden hair, his features were even and handsome—a thin, hawkish nose; lean cheekbones; long, expressive lips; and a determined-looking chin. But she had met good looking men before. Something in the way this one was put together tugged at her insides. Worse, his unusually dark blue eyes didn’t blink as they met hers, and she could not but be aware of that broad, naked shoulder and the expanse of chest and stomach beneath. Fine hair scattered his chest and formed a definite line reaching into his pantaloons.
Hastily, she dragged her gaze back to his face. He began to smile, like some beguiling, tempting fallen angel, and she swung away from him in complete disarray.
“I’ll bring some food,” she muttered and fled once more to the kitchen.
Chapter Three
Lord Dominic Gorse had crammed a good deal into one day. To end it gazing at a beautiful girl—this beautiful girl—was more than he deserved, for he was well aware he had used her from the beginning. Dancing with her to avoid the attention of his pursuers. Allowing her to risk herself in the “drunken” masquerade to get out of the gardens and into the hackney—which, despite his pain, had been such fun that he had almost forgotten why they were doing it.
He had accepted her help, used her help, because he had no other choices, and because he could tell himself it was all for justice rather than simply to get himself out of a hole of his own making.
But in her cellar, in that one flash of awareness, as they regarded each other maskless—and mostly clothes-less in his case—something warm and devastating had reached through his desperate weariness and the throbbing pain of his wound. Dominic had been intimately acquainted with many beautiful girls, but he could not recall an inner loveliness that made him smile like a loon. It felt, ridiculously, as if his heart were singing.
Delirium, he scoffed at himself as she scuttled away yet again, no doubt fleeing the staring imbecile he appeared to have become.
“Do you suppose we’ve frightened her off?” Napper said ruefully.
“Not her. If she turns us in, it won’t be from fear.”
“Come on, then, better get you into bed before she comes back.”
Dominic allowed himself to be helped to his feet, though he managed to walk unaided to the freshly made bed. In truth, every movement now hurt like the devil. He had no idea how he had managed to run into the pleasure gardens, waltz…
The girl was a marvel. She brought them clean shirts.
“They were my father’s,” she informed them. “We’re waiting for my brother, Adrian, to grow into them.”
And with the shirts came a welcome collection of cold pie, bread, cheese, and fruit. With small beer and even brandy.
“You’re a treasure,” Napper told her, beaming as she set the meal out for them on a little table by Dominic’s bed.
She blushed. “It’s all I could find just now. I’ll bring you more in the morning. Will you be comfortable for tonight?”
She might have been giving hospitality to her mother’s guests rather than rescuing a pair of graceless fugitives.
“You’re not leaving us, are you?” Dominic said quickly. Propped on his pillows, sewn up and bandaged, he felt annoyingly weak and helpless. “Stay and share the food.”
She hesitated, then condescended to sit on the bottom of his bed, which gave him a strange, secret thrill, and helped herself to a slice of bread and cheese.
“What’s your name?” Dominic asked. Bone weary as he was, he thought he couldn’t sleep until he at least knew that much about her.
“Viola,” she answered. “Viola Dove.”
He smiled because somehow it suited her exactly, and roused himself to stretch out one hand to her. “Dominic Gorse.”
She blushed adorably, perhaps because his arm and his shoulder were naked. He pretended not to notice, and with only an instant’s hesitation, she took his hand, a brief but definite grip before her slender fingers slid free.
“Lord Dominic, I think,” she murmured.
“You know my family?”
She shook her head. “No, though we may have been present at a few of the same parties.”
“This is your family home?” he asked.
“Rented for the Season. I was supposed to make a splendid match and save us from penury and reliance upon noble cousins.”
“Is that not just swapping one reliance for another?”
She smiled as though pleased by his understanding. “Exactly. But my mother does not see it that way. To her, marriage is the only natural state for a lady, providing it is to one of impeccable birth and fortune.”
“And character?” he suggested.
“I am told that comes invariably with the birth and fortune, but I admit I have not found it so.”
“Then you do not enjoy your Season?”
She sighed. “There are too many rules. I am hopeless at dancing and run out of things to say about the weather. Sadly, I am a poor little dab of a provincial girl, with the emphasis on poor.”
Startled, Dominic blinked. “Who the devil said that?”
“Oh, someone I overheard at a ball. But they are lamentably correct.”
“I beg to differ,” Dominic said roundly. “You waltz divinely and are most enjoyable company.”
If he had hoped to make her blush again, he was disappointed. She regarded him instead with sardonic amusement. “How would you know? Your attention was mostly elsewhere.”
“Had to keep an eye on the pursuit. But you still managed to distract me.” The words felt too slow in his mouth, as though his brain was slogging to a halt. He had finished his slice of pie and blindly took the cup Napper thrust under his nose.
Brandy burned its welcome way down his throat. The girl—Viola Dove—was talking to Napper. Their voices blended and faded in his mind, along with pain as he slipped into unconsciousness and slept.
*
He woke to the painful throbbing of his wound and the same soft voices. For a moment, he thought he could only have slept a few minutes, but he could see daylight around the cellar door at the top of the stairs.
Moving his gaze, he saw Viola in a morning gown of pale blue, looking fresh as a daisy and pretty enough to warm any man’s blood. Other voices, more muffled, could be heard in the distance, along with footfalls overhead.
From somewhere came the smell of fresh bread, and suddenly he was starving. He must have made some movement, because Viola and Napper both came toward him.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
“Fine,” he replied without thought. “Thank you.”
“Miss Viola’s brought us breakfast,” Napper said.
“And now I’m afraid I’ll have to lock you in again,” Viola said. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to bring you more to eat.”
“Lock us in?” Dominic repeated, frowning. “But how will we get out?”
“We won’t,” Napper said bluntly. “And you should move as little as possible to give that wound a chance to heal.”
“I have to move,” Dominic said impatiently. “I have to get to Buckinghamshire to find Minton and Shropshire to speak to Jarvey. I have to discover what really happened to Crawley that night. Otherwise, all this is all for nothing, and you and I are fugitives for the rest of our lives. And Miss Dove is aiding and abetting us. We need to get away from here, away from London.”
“Mr. George Minton?” Viola said quickly. “Mr. Gareth Jarvey?”
Dominic frowned at her. “You know them?”
“I have danced with them. And I believe them both to be still in London. Or at least they were the day before yesterday.” She placed a rather elegant cup of tea on the table beside him. “Perhaps you should tell me what you need to find out.”
“Why?” Napper demanded.
“Oh, no,” Dominic said at the same time, for there was an excited sparkle in her eyes, much like the look he had seen before she came up with the scheme to take them out of the gardens under the Runners’ noses. “I don’t want you to have anything to do with this.”
She laughed. “Don’t be silly. I am already to do with this.”
“She has a point,” Napper allowed.
“Tell me over breakfast,” Viola urged. “Before I have to attend Mama, or the children notice I’m not there.”
She sat down on the edge of his bed, pushing the plate of bread and cold meat nearer him, and gazed at him expectantly.
Dominic was silent. He had told this story to the Bow Street Runner who arrested him, to the Bow Street magistrate, to the brisk barrister who had been supposed to defend him, to the judge and jury at his trial. None of them had believed him. Even his own barrister had advised him to come up with a better story.
Miss Viola Dove seemed disposed to like him, to believe in his innocence, for she was hiding him from the law. He did not want to see fear and suspicion in her eyes.
“Reckon you owe her that much,” Napper observed.
Dominic blinked, for he hadn’t even told Napper most of it. Theirs was an odd friendship begun over Dominic’s interest in warfare and Wellington’s campaigns in Spain and France, where Napper had served. They had talked often, when Napper’s duties allowed, but never about the crime that had landed Dominic in Newgate. They had never discussed his guilt or innocence. Yet Napper had come to his own conclusions, and without him, Dominic could never have escaped.
“I suppose I do,” Dominic said. “It is an unlikely tale. Or so I’m told. One night, at one of our less savory clubs, I was playing dice with friends. And Crawley.”
“You didn’t consider Mr. Crawley a friend?” Viola asked.
“Never cared for him, to be honest,” Dominic admitted, placing a thinly cut slice of cold beef on a piece of bread. “And by that evening, I thoroughly disliked him.”
“They quarreled over a lady,” Napper interjected.
“She wasn’t exactly a lady,” Dominic said. “Mercenary little thing, but I was fond of her. And Crawley…” He hesitated. “Let’s just say, he was not kind to the women under his protection. And he offered L… this dancer, more than he had. He was always losing at the gaming tables yet couldn’t stay away. Anyway, though this is not the sort of story you should be hearing as an unmarried young lady, he lured my greedy little dancer away from me, and when I saw him in the club, I took occasion to warn him what I would do if he hurt her.”
“Hurt her?” Viola repeated, startled. “Physically?”
He met her gaze. “Yes. He took exception to my interference. Accused me of jealousy and ungentlemanly conduct, and I don’t know what else. Some friends, including George Minton, broke up the quarrel before it came to blows and hauled me off to play hazard. I can’t recall when Crawley joined us, but I do remember noticing that for once, he was winning.”
“Were you still quarrelling?” Viola asked.
“No, we were concentrating on the dice and drunk as wheelbarrows to boot. I flattered myself Crawley had taken my warning to heart, and I was bosky enough not to mind that I was losing. We all walked home together along Piccadilly to St. James, where I fell inside my own rooms and went to bed.
“I don’t mind telling you I had a monstrously sore head the next day when I woke to the law battering down my door. They had found about half of Crawley’s winnings at my front door, along with one of his cuff links.”
He rather liked that Viola was not wide-eyed with shock. In fact, she was frowning with concentration.
“Then where did they find the dead man?” she asked.
“A few yards down the street,” Dominic said. “Someone had stabbed him through the heart, stolen his money and one distinctive jeweled cuff link. And left them behind the plant pot on my front steps.”
“If you were drunk enough to leave such things outside your front door,” Viola said, “would you have been able to stab him through the heart?”
Dominic shrugged. “It could have been luck. That was certainly the Crown’s case against me.”
“It doesn’t seem a very good case,” Viola observed, causing him to smile at her.
“That’s what I said. I’ve never been in favor of stabbing people in the dark, more of a dueling man.”
“They used that against him, too,” Napper said. “He’d fought a couple of duels and won them. Without killing his opponent.”
“Silly practice,” Viola observed distractedly. “How does the fact that someone shoots better—or luckier—than the other man make him right or honorable?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “Or did you fight those duels with swords?”
“One, yes. It was not a properly organized affair, just a quarrel with a friend that got out of hand, and we ended marching up to Putney Heath with half the club, all taking bets on us. By the time we fought, it was all fun. But apparently, the incident only proved my violence and my penchant for the blade.”
“Was Mr. Crawley killed with a sword?”
“A rapier or stiletto or other narrow blade.”
“Do you own such a thing?”
“Oh yes. I spend a lot of time fencing at Angelo’s. I’m considered quite good. But I don’t carry a sword to my clubs!”
Viola’s frown deepened. “Then they think you dashed into your own rooms, grabbed your sword, and ran after Crawley to kill him, take his things and leave them at your front door while you went to sleep?”
“Exactly,” Dominic said. “It doesn’t make any sense, does it? However, it seemed to, to the jury, at least in the absence of any other suspect.”
“You said you all walked home together. Where do the others live?”
“Albany,” Dominic said ruefully. “Which means they should have parted from Crawley and me before we got to my rooms. To be honest, it’s all a bit hazy. I have a feeling the four of us were there when I said good night, but they didn’t come forward to say so, so I’m probably wrong. Trouble is, they might know or have seen something that can prove my innocence, so I need to speak to them.”
Viola nodded thoughtfully. “Well, I can speak to them for you.”
Dominic sat bolt upright and couldn’t quite prevent his sudden hiss of pain. “No!”
Viola, blushing since he was still naked and had revealed far more of himself than he had intended, jumped to her feet. “I had better go. I’ll be back when I can!”
*
Feeling more hot and bothered than she should from the mere sight of a wounded man’s bandaged chest, Viola fanned herself with her hand as she passed through the kitchen and called a cheery good morning to Cook.
She still felt stupidly flustered when she joined her mother and siblings in the breakfast room but forced herself to smile and calmly load her plate, as usual. Adrian, home from school for the summer, was teasing Catherine about the way she would have to behave when she came out into Society.
“Not only will you be unable to read books, you mustn’t even talk about them,” Adrian said. “In fact, if it’s discovered you’ve ever read anything you didn’t need to, you’ll be ostracized and never find a husband.”
“Oh, what rot!” Catherine was driven to reply at last. “As if marriage depends on any such stupid rule. Viola has never read anything at all, and she has not received one offer of marriage!”
