A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (5 page)

“Joan will be thrilled to hear it,” Elinor said. Phoebe was one of a very select club of those who knew that Diana Hargrove, Elinor's sister-in-law and supposed American heiress,
was in fact Joan Price, London thief and fugitive. Lady Copeland's diamonds had financed that transformation. “I remember how excited Marie was with the mine,” Elinor said. “She wrote of little else. She wouldn't have given up on it so easily, for so small a price.”

“I don't believe it was her choice,” Phoebe said.

“When did Marie marry Mr. Foyle?”

“Four months after Lord Hayes died. And he sold the mines a week after that.”

“I see,” Elinor said, though she didn't yet. She gazed out the window, trying to put the information in some semblance of order. Outside, row after row of drab gray buildings slid past. A line of girls in drab gray capes marched up the steps of Mrs. Fincher's School for Girls, and a chimney sweep slouched his way down an alley. It was always so strange, how the world refused to acknowledge when it had been turned on its head. “So Foyle somehow coerced or tricked Marie into marrying him, so that he could gain control of the mines. And then he took away the one thing she had left in that distant place.”

“He kept her from us. He kept her alone. And that's how she died. Alone and afraid, and far from home. And I want him punished.”

Elinor had never seen Phoebe's eyes light with such intensity. “You're certain, then, that there were misdeeds in play?” She hoped that Phoebe would say that she wasn't; that Elinor would be allowed to hold onto the possibility that her friend had been happy, had passed from the world unafraid.

“There was a letter,” Phoebe said. “Marie sent it before she died. She referred to other letters—letters we never saw. She said that Foyle had taken something from her. She said he knew something that could ruin her, ruin us, and that was why she had to marry him. She said she was afraid.”

Elinor's hands curled to fists in her lap. She had never seen Marie afraid of anything. That strength had been like a beacon to Elinor and to Marie's younger sisters. It was a promise that they could prevail against the world, if only they could find the strength that Marie so effortlessly possessed.

“Colin and Mother pressed for answers. They contacted everyone they could in India, but no one would tell them anything. Those who would speak with them claimed she'd been delirious.”

“You don't believe that.”

“Marie wasn't mad!” Phoebe declared. “You knew her. She was the sanest woman in the world.”

When Marie had died, the only thing that brought Elinor through it was finding Matthew. His death, mere months later, had nearly destroyed her. But she had survived. She had recovered. Now it felt as though the wounds were opening afresh. She pressed the palm of her hand to her stomach and shut her eyes. She could feel the familiar prickle of needles against her brow, a sure sign of an oncoming headache. She needed silence and solitude. She needed to not hear this hideousness.

“There was nothing anyone could do,” Phoebe said. “Edward Foyle had already vanished. No one has heard from him since. He might as well have been dead, for all we knew.”

“I hope he is,” Elinor said fiercely.

“But he isn't,” Phoebe said. She bit her lip. “That's why I wanted to speak with Marie. Mr. Foyle isn't dead. He's back in England. He has been for two weeks.”

“And you've kept this information to yourself?” Elinor asked.

“I only found out because I was talking to Lady Copeland's daughter, and I couldn't very well admit that. Colin would have my head for it. Which is entirely unfair, as she is nothing like her parents and quite sensibly eloped with a botanist two years ago, which I have tried to explain to him.”

“You might have told me,” Elinor said.

“I was going to. After I'd spoken with Madame Vesta about it,” Phoebe said, and Elinor stifled a groan. “I planned to ask her what Marie wanted us to do.”

“Marie would want us to take thumbscrews to him,” Elinor said. Her headache was advancing. It had become pressure, like a cap fitted snugly over her skull. Not pain, not yet, but that would come.

Phoebe peered at her. “Thumbscrews, Elinor? That seems a bit . . . barbaric.”

“Marie was not one for forgiveness,” Elinor said, and Phoebe nodded, forced to agree. Marie held a grudge. It was generally agreed upon as her only fault, and the creativity
of her vengeance provided enough entertainment to make up for the flaw.

“Unfortunately, we don't have any thumbscrews,” Phoebe said. “Though from what I've heard, Monsieur Beauchene might.”

Elinor looked at her askance. “Beauchene? Of the parties?”

“The ones we, as proper ladies, have never, ever heard of?” Phoebe said. “The very same.”

“Good Lord. That's where Foyle is staying?”

“Apparently so. And no surprise. You just know he has to be some kind of degenerate.”

“We should tell your brother,” Elinor said.

“No!” Phoebe exclaimed. Elinor was taken aback. “He'll kill Foyle. Think about it. You know he would. And then he'd hang.”

“Don't be dramatic. The last time a peer was hung for murder was before either of us was born.” But Phoebe was right about one thing. Lord Farleigh was not one to stand idly by when there was a threat against his family. He could not know about this. He would surely take matters into his own hands. Which meant a duel. And even a marquess would have difficulty allaying the scandal of a fatal duel—or avoiding prosecution. “There must be something we can do,” Elinor said. “The authorities—”

“It's been six years,” Phoebe said. “What could they do now? And Marie said that what he had could destroy her,” Phoebe said. “He had
evidence
of something. If we went after him, he would surely make it public.”

“But what is it that he has?” Elinor said. “What could Marie possibly have done to warrant that kind of fear?”

“I don't know,” Phoebe said. “But whatever it was, it was enough to force her to marry him.”

“Then there's nothing we can do,” Elinor said softly.

The carriage pulled to a halt. “We're here,” Phoebe said.

They regarded each other in silence for a moment. “We can't speak of this again,” Elinor said. Her skull felt as if it
were splitting in two, but the pain was almost welcome. She could lose herself in it, and not have to think of this horror. “We must try to forget.”

“How?” Phoebe asked.

Elinor shook her head. “I don't know. I only know that we must.”

*   *   *

Colin had an appointment to keep, and his ill-considered excursion threatened his punctuality—and he was never late. Though given the habits of the
ton
, that was more a vice than a virtue. He stalked to his room and changed, with the assistance of his valet—a process which took a positively ungodly amount of time. He enjoyed the effect of proper fashion, but the accomplishment of it would drive him mad.

“They visited a
medium
,” he said, and his valet grunted. “I thought even Phoebe had better sense than that.”

The valet, for his part, had better sense than to respond. He brushed Colin's shoulders and stepped back, wordlessly declaring him ready for the public eye. Colin adjusted his cravat with a frown. He could not imagine what had prompted his sister to try to contact Marie's spirit now, after all these years. They never spoke of her. Phoebe accused him of forgetting her, but the truth was that the silence on the subject was by agreement—unspoken for the most part, except for a single, fevered conversation months after Marie's death.

No one must know
, his mother had said.
No one must know of this.

He glanced toward his wardrobe. It had been over a year since he'd removed the long, flat box from the back of the wardrobe; years since he had examined its contents piece by piece, as if he could find an answer within that he had missed on every previous occasion. He tore his eyes away. There were no answers to be found in that box, or in tarot cards, or the mutterings of a fraud. If there were any hope of discovering the truth of Marie's death, it lay with Edward Foyle. And he had vanished as thoroughly as if he were a ghost himself.

“Will you be needing the carriage again, my lord?” the valet asked. Richards was his name; Colin didn't know him well. His old valet had been a friend, a confidante. Then he'd abandoned Colin to marry a lovely girl and run a lovely country inn, damn the man. Nowadays Colin found himself in need of a sympathetic ear. Luckily, brandy was very sympathetic indeed.

“Yes,” Colin confirmed. “Have it brought 'round, will you? And I won't be needing supper.”

“I will inform the cook, my lord, and have her leave something out for you.”

Eight months and the man was already familiar with Colin's late-night meals. He at least tried to time them so that he was stumbling into the kitchen a bit too early to frighten the scullery maid. The last time that had happened, the poor girl had actually fainted. He'd had to stand four feet away, frantically fanning her with a dishcloth, in an attempt to revive her without further alarming her as to his intentions.

“Very good, very good,” Colin remembered to say, and then Richards was gone. Alone, Colin found his gaze tracking to the wardrobe once again. The great majority of what lay in the box would come as no surprise to his family. Letters from solicitors and from those who had known Marie in India, recounting the tale of her illness and death. But there was one thing that he had taken pains would never appear before his sisters' or his mother's eyes. It was beneath all the other letters, sealed in an envelope and hidden beneath the cloth that lined the wooden box.

And there it would remain.

Colin tugged at his collar and tore his eyes from the wardrobe. He strode out into the hall with his jaw set and his shoulders stiff. Whatever had provoked Phoebe's sudden interest in the afterlife was no concern of his. He had a future to worry about—his own. It involved Penelope Layton and a happily married life, not ghosts from his past.

Which would be a great deal easier to convince himself of if one of those ghosts was not standing in the hall before him.

Elinor stood with one hand against the wall, only her fingertips braced against the wallpaper. Her head was bowed, her eyes closed.

“Lady Elinor,” he said stiffly, meaning to pass by with only a curt nod. But at his voice an odd shiver went through her, and she jerked around quickly—and just as quickly winced, making an abortive gesture as if to touch her fingers to her temples. “Are you all right?” he asked in alarm.

“Everyone always asks me that,” she said. “I'm only tired.”

“Ah,” he said. “Of course.”

A frown pulled at the corner of her mouth. “Of course,” she repeated, voice prickly as a burr.

He suppressed a scowl. He ought to have remembered that she was sensitive about her spells. There were a select few people allowed to comment on them; he was not on the list. He opened his mouth to offer a defense, or perhaps a rejoinder, but something in her expression stopped him. She was more than tired. Her eyes were bright with tears, her features pinched with pain. He started to ask her if she really was all right—and stopped himself just short of it.

He realized they had been standing there for several seconds without speaking.

“Is there something I can help you with, Lord Farleigh?” she asked.

That was too dangerous a question to answer truthfully. “I . . .” He trailed off. “I had forgotten to ask you,” he said, trying his best to sound breezy and unconcerned. “Mother's fixed on a new man for Phoebe. Randall's second son, what's-his-name.”

Elinor's brow furrowed. “John?” she supplied.

He nodded vigorously. “That's the one.” It was true—his mother
was
rather fixed on the young man. And it was a far safer subject than any of the alternatives that had presented themselves. Colin himself had only spoken to the young man once. He was a bit young for marriage—though Phoebe would do better with a man her own age anyway. He was a retiring fellow, and when Colin had spoken to him he'd had
to coax out conversation, like talking a recalcitrant horse out of its stall. He was a terrible match for Phoebe.

“He is not unkind,” she said. “But I think Phoebe would run circles around him, and go mad with boredom.”

“That's about what I said,” Colin agreed. “He's not the sort of shy that needs a boisterous wife to liven him up. He ought to find a bluestocking, content to stay home and read with him. Like Miss Eugenie Marlowe, come to think of it.”

Elinor tilted her head, considering him. “Perhaps you should lend out your services as a matchmaker,” she suggested.

He laughed. “Can you imagine that? It does have a certain ring to it—‘The Matchmaker Marquess.' It sounds like the dreadful novels Phoebe is always reading.” He offered her a smile, a soft one, hoping she might return it.

Instead she frowned slightly. “Is this meant to be an apology?” she asked.

“What?”

“Asking my opinion. Is this your version of an apology?”

“I don't apologize,” Colin said, truthfully. “There's no point in retreading what's been said. Better to make a new effort entirely.”

“It's hard to make a new effort without knowing that the old one won't repeat itself,” Elinor said. He tugged at his cuffs distractedly. Elinor tsked. “Does your valet know you're undoing his hard work?” she asked.

He halted in his adjustments. “They were crooked.”

“
Now
they are,” she said. She flicked her gaze up and down. “You know, you are the worst sort of perfectionist.”

“Which sort is that?” he asked, irritation sparking along with a traitorous note of curiosity.

“The sort that thinks he isn't one,” she said.

“Oh, no. I am well aware that I am a perfectionist, if a selective one,” Colin answered, earning himself an arched eyebrow. She was so very good at that. “Is this
your
version of an apology?”

“What on earth would I be apologizing for?” she asked.