The Pleasure Trap (15 page)

Fatuous words! How much worse trouble could Nell be in?

When Nell was dressed, Eve was amazed at the change in her. She really did look like a boy. “This will do very well,” she said. “No one will recognize you as Nell. Maybe we should change your name, you know, give you a boy’s name.”

Nell’s beaming smile was thank you enough for Eve.

Andy poked his head around the door. “Someone’s coming. We can’t stay here.”

Eve waved him away. “You go first. Take the back stairs and try not to be seen.”

She reached for Nell’s discarded clothes, but Nell snatched up her coat—Eve’s coat—and put it on. “Warm,” she said, then she reached for her shoes and, last of all, the bread and cheese.

Eve nodded. Snow wasn’t unheard of in April. She bundled up the rest of the clothes and made one last plea. “Won’t you let me send you to Henley?”

Nell shook her head and with a half smile pushed past Eve, then turned and limped through the door to the coal cellar.

It was all such a muddle, thought Eve. She should talk to Anna. Maybe Anna could think of a way to help Nell.

In the long corridor that ran past the servants’ hall and the kitchens, Eve came face to face with the man with the silver hair. It took a moment for her to place him: He was Ash’s valet. Under one arm he carried a bundle of white linen shirts. He didn’t explain why he was up so late, and neither did she.

“Good evening, Mr. Reaper,” she said.

“Ah…oh, good evening, Miss Dearing.”

To Dexter, Reaper was almost a stranger and the dog gave a low-throated growl as they passed.

Chapter Twelve

It was supposed to be a small, informal reception to introduce Liza to society, but as Eve looked over the crush of people, she was sure there must be close to a hundred guests.

There were a number of young people of Liza’s age in attendance, and they seemed to be as pleased to make her acquaintance as she was to make theirs. They were in the drawing room, but the adjoining doors to the music room had been opened to accommodate the crush. Someone was playing the piano, and the boisterous rhythm of a country dance had them all tapping their toes.

Eve’s eyes traveled the room and came to rest on Lydia. She was huddled in a chair by the empty grate, with Anna on one side to keep her company and Dr. Braine on the other. He was here as a guest, but the ever-dutiful doctor could not help keeping an eye on his patient. More than a week had passed since the attack, and though Lydia was making a remarkable recovery, she was a changed woman. She was fearful and could not be left alone for long. As a result, whenever the ladies went out, one of them always remained behind at the Manor to keep Lydia company.

Eve’s train of thought was interrupted by Lady Sayers. “I think,” said her ladyship, “that Lydia is a lot better than she makes out. She has her eye on the doctor and, if I’m not mistaken, he has his eye on her.” She nodded sagely. “If she were to make a complete recovery, there would be no need for Braine to visit the house.”

The thought startled Eve. The doctor did not seem to her to be glamorous enough for Lydia’s taste. A thought occurred to her. “Is that why you invited Dr. Braine to the reception? Because you think he is sweet on Lydia?”

Her ladyship’s eyes gleamed. “No. I would have invited him anyway. His late father owned quite a spread out here, so we’ve always been on the friendliest terms. However, this is the first time young Braine has accepted an invitation to one of my receptions, and I’m beginning to see why.”

Eve gazed at the doctor, then at Lydia. She’d been doing it all evening, fixing her gaze on one person then another as though she could read their minds. It wasn’t idle curiosity on her part. She was trying to get inside Angelo’s head. She was coming to the conclusion, however, that he wasn’t here or her charisma was too feeble to be of any use to her in a crowd.

“Any word of Lydia’s sister?” she asked Lady Sayers.

Her ladyship shrugged. “I know that Lydia has written to her but she hasn’t responded.”

“That doesn’t sound as though she has told her sister how seriously she was injured.”

“No,” her ladyship said serenely. “And I can see why she wouldn’t. If Bertha—that’s her sister’s name, by the way—were to arrive now and carry Lydia off to Warwick, that could well put an end to the doctor’s interest; you know, out of sight out of mind.”

Latecomers arrived at that moment. On Mr. Philip Henderson’s arm was a lovely young woman whom Eve had met at the opera—Miss Rose, as she remembered. It was the other guest, however, who captured her interest: Lady Sophie Villiers.

Eve remembered Lady Sophie very well. At Vauxhall, she’d watched Ash lead the stunning brunette into the rotunda where the dancing was in progress. Eve knew that she had never looked better, in her new pastel blue muslin and her hair pinned up with silver combs, but in the presence of such a dasher, she felt oddly inadequate, like warm milk compared to vintage champagne.

Well, the stunning dasher would have her work cut out for her here. The darling of society was much in demand by equally stunning ladies, and to escape their clutches, he had attached himself to the guest of honor, much like an elder brother with a sister half his age.

Ash came into view, but not with Liza as she expected. He was alone, and Lady Sophie lost no time in crossing to him and taking his arm. He threw Eve a look she could not interpret and allowed the beauty to lead him away.

A voice at her ear dragged her from her gloomy thoughts. Amanda’s voice. “Come along, Eve. I think you and I could do with a breath of fresh air.”

They walked slowly along the corridor, stopping from time to time at various paintings of pastoral scenes, but Eve hardly heard a word Amanda said until she mentioned Lady Sophie’s name. Then her ears pricked up.

Amanda thought she was jealous and had rushed to her rescue! Was she so obvious?

She laid a hand on Amanda’s arm. “I’m not jealous. I’m surprised.” She repeated the words she’d once heard from Lady Sayers. “I thought their affair was over. Seems I was wrong.”

Her little prod worked. “It
is
over,” said Amanda, “on Ash’s part at least. She, however, has always wanted Ash and has never tried to conceal it. What would you have him do—turn tail and run?”

That seemed like a reasonable course of action to Eve.

“I don’t expect anything,” she protested. “Ash means nothing to me.”

Amanda responded as though Eve had not spoken. “I don’t believe that she is interested in marriage. It’s the chase she likes. She’s a widow and can do pretty well what she pleases, and it pleases her to hunt any man who takes her fancy. Ash knows all this. Most men are putty in her hands, but…”

Her voice trailed to a halt. Eve turned to see what had arrested Amanda’s interest. Philip Henderson had just walked by with Miss Rose on his arm. There was no need to draw on her powers of intuition to deduce how that made Amanda feel. Having just been attacked by the same green monster, she truly sympathized.

She linked arms with Amanda. “She’s charming, isn’t she? Liza, I mean. I think all the young men are half in love with her already.”

Amanda blinked and came to herself. “Except for Dr. Braine,” she responded.

“She’s easy to please, too, and that is an attractive quality in a young debutante, don’t you think?”

They continued in this vein until Leigh Fleming came to claim Amanda for supper.

“Did you have a chance to look over Angelo’s stories?”

Eve plucked a grape from her plate and nibbled on it as she put her thoughts in order. Ash and she had found a quiet nook with sofa and chairs in an embrasure in the hall outside the music room, where they could talk with some degree of privacy. Supper was being served in the dining room, but guests were free to pick up their plates and wander at will. They were, however, not allowed to wander in the gardens, except for the gentlemen who wished to smoke. This was at Ash’s insistence. He feared that Angelo might still try to harm Lydia.

“Yes,” she said in reply to his question, “I’ve read the stories and, quite honestly, I’m at a loss. I don’t recognize the style or the writer’s voice. It could be anyone, perhaps someone who has not been published previously.”

“There must be something that can point us in his direction!” Ash’s voice was rough with frustration.

Eve said, “Well, one thing is certain. He
knows
these homes and gardens.”

“And you don’t?”

“I might recognize them if I visited them, but I can’t place them. As for Angelo,” she shrugged, “I haven’t a clue, only theories.”

He smiled at her choice of words.

“Why the smile?”

“I was remembering,” he said, “that when I was a boy, I wanted to be a Bow Street Runner when I grew up and was forever running around the estate looking for clues to crimes that had never been committed. All that my noble ambition achieved was to stir everyone up and get a thrashing for my trouble.”

“That sounds a bit harsh. What did you do?”

“I caught one of the stable hands in flagrante delicto with one of the dairymaids. I was in the hayloft and was so shocked that I lost my footing and fell on top of them.”

“And the stable hand thrashed you?”

“No. The dairymaid did.”

She began to laugh. “So what did you take up next?”

“Girls,” he replied with a straight face.

The glib reply made her shake her head.

“What?” he asked.

“That doesn’t sound like the character of the elder brother in Angelo’s story, the story you claim is yours. In fact, I don’t recognize him as you. I find him…” She groped for words.

“Pathetic?” he threw out carelessly.

“No!
Sympathetic
is what I was going to say. A lonely boy, shy, friendless, who never put a foot wrong, bullied by his father—”

“Stop!” He was grinning when he held up his hand. “You’re reading too much into one small paragraph in that story. Don’t let your writer’s imagination run away with you. I didn’t make friends easily, but I did have a few friends.”

“What happened, Ash? What changed that bookworm of a boy into the celebrated man-about-town?” Fearing that the question was too personal and she shouldn’t have asked it, she tried to retreat a little. Smiling, shaking her head, she said lightly, “I’ll say this for Angelo, he knows how to hook his readers. Look at me, I can’t wait to know all the whys and wherefores.” Then very softly, because she really wanted to know: “Something must have happened to change you so radically. Was it Harry’s death?”

She half-expected him to refuse to answer, but after regarding her thoughtfully over the rim of his glass, he shook his head. “It happened before Harry died. And I didn’t change, not then. It was how people viewed me that changed.”

He took a mouthful of punch. “It was Morag’s doing,” he said, “and before you chew me to pieces, let me tell you that Morag MacRae is my cousin. She was Morag Denison back then and came down to London to have her trousseau made up for her marriage to Lord Roderick MacRae. I was eighteen and in my first year at Oxford. I didn’t deliberately set out to mislead the other boys in my dormitory, but I didn’t correct them when they began to assume that Morag and I…well, that we were lovers. Morag thought it was a great hoot, and she played her part to the hilt.”

He stroked his chin with his index finger, a half smile hovering on his lips. “Needless to say, some of my classmates tried to cut me out and take Morag under their protection, but she soon cut them down to size.”

“I can’t imagine how they could have been so misled!”

“Oh, it started innocently enough. I was always on hand to take Morag shopping. Nothing but the best for Morag, so we went to London’s most prestigious modistes. I signed the bills, but it was Grandfather Denison who banked me. My friends assumed the worst and, I’m afraid, I let them.”

“Is that how you got your reputation as an expert on ladies’ fashions?”

“That’s how it started. I’ve learned a lot since then.”

Though she couldn’t help laughing, she was shocked. “Didn’t your cousin care about her reputation? What would her betrothed have said if he’d found out?”

“Morag said that Roderick would call me out and that would only add to my credit among my peers.”

“It might also have caused your death,” she retorted indignantly. “Have you thought of that?”

“Ah…no. I don’t think so. One thing I could do well was fence. Besides, Morag said that she would break the engagement and that would break Roderick’s heart. He was head over heels in love with her.”

She sat back and studied his dancing eyes. “You’re making this up!”

“Not completely. I’m embroidering the facts a little to make me out to be a more interesting fellow than I really am.”

She was ready to take umbrage, but he stopped her scalding words by popping a grape into her open mouth.

“I lied about Roderick,” he said. “He would have laughed himself silly if anyone had tried to tell him that Morag was taking up with me. ‘A timorous beastie,’ he called me. He knew better than to think I was man enough for Morag.”

He leaned toward her and stared deeply into her eyes. “I’ve told you all this in the strictest confidence. I wouldn’t want it to get about that I was a fraud. I have my reputation to think about.”

He was making fun of her! She gave him back his soulful stare, only she was in earnest. “I can see into your soul, Ash Denison,” she breathed out softly, “and though I believe every word you’ve told me, you haven’t told me every word.”

“I’m an open book,” he protested.

She sat back and stared at him thoughtfully. “Then tell me what happened to your mother. Angelo calls her ‘a fragile flower.’ What does he mean?”

His brows rose, then he reached for his wineglass and took a long swallow. “Well,” he said finally, “no one would ever call you a ‘timorous beastie,’ Miss Dearing, but that is one of your qualities that I have always admired.”