“Lady Aurelia will tell you the same as I,” Will asserted stiffly. “We stopped the Gypsy wagon. I should not have let her become involved. I’d hoped to resolve the situation peacefully and failed. In the ensuing altercation, a bullet grazed her head, and she fell in the river.”
His Grace snorted ungracefully. “And Lela will tell me you were a conquering hero, and it’s all her fault. I take it you dived into the river like a madman, hoping to haul her out. You’re not one of your dogs, you know. You aren’t trained to sniff out the drowning and drag them to safety.”
This was not precisely the direction Will had expected this conversation to take, and he clenched his fists at his side, preparing for the blow. “I had no choice.”
The duke drove his hand through his graying hair. “Exactly. Passionate idiocy. You’d rather die than let my daughter die. I respect that. That’s more than any of those other young fops would have done in your place.”
“To be fair, your grace,” Will said dryly, “They wouldn’t have been there in the first place. I’m the one who let her talk me into riding to Battersea.”
“You have a brother there. It was a perfectly reasonable request. That Lela never makes such requests without you around is another subject entirely, and the one leaving me bewildered. Why is she suddenly riding about instead of hiding in her room, staring vapidly at her toes?”
Will twitched his shoulders inside the tight coat Ashford had given him. He despised explanations, but he owed the duke one. He sought words for the only explanation he understood. “She believes I help her muffle the noise in her head.”
The duke nodded as if that actually made sense. “I love my daughter. Last night, I vowed if she was returned to me, I would give her whatever she wants.”
Still puzzled, Will remained silent, waiting.
“Lela has always behaved as if she hasn’t a ha’ penny’s worth of sense,” the duke continued, tapping his pen against the desk. “Her governesses despaired of her. But she knows everything anyone has ever told her and more that they have not. She listens, when she wants to. You’ve made her want to listen.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, your grace,” Will protested. “She has taken an interest in little Rose and her plight.”
“But the moment you ride away, she’ll go back to staring at her toes, won’t she?” he demanded.
Will shifted from foot to foot, reminded of his own aching toes in Ashford’s fancy shoes. “I can’t speak to that, your grace.”
“Quit bloody hell calling me your grace!” the duke shouted. “You’re an Ives, with ancestry dating back to the Roman emperors for all I know. Your damned brother is a marquess! You have every right to call me duke or sir or stupid just as all the other young pups do.”
Will liked the duke. He really did. But he couldn’t see where this was going. “Yes, sir,” he said, not belaboring the point of his mother’s peasant ancestry.
“Very well, then.” The duke sighed and settled back in his chair, studying Will as if he were a specimen under glass. “You’re a gentleman. You clean up well. Go propose to my daughter as you ought. I’ll arrange for the special license. We’ll make the ball a betrothal announcement.”
Will needed a chair to crumple into. The duke hadn’t offered him one. Even though this was what he’d known was expected of him, he hadn’t anticipated it coming with approval. He’d had his arguments prepared against this moment, but they all seemed ungrateful in the face of the duke’s graciousness.
“She deserves better,” Will muttered, hating his lack of eloquence in stating the obvious.
“That’s up to her to decide, isn’t it?” the duke said in a desert-dry tone.
There was a glimmer of hope—let the duke think Lela was deciding. And while she did so, Will could finish the task of finding Rose’s kidnapper and would-be murderer.
Will wasn’t entirely certain that the delay wasn’t a bomb about to explode overhead, but he grasped any crumb allowed. He hadn’t wanted to insult Lela or the duke or lose his entire future in a grandiose gesture of defiance. But if he could just be allowed to talk to Lela. . .
He feared she would make the wrong choice. Damn.
“Women do not always choose with their heads, sir,” Will said, swallowing hard.
“You got yourself into this. You can get yourself out,” the duke countered darkly. “I’d thought to marry her off to a man of consequence, but if it’s a dog trainer she wants, then one willing to sacrifice his life for her is good enough for me.”
That’s what he’d be doing, Will knew—sacrificing his life. Without his dogs, he was nothing. The daughter of a duke needed a gentleman on her arm, one who could help her start a school for the deaf, which required London and not the Cotswolds. It required tailored coats and soirees and rubbing elbows with men he didn’t like or respect or even understand. He couldn’t ask Lela to give up her dreams to follow his.
He hadn’t planned on attending her ball. He’d planned on walking Ajax around the perimeter, sniffing out the guests, as hired help. He thought he might muffle her noises just as easily that way. After a while, she’d find someone more suitable who would cause her to focus on him, and she’d forget all about Will.
Defiantly, he found a glass on the sideboard, poured himself a swallow of brandy, and threw it back. “Yes, your grace.”
He spun on his heel and walked out without being dismissed. That’s how gentlemen did it. He’d watched his arrogant older brothers for years. He knew the routine.
It just wasn’t who he was.
Still feeling the effects of Will’s eye-opening lovemaking, shivering and oddly uncomfortable in her own skin, Lela feared she was coming down with a cold in truth. She didn’t have the luxury of mooning over the impossible, however, not with half London pounding at the door. At least Will was still in the house, muffling all the frantic gossip among the servants, which seemed to lead to much clattering of pans and dropping of coal.
She needed someone to talk to and help her understand her confusion.
Fortunately, Lady Aster arrived on schedule to interrogate suitors. Of course, Aster was Will’s sister-in-law and not exactly impartial. Aster brought Celeste, who already knew everything since her husband was the one who had been out half the night searching for them. Lela thought she might like having family around her when she needed them, but only if Will was near to make conversation easy.
But having Will around presented an entirely new set of difficulties, which her cousin proved the moment she entered Lela’s private sitting room.
“Has Will proposed yet?” were almost the first words out of Aster’s mouth. “His astrological signs indicate he’s due for happiness and love. I haven’t completed the finer aspects of your chart yet, but you look like a perfect fit.”
Without giving Lela time to absorb that declaration, Aster swept her up in a hug. “I am so glad you’re safe. You have no notion of what ripples you caused in the universe last night.”
Celeste leaned over to kiss Lela’s cheek. “We were devastated when we heard you’d come to trouble. None of us has slept all night. I am so glad you’re both back and unharmed.”
Lela wiped away tears and hugged them back. “I’m so sorry we did that to you. It was all my fault. Will had everything in hand, but I had to panic.” She wished to tell them more, but the knocker kept rapping below and the servants were still in a frenzy and even Will’s presence couldn’t muffle all the conflicting sounds.
“We are telling everyone that you were with Celeste and Erran last night,” Aster assured her. “The ball shall go on as planned.” She waved the list of houseguests they meant to investigate.
“Your sisters were scraping the bottom of the barrel to invite this lot,” Celeste said, snatching the list. “Most of the men are in desperate need of wealth, barring one or two who want your father’s favor. Most are from good families, I suppose. Will is a much better choice.”
Well, she couldn’t expect Wi
ll’s family to say any less. “Will wants to train dogs,” Lela pointed out, grateful to air some of her concerns. “He has no interest in London or the deaf school I would like to organize. I don’t believe we have anything in common except gossip.”
“She’s lying,” Celeste told Aster with humor. “Shall I cajole her into telling the truth?”
Lela clenched her fists in frustration. “I want you to help me, not tell me what to do!”
“We want to help Will too,” Aster pointed out. “He needs someone to give him reason to settle down. His chart shows that he’s ready to give up traveling. He’s a good choice.”
Calming her rattled nerves by sipping tea, Lela attempted listening to the conversation in her father’s study, but Will’s nullification ability was working too well. Neither of them appeared to be raising their voices, at least. She hoped that was a good sign.
So, this was what it was like to be almost normal, carrying on a normal conversation in which she was expected to participate reasonably. She rather missed being senseless. “We cannot make any announcements now, even if Will should be foolish enough to ask. I must use the ball to lure hungry suitors. Until we determine which one has a recently deceased brother and sister-in-law or has come into an unexpected inheritance, Bess and her children are in limbo.”
“The infant is doing so well that Christie is likely to adopt him if we don’t bring mother and child together soon. We really must act quickly,” Celeste agreed. “Our letters aren’t producing many answers.”
“And I’m sure Rose is anxious to have her mother back,” Lela added, relieved to have the discussion turn away from her. “It’s hard to know what’s going through her head, but she keeps watching the street.”
Aster sorted through the abundance of cards and acceptances already collected. “You’ve had responses from almost everyone. Moira has sketched out the ballroom decorations. I’m glad you set the date early. Parliament will be letting out shortly and everyone will be heading home.”
Celeste sipped her tea and looked at Lela with concern. “You plan to reject Will’s proposal, don’t you?”
Hit with a direct blow, Lela acknowledged the emptiness gaping in her middle. She didn’t think she could answer with any coherence. “It’s impossible,” she murmured.
Even as she said it, the noise of the household crashed in her head with the impact of a battleground.
Damn insufferable Ives. . .
Take your hands off me, you. . .
Put the pot on the table not. . .
Fish, get yer. . .
A shovel scraped. Coal rattled. A carriage rumbled over cobblestone.
Lela held her hands to her ears and bit back a scream. Will had left, without a word to her. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t bear it.
Before her guests could question her behavior, a footman arrived with a note. Concentrating on one of the maids singing in a distant room so she could uncover her ears, not daring to hope, Lela tore open the missive. Astounded at the indecipherable scrawl, relieved that it was from Will, she wished she’d waited until her family had departed before opening it. She needed time to digest the contents, savor his brief words.
She tucked the paper in her pocket, smiled brightly, and lied. “We are about to open the doors to the parade of visitors. I have developed a dreadful catarrh from the storm last night. Will one of you ladies please make my apologies for me?”
Too perceptive, they regarded her with suspicion, but her family was never stupid. They gathered their things, arguing over who should preside over the parlor. Deciding they would both do the honors, they departed.
Lela clung to the paper, sniffing the faint smell of Will’s soap, fearful of what the words might tell her. That he was gone, she knew. Where he had gone, she didn’t know. With a sigh, she opened the note.
I am gone to Rcihmond. Tlak latre. Will
Not a gentleman’s practiced script by any means, but the thickness of the ink strokes said he’d put a great deal of effort into those few words. The right letters were all there, just oddly scrambled.
So, she couldn’t read, and he couldn’t spell. Well, she could read, she just couldn’t focus on what she read. And he could spell, he just didn’t put the letters in the right order. That didn’t make either of them dumb or uneducated, just. . . different.
They might not have a lot in common when it came to worldly interests, but on the inside, they understood each other. How did one make a marriage of that?
Chapter 21
Will had decided it would be faster to leave the dogs and ride to Richmond than to hire a cart to carry the animals. After all the rain and the time since the villain had written the letter, he didn’t hold much hope that Ajax could find the scent.
The direction the duke’s secretary had provided for Lord Baldwin, one of the impoverished guests Jacques had marked as a possibility, was easy to find in a small town like Richmond. He could ask questions around the neighborhood without Ajax. If Will remembered correctly, Baldwin was one of the three gentlemen they’d met in the tavern the day they’d left Yatesdale with Rose. Young, slightly-built, he hadn’t engaged in fisticuffs as Clayton had. The older gentleman with the lavender handkerchief must have been Rush, the presumed man milliner.
Clayton was the more likely villain, given his tendency to drink and violence, but Will wanted to check the one living furthest out first. Besides, he was more comfortable asking questions in the country.
He stopped in the tavern nearest the tidy three-story townhouse Baldwin called home, but none of the men in there were familiar with the gentleman. They did tell him, however, that it was a rooming house.
So wearing gloves to conceal his bandaged hand, Will walked in the garden gate and knocked on the door. A mob-capped housekeeper answered. “I heard there might be rooms to let here, ma’am,” he said, holding his tweed cap in his hands. He’d chosen his own rural clothes for this expedition.
“There is only a single room,” the housekeeper said, looking at his attire with disapproval. “We’re a fine establishment, catering to gentlemen. We seldom have a vacancy, but Lord Baldwin has just moved out, having come into a small inheritance. He had only the room at the top, not a full suite, and we didn’t have more space to offer him.”
A small inheritance? Was the search this easy? But while he was here, he’d have a look around.
“I know his lordship from school,” Will lied. “I hadn’t realized he lived here. If you’ll give me his new direction, I can ask him to give me a reference.”
His approval rating apparently rose. The housekeeper ushered him in and showed him upstairs to a low, timbered attic room that would give him headaches every time he walked into a beam. He pretended to take an interest in the polished floor and window and let his hostess rush off to find Baldwin’s new direction.
Had Lela’s bookish suitor already taken over Bess’s estate, such as it might be? Her home may not have been entailed. Baldwin could have sold it to pay for city housing.
Will looked about for any scent identifiers the man might have left so he could test it on Ajax, but the room had been scrubbed clean, the linens washed, and he couldn’t haul furniture back with him.
The housekeeper handed him a scrap of paper with a direction. Will thanked her for her time, and said he would talk to Baldwin and get back to her.
When he stepped outside, he studied the housekeeper’s scrawl. Unscrambling the words with his tired brain, he let his eyebrows soar in surprise.
Baldwin now had the same city location as Lord Clayton.
In the private upstairs sitting room above the public first floor parlor where Aster and Celeste were accepting her callers, Lela sat at a table with the deaf-hand-signal book. Rose bounced from window to window.
Without Will to muffle sound for her, she was having difficulty focusing on the voices below, but at least Rose wasn’t making any noise. The child carried a doll from the nursery, showing it the world out the windows, while Tiny e
xplored the carpet.
I hope Lady Aurelia. . .
We are so excited that the duke. . .
Please give our best wishes. . .
Not letting that nasty vermin. . .
Lela yawned. This was why she had difficulty focusing, she decided. No one in the parlor said anything worth listening to, and kitchen quarrels were incessant. She opened one of the picture books she’d brought into the parlor, found a picture of a little girl, wrote G-I-R-L on a piece of paper, and opened the hand signal book to the appropriate illustration.
Rose had climbed up on a sofa to watch out the long windows overlooking the entrance. Lela approached her, hoping to persuade her to look at the books, but Rose pointed at the window and frowned. What had the child seen?
Given the cruelty that had marred Rose’s small world, her heart beat accelerated. Would Rose recognize whoever had attacked her mother? She didn’t seem agitated, though, just concerned.
Lela caught a glimpse of two gentlemen being let in through their front door. Looking down on top hats told her nothing. She saw no horse or carriage in the street. She placed a finger to her lips in the universal sign language to tell a child to be silent, and then she concentrated, hard.
Aster and Celeste were already entertaining several mothers and daughters and one or two gentlemen. Several of the women made their excuses as the newcomers were introduced. That could just mean their visiting time was over—or it could mean the ladies disapproved of the newcomers.
“Good afternoon, Lord Rush, Lord Baldwin,” she heard Aster say smoothly, letting Lela know who was in the room as she had this past hour—provided Lela listened.
Rush was the gentleman who lived with his mother, Lela remembered. Lord Baldwin was a slight gentleman, bookish. He’d offered her a rose and tried to propose, but she’d brushed him off.
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