In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL) (13 page)

Chapter

17

Friday, December 4, 1903

L
ouisa buried her face under the blanket and groaned as Kathleen drew back the faded chintz curtains.

“Good morning to you, too, Miss Louisa.
Mrs
. Norwich,” her maid said tartly.

“What time is it?”

“Time for you to get up. They’re setting up breakfast in the sitting room right now as you requested. You wouldn’t want your eggs to be cold.”

Louisa had no interest in eggs, cold or hot. “Is my husband awake?” she asked loudly for the benefit of the servants on the other side of the door.

“Dead to the world. Neither one of you woke up when Molly came up to light the fires.” Kathleen bent to retrieve Louisa’s nightgown from the carpet. “Exciting night?”

“Give me that!” Louisa grabbed it from her maid’s hand and pulled it over her head. Sometime in her restless night her robe had untied and she was naked again.

Did Kathleen suspect what happened? She seemed very grumpy this morning. “I’ll just wash up and wake him myself,” Louisa said, climbing out of bed. She took a step and realized she was sore between her legs. Captain Cooper had been deliciously rough, but he was not apt to repeat himself.

Louisa entered the gleaming white bathing chamber and turned on the taps of the sink. She didn’t dare look in the mirror to see the aftereffects of last night. Were her lips still swollen from kisses? She washed her face, then lifted her nightgown and sponged her body, wiping away the dried evidence of her folly. An atomizer of violet scent sat on the dresser under the window. Louisa spritzed herself in all the relevant places, ran a brush through her knotted hair, and then tapped on Captain Cooper’s door.

“Go away,” he mumbled.

Louisa turned the doorknob. The room was no longer locked. Charles Cooper was fully dressed, standing before his windows. He had tidied up the room. All the books had been returned to their stack and the bed was made up as neatly as if one of the maids had been in.

“Did you sleep at all?”

“Some.”

She lifted a brow. “Well?”

“I’ll stay.”

That was that. He did not elaborate.

“Excellent. Breakfast is ready if you are.” Louisa was suddenly aware she stood in the doorway in her white batiste nightgown. “I’ll join you in the sitting room in a minute.”

He knew to go out the door to the hallway to give her some privacy in her dressing room. She pulled a heavier brocade robe from the wardrobe and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored door. A livid bruise stood out at the base of her throat, nearly matching the deep garnet color of the dressing gown. No wonder Kathleen had given her that sour look. What would people think if they saw it?

That she had been well loved by her husband.

She buttoned up the nightgown. Louisa would have to turn her mind to how to make herself a widow soon. Maximillian must perish in some dignified way, and thus far she had no clue how to accomplish that. Captain Cooper looked too young and healthy despite his recent history of drinking to succumb to illness. It would have to be an accident.

If he was bashed on the head again, it just might come true.

Louisa was disturbed by the act of violence. Frightened, too. Rosemont had taken a sinister turn in her imaginings. They would have to get to the bottom of last night’s mischief, but first Charles had his interview with her aunt.

Louisa gave up trying to do something with her hair and let it fall over her shoulders. She was, she realized, hungry despite her earlier distaste for breakfast. Whether she could swallow a morsel facing Charles Cooper was another matter.

Resolutely, she walked through to the sitting room. Charles sat at the round table in front of the window nursing a cup of coffee, but he rose immediately when she entered. He was handsome in his new clothes this morning, his eye patch in place. “Good morning, my dearest Louisa,” he said, a hint of amusement in his voice.

“Good morning, my dearest Max.” Louisa turned to the footman for whose benefit this display of affection was intended. He hovered near a large cart laden with silver-topped dishes, enough for Charles’s regiment. It must have been a devil of a job getting it all upstairs and rolling down the hallways. The kitchen was out to impress the new master. “I think we can serve ourselves. William, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the young man said.

“William, please tell Cook she has outdone herself again. Thank you.”

Louisa waited until William was gone before seating herself. Then she popped back up. “May I fix you a plate?”

“Like a good wife?”

“Like a good hostess.” She could feel the warmth on her cheeks. Captain Cooper unsettled her, now more than ever. He had seen her. All of her. And she had seen him, too. Louisa knew exactly what lay underneath all those fine clothes.

But they had agreed that last night had been a mistake. It seemed Louisa was specializing in mistakes that resulted in carnal knowledge with the wrong man. One would think after Sir Richard that she would be immune to a man’s charms.

But Charles had been charming in his way. He had needed her last evening as much as she had needed him.

Now that the sun was trying to peek out behind the clouds, the threat of bodily harm to either one of them didn’t seem so dire. She reached for the silver coffee pot to top off the captain’s cup.

“What if the food’s poisoned?” he asked conversationally.

Louisa set the pot down with a clank. “You don’t think—”

“It’s hard to know what to think. The coffee seems fine. My head’s not swimming—I can see you clearly. That’s a very pretty robe you’re wearing, by the way.”

“Th-thank you. I am a little underdressed. You look ready to meet Aunt Grace. How is your head?”

“Tolerable. I thought it best to get ready before you woke up. Isn’t it odd that your parents shared a bathroom? I thought toffs kept separate quarters.”

“Most do.” Louisa looked at the cart with dismay. “Poison? Really?”

“I’m game if you are. We should eat exactly the same things so we don’t have a Romeo and Juliet scenario. Might as well pop off together.”

“You are taking all of this remarkably well, I must say.”

“It’s not the first time people have tried to kill me.” Charles rose from the table and lifted the lids. “Looks good. Doesn’t smell funny. Kippers?”

Louisa shuddered. “No. Nor kidneys or bacon. I don’t usually eat meat in the morning.”

“Well, if you survive breakfast and I don’t, I guess we’ll know the reason why.” He heaped his plate with an unconscionable amount of food, then spread a linen serviette on his lap and tucked in.

Louisa was slower to choose. Now that the possibility of poison had seeped into her mind, she evaluated each item. Strychnine in the pot of jam? Rat poison in the eggs, posing as pepper? She placed a slice of dry toast on her plate. It seemed safe enough. Cook liked her—she’d spent quite a bit of her childhood in the kitchen when she wasn’t hiding in her room or the conservatory. But certainly the food could have been tampered with as it rolled through the corridors.

“We should just leave,” she said, staring out at the glistening waves.

“You want to turn tail and run?”

“I never wanted to come home in the first place. Hugh wrote that his mother was dangerously ill, and so did Dr. Fentress, but we’ve both seen for ourselves that she’s perfectly well as long as she’s skewering me. The real reason I came back was to straighten out some issues with my bank. And also Kathleen was homesick. Lovesick, more likely. She and Robertson have formed an attachment.”

“The brawny Scots chauffeur?”

“Aye, laddie.” Louisa took a reluctant bite of toast. For someone who had been hungry, she had a great deal of difficulty chewing.

Charles noticed. “You’ll have to eat more than that. Look, I’m still alive.” The captain’s plate was nearly empty.

“It might be a slow-acting poison. You could topple over hours from now.”

“I knew I could count on you to brighten my day.”

And your night
. Now where did that thought come from? Louisa was not going to warm Charles Cooper’s bed again, or he hers.

Though it had been rather splendid. Even his confession did little to spoil the feeling of repletion and well-being Louisa had at the end. If he had been half as masterful with the poor prison camp girl, she had died a happy woman.

Louisa startled at the warm hand that closed over hers across the table. She looked up, and he gave her a crooked smile. “I think we should be honest with each other, don’t you? Us against the world and all that.”

She nodded, wondering what else he had to tell her.

“Thank you for last night. For your understanding afterward as well. I was churlish. A boor. You gave me your greatest gift and I’m afraid I was too sunk in my own misery to appreciate it.”

“Y-you already thanked me.”

“But I didn’t mean it as much as I do this morning.”

“Maybe you
have
been poisoned.”

“No, more like hit on the head. Maybe it’s time to”—his eye slid from hers to the sea below—“accept, I suppose. I cannot go back and change anything I did, for good or bad.”

“No one can rewrite history.” If she could, her parents would not die, and Aunt Grace would be a safe distance away from Rosemont.

“Oh, can’t they? The winners always glorify themselves.”

“I suppose that’s true.” His hand was still on hers, and Louisa felt no need to pull away. It was very companionable, sitting at the little table together, a brisk fire going, crumbs and coffee cups between them. Like a real married couple.

“Well, anyway, I want you to know that last night was . . . important to me, and I’ll do everything I can this month to be a proper consort in front of your family. No more stolen kisses and so forth.”

Louisa felt a brief pang of regret. But surely that was the sensible solution to carrying out their masquerade. She nodded.

“Well, now that that’s settled, let me fix
you
a plate. That toast’s not enough to keep a bird alive.”

Louisa made no objection. She watched as he dropped small, precise spoonfuls of food on a plate—some stewed apples, scrambled eggs, the deviled kidneys that she would not eat. He buttered another piece of toast lavishly and topped it with strawberry preserves, then placed it all before her. To her amazement, he refilled his plate and kept her company. He was on the thin side, but if he continued to eat like this she’d have to roll him out of Rosemont after Christmas.

“Should I tell your aunt about last night?”

Louisa swallowed hard, then realized he meant the assault. “Maybe. If she was behind it, you might warn her off. Talk about going to the authorities.”

“Who are the local authorities?”

Louisa made a face. “Sir Richard is the magistrate. I really don’t want to have any more to do with him if I can help it.”

“I concur. Oily fellow, isn’t he?”

“The oiliest.” Louisa wondered how her old friend Lady Blanche was faring as his wife. She had always been delicate, but they had been married for almost nine years now, so Blanche must be made of hardier stuff than Louisa supposed. They had several children, too, and by all accounts from the servants’ gossip Blanche was a devoted mother. Louisa did not know this for a fact, as all contact had been cut between the Priory and Rosemont years ago. She could have used a friend, but Aunt Grace had forbidden visitors after the disgrace.

Then again, Blanche would have been unlikely to visit her husband’s paramour. Louisa’s affair with Sir Richard had been brief and before the marriage, but it was a well-known scandal. Both Sir Richard and Grace had seen to that.

Gosh, she was falling into a funk about her own past after she’d chided Charles. She pasted a smile on her face. “Are you ready for the Inquisition?”

“I am wearing chainmail armor under my coat. I trust I’ll still have my fingernails after Grace is done with me.”

“She won’t be done until you agree to give me up.” Louisa set her fork down. She really was too agitated now to eat.

“Why does she dislike you so?”

“I haven’t any idea. Well, no, that’s not true. I know she disliked my mother. But I look nothing like her.”

Charles cocked his head and studied her. “No, your resemblance to your aunt is most remarkable.”

“Don’t remind me. It’s a little like looking at a mirror that’s going blind. The same, but different.”

“She must resent you for being so beautiful while she is fading.”

“B-beautiful?” Louisa knew she looked well enough, and her French clothes were certainly as flattering as money could buy, but beautiful? She had freckles, her mouth was too wide, and she had that wretched brown mole in the corner of her lips.

“Beautiful. And I’m not saying that because you are my employer.”

For a moment Louisa had forgotten their true relationship. Charles felt like a friend, though he was both more and less than that. “Thank you.”

Charles pulled a chased gold watch from his waistcoat pocket. Used, but heirloom quality. Mrs. Evensong had an eye for detail and had kitted him out flawlessly. “It’s nearly time. Let me go brush my teeth again so I may smile at the old biddy without fear.”