“He’s not dumb!” Aurelia cried in shock. “He is the very last thing from dumb that I can imagine.”
“Dumb, as in non-talkative. But the fact is, Will doesn’t fit anywhere. In no manner does he fit into your elevated society, so he will never pursue you. My suggestion is that you leave him alone and find another companion, unless you’re truly interested in more. What do you want?”
Will. She wanted lonely misfit Will. And she shocked herself to the core to admit it.
Chapter 13
Will actually liked his half-brother, the marquess, when they were working together in the fields—not when surrounded by the glitter of fashion in formal salons. Unfortunately, now that he had a wife, Ash dressed like a gentleman and spent more time in politics than the country, so they had less in common. Will felt like a peacock strutting into the abbey salon in his most formal coat and the wretchedly tight trousers that made sitting down a conundrum.
“Yonder, what light awaits?” Ashford called the instant Will entered.
Will assumed it was one of his brother’s Shakespearian quotes and didn’t even bother glancing his way, not when Lady Aurelia was bearing down on him.
While the others pointed out Ash’s deliberate misquoting of the bard, Will feasted his eyes on the kind of dream he’d never been allowed.
Garbed in a shimmering gold-and-white gown, her white-blond hair stacked to make her look taller, Lady Aurelia had outdone herself this evening. Her gown belled fashionably above her dainty ankles, revealing high-heeled slippers. Will had to physically drag his lascivious gaze from her feet to meet her eyes, but the high globes of her breasts diverted him. He felt like the veriest schoolboy, unable to control his all-encompassing lust.
“You are just in time,” she told him, enveloping him in a luscious scent of roses and leading him toward the grouping near the fireplace while he was too distracted to flee. “We have decided to send Bess north to Bridey’s brother, but Rose is too distinctive. She will have to come with me.”
Will wanted to protest that she was making herself a target, but her cloud of seductive perfume held him enthralled, and the brush of her gown against his damned tight trousers sent what brain he had into hiding. He’d have done better to take his puppy and ride straight to Iveston than to ask Ash for anything.
“Aurelia can ride with us,” the marchioness promised before Will could drag his gaze from the fairy princess to greet his sister-in-law.
Christie, Lady Ashford, was a beautiful, sturdy young woman who could stand up to Ash on his worst days. Childbirth had added a few pounds, but she carried them well. That was the kind of woman Will wanted—one who wouldn’t break in bed. Except he didn’t want one who expected castles and abbeys. Miranda suited—or she had, until he’d been distracted by a fairy princess.
“Rose will ride in the baggage cart,” Bridey continued, as if Will were part of the conversation and not a fencepost. A slavering fencepost. “We’re to have a pretend funeral for Bess and the babe. The abbey has its own graveyard, and they’re digging a hole as we speak. We’ve locked the door of the infirmary and placed a funeral wreath on it.”
“Then it’s all settled,” Will said with relief, finally grasping their charade. “I’ll return to Yatesdale.”
“Not quite, little brother.” Ashford slapped him on the back hard enough to make most men cringe, but Will was used to it. He elbowed his bully of a half-brother to make him back off.
The elegant lady on his arm watched them with interest, and he was ashamed of his childish behavior. “What do you mean, not quite?” he asked, not because he wanted to know but because he didn’t know what else to say.
Erudite Erran would have spouted a speech of protest and twisted everyone to his way of thinking. Will could only walk off, and he couldn’t even do that right now. The lady had him pinned to the floor. He was more aware of her presence than he was of a dog’s mind when he was inside it. Any more of this, and he would howl like a wolf and hump her.
“The Lords rejected the Reform Bill,” the damned marquess said, as if that meant anything to Will. “The duke is staying in town a while longer to discuss strategy, which means Lady Aurelia and her sisters are still vulnerable to the cad who may have taken advantage of their invitation earlier.”
“Assuming this Pseudo-Crockett, as Sir Pascoe calls him, is pursuing me, I must lead him away from my sisters,” Lady Aurelia explained.
That woke Will with a jolt. He shook off her hand and glared at her. “That’s ludicrous. The cad won’t go near your father. He’ll head straight to Castle Yates for easier prey.”
“I plan to have a ball,” she said, smiling so brightly she could eclipse the sun. “And you’re invited. So are all the other gentlemen who were under our roof.”
“The very best part,” Bridey said, interrupting before Will could explode, “is that Lela will pretend to be overcome with a catarrh and be confined to her chambers in the townhouse, away from all visitors. Emilia’s mother, Lady McDowell, will plan the ball without her. She has a daughter who is brilliant at designing ballrooms, so no one will question.”
Will came down off the ceiling to regard the ladies with suspicion. “And what will Lady Aurelia really be doing instead of hiding in her chamber with a non-existent illness?”
“Well, we hope once Bess is safe, she’ll send us the name of her husband and the man who attacked her,” the fairy lady at his side said. “Although even if she doesn’t, we can continue looking for a family situation similar to the one Bess described. We already have letters out across the kingdom, and I have given Ashford the guest list my sisters sent, so he might look into them.”
“You can’t do a thing even if you have the scoundrel’s name!” Will roared.
Pascoe and Ash grinned at each other. Will wanted to smash their faces together. They were always plotting, and he was always the butt of their plots.
“The lady can hear,” Pascoe reminded him. “And apparently, she needs your help to hear clearly. So as her suitors come to call with posies, the two of you can listen safely from another room while they’re kicking up their heels in the salon, waiting to see if she’ll come down for them.”
“If you establish regular calling hours,” Lady Ashford added with obvious delight, “one or the other of the family will be around to draw them out about their situations.”
“Rain will hate it,” Lady Aurelia whispered, before adding with a hint of mischief, “It will be good for him.”
“You are all insane,” Will said flatly. “I’ll take the pup to Iveston on my own, then ride back to the castle to finish training the dog. The rest of you can play pretend magic all you like.”
“I would go with you and read their auras, but my students and teachers are arriving this week,” Bridey said as if Will hadn’t said a word. “I need to stay here. We can’t risk drawing Lela’s suitors back to the abbey and the twins or to her sisters. London is the only way.”
“If we had any way to lure them to our townhouse, I could test them,” the marchioness said, “But it would look awkward for me to sit in the duke’s salon, nursing Alan. So we have to reserve my abilities for the time we’ve narrowed our suspects, and Ash can invite them over.”
The women’s soft, insistent voices combined with their rustling silks and seductive scents to spin Will’s head. He glared at his uncle and brother, knowing from their smirks that they’d planned every step of this. He could walk away. He owed them nothing.
“Please, Mr. Madden?” Lady Aurelia asked. “We’ve worked well together these past days. I don’t know how to investigate any faster. We simply can’t leave a murderer loose.”
Will wanted to say the wretch hadn’t murdered anyone, but it had been near enough. Next time, he very well could. And having children kidnapped. . . He had the urge to snap more bones.
“Didn’t you receive a ransom note while we were looking for the girls?” Will demanded, his stomach sinking even as he opened the door to the preposterous
scheme.
Pascoe produced a folded paper wrapped in a handkerchief from his pocket. “It simply demands his son back. The rogues we caught can’t write.”
“But it could be an example of the culprit’s handwriting and might have his scent.” Will snatched the linen-protected paper from his uncle, finally finding a reasonable side to this bedlam.
“You could train Ajax in the city,” Lady Aurelia purred in a tone that was downright seductive for her, taking his arm as if he’d agreed to her insane proposal. “I’ll send for her, shall I? Father will be most pleased to have a guard dog for my sisters when they come to town in spring.”
Will clenched his molars. The duke’s recommendations provided half his income these days. He didn’t have to please him, but he preferred to. Would the duke be more displeased to find Will in his daughter’s company or if he abandoned Aurelia and ran away?
Will didn’t need the duke’s opinion. He knew his own. Running away wasn’t what he did, not anymore. “Does your father have a kennel in town? A stable of his own? I won’t be prancing through a duke’s palace with dogs.”
Ash and Pascoe both smirked. The conniving marquess was the one who spoke. “Pascoe’s townhouse is unused. You and your new pup can bed down there. We’re the same size. I’ll have my valet clean out my wardrobe of last year’s clothes so you don’t look as if you just stepped off the farm with shit on your boots.”
His wife poked him for his crudity. Will would rather smash one of the pretty vases on the mantel over his brother’s head. The only thing keeping his—clean and polished—boots on the floor was the lady’s hand on his arm. Well, and the knowledge that Pascoe’s house, like that of his half-brothers, had limited staff with low expectations of a family who had been raised like a pack of uncivilized wolves.
Besides, training Ajax for town was an interesting challenge.
“I’m not sitting around salons sipping tea,” he warned. “Wet blankets belong in stables.”
Aurelia stooped down and let a tearful Rose hug her neck while Bess was spirited away in a wagon under the shelter of night. Emilia’s miraculous healing abilities had helped Bess recover sufficiently to be moved when any other woman would have been dead by now. They needed to see that she stayed alive for the sake of her children.
Bess had stayed tight-lipped and unyielding, even while she was hiding after her mock funeral. Aurelia had to pray she’d keep her promise and tell Bridey’s brother who her abuser was once she arrived in the north. Bridey and her brother had pigeons that could carry word even quicker than the post, if necessary.
Rose tapped her chest and pointed at the departing wagon. Aurelia thought her heart would break. She imitated the gesture in reverse, pointing at the wagon and then tapping Rose’s chest. The girl smiled, apparently reassured that her mother loved her. At least, that’s what Aurelia hoped she’d said.
“She needs to learn to read and write,” Will said gruffly.
He’d come up so silently, that he’d startled her. From beside him, Ajax happily wagged her tail.
Holding Rose’s hand, Aurelia stood to face him—or his loosened neckcloth. She had to tilt her head to study his expression. He’d gone to Castle Yates to fetch Ajax and deliver notes to her sisters and Addy. She’d sent a message to her maid to follow in a baggage carriage with her trunks on the morrow and had expected Will to accompany them.
Will had evidently opted not to stay the night at the castle overnight. He’d apparently worked off his anger, though, and didn’t seem quite as peeved with her as she’d feared.
“She knows her letters. I’m trying to teach her words,” she told him. “But how does one sound out letters to make words if she can’t hear?”
He wrinkled up his brow as if considering the problem. “Does she have to hear them? Can’t you just write G-O-D and point at Ajax?”
She laughed at his interpretation of a dog’s placement in the heavens. “I’m trying, but two words she can almost say are ‘bad’ and ‘man.’ If I point at you, do you want to represent all of mankind?”
“Better than representing all forms of bad, I suppose,” he said with almost a smile.
Just the simple curve of his lip had her pulse pounding, and she realized he hardly ever smiled. She really didn’t know this man. She had no idea what made him smile—and she was mad enough to want to know. She had to decide if her wishes were worth the trouble she would cause.
Aurelia hated to make him frown again, but she knew more about Rose than anyone here. Most would dismiss her as a child, at best, and a deaf and dumb one, at worst. But Rose was quick and clever—and a witness to her mother’s beating. “Do you think there is any chance that the false Crockett might believe Rose a danger to him? Could the kidnapping have been a message to Bess?”
There it was, that formidable frown again, creasing his wide brow. The sun had lightened the strand of hair that fell in his face, the one he pushed back now as he studied the little girl. “Without knowing the man, it’s impossible to say. But the fact that he hired vicious rogues willing to abduct children doesn’t bode well. We probably ought to send her to Iveston and away from your suitors.”
“She’d be surrounded by strangers. I hate to do that now that she knows us. The nursery is at the top of my father’s townhouse. You can be sure my father’s servants won’t let strangers near it. We’ll remove her the night of the ball, perhaps.”
She could tell he didn’t like it, but Rose could be the daughter of nobility. Besides, she really couldn’t survive a workhouse or be abandoned with strangers, not any more than the infant could. If naught else, she couldn’t allow a villain to inherit their rightful places.
“Bess could be lying about everything,” he pointed out. “I don’t want you to be hurt if Bess turns out to be someone’s mistress out for revenge.”
“I can’t think like that. Rose is a clever child and needs special help and it doesn’t matter who her mother is.” She waited defiantly to see if he objected, but he merely nodded acquiescence.
“It should be entertaining hearing you explain that to your father, but I’d feel better if she was within our sights too. Do you know how far away I must be to. . . muffle your noises?” he asked with trepidation.
She wasn’t very good at pursuit. She wanted to demand that he stay by her side, but she feared he’d flee if he thought they must be together continuously. She wasn’t much accustomed to considering how others felt, she realized. She really had been wrapped in batting too long.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I don’t wish to make you uncomfortable. Perhaps we could test it on our journey south?”
“You’ll be in the berlin with Lady Ashford. I’ll ride at different distances. Perhaps you could signal with your handkerchief out the window if the noise becomes too unbearable.”
She nodded, dissatisfied with the distance he insisted they keep and her inability to attract this man as she did others.
She could lie, she supposed, watching as Will strode off on his own pursuits. She could tell him he had to be close. But what if he really wasn’t interested in her? How much of a fool did she wish to make of herself? Worse yet, how much trouble would she bring down on his head with her silly fantasies?
Chapter 14
Will was accustomed to traveling with a simple change of clothes, his horse, and a dog. Normally, he enjoyed the road.
The journey to London with a duke’s daughter, a marquess and his family, their assorted wagons, and servants was not normal by anyone’s standards.
Ash’s eyesight was recovering from an earlier misadventure, but he’d learned to enjoy riding with the coachman. That left Will in the company of the grooms. Lady Aurelia’s maid and baggage wagon had joined them, and Rose was happily sitting beside Addy, the lady’s maid, holding her recuperating terrier. Not wishing to exhaust the duke’s young mastiff, Will let Ajax and the new deerhound pup travel with the baggage. That gave him the freedom to ride ahead, except then he couldn’t see t
he lady’s handkerchief if she waved it—which meant he spent a great deal of the day riding in the dust at the back of the train.
The best he could conclude was that she was fine as long as he was in sight of the carriage because the handkerchief never waved. Which actually irritated him. If he was to be made into a comforter to cosset a lady, he wanted to at least know he was needed and not enduring this nonsense for nothing.
By the time they reached the inn they meant to stay in for the night, he was too grumpy for engaging in idle converse. He took the dogs down and set out to scour the inn for the scent on Pascoe’s ransom note. That was a task he understood.
Finding the inn clear of the villain’s scent, Will bedded the dogs with the horses and headed for the main tavern and food. Before he had time to assuage his irritation, Ashford waylaid him in the corridor and dragged him into the private salon with the ladies. Being practical Malcolms, they hadn’t changed out of their modest travel clothes for dinner, but they had washed in perfumed soaps and fixed their hair with ribbons and sparkles. Will didn’t know whether to growl or turn tail and run.
“I haven’t had time to wash up,” he protested as Lady Aurelia and Lady Ashford looked up with smiles at his entrance. “I stink.”
“Will adds that little extra that makes a dinner table special, don’t you agree?” Ash said, pounding him on the back and shoving him toward a chair.
“We’re writing lists.” Lady Aurelia ignored the quarrel and greeted him with a smile of delight.
No Perfect Magic Page 15