Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (12 page)

***

“You were making morning calls?”

Archer yawned and scratched his chest as he spoke, but Hazlit wasn’t fooled. Despite a display of casual, bored behavior, Archer Portmaine’s mind was wide awake and taking in details.

“One morning call.” Hazlit rose from the tub and stood dripping until Archer tossed him a bath sheet. Only when he’d toweled off his chest and arms did he climb out to stand on his hearth rug.

Archer settled his long frame into the chair at the escritoire. “One morning call that took all afternoon.”

“I’m on a case, Archer.” Hazlit finished drying off, then crossed the room to the wardrobe where evening attire had been left waiting for him. “Are you going out tonight?”

“Lady Abby is dining at home, so no. I think I’ve made some progress with Allard’s books, though.” He got up and started poking through the tray on the bureau. “Which case has you tooling around Mayfair all afternoon?”

“Not tooling around, making a thorough search of a lady’s chambers. I’m on the Windham case.” He assembled his evening finery as he spoke, though he’d rather be lounging around the house tonight, letting Archer beat him at cards.

“I thought the housekeeper was innocent.” Archer gave him a curious look. “Moreland’s cub married her, didn’t he?”

“Last year’s news, Archer. That was Gayle Windham, Earl of Westhaven, and yes, she’s his countess now. Stop being coy. What do you want to know?”

“You don’t need all afternoon to search a lady’s chambers.” Arthur tossed a cuff link in the air, then another and another until he was juggling four. “What are you about, Benjamin?”

“One learns a lot by inspecting a person’s habitat.” He pulled on smalls, trousers, and stockings while Archer continued to play with the cuff links.

“What did you learn?”

“I’m not sure.” The shirt was made for him, which meant it was cut loosely—contrary to current fashion, but comfortable. “I learned that she’s a lady.”

“You had doubts?” Archer caught each cuff link in succession and dumped two back into the tray.

“I try not to make assumptions.” But that hair… that wide, lovely mouth, that generous bosom, and those sweet female curves… And more than all of that, her bewildered smile when she beheld a tame bunch of flowers. “She runs a decent household, takes a genuine interest in her staff, donates both time and coin to charity, and is devoted to her family.”

She was also a voracious reader—everything from agricultural pamphlets on the reproductive habits of swine to financial treatises and lurid novels.

Archer approached with a gold cuff link, which Hazlit allowed him to fasten on the right shirt cuff. “You sound puzzled, Benjamin. Her father is a duke. Why wouldn’t she behave in accordance with the standards applicable to a duchess?” He slipped the second cuff link through the fabric of the left cuff then peered at Hazlit closely. “Or the standards of a countess?”

“As to that…” Leave it to Archer to anticipate the difficult subjects. “You might hear I’m interested in the lady in a matrimonial sense.”

Archer’s handsome face creased into a genuine, warmhearted smile. The other kind—the calculating variety—was often in evidence, making this rare sighting all the more unusual. “About time you got your priorities straight.”

“I am
not
interested in her.”

The smile went out like a snuffed candle. “You have two sisters, Benjamin. Two sisters who prior to their marriages were ill-used by unfeeling brutes, and that ought to…”

He put a hand over Archer’s mouth. “I am not toying with a lady’s affections, so desist, Sister Mary Portmaine. Magdalene Windham has not been entirely honest with me, and I require a certain proximity to ascertain why that is and what to do as a result.”

It sounded so rational, his almighty plan. It did not explain kisses in the rose arbor, or trespassing on the woman’s privacy to linger in her boudoir, touching her clothing, learning the exact size of her bed and the number of pillows adorning it.

Or the particular delight he felt upon hearing she thought his somewhat prominent nose handsome.

Archer ambled over to the bureau. “Does she know you’re just playacting?”

“She compared me to Mr. Kean.” While Archer sorted through the tray on the bureau, Hazlit withdrew a starched cravat from the wardrobe and started tying it into a simple knot.

“For God’s sake.” Archer marched across the room to bat Hazlit’s hands away. “You tie a university boy’s knot when what’s wanted is a little style.”

“A little simple style.” Except Archer’s sense of fashion was impeccable, so Hazlit held still.

“Simple yet elegant, like me.” Archer slipped a jeweled pin into the middle of a deft knot, leaving gold and amber winking out of the creamy linen. “You’ll do.”

“My thanks.”

The mirror suggested Archer was, as usual, correct. The amber was just a hint of style. It picked up on brown eyes and skin a little darker than was fashionable, but did so subtly.

“Really, Benjamin, what would you do without me?”

“Probably retire to Blessings and dandle Avis’s offspring on my avuncular knee.”

Archer moved around the room, tidying up the bath accessories and folding damp bath sheets. “Would you really? Cumbria can be deuced damp and far from civilization, and something suggests dandling might not be your forte.”

“Cumbria can be lovely, which is why all London flocks there of a summer. It’s gorgeous, the fells so striking they make Kent look like the most tame garden, the light so pure and the air so bracing… what?” It was quite possible Archer was regarding him with
pity
.

“You’re homesick, Benjamin. You worry about your sisters as much now that they’re married as you did before they tied their respective knots. You worry about your estate, and you racket around here poking your nose into everybody else’s business because it distracts you from your worrying. Find a wife, go home, and leave the snooping to fellows like me who can view it as pure sport.”

“I am not homesick.” Though he did worry about his sisters.

“My mistake.”

“Don’t wait up for me.”

“I never do.” Archer waved him on his way, leaving Hazlit to glance one more time in the mirror: That was the nose Maggie Windham found arrogant,
and
handsome
.

“Archer?”

“Dear heart?”

“If you haven’t any other plans tonight, do you suppose you could take care of a small errand for me?” It was a whim, a hunch, but cracking a case often turned on such inspirations—and it was for the lady’s own good, of course.

“I’m not working tonight, Benjamin. I need my beauty sleep, too.”

“It involves keeping an eye on a pretty lady.”

A little flicker of interest passed through professionally guileless blue eyes. “Then I’m your man.”

***

When Old King Hal acquired the papal abbeys and monasteries, he’d simultaneously made a bold statement regarding his opinion of Rome and enriched his own coffers immeasurably.

He had also paved the way for Londoners to enjoy the hundreds of acres of bucolic beauty that came to be known as Hyde Park. As far as Esther, Duchess of Moreland, was concerned, it had been one of Henry’s few commendable moves.

A lady could maneuver in the Park, spying out those Eligibles worthy of consideration for addition to the Windham family. For that’s how it would be: When the girls married, they would bring a husband into the family.

Not the other way around.

“Each year this place gets more crowded,” Evie muttered from her perch beside her mother. The other girls had begged off, leaving their youngest sister pride of place beside Her Grace in the curricle.

“All the more gentlemen from which you might pick your husband,” Esther said, smiling serenely. “Chin up, dearest. If Papa gets wind you were acting mopish, he’ll fret.”

It did the trick, as Esther had known it would. Evie’s chin came up, and a smile worthy of her charming papa graced her features.

“Your Grace, Lady Evie.”

Lucas Denning—a scamp if ever there was one—rode along beside the carriage. He tipped his hat and flashed them a smile. He might do—he was wealthy enough, newly titled with a marquessate, and Percy approved of his politics, more or less.

“Deene.” Esther nodded and returned the smile while Evie held out a gloved hand to the man. He managed to bow over it even while his horse stepped along beside the vehicle.

“The scenery becomes more lovely each time I come here. Lady Evie, my compliments on that bonnet.”

“At least you’re consistent,” Evie said. Esther felt a little sinking inside. “I believe you complimented it, as well, when my cousin wore it last week.”

Because she had raised five boys, Esther saw the slight tightening around Lord Deene’s mouth. He was freshly out of mourning, but it was no secret his papa had despaired of him. The weight of grief and guilt was telling. To Esther’s practiced eye, Deene was a man ready to admit defeat and take a wife.

“True beauty endures over time,” Deene said, sending a flirtatious glance in Esther’s direction.

“While flattery disappears with the wind,” she replied, returning his smile. “Though it offers fleeting amusement. Is that a new horse, my lord?”

As soon as the question was out of her mouth, Esther knew it was quite the wrong thing to say if she wanted to draw Evie to the man’s attention. Evie shrank back against the squabs and let Deene prose on about his bay gelding, even going so far as to recite some of the animal’s pedigree.

Abruptly, Evie came alert. “I say. That’s our Maggie, and she’s being driven by the delectable Mr. Hazlit.”

Point for the lady. Deene hid it, but referring to Hazlit as delectable had gotten his attention. He sat a little straighter in the saddle. “Where?”

“Under the trees,” Evie said. “Mama, drive on. We must not hint we’ve seen her, or she’ll make him take her home directly.”

Deene, clever lad, moved his horse a few steps up so the line of sight between the two vehicles’ occupants would be obstructed.

“You’re sure it was Maggie?” Esther asked.

“I’m sure.” Evie and Deene spoke at the same moment then glared at each other.

“And she’s with Mr. Hazlit, you say? Benjamin Hazlit?”

“No other gentleman sports such dreamy dark eyes,” Evie said, “and Dev and Val have both remarked how closely matched his team of bays is.”

Esther could see the horses, two glossy mahogany bays of equal height, black manes and tails tidily braided, four perfectly matched white socks on each horse.

“He doesn’t drive out often,” Deene said, speculation in his tone. “Perhaps I should give my respects to the lady?”

Esther nodded. “Perhaps you should.” Percy would get the details from the man over steak and kidney pie at their club. “Good day, my lord.”

“Your Grace, Lady Evie.” He touched the brim of his hat with his crop and guided the horse in a neat pirouette while Esther turned her conveyance down a side path that would take them off The Ring.

“We’re to call on Maggie tomorrow?” Evie asked.

Esther glanced at her youngest child. She worried about them all—to be a parent was to worry—but this one had given her particular fits.

“Maybe the day after. One doesn’t want to pry.”

“One does if she’s you and she’s just seen Maggie out with a gentleman for the first time in ten years. You like Mr. Hazlit, so does Papa.”

“His Grace respects Mr. Hazlit,” Esther said. When had her baby girl grown so observant?

“Mama, I love you, but if you push on this, Maggie will drive him away.”

“Maggie would not drive away a suitable gentleman.”

Though she had, and they both knew it. Time after time, Maggie had driven away suitable gentlemen.

***

Magdalene Windham came alive in the out of doors. Hazlit had noticed it yesterday in her back gardens and considered this might have been part of the reason he’d kissed her—a small part.

She squirmed beside him on the carriage seat, drawing in a big lungful of air then letting it out on a gusty sigh.

“Spring is such a gift,” she said. “I forget each year how much I enjoy it; then the crocuses peek up and the Holland bulbs follow and I can’t wait for the trees to leaf out.”

“Have you considered living in the country?”

“Morelands is lovely. I spend some time there each summer. What a pair of gentlemen you have in the traces.”

“Berlin and Stockholm, or Bear and Stockie.” He shifted his wrists over, which meant their arms touched. “Go ahead and take the reins, Miss Windham. You know you want to.”

“I couldn’t.”

He pushed his hands against hers where they rested in her lap. She wasn’t wearing driving gloves, so he tucked the ribbons in one hand and used his teeth to pull off his own gloves and drop them in her lap. “Could too.”

She glanced down at the gloves, longing in her eyes.

“You do know how?”