Heiress Gone Wild

by Laura Lee Guhrke

  Diverted for a moment, he frowned. “The duchess? Do you mean my sister, the Duchess of Torquil?”

  “But of course! When Marjorie was first introduced to me—”

  “Introduced by whom?”

  The woman laughed again, not seeming bothered by that incisive question. “We rather introduced ourselves, did we not, Marjorie?”

  “Am I to understand,” Jonathan said before his ward could answer, “that you have met my sister, Irene?”

  “Oh, yes! We met in Paris about four years ago. She was on her wedding journey with the duke. Dear Torquil. What a splendid man, and so handsome.”

  “How odd that you should have met my sister four years ago during her honeymoon,” Jonathan said pleasantly, “since her wedding was six years ago.”

  The woman didn’t even blink. “As much as that? Ach, the time, it passes so fast.” Waving a hand vaguely in the air, she added, “As I was saying, the duchess will have no cause to fault my chaperonage. I—”

  “Nonetheless,” he cut her off, his patience with this charade beginning to wear thin, “my desire to speak privately with my ward is not the least untoward. You see, Miss McGann and I need to discuss certain financial matters.” He paused, meeting the woman’s blue eyes with a meaningful glance. “Specifically, those relating to my management of her money.”

  Whoever she was, the woman at least had enough sense to appreciate that though Miss McGann had hired her, he was the one who’d be signing the checks.

  “Of course,” she said, accepting the situation with a dignified bow of the head. Turning away, she walked to the door, opening it as Marjorie moved aside, but she paused on the threshold to give him and his ward a warning glance. “I shall wait for you in the corridor, Marjorie.”

  “With an ear to the keyhole, no doubt,” Jonathan muttered as the door swung shut behind her.

  “Something any good chaperone would do in this situation,” Marjorie replied.

  “No,” he corrected at once. “A truly good chaperone would never countenance a young woman in her charge wearing a dress like that.”

  He gestured to her ensemble, causing Marjorie to glance down at herself. “What’s wrong with my gown?” she asked, smoothing the velvet over her hips—an unnecessary move, since the blasted garment fitted her like a second skin. “The baroness told me it’s the latest fashion from Paris. And it fits, though the last hour’s been a scramble, since we had to call for a maid and have the sides taken in a bit.”

  “You took them in a bit too much, I’d say.”

  The acidity of his voice penetrated, and Marjorie looked up. “What have I done now?” she asked with a sigh. “I’m wearing black. I’m trying to compromise. I thought you’d be pleased.”

  Jonathan was acutely aware that if this were any other woman, not his ward, not the daughter of his best friend, he would have been very pleased indeed. “Just who is this woman?”

  “I told you. Baroness Vasiliev. She’s Russian.” Ignoring his sound of skepticism, she went on, “She lost her entire family to an influenza outbreak years ago, including her young son. Very sad.”

  “Tragic. What part of Russia?”

  “The . . . Ukraine, I think. Or is it Georgia? Oh, well, it doesn’t matter, since she lives in Paris most of the year nowadays.”

  “Paris? I’d have guessed London.” He folded his arms. “Somewhere near Drury Lane, for choice.”

  She tilted her head a bit to one side, studying him. “You seem upset, and I can’t think why. I needed a chaperone, so I found myself one.”

  This situation was deteriorating from absurdity to farce. “You cannot go out and find your own chaperone. Things aren’t done that way.”

  “Isn’t it rather pointless to tell me I can’t do what I’ve already done? She is a baroness, so you can’t say she’s not acceptable. And it’s not as if I can’t afford the expense.”

  An expense he’d have to approve, but Jonathan didn’t bother pointing that out. Instead, he raised an eyebrow. “A baroness needs to be paid to be a chaperone?”

  “I offered. She lost all her money. Bad investments. You know how it is with the aristocracy.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “No money sense.”

  “Aristocracy? What—that woman?” Jonathan made a sound of disbelief, but Marjorie didn’t seem to hear it.

  “Land rents don’t bring in anything for them nowadays, not with this awful agricultural depression going on in Europe.”

  “You seem quite knowledgeable about global economics.”

  “Well, it’s pretty common knowledge that the aristocracy is going broke. Why do you think so many British lords want to marry rich American girls like me? And the baroness explained that when her husband and son died, the land went to the next heir, some distant cousin who refused to give his poor relation an income. The woman is practically destitute.”

  “And she poured out her tale of woe to you, a perfect stranger? How convenient she found such a sympathetic—and wealthy—listener.”

  “I don’t see why you’re grousing about this,” she said, sounding decidedly nettled. “You wanted me to have a chaperone.”

  “What I wanted was for you to stay in White Plains until I could make proper arrangements for you.”

  “There’s nothing improper about my arrangements!”

  “Given all the dashing about on bicycles and trains and ships that you’ve been doing today, just how and when did you find the time to hire this woman?”

  “We met in the ladies’ reading room just after I came aboard. We struck up a rapport, talked for about an hour, and came to an agreement that suits us both. We are going to have the purser move us into adjoining cabins tomorrow. It would be better, of course, if we could be installed in a suite . . .”

  She paused, looking at him hopefully.

  “No,” he said, quashing that plan at once. “And no adjoining rooms either. Give a woman you just met access to your cabin? Not a chance.”

  “What do you think she’s going to do? Steal my jewelry?”

  He could only thank God the Rose of Shoshone was in the ship’s vault. “A likely possibility, I should say.”

  “No, it’s not, since I don’t own any jewelry except a cameo brooch and a garnet ring of my mother’s—hardly worth robbery. And it makes sense for us to share rooms, since she’s my chaperone.”

  He shuddered. “God forbid.”

  “You can’t say she’s inappropriate for the task. She’s a baroness.”

  “If that woman’s a baroness, I’m a prince of the realm. Her bloodlines aside, no woman who uses hair dye could possibly be an appropriate chaperone for you, or any girl.”

  Marjorie gave him a look of pity. “You have been away from civilization a long time, haven’t you? Many older women dye their hair nowadays. It’s quite the fashionable thing to do. Why, I believe Oscar Wilde even mentioned something about that in one of his plays.”

  “Oscar Wilde also went to prison,” he pointed out. “I’m hardly reassured.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she cried. “It’s not as if I picked a perfect stranger off the street. She knows your sister and brother-in-law.”

  “Indeed? Did she mention that connection before or after she learned you were William McGann’s daughter, and that I, his business partner and your guardian, am the brother of a duchess?”

  “I didn’t say anything about you,” she answered with dignity. “Or about my father.”

  “Then it’s clear you didn’t have to. It’s likely that she already knew all about you.” Jonathan decided this was the perfect time to offer a lesson on just how hazardous a place the world could be for an innocent, unaccompanied woman. “I’m sure she reads the New York papers, as I’d wager all the talented confidence swindlers who work the liners do.”

  “You seem to know a great deal about confidence swindlers,” she said acidly. “I wonder how.”

  “My guess is that she saw you sitting alone in the ladies’ reading room, inquired o
f a member of the ship’s company who you were, and the moment she heard your name, she recognized it from the papers. Seizing her opportunity, she approached you, made some friendly comment, and you, like a lamb, invited her to sit with you?”

  Marjorie shifted her weight, not meeting his gaze, and Jonathan knew he was on the right track. “She discovered you were unchaperoned, no doubt, and pretended to be appalled by the fact. She then poured out her tale of woe—her unfortunate circumstances and her money troubles and how hard life is for the impoverished nobility in our modern, uncivilized age.”

  She jerked her chin, confirming the accuracy of his reconstruction of the afternoon’s events. “Now you’re just being absurd,” she muttered.

  “My point is, what do you really know about this woman?”

  When she didn’t answer, he pressed his advantage. “After an hour’s acquaintance, there’s nothing you could know except what she’s told you. She says she knows my sister, but we have no idea if that’s true. You must understand that many people will try to become intimate with you because of who you are, and that not all of them have good intentions.”

  “I already realize that.”

  “You may realize it, but you can’t possibly understand it. Not yet. You don’t have enough experience to see all the ways in which people can take advantage of you, and how to guard yourself from them. My job is to see that you are introduced to the wider world gradually, by the proper people at the proper time.”

  “If you believe the baroness has nefarious intentions, you could have interviewed her yourself,” Marjorie pointed out as she picked up a white silk rose ornament from the table and clipped it into her hair. “But, no,” she added, slipping on a pair of long white evening gloves, “you decided to play the indignant, overprotective guardian and shove her out into the hallway.”

  “I didn’t shove the woman anywhere. And I have no intention of being anything but protective where you are concerned.”

  His reply seemed to slide off her back like water off a duck. “If you’re so concerned about her background, I suppose you can pump her for information during dinner.”

  “Dinner? We are to dine with this woman?”

  “We’re all sitting at the captain’s table. I’ve already accepted the invitation.”

  Jonathan studied her face, appreciating that with a chaperone to accompany her, an evening gown to wear that made her look like a Parisian fashion plate, and an invitation to the captain’s table in the offing, his plan to persuade her to stay in her room was now about as likely as flying pigs. “How did we merit an invitation to sit with the captain?” he demanded, and his eyes narrowed as he watched her tug guiltily at one ear. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing,” she insisted, but when he continued to look at her in disbelief, she capitulated. “Now that you mention it, I did happen to run across the purser a short while ago.”

  “What an astonishing coincidence.”

  “Wasn’t it?” she agreed, ignoring the sarcasm. “He was happy to tell me all about the amusements available for ladies on board—quoits, piquet, shuffleboard, and such. He even offered to give me a tour of the ship and show me all the hidden, secret places where the passengers aren’t allowed to go.”

  “I’ll just bet he did,” Jonathan muttered.

  Marjorie gave a dreamy sigh, her gloved palm pressed to her bosom. “Sailors are wonderful, aren’t they? So nice to women.”

  He felt a lurch of fear. “Marjorie,” he began.

  “But,” she went on as she reached for a white velvet wrap from the bed and slung it around her shoulders, “he became even nicer when he found out a duchess was my guardian’s sister. Why, he was tripping over himself after that to assure me anything on board was at my disposal.”

  “You told the purser about my sister?”

  “I did happen to mention her.” Marjorie looked at him, her eyes wide. “Just in passing.”

  Staring into his ward’s deceptively innocent brown eyes, Jonathan realized he might have been laboring under a misapprehension. He had taken it for granted that the so-called baroness had tricked Marjorie into becoming acquaintances, but now, listening to how his ward had manipulated the purser, he began to wonder if perhaps Baroness Vasiliev had been the true victim in the ladies’ reading room a few hours ago. “And it was after you dropped my sister’s title into your conversation with the purser, I suppose, that an invitation to the captain’s table appeared at your door?”

  “It did.” She gave him a bright, beaming smile. “Wasn’t that nice? The invitation includes you, by the way, and I accepted on your behalf. The baroness will be joining us, too, of course.”

  “How did the captain know the baroness was your chaperone?”

  “Oh, but he didn’t,” she informed him with triumph. “She had already been invited to sit with him. So, you see? Your concerns are groundless. If she’s good enough to merit an invitation to the captain’s table, I think she’s good enough to chaperone me. And speaking of dinner,” she went on before he could respond, glancing at the clock on her wall and picking up a beaded black evening bag from the table, “they are serving cordials at half past seven and dinner is at eight. We’d best go down.”

  “I suppose we must, since you’ve already accepted the invitation,” he gave in with a sigh as he followed her to the door, consoling himself with the thought that a shady, faux baroness was better than no chaperone at all. “But I still can’t believe you used my sister’s position to curry favor aboard ship.”

  “You know . . .” She paused to frown at him over one shoulder. “Given that you were my father’s best friend, I’d have thought you an adventurous, carefree sort of man.”

  “I used to be,” Jonathan countered with a pointed stare. “Then I met you.”

  “You’re more like a parson, so old-fashioned and stuffy.” Shaking her head, she turned away to open the door into the corridor. “Such a shame.”

  Jonathan scowled at her description, for it made him sound as if he had a foot in the grave. “I am not stuffy,” he corrected. “I simply have a much better appreciation of the proprieties than you seem to possess.”

  Even as he spoke, Jonathan realized in dismay that stuffy was just how he sounded. Stuffy, snobbish, and dry as a stick. That, he appreciated, studying Marjorie’s shapely, velvet-sheathed hips as he followed her out the door, was what being guardian to a madcap ginger with a body like a goddess did to a fellow.

  Chapter 6

  As a student and as a teacher, Marjorie had hovered on the periphery of Knickerbocker New York, given teasing glimpses of high society but never allowed to be part of it. Now, however, she was no longer just an observer, and as she sipped champagne with the other first-class passengers waiting to go in to dinner, she felt more strongly than ever that this world was where she belonged.

  “Ach, there is Lady Stansbury,” the baroness murmured beside her, interrupting Marjorie’s thoughts. “She is a cow, that one.”

  Marjorie turned her head to where a gray-haired woman in a severe, high-necked gown of matte black stood about a dozen feet away. Though elderly and frail, leaning on a jeweled cane, she nonetheless gave the impression of an indomitable will.

  “What makes you say that?” Marjorie asked, returning her attention to her companion. “Do you know her?”

  The baroness downed her champagne, set her glass on the tray of a footman standing nearby, and picked up another before answering. “I have friends—Russian nobility like myself—who wish to raise funds for émigrés fleeing the Volga famine. Many had already starved to death. Many who do not die come to England, but they have no money, no food, nowhere to live, so my friends decide to have the charity ball to raise funds. One sells rich patrons the billets . . . tickets . . . ach, what is the word I think of?”

  “Vouchers,” Marjorie supplied, aware of the procedures involved in giving a charity ball.

  “Da,” the older woman said, nodding. “Vouchers, yes. My friends lease the publi
c ballroom, make the guest list, begin to sell the vouchers . . . all is superb, but—”

  The baroness broke off, glancing past Marjorie to glare at the Englishwoman. “But then she comes to ruin all our good work. This ball was to be on the same night as hers, and she could not allow that, no. So, she spreads vicious lies about my friends, saying that they intended to keep the money and not help the poor émigrés.”

  “Because her ball was on the same night? What an odious thing to do.”

  “It was for her granddaughter to make the debut. But some of my friends are intimates of Alexandra, Queen Victoria’s own granddaughter, and favorites at the Russian court. All the most important British lords and ladies, they want to go to the Russian ball, and will not be so interested in this Lady Stansbury’s, so she spreads the rumors and makes the sabotage, and we must cancel.”

  “How cutthroat.”

  “That’s the ton for you,” a low, deep voice murmured by her ear, and when she turned, she found her guardian beside her. “They’re a ruthless lot. If you wish to live among them, you must prepare yourself for that.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but the baroness spoke before she could. “Some acquaintances of mine have just come in. The Contessa de la Rosa and her son. There, at the pillar by the staircase. He is handsome, the count, do you not think?”

  Marjorie followed the baroness’s glance to where a debonair man with a perfectly groomed mustache and well-cut evening clothes was standing by the door, greeting the captain of the ship, an elegant, silver-haired lady in midnight blue beside him.

  “Very handsome,” she agreed, noting the count’s tall form and dark good looks with appreciation.

  “He is also most charming,” the baroness replied. “Perhaps you would care to meet him?”

  Happy to meet anyone, Marjorie nodded. “I’d be delighted.”

  “Then I go to make the inquiries. I will see if he and his mama consent to the introduction.”