Amanda Scott (37 page)

“I won’t. She knows about Clara.”

“That Charley wants thrashing,” Penthorpe said sourly, “but if Susan already knows about Clara and the magistrate, I’ll have less to explain now, won’t I?”

“It was your own fault, not Charley’s, that she suspected a flirtation between you and Clara,” Nick said brutally, “and Melissa told her about the magistrate. There’s one more thing you won’t like, too. Susan sent a message to Clarges Street earlier today.”

“Did she, by God?”

“Yes, and they told her messenger that Lady Hawthorne had gone out of town.”

“Well, if she did, then that damned Seacourt has free run of her house.”

“Would you care to explain that?”

“Saw him myself as I drove into Clarges Street. He was on the stoop, the door opened, and he walked right in. Saw him as plain as day. Decided Clara was fine and healthy, and came straight here. Now, need I say what I suspect?”

“No, for it’s what I suspected myself. Not that she had arranged an abduction, but that she was involved in your disappearance, and that somehow Seacourt was behind the whole affair. I own, I’m surprised to see Clara mixed up in something like this. Seacourt may be able to charm women, but I’d not have expected him to sway someone as wily as Clara.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Penthorpe said. “Like I said before, the man’s dangerous and ought to be put down.”

Nick nodded vaguely. He found it hard to believe that he had underestimated Clara. His perception of other players was not generally so misguided.

When Penthorpe had changed his clothes, they rejoined the others downstairs. Susan seemed much happier, but Charley looked chastened, and Melissa said at once that she was ready to return to St. James’s Square. They made their farewells and went down to the street.

In the carriage, Nick braced himself for questions, but when Melissa remained silent, he turned his thoughts back to what Penthorpe had told him. Remembering how angry Clara had been when he had first broken with her, he began to think it more likely that she might have joined league with Seacourt. Though he exchanged a few comments with Melissa along the way, his thoughts continued to return to potential ramifications of such a partnership until the carriage drew up before Barrington House.

When they entered the hall, a footman handed Melissa a note, and Nick saw that she looked startled to receive it. Although he wanted to ask her about it, he would not do so in the servant’s presence, and when Preston spoke to him, he turned to reply. When he turned back, she was hurrying up the stairs. Tempted though he was to follow her, it occurred to him that although he could question her any time about her message, it might be a good idea to ask someone else a few home questions before that person had time to concoct a tale more palatable than the simple truth.

M
ELISSA STARED AT THE
note the footman, Silas, had handed to her. The bold, black, masculine script seemed to leap out at her, the stiff expensive paper to burn her fingers. Realizing that Silas waited patiently for her instructions, no doubt wondering why she hesitated to open her message, she glanced over her shoulder and saw with relief that Nicholas was talking with Preston.

Smiling at the footman, she said quietly, “There will be no reply, Silas. I’ll just take this upstairs with me.” As heat surged into her cheeks, she decided she was making a bad situation worse and hoped he would not suspect her of having taken a lover. Remembering how casually Oliver had suggested telling his friend Rigger about her difficulty understanding Nicholas, and putting no faith in her young brother-in-law’s discretion, she realized that rumors could easily get back to her husband that would seem to support any unfortunate suspicions stirring within the household.

Silas seemed to notice nothing amiss, however, for he merely bowed and murmured, “Yes, my lady.”

Glad to escape her husband’s sharp eyes, Melissa took advantage of his conversation with the butler to hurry up the stairs, waiting only until she had reached the privacy of her bedchamber before breaking the seal and opening the letter. Her heart thumped wildly even before she saw the scrawled initial
Y
at the bottom. She had known from the moment Silas handed it to her who the sender must be.

“Madam,”
the note began,
“you have disappointed me once. That must not happen again. If you do not come to my flat at Number 37 Jermyn Street, directly opposite the rear of St. James’s Church, this afternoon at four o’clock, you will leave me no choice but to present your vowels to your husband at five for payment. I cannot think you want that to happen. I shall post a servant at the street door to await your arrival, so that you need speak to no one else. Four o’clock, madam. No later.”

Yarborne had been very sure of her, she thought, to sign the message with no more than his initial, but she could not doubt that he had sent it. The situation terrified her. Her relationship with Nicholas had grown so delightfully friendly, and showed every sign of running smoothly at last, but Yarborne could ruin everything. Any chance was worth taking to avoid that, even the chance of meeting him privately. Moreover, he left her no choice.

Glancing hastily at the small ormolu clock on her dressing table, she saw that its gilded hands indicated some minutes after three. Jermyn Street was but a short distance away, and she had been to more than one service at St. James’s Church. Though the church faced Piccadilly, they had generally entered through the churchyard from the rear, on Jermyn Street, but she was by no means certain she would find Number 37 as easily as Yarborne expected. Reaching to ring the bell, intending to summon Lucy, she paused when her hand touched the cord, then drew it back, realizing that if she did not want to stir gossip, she could trust no one.

Turning back to examine her reflection in the cheval glass, she decided that the azure muslin dress she had worn with her light shawl to St. Merryn House was insufficient for a visit to Yarborne. The neckline was too low, for one thing. Remembering that Lucy kept kerchiefs in one of the lavender-scented drawers of the dressing table, she quickly found one with a deep, falling frill that would leave no bare skin showing. When she had tidied her hair, she donned a Pomona green pelisse and a black hat with a Mary Stuart brim, trimmed with pink roses and greenery to match the pelisse. Drawing on a clean pair of white kid gloves, she took a last look in the glass.

Plate armor, she decided, would be more practical for such a visit. Picking up her reticule, she looked inside to be sure the money Lady Ophelia had given her was safe. The sight of it reminded her of the precautions she had taken when she carried the money to Vauxhall. Walking along the street, she could conceal her reticule as she had the previous night, under her pelisse. What concerned her was the private flat that Yarborne apparently kept, despite owning the large house in Bedford Square. Given such a setting, she had a strong notion that Yarborne might prove much more dangerous to her than any common thief.

Hastening into Nicholas’s room, praying that since he had not followed her upstairs at once, he would not come up at all, she began quickly to search through his drawers until she found what she had hoped to find. She did not know if the little pistol was loaded, and concealing it was not as easy as it had been to conceal the reticule beneath her domino the previous night. In the end, she was forced to exchange the pretty reticule that matched her pelisse for a larger, less attractive one that would accommodate the weapon, but she did so without the smallest twinge of regret. She had not used the larger bag since coming to London, and it still contained several of the lavender sachets she habitually put amidst her clothing, but although the thought of a lavender-scented pistol made her smile, she did not take the time to turn them out.

Not until she was hurrying toward the main stairs did she realize that leaving the house without being hindered might prove difficult. She could not order a hackney carriage because, with no fewer than six town carriages at her disposal, the servants would think her mad. If she were to declare her intention to walk, Silas, Preston, or the porter would insist upon providing her with proper escort, and more daunting than all the rest was the possibility that she might still encounter Nicholas downstairs. In effect, she decided, she could not leave by the front door if she wished to go alone. Hoping no servant would have cause to use the northeast service stairs at such an hour, she whisked herself across the main stair hall, through the countess’s sitting room to the anteroom behind it. Pausing there to listen carefully, and hearing no sound, she tiptoed down the stairs to the side door that led into an area between the rear of the house and the archway to the square. Keeping watch for any link boy or stable lad who might betray her, she hurried to the north end of the square, but not until she had turned into the narrow confines of York Street did she believe her escape had been successful.

Nick paced impatiently in the narrow entrance hall of Clara’s house, where her butler had left him to kick his heels while he went to discover if her ladyship would receive him. When Nick had protested, assuring the man that she would, and demanding to know where she could be found so he could go straight up to her, the butler said firmly that her ladyship had been indisposed for several days and was not receiving anyone. “It is only because it is your lordship that I dare even to inquire if her ladyship will see you,” he added.

Nick decided that since he had cut the more intimate connection between them, Clara did have some cause to insist that he behave like an ordinary visitor, but that reasonable decision made it no less irritating to be kept waiting. He glanced up sharply when the butler returned ten minutes later, looking harried.

“Well, man? If you dare to tell me that she will not receive me, believe me—”

“I should not so demean myself, my lord. Her ladyship has agreed to see you, but she did ask that I inform your lordship of her indisposition and request that you take more than ordinary care not to distress her.”

“Where is she?”

“Her ladyship is in her boudoir, sir.”

“Not completely bedridden then?” Nick knew his tone was sarcastic, but he did not much care. He was certain now that Clara was reluctant to see him, and almost as certain that he knew why.

His tone apparently had no effect on the butler, who said with his customary dignity, “No, my lord, she is not bedridden. If you will just come this way.”

“Never mind showing me the way,” Nick said, his patience snapping. “Find me something to drink, and be quick about it.” Leaving the butler to attend to this important matter, he took the stairs two at a time and found Clara lounging on a claw-footed sofa in front of the window in her boudoir with warm western sunlight glowing behind her, and a rose-colored silk coverlet draped artistically over her legs and feet. She made no effort to rise or even to look at him. With the sun in his eyes he could not see her clearly, but he sensed her wariness.

“Good afternoon, my dear,” he said, approaching the sofa and looking down at her. “I am sorry to find you unwell.”

Without turning her head, she said, “Sit down, Nicky, for goodness’ sake. You tower over me, and Greaves must have told you I’ve been dreadfully ill.”

“Ill? From a tumble into a pond?” He made no move to sit. Spotting a large damp patch on the carpet, he chuckled. “Looks like you dumped your clothes right there by the fireplace. Very untidy.”

She still did not look directly at him, but he could see her left profile clearly. She bit her lower lip, then muttered, “I spilled a vase of flowers.” Abruptly, she added, “So the little vixen told you what she did to me. Your wife is neither well-behaved nor obedient to her husband, darling. I’m quite sure, knowing you as I do, that you did not expect her to show up at Vauxhall last night.”

“I did not come here to discuss my wife.”

“Did you not?”

“No, Clara. I came to discover what the devil became of you last night. I collect, from Greaves’s saying that your indisposition has troubled you for several days, that you intended to spin me a Banbury tale of some sort and say you were never there, but I’ve neither the time nor the patience for such nonsense, so I decided to nip that in the bud. I suspect that first you attempted to seduce Penthorpe. When that proved unsuccessful—as I’m quite sure it did, despite your undeniable charms and all the wild rumors flying round about his having set up a flirt—you decided to try another gambit to compromise him. I know about last night. There is, therefore, no reason to pretend that you have been lying here on your sofa all day, nursing some imaginary complaint. I won’t believe you.”

She lifted her chin, clearly striving to look innocent while still giving him no more than her left profile, and said, “You won’t, darling? What
will
you believe?”

“I don’t believe you intended to run off with Penthorpe, or he with you. Is that what you hoped people would believe when he disappeared? Don’t try that innocent look again, Clara. The role has never suited you, and it won’t avail you now. I believe Penthorpe told me the truth about where he’s been, and I know, in any case, that he was not with you last night for more than a few minutes. He went to Vauxhall because you promised to get him a writ of some sort to help Susan, but he found you alone instead, all agitated and dripping wet. I shall pass generously over your unfortunate misjudgment of my wife’s gentle nature, and leap right to your meeting with Penthorpe. You took advantage of your bedraggled condition to implore him to help you get home, but the pair of you no sooner emerged from the gardens than he was struck down by a pair of ruffians who carried him off to Baldock.”

“Dear me, is that what happened to the poor man? I did hear that he had gone missing, but an abduction?”

“I told you before that your innocent look is wasted on me,” he said sternly. “You were with him, Clara. You did not raise an alarm. You did not report his disappearance to anyone who might have helped him. You had to know that I was with him, yet you did not send anyone to find me. Now, in fact, I find myself wondering why you don’t even seem surprised by how much I know. Can it be that you already knew he had escaped his captors? Such knowledge on your part would certainly arouse my suspicion, were it not aroused already, since he came straight back to Berkeley Square, stopping only to collect his rig from the stable where we left it last night.” Nick knew he was misstating the truth, but he did not see any advantage to be gained by mentioning that Penthorpe had seen Seacourt enter Clara’s house.