Stroke of Midnight (29 page)

Evelyn surged up from her chair to fix Laura with a glower. “What is
that
supposed to mean? I vow, you’re as deceptive as your sire. Why Copley would have debased himself by marrying you, I cannot begin to imagine!”

Perception struck Laura. She had been so caught up in defending her father that she hadn’t stopped to consider the true source of Evelyn’s venom. The woman was furious, nay,
jealous
about the marriage. She had looked pea green with envy on the night Alex had announced his engagement to Laura, too. He’d said that Evelyn had been chasing after him for years.

Had she truly hoped to win Alex for herself? Apparently so.

At least now Laura could be assured that Alex hadn’t come here this morning—because Evelyn surely would have crowed about it.

Her tension lifting, Laura allowed a slight smile. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand his devotion to me. Good day, Duchess.”

Chapter 24

Upon reaching Lady Josephine’s house some minutes later, Laura discovered a state of affairs that overshadowed Evelyn’s malice and Lord Haversham’s duplicity. Alex’s aunt was missing.

The footman had admitted Laura, and she had gone directly upstairs to the old woman’s suite of rooms. Not finding anyone there, she’d peeked into the other upstairs chambers and did the same on the other floors. She even glanced out a back window into the garden, but the bench beneath the rose arbor was deserted. Neither the footman at the front door nor a maid dusting the clutter in the drawing room had seen their mistress in the past hour.

Descending the narrow steps to the cellar, Laura spotted the black-clad figure of the housekeeper ahead in the corridor, walking toward the laundry room. “Mrs. Samson!”

Pivoting, the hatchet-faced woman stared blankly as if wondering why a fine lady in dark blue silk should have invaded the domain of the servants. Then her eyes widened and she bobbed a curtsy. “Lady … Copley.”

Laura ignored the woman’s obvious discomfiture at the change in their relationship. “Has Lady Josephine gone out in the barouchet?”

“Gone out? Why, no. I left her sitting in the garden not half an hour ago.”

“She isn’t there. Nor can I find her anywhere in the house.”

“You must be mistaken!”

“Am I? Then do help me locate her at once.”

Laura ran back up the steep wooden steps, emerged into a gloomy passageway, and made haste to the rear of the house. Maybe she had overlooked the woman in the garden. There was a stone bench against the house that was difficult to see from the window. Perhaps when she’d glanced out, she had missed Lady Josephine sitting there.

Pushing open the back door, Laura stepped out on the loggia. In this shaded area, the air was cool and fragrant with the scent of roses. But when she glanced over to her left, this bench was empty, too.

Where was Lady Josephine?

The housekeeper hurried outside, the ring of keys jingling at her waist. Clutching her white apron with knobby fingers, she scanned the small garden. “Her ladyship was dozing under the rose arbor where she always sits, I swear it. Her little dog was lying right at her feet. I can’t imagine where she would have gone.”

Laura bit her tongue to keep from snapping that a maid should have been out here with the befuddled old woman. “She can’t have ventured very far in half an hour. I want you to check the house from top to bottom. Send the footman outside to look up and down the street. I’ll see if perhaps she wandered out the back gate into the mews.”

To Mrs. Samson’s credit, she didn’t argue. She merely nodded and vanished inside the house.

Laura made haste down the winding flagstone path. Unmerited or not, a sense of guilt weighed heavily on her. If only she’d come straight here, rather than stopping at Lord Haversham’s house, this might not have happened. She had been so caught up in her own matters that she’d neglected Lady Josephine. Despite the elevation of her position, Laura felt more responsible than ever for watching over Alex’s aunt until another companion could be hired. She
knew
how confused the woman could be at times.

The back gate opened with a creaking of the hinges. Laura stepped into the mews, a rectangular yard that was permeated by the odors of hay and horses. Wide enough to permit the passage of a coach, it was connected to a long alley that led to the side street. She had hoped to find a groom or a coachman who might have seen her ladyship, but the doors to the nearest carriage houses were all closed.

She proceeded along the dirt alley. A glance downward revealed circular impressions at regular intervals in the hard-packed earth. Had they been left by the tip of Lady Josephine’s cane? Spying a small paw print here and there encouraged Laura to believe that the woman
had
passed this way with Charlie on his leash.

Why? What could have induced her to leave the garden?

Emerging from the alley onto the cobbled street, Laura looked up and down the short block. Only a few people were out on this side road. There was a nursemaid briskly pushing a perambulator, a middle-aged gentleman stepping down from a carriage, a laborer trudging along with a burlap sack slung over his back. Lady Josephine was nowhere in sight, though at least she would be moving slowly.

Which way would she have headed?

Laura hoped not toward Piccadilly with all its traffic. The other direction led to quieter streets and squares that surely would be more appealing to her ladyship. Unless, of course, she became lost, and then heaven only knew where she might roam.

Laura would never forgive herself if Lady Josephine came to harm.

Clutching her silk skirts, she rushed along the foot pavement. A torrent of dire scenarios inundated her mind. What if the elderly woman stepped into the street in front of a fast-moving carriage? What if she was set upon by footpads in an alley? What if Charlie’s leather lead caused her to trip and fall? She could be lying with a broken bone somewhere, too bewildered to tell any rescuer where she lived.

Reaching the corner, Laura stopped again to survey the street in all directions. It was busier here, with many pedestrians and carriages. Perhaps one of the walkers had seen her ladyship. Or someone in the rows of elegant brick town houses might have been looking outside. But if she started knocking on doors, precious minutes would be wasted. Minutes in which all manner of calamities could befall the old woman.

Then her eyes widened on a stooped, round figure in a burnt orange gown at the far end of the block. The woman was shuffling along with a cane, a small spaniel at her side.

Awash in a sea of relief, Laura flew toward Lady Josephine. Since a number of people strolled along the street, she didn’t realize until she was almost there that a dapper gentleman kept pace with Lady Josephine. He, too, had a young spaniel on a lead.

In a fleeting glance, Laura took in his bottle-green coat and tan pantaloons, the flaxen hair beneath a tall brown hat. She acknowledged him with a surprised nod. “Mr. Stanhope-Jones.”

Then she caught Alex’s aunt in a quick hug, glancing over the woman for assurance that she was unharmed. “My lady! I’ve found you at last. We didn’t know where you’d vanished.”

“Why, hullo, Norah,” her ladyship said with a wobbly smile. She clung to Laura’s hand. “You ran away. Charlie and I have been searching for you.”

Laura’s heart squeezed. Lady Josephine must be having one of her bad days, so Laura didn’t bother to correct the mistaken name. “You should have waited for me in the garden,” she said gently. “You know you oughtn’t go out the gate without telling anyone.”

“But I
did
tell someone. This kind young man here—”

“I was out walking when I noticed Lady Josephine wandering along the street,” Mr. Stanhope-Jones broke in. “It was fortuitous indeed that I visited her only last week and could show her the way home.”

That had been the day when he and Evelyn had come to see Lady Josephine with the express purpose of exposing Laura’s true identity.

“Look, he has Charlie’s sister.” A delighted smile lit up Lady Josephine’s wrinkled features. “Aren’t they the most darling little pair?”

The two puppies were rolling on the ground and nipping playfully at each other, their tails wagging.

Glad to see Lady Josephine happy again, Laura took hold of Charlie’s lead. If the canine antics became livelier, the old woman might lose her balance and stumble into the nearby traffic, where carriage wheels rattled and horse hooves clopped incessantly.

Laura turned her attention to Mr. Rupert Stanhope-Jones. Now that she had weathered the emotional storm of anxiety and worry, she found it somewhat peculiar that he would be out walking a dog. He seemed too vain to bother with a task that could be left to servants.

“Isn’t that Daisy?” she asked warily. “Evelyn’s puppy?”

“Indeed,” he admitted. “You see, yesterday there was a bit of an altercation at Cliffington House. Apparently, the young duke pulled Daisy’s tail, and the little vixen bit him. Evelyn was so furious that I offered to take the dog off her hands for a day or two.”

Laura had always thought Mr. Stanhope-Jones a rather shallow, self-absorbed man. She was still miffed by his insulting offer to her on the night of the ball. But perhaps she should make an effort to forgive him, for he’d shown generosity to Alex’s aunt.

She managed a genuine smile at him. “That’s very kind of you. And I do owe you a debt of gratitude for assisting Lady Josephine.”

Warmth entered his blue eyes. Stepping closer, he reached for her hand, bringing it to his lips and kissing the back. “I am your devoted servant, Laura. If ever you should need me—”

“Now, here’s a pleasant sight,” Alex drawled from behind her. “You must be congratulating my wife on our recent nuptials.”

Laura gasped. Pulling her hand free, she spun around to see her husband’s tall figure on his chestnut gelding. A heart-swelling elation filled her at the sight of his muscled shoulders clad in a claret coat, his long legs in buckskins with knee-high black boots. He wore no hat and the breeze played with the chocolate strands of his hair, letting one fall across his brow.

That mocking quality tilted one corner of his mouth. It lent him an arrogant look quite the opposite of the affectionate man who had held her in his arms and made sweet love to her for half the night.

“Alex!” she blurted out. “Why are
you
here?”

He dismounted, sauntering forward with the reins in his hand. He went to kiss Lady Josephine on the cheek before answering Laura. “I came looking for my aunt. It was quite a surprise a few minutes ago to find the entire household in an uproar.”

“She wandered out the garden gate, that’s all. As you can see, she’s perfectly fine. Mr. Stanhope-Jones happened upon her and was bringing her home.”

“Was he? How uncommonly decent of him.”

The men eyed each other like two stiff-backed dogs with one bone. Laura didn’t care to be that bone.

“It’s time for Lady Josephine to return home,” she said, slipping her arm through the old woman’s. “Good day, Mr. Stanhope-Jones, and thank you again.”

She started down the street and around the corner, for the route would take them back faster than returning all the way back through the mews. In a moment she noticed Alex walking alongside them in the street, leading his mount. Where had he been? She wanted to confess how awful she’d felt upon encountering his aunt.

You ran away. Charlie and I have been searching for you.

Those plaintive words haunted Laura. But she said nothing to Alex, for Lady Josephine was chattering about how nice it was for Charlie to have a little friend in the neighborhood, and giggling at the way the spaniel’s ears flopped as he trotted along.

The going was slow with Lady Josephine leaning on her cane and Laura’s arm, but eventually they arrived at the town house. After tying his mount at the iron railing, Alex helped his aunt inside. There was a great outcry as all the servants came running, including Mrs. Samson.

The housekeeper wore a hangdog look of remorse. “I’m terribly sorry, your lordship. I don’t know how this could have happened.”

“I’ll want a word with you later,” he said in a clipped tone.

He took his aunt upstairs, where she sank onto her chaise, her plump face flushed from exertion and the warmth of the day. Laura snapped open a fan and waved it at her ladyship, while Alex knelt on one knee to remove his aunt’s shoes. Charlie plopped onto the floor, alert and happy, his pink tongue lolling. Within moments a maid came hurrying in with iced lemonade, which Lady Josephine accepted with a grateful smile.

Once she had been settled, Alex excused himself. “I’ll be back shortly,” he said.

Laura followed him out into the passage. “Where are you going?”

He turned to her, his expression inscrutable. “To have a locksmith install a padlock on the garden gate. How is your progress in finding another companion?”

“Mrs. Mayhew has asked the agency to send some candidates in the morning.”

“Excellent. This cannot be allowed to happen again.”

Laura had a suspicion that his lordly manner masked deeper feelings. She stepped closer, reaching out to touch his sleeve. “Shall we bring Lady Josephine home with us for the time being? I don’t like to see you so worried.”

One dark eyebrow lifted in cool query. “Then why did you go to Haversham’s house against my express wishes?”

Startled by the abrupt question, Laura withdrew her hand. “How did you know—?”

“Hodge overheard you instructing the coachman.” Alex regarded her with an expression of stony hauteur. “I thought we’d agreed you were to halt your investigation until I had an opportunity to consider the matter.”

She lifted her chin. He’d known from the start that she intended to clear her father’s name. “You weren’t home this morning, and I was afraid you’d gone there without me. Where were you, anyway?”

“I went to Bow Street Station to review all the particulars of your father’s death.”

Laura curled her fingers into her palms. Of all the places he could have gone, she had never expected that one. “Did you speak to Constable Pangborn, then?”