A Lady Unrivaled

by Roseanna M. White

  He cleared his throat. “Forgive me—I’m Lord Cayton.”

  Her eyebrows, which suddenly seemed far too perfectly plucked for the maid, arched. “I know who you are, my lord.”

  He returned the expression. “Would you be so kind as to return the favor?”

  “Oh. Apologies.” Her face fell back into exhaustion as she attempted a curtsy that resulted in a knee seeming to give out. She braced herself against the wall. “Sophie Lareau.”

  The name didn’t fit those harsh consonants, the Slavic vowels. Didn’t fit the bone structure of what he finally noted was a face too starkly beautiful for Catherine to ever want beside her. But who was he to argue with a woman’s name? He sketched a bow. “Forgive me, Sophie Lareau, for dragging you into this.”

  She laughed a little, sans all amusement, and said, “You are not the one who did so.”

  The way she said it left him wondering who had.

  Sixteen

  Delmore.” Ella felt decidedly scholarly, sitting as she was in the library of the castle, surrounded by veritable stacks of books on India—geography, culture, legends, myths, and the Hindu religion. The late duke had apparently seen it as his duty to collect all works he could find on any place in which he had holdings. Having counted on just that, she silently thanked him. And tapped her pencil against her lip as she tried to keep from watching Cayton too closely. “Catherine said that he hated Delmore nearly as much as he hated Rushings, that he resented the money Pratt would have put into it. It stands to reason that he would resent the money Catherine put into it too. But she could hardly avoid it, so long as she held the estate in trust for her son.”

  Cayton paced the library much like she imagined one of the tigers she’d been reading about paced the jungles. Stealthy, primal. Ready to pounce on any unsuspecting creature in his path.

  Though the image was rather ruined by the giggling toddler he held on his hip, who squealed in delight every time he executed a pivot.

  “Is that enough reason, though? To kill one’s own infant nephew?”

  “Is anything enough to do so?” Ella pulled her feet from the chair across from her where they’d been resting—which would have horrified Mama had she been here. She felt around for her shoes under the table, but they seemed to have scampered off under their own steam. “For a reasonable, healthy person, no. But I somehow doubt he could be classified as such.”

  Cayton made a disgruntled humming noise. Addie stroked his cheek as if to comfort him and rested her head on his shoulder.

  Ella stood, hoping he wouldn’t notice her lack of footwear. She had been relieved to see him driving to the castle this morning, and more than a little surprised when he’d found her in the library rather than seeking out Stafford. At least until he said that Stafford was dealing with a little boy who could not understand why he had to let his mother sleep and would not stop screaming at the nurse.

  She would go up in a bit, see if she could lend a hand. For now, she would rather see if she could lure Addie from her father’s arms. On his next pass, she held out her arms, wiggled her fingers.

  “Lalala!” Addie lunged her direction.

  Ella caught her, knowing well her grin was impish. She kissed the girl’s head and looked back up at Cayton, who stared at them in complete bemusement. “Jealousy then?”

  He blinked, much like he had yesterday. Where had he learned to blink like that?

  And were those her shoes over by the window? How had they gotten over there? Ella sighed. “Catherine said something else at tea. About how it had always been the two of them against the world. Perhaps he resented the intrusion of someone that she arguably loved more than him.”

  “I don’t know. None of it makes any sense—maybe he was just saying it to scare me, maybe it really was the crib death.” He pulled out the chair she’d abandoned and sat down with a loud sigh. Then frowned at the table. “What in blazes are you doing, Ella?”

  Addie reached for one of Ella’s curls and gave it a tug. Ella tapped her nose and reclaimed the hair, distracting her with the shiny but virtually worthless glass beads she’d put on that morning. “Writing a novel.”

  “No you’re not. You’re researching the Fire Eyes.”

  Ella widened her eyes just to watch Addie imitate her. “Why does he ask questions to which he already knows the answer, sweetling?”

  Addie lifted the necklace to her mouth and tasted it. Apparently it was delicious, as she kept on gnawing.

  “Is that what you told Brook? That you were writing a novel?”

  “I told her I might write a novel—which could happen, I’m getting all sorts of ideas. This, of course, I said was research—which it is.” She could take the chair beside him, but he would probably surge to his feet to pace again in another moment. She opted for leaning against the edge of the table.

  Cayton did that blink again. “And my cousin’s wife, who is notorious for being overly bookish, thought nothing of your particular choices for research?”

  Ella grinned. “She may have had to dash back out to lose her dinner before she saw them all.” Though given the diamond book incident, it really was a wonder she hadn’t been more suspicious.

  “And my cousin?”

  “Oh, he knows exactly what I’m about.” She really wasn’t being underhanded about it. If Brook hadn’t had to flee the room in search of a lavatory, Ella would have duked it out with her again. “But he’s fully set on coddling Brook while she’s unwell, so . . .”

  His lips twitched. He didn’t smile. “Last question—what do you have against shoes?”

  Ella smiled for him. “They pinch. Now, a more important question. Have you ever painted a tiger? I need such a one, I think. For inspiration.” She reached over him with the arm not fully supporting Addie and pulled forward one of the books that was open to a photograph. A fierce tiger stared off the page, terrifying but too black-and-white. “It’s just begging for its world to be colored.”

  Cayton directed his gaze toward the picture. “Must it be a painting? I could have a pastel drawing to you by tomorrow. It wouldn’t have to dry.”

  “Whatever you want to do.” Hopefully he didn’t hear in her voice that she just wanted something he had created, something that she could look at and know he had done. For her. “As for Lady Pratt’s son—I read what I could find about crib death when it happened. He was older than most victims. And very few cases occur during a daytime nap, as his did. It happens, but . . .”

  “You read about that too?” Cayton set the tiger book away from him again and angled his frown her way.

  “Of course I did. As I keep insisting to everyone, my optimism is not blind.” If only there had been a book to warn her about Stella Abbott’s true nature. She traced the curl that hugged Addie’s ear, returning the grin the wee one gave her, even if it did seize up a bit. “We’ll not let anything happen to Addie. Will we, sweetling? If it comes down to it, I’ll simply give you the diamonds to give to him. They are not worth any more lives. Certainly not an innocent child’s.”

  “But that wouldn’t stop him, and he has to be stopped. If he really did this . . .” Cayton shook his head and rubbed at his eyes. “That kind of monster is never truly appeased.”

  “How does he mean you to get them, then?” He had only gotten so far as to explain the threat, and why he took it seriously. Though perhaps Rushworth meant Cayton to figure it all out on his own.

  Cayton’s sigh suggested otherwise. “That is why I sought you out. Would you sit? Please?”

  His tone was so frightfully cordial that anxiety snaked up her spine. She pulled out the chair beside his and sat, Addie settling in her lap. “Why do I feel as though I’ve done something wrong?”

  “It’s not that at all. It’s just . . .” He kept his gaze latched on the tiger. “Rushworth seems to think that if we both court you, the natural outcome will be that you’ll favor one of us simply by comparison, and therefore trust that someone more. So that said someone can then convince
you to wear the earrings again so they can be stolen.”

  She wasn’t sure what he expected her reaction to be, but given the tension in his shoulders and the way he refused to look at her, he must be steeling himself for something explosive. Perhaps he thought she’d launch into a French diatribe, like Brook would do.

  As entertaining as that might be, she settled for a hum. “Not exactly how I envisioned my first courtship happening, I confess. But all right, then. We play his game, you pretend to court me.” Her voice didn’t even catch on pretend. She deserved credit for that, didn’t she? When what she really wanted to do was rip that word to shreds and feed it to the tiger.

  He looked over at her, disbelief darkening his eyes. “He said he has servants here in his pocket who will report to him if I don’t.”

  “I daresay he does.” Which made her look over her shoulder. The library seemed impenetrable, but was it? Had they already said things that would haunt them?

  Cayton followed her gaze. “We have no worries in the library, I assure you. I have tried, and failed, to eavesdrop on my family in this room many a time. There are no servant halls that connect to it, and the doors and walls are too thick, unless the occupants are shouting.”

  A measure of relief stole through her. Ella intercepted Addie’s hand when she abandoned the necklace and went for her hair again. She tickled the girl’s belly to distract her, nearly getting lost in that laugh that seemed to come from the baby’s very toes. It gave her enough strength to meet Cayton’s too-serious gaze again.

  Heaven help her, she wanted his courtship to be real.

  Ella made certain her smile was dull with cynicism. “So then. You’ll join me here from time to time? It will give an appearance, even if the room is impenetrable. Then we can take a few promenades through the gardens and smile and laugh where we can be seen. To whomever is watching, it will look like a courtship. But it will give us time in actuality to discern how to catch Rushworth in his crimes.”

  Addie lunged for the floor, so Ella put her gently down onto the rug. On her feet, though her knees immediately bent and her hands found the floor with a happy slap, those knees then straightening again. Off she went toward the window in that adorable bottoms-up crawl.

  Cayton’s gaze followed his daughter. “I suppose that will have to do. But it pains me, my lady. I am not ready even for such pretense—and you certainly deserve something more than one pretender and one criminal seeking your attentions for the lowest of reasons.”

  “Careful, or you’ll turn my head with such flattering remarks.” She stood to follow Addie. And avoid Cayton’s eyes.

  Would it ever be real? She knew he wasn’t ready now—it hadn’t even been a year since Lady Cayton’s death. Of course he had to grieve her. But when this was all over, when he was healed . . . ? They would at least know each other better after this faux suit. Know, perhaps, if they had anything worth waiting for. Worth pursuing later.

  Cayton’s stony countenance, when she glanced back at it, said, “I’ll never let you find out.”

  It was too late for that. He’d already given her a glimpse of his true self, of the man who painted fairy tales into the clouds. How was she not to fall in love with him? When he so needed someone to draw the real Cayton out of him, to make him smile?

  She would just have to try to make the false as real as she could. To peek wherever she could into his heart.

  “I’m sorry this is necessary, Lady Ella.” His stood, all rigid muscles that shouted “Keep your distance!” “And I . . . I do hope you remember at all times that it’s solely for appearances.”

  Had he read her mind? Did she wear her thoughts on her sleeve? She flashed a grin. “Do you think me so desperate for attention that I would read fact into fiction? I assure you, my lord—I’m not. I’m a duke’s sister, you know. I have men flocking to me. Falling at my feet, as it were. I certainly won’t fall prey to a suit that I know well is for show. Charming as you are. Though let it be noted you do know how to be so—you were when first we met.”

  That was, what, a century ago? Because nothing could change that much in a week and a half.

  His shoulders hunched again. It looked defensive—strange how it seemed to result in him being offensive. “Before I realized you were all fluff and nonsense, you mean?”

  A few choice names vied for a place on her tongue. He had aimed that arrow carefully, but she wouldn’t let it strike. She grinned as she spun a globe absent-mindedly. “There you go again with that flattery. All but shouting that I’m blindingly beautiful, if it made you overlook my . . . nonsense. Well don’t worry, Lord Surly. Pretty as your face is too, I’m not blinded. Except by Addie, of course.”

  The little one touched a chubby finger to the globe, slowing its rotation. Once it stopped, she turned and crawled toward her father with a hello-again squeal. He picked her up, studying her instead of Ella. “So long as we understand each other.”

  “I daresay we do.” Better than he might wish.

  His larynx bobbed with his swallow. Quieter, he said, “I don’t want you to get hurt, Lady Ella.”

  She reached over, wanting to smooth away that furrow in his brow. Smoothing down only, of course, a wisp of Addie’s hair. “It’s life, my lord. Pain is inevitable. But I’ll not live in fear of it.”

  He backed away. “I had better go and find Stafford. Let Addie and Bing play, if he has calmed down. I . . . I suppose I’ll be back down. After.”

  She took a step back too, folded her arms around her middle, and wiggled her fingers at Addie. “Do try to look a bit happy about it, will you? I’m a young lady, not an executioner. For that matter”—she pulled out some mischief to sprinkle into her smile and extended her hand—“pretend you like me.”

  Amusement and rebuke both gleamed in his eyes, but he took her hand, raised it to his mouth, and let his lips linger on her knuckles a moment too long.

  A game. But it wasn’t a game. And she knew as she looked into his eyes that he knew it too. Knew it and hated it and hated himself for not hating it.

  She never realized how much she liked the complicated, conflicted sort. It was no doubt cliché of her, just like being struck so quickly by his handsome face and falling for his adorable daughter. But some things, she supposed, became cliché for a reason.

  He charged out of the room as if the doors might try to eat him on the way out, leaving the library far emptier than it had seemed before he came in.

  Ella sank back down into her seat at the table and pulled a book forward again. She feared she was already lost where it came to Lord Cayton, but now it was time to lose herself in India again. Such a different world it all seemed.

  What had Rowena and Brice said the name of the tiger god was that time she’d overheard them speaking of the curse? She pulled out a book on the various Hindu gods and scanned through the index, flipping to the entry on each familiar-sounding name until she found it. Dakshin Ray. Her eyes ate up the few scant paragraphs about him.

  It seemed he wasn’t a deity to be revered like most of India’s others. Not like Vishnu, the sun god, nor Parvati, goddess of fertility. Dakshin Ray instead appeared to be some higher form of the tiger. A god that no one wanted to see—because to see him was to see the fearsome beast prowling through one’s village, attacking one’s children. Dakshin Ray was a god to avoid, to fear, rather than to revere.

  Her gaze darted to the book on Indian animals, still open to that hard-eyed tiger that stared down the camera. She shivered at the thought of being near enough to such a beast to take a photograph like that.

  She pulled out another tome on myths and legends. It was a monster of a book, every bit as intimidating as a tiger. It would take her forever to sift through it.

  Lord, don’t let me stray from your path. Not with all this, and . . . and not with Cayton. Nor with Catherine.

  She turned back to the tiger book. It would tell her where they lived, somewhere in that chapter. And then she’d have a place to start.

>   Seventeen

  Kira darted a look over her shoulder, hushed her very breathing. Lady Pratt was visiting with Felicity again, which surely meant she would be gone for a little while, anyway. Hands still hovering over the garments she must yet tuck away into a drawer, Kira strained her ears for any telltale footsteps.

  The only ones she heard were those of Dorsey in the next room, and his whistle as he saw to Lord Rushworth’s things.

  Abandoning the clothing still sitting on the chair, Kira sifted through the drawer to the slender box Lady Pratt had instructed her to put in the bottom. It was the perfect size to contain papers—papers that could very well reveal something about the diamonds.

  Setting the box on the floor, Kira lifted the lid off and picked up the sheet of paper on top.

  My Kitty-Cat,

  I miss you. Blast this infernal mud for making the travel so difficult between Rushings and Delmore. If it doesn’t dry up soon, I shall risk it and come to see you. The sicker Mother becomes, the more I wish for just an hour in your company. I’m already plotting how I shall arrive late in the afternoon, so your brother is obligated to offer me a room for the night. Please don’t play coy this time, Kitty. Please.

  The signature read simply Pratt. Kira touched a finger to that dash of masculine letters. The lady’s late husband, though obviously this was sent long before Catherine became Lady Pratt. According to the date at the top, it was before Brook even returned to England from Monaco.

  No mention of anything relevant. Kira set it carefully aside, then frowned at the item beneath—a lady’s magazine. She lifted it out, her fingers following the guidance of the little slip of ribbon inside it, opening to an advertisement.

  It took her a moment to realize that the beautiful figure depicted, in the height of fashion and glowing with health and beauty, was Lady Pratt. The artist had depicted her perched upon an ornate chair, with a gleaming silver tea service at her side. In her fingers was a cookie, a tiny nibble out of it, and the caption proclaimed, “Fuller’s Biscuits are the only biscuits I serve with tea.”