The Marquess (11 page)

She wished she had a better disguise of her own. Boys’
breeches might confuse someone for a brief glance, but no more. She
wasn’t precisely built like a boy. She wore the bulkiest coat she could
find in the wardrobes, but the outdated fashion and the bright blue silk provided
even more cause to stare. She felt like a scarecrow. Perhaps
she
should
have worn the cloak.

The moon had reached a high point in the sky when she saw
the marquess finally take advantage of a small inn to stop and water his horse.
Every bone in her body felt as if it had been taken apart and beaten and put
back together crooked.

She waited until he’d gone inside to refresh himself
before climbing down and watering her horse at a stream behind the inn. She
didn’t dare go inside, although her stomach protested vehemently and her
mouth felt like talcum powder. Instead, she tried stretching her stiff muscles.

The marquess appeared behind her as silently as any wraith,
causing her to jump half a foot when he spoke.

“You’ll have to be satisfied with ale. I
couldn’t ask for tea at this hour.”

Dillian stared up at the shadow outlined against the trees.
He towered over her by a head, easily. In that ridiculous coat he looked at
least three feet across the shoulders. She gulped and hesitantly reached for
the mug at the end of his outstretched arm.

“No excuses, I see,” he said gruffly, pulling
something wrapped in brown paper from his pocket. “I figured it was
almost time for your midnight supper.” He handed the greasy package over.

She smelled the delicious aroma of meat pie and unwrapped it
gratefully. Holding it out to him first, she asked, “Have you eaten?
Would you like some?”

“I have one for later. I just wanted to make sure you
were fed before I tied you to that tree.” He nodded to the leafy willow
behind her.

She froze in mid-bite. Fury clogged her throat, and she
jerked the pie away, glaring at him through the murky darkness. “I’ll
kill you if you try. I swear I will. I’ll come after you with a pistol if
I have to, but I’ll kill you.”

“Nobody raised you to be a lady, did they?” he asked.
“How did you fool the very proper, very noble Lady Blanche into believing
you’d make a suitable purring kitten?”

“She believes no such thing,” Dillian spat out,
shoving the package of pasty into her capacious pocket. “Blanche
isn’t a fool. Neither are you. You know perfectly well you can’t
ride up to the Grange and start ordering servants about without some authority.
I’m that authority. I can hire the guards we need. I know who should be
there and who shouldn’t. You need me.”

He drifted deeper into the shadows. “I don’t
need anyone. But if you want to wear yourself out pretending otherwise, fine.
Just stay up with me so I needn’t ride to your rescue if someone takes a
liking to your pretty blue coat. I don’t believe in heroics. I’ll
let them have the coat, and you, too, if it comes to that.”

Oh, a fine gentleman he made, Dillian fumed as she
remounted—without his assistance. She could well imagine he didn’t
believe in heroics. Of course he didn’t think he needed anyone. The Beast
of Arinmede Manor could scale the Tower of London and leap burning bridges if
necessary for his own sake. He could no doubt terrify a household of servants
into anything he desired. Why bother with guards and fences at all? Just set
the Magnificent Marquess in the drive like a gargoyle and dare anyone to
trespass.

She was in a towering rage by the time she rode up behind
him. She wished she had kept the knife for herself. She could just imagine the
pleasure of running it through his shoulder blades.

“I despise military men,” she informed him
coldly.

“Good.” He rode on without looking at her.

“I suppose it was a Canadian regiment. The Canadians
were useless in the war with the states.”

“Granted.”

She glared at him. “The Americans didn’t even
have a decent army or navy, and they defeated what Wellington so rashly calls
the finest forces in the world.”

“They did that,” he answered with a measure of
satisfaction.

A niggling suspicion raised its ugly head. “You are
Canadian, aren’t you?”

“Nope.”

Dillian let her horse fall slightly behind as she stared at
his broad back. He claimed to be a marquess. He lived in one of the largest
country houses she’d ever seen, even if it had nearly crumbled to the
ground. Damn it, he
looked
like a bloody English aristocrat. How could
he be the enemy?

“What regiment did you fight in?” she demanded.

“American navy under John Paul Jones,” he
replied with gloating satisfaction. “Want to make an issue of it?”

Dillian utterly loathed, despised, and detested lying,
conniving adventurers. Her mother had fallen in love with a feckless soldier
who had wed her and left for war, leaving her alone, disowned by her family,
carrying a child, and practically destitute. Blanche’s father had done
the same, although in his case, money was no matter and her mother had the
protection of his powerful family.

No amount of pleading had ever persuaded either man to stay
home and tend to family affairs. Foreign lands and conquests called them more
strongly than the trifling responsibility of home and family. And she could
just imagine the damage the American navy must have inflicted on innocent
civilians along the English coast, which should condemn John Paul Jones and his
crew to a soldier’s place in hell.

Dillian glared at the marquess’s broad shoulders
beneath the ridiculous coat. “It’s a wonder you have the nerve to
set foot in this country,” she finally responded with irritation. The
complete irony of an American navy officer claiming the title of British
marquess stunned her, but since she doubted the truth of much of his story, she
didn’t enjoy the joke as much as she would have liked. “I
wouldn’t bruit that fact about much in society.”

She could see the motion of his head as he looked over his
shoulder at her, but the darkness was too complete to see his expression.

“I’ll remember that the next time I appear in
the halls of Parliament.” He turned around again and for all practical
purposes, ignored her existence.

Her rebellious mind delighted in the image of a
black-cloaked Marquess of Effingham sweeping into the staid halls of
Parliament, glaring his peers into retreat, and denouncing the entire British
navy from his American point of view. She almost laughed as she thought of him
confronting Neville and his powerful friends. Stuffy, arrogant, narrow-minded,
and inbred, they couldn’t conceive of a society where anyone but those
like themselves ruled. What would they do with a man like Gavin Lawrence in
their midst?

She liked the idea so much she could almost forget his
military background to entertain the thought of Blanche marrying him and giving
him the wealth to go with the power of his title—provided he really
possessed it. Even Blanche would enjoy the joke, if marriage weren’t such
an intimate union.

Dillian avoided thinking of the day-to-day details of married
life. She preferred the wider scope involved in setting the American marquess
loose in polite society, like a rapier in a hothouse full of delicate blooms.
It made a much more entertaining topic for her speculations as they rode deeper
into the night.

Apparently suspicious of her continued silence, the marquess
allowed his horse to lag until she caught up with him. Not seeing any reason
why she should continue riding in his dust, Dillian fell into place beside him.

“I’ve learned to keep my adversaries where I can
see them,” he mentioned enigmatically as he spurred his horse to a faster
pace once again.

“It’s your own attitude that makes all the world
an adversary,” she responded. Everything this man did or said set her
teeth on edge. “I’m perfectly willing to work with you.
You’re the one shutting me out.”

“What can you possibly do to safeguard the estate
except get in my way? And don’t give me that nonsense about knowing the
servants. Lady Blanche should know her own servants. She can get rid of
strangers when she arrives.”

He offered the opportunity she needed to explain her plan,
but she would much rather take that abominable hat of his and stuff it down his
throat. How did women ever endure that sort of stiff-necked arrogance long
enough to marry and beget children? They had to be mad. She had yet to meet a
man who would listen to a woman long enough to understand her intelligence.

Instead of answering his question, she asked blithely, “Did
you ever interpret the significance of the rose?”

“Unless you wish to spout the Latin origin of the
phrase sub-rosa concerning the secrecy of speaking under the rose, no, I cannot
imagine the significance,” he answered curtly.

Since that was exactly what she wished to “spout,”
Dillian found herself at point nonplus. Disgruntled, she manufactured, “Blanche’s
family traces her ancestry back to the House of Lancaster, once represented by
the red rose.”

“Hogwash,” he said succinctly. “Or as you
British say, fustian.”

With a sigh of exasperation, Dillian surrendered. She had to
drive her plan through his thick skull, and it wouldn’t come about with
this nonsensical argument.

“I want to enlist the help of Blanche’s maid,
Verity. We’ll pretend outwardly that I’ve just arrived to look
after things while Blanche is staying with friends, but at the same time,
we’ll convince the staff that Blanche is actually hiding in her room.
Then I’ll send Verity back to Blanche and tell everyone that she’s
visiting family, while Verity will give out that she’s actually nursing
Blanche around the clock. Do you see what I’m trying to do?”

He didn’t answer immediately, but apparently worked
through all the details in his head first before accepting that she’d
come up with a viable plan.

He didn’t glance at her as he replied. “It’s
an interesting ruse. Tell them what you want them to give out publicly and let
them gossip among themselves about the alternative. The loyal ones will bend
over backward protecting their lady, immediately making the disloyal ones
believe the gossip. Anyone wishing to harm the lady will believe you’ve
hidden her at the Grange and quit looking for her elsewhere. The only drawback
being that you are once again placing her estate and servants and yourself in
danger.”

“Yes, but this time, we’re prepared. We’ll
pretend you’re just a visiting friend but let it get about that
you’re an officer in the army come to guard Blanche.”

He held up an arm to stop her eager improvisations. “I
have no intention of letting anyone in the household see me.”

Dillian sent him a look of frustration. “Then, how in
the name of heaven do you intend to find the murderer?”

“I don’t. I only intend to secure the premises.
I had thought to forward the information to Michael and Lady Blanche so they
might hire whatever security they deemed necessary. But if you mean to place
yourself in jeopardy by remaining at the Grange, I’ll simply notify you
of the actions to be taken. You can act on them as you see fit. It’s none
of my concern whether you do or not. Once I return home, I’ll ship the lady
back to you. That is the end of my part in this.”

Outraged, Dillian sent him a scathing glare, to which he
would undoubtedly have been impervious even had he seen it. “Your
generosity is overwhelming.”

“Thank you. In light of my prior experience with
British gratitude, I think so.”

“You are nursing some grudge and taking it out on
Blanche?” she asked with incredulity.

“I am merely protecting myself and my interests, as
any sane man would do.”

Adding coldhearted and unfeeling to the list of epithets to
throw at his head, Dillian refrained from commenting. Instead, she asked, “If
you do not plan to be seen by the staff, where will you stay? Surely you cannot
accomplish everything in the course of a single day.”

He shrugged. “I’ve lived off the land before. Do
not concern yourself.”

The idea of a marquess living off the land opened her eyes a
little wider, but she knew better by now than to give her opinion to this man. “We
will need some means of communication.”

She almost heard amusement in his voice when he responded, “I
can assure you, I’ll find some way.”

She didn’t like the sound of that at all. She almost
liked him better when gruff and stiff-necked. Amusement did not bode well.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “Why
don’t you just throw us out of your grand palace and let us solve our
problems ourselves if you despise us so much?”

He gave that irritating shrug again. “Because,
regardless of what anyone might think, Michael is important to me. If he wants
Lady Blanche protected, I will do what is necessary—within reason—to
protect her. Michael and I occasionally disagree on what is reasonable, but he
understands my position. He will accept it when I send Lady Blanche home.”

Dillian shook her head, unable to fathom the workings of
this man’s mind. He found an impertinent footman important but would send
away an heiress who could make his fortune? For the first time it occurred to
her that she might be traveling in the company of a madman. She sent him a
surreptitious glance, but she could see only the silhouette of his improbable
hat and long coat, with its collar turned up to conceal his face.

“Your priorities are fascinating,” she said
dryly, then proceeded to ride the rest of the way in silence.

* * * *

“The gate’s closed,” Gavin informed her,
riding back to the clump of trees where he’d left her. “There’s
a guard asleep in the guardhouse. The sun will come up shortly. Is there
another entrance?”

He imagined her raising those expressive exclamation points
she called eyebrows, but he couldn’t see her face clearly in the predawn
darkness. She had told him the front gate would in all likelihood be rusted and
unused. Someone had obviously seen to the security of the gate without the
lady’s orders.