Lady Unveiled - The Cuckold's Conspiracy (Daughters of Sin Book 5)
Page 16
The afternoon sun that filtered from the thick band of low cloud was making Kitty’s ringlets look like spun gold, and her skin look golden with health.
Lissa dropped her head, though she didn’t stop walking, and looked at her scuffed half-boots. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she muttered. “Do you think if there’d been any way to have helped Ralph do what he had to do, I wouldn’t have been leading the charge?” It hurt her to the quick that Kitty insinuated Lissa had just sat idly by, drilling Miss Lucinda in deportment and mending Lady Julia’s torn undergarments.
Kitty’s mouth dropped open. She looked about to sally forth, but Lissa went on, “You’ve done exactly what you wanted, Kitty, but how has that benefited anyone? All right, I’ll speak plainly, though you won’t like to hear it. Have you given a thought to Mama since you ran away from home and dragged our name through the mud?”
Lissa turned her head away from the hurt look on her sister’s face. She thought she’d seen a tear glisten, but Kitty was the most accomplished of actresses.
“What good name?” Kitty asked. “That’s why I ran away. I had no name. Except “bastard.” So what did I have to lose? As to not having contact with Mama, I send money home to her every fortnight, and I know I’m more generous than Papa. I bought her that shawl she’d so coveted, but which Papa said was too expensive. I have thought of Mama! What have you sent home to Mama?”
Lissa didn’t like the combative tone. Even less did she like the direct question, for the truth was that her wages were so pitiful Lissa hadn’t been in a position to send anything home.
Lissa strove for the high ground. “Look at the clothes you’re wearing!”
“What about them? They are in the first stare. There’s nothing tawdry or showy about them. Araminta or Hetty would wear just the same if they had such good taste. You’re jealous, Lissa. You weren’t beyond borrowing clothes from Araminta whom you profess to despise. I’ll wager you felt mighty grand attending a ball and looking like you were venturing forth for your grand debut. I know you pretend you don’t care, but you do! And now that I’m able to enjoy freedom and nice clothes you’re jealous.”
Lissa clenched her teeth. “I’m not jealous if it meant I had to…do the things you’ve lowered yourself to do to get them.”
Kitty gasped. “Are you casting aspersions on my reputation? Do you think I’d give myself to a man I did not love? I’ve done nothing that our Mama hasn’t done. She’s lived in sin for twenty years, and what joy has it brought her? What joy has it brought any of us?” She looked on the verge of angry tears. “I simply came to see you because I thought you’d want to help Ralph do what he’s been charged to do—uncover the nefarious dealings in which Lord Debenham is involved, and by so doing, uncover the other villains in his circle who are causing such unhappiness.”
Stirred into action, Lissa stopped in her tracks and swung around. “A year ago, I was lauded for the role I played in this very conspiracy. My drawings brought the Foreign Office hot on the heels of Lord Debenham.”
Kitty frowned. “I knew nothing of this. How did you meet Araminta?”
“She recognized me, and when she needed someone to accompany her to a coffee house to purloin an important letter his Lordship’s valet had supposedly hidden away, she sent a message around. Well, the letter was proved a fake, and besides, it wasn’t sufficient evidence on its own. Nevertheless, I was commended by a high-ranking figure in Parliament, a diplomat who placed me in my current governessing position with the express idea of keeping an eye out for anything I could pass on. I shouldn’t be telling you this because I compromise everything, and because you can’t keep a secret, Kitty, but I will not have you saying I’ve done nothing. Lord, the inaction is torture. Barely seeing Ralph is torture. Having to pander to Lady Julia and Miss Lucinda is pure torture. Don’t you preach to me about what’s right!”
“Well, don’t you suggest I’m not in a better position than you are to discover gossip and other important information. I have a much wider network than you do. And greater access to important people who can yield the right information. I can be more persuasive. I have friends who know how to be very persuasive. And here I am, suggesting to you that we join forces and share information, yet all you do is make me feel small. Like when we were children. Small and unimportant.”
Lissa drew a breath for forbearance, but also because there was truth in what Kitty was saying. She’d always felt protective of her younger sister, but also slightly exasperated by Kitty’s lack of insight on occasion.
“I’m not insinuating you’re not open to the idea of doing whatever you can, Lissa. I just think you’re too busy trying to make me ashamed of myself that you’ve lost sight of what’s more important. And you know what that is? It’s bringing justice to Lord Debenham and his cronies so you and Ralph can be married, and so I can at least prove to Lord Silverton that I would have made a brave and worthy wife.” Impatiently, she dabbed at the moisture in the corner of her eye.
“Come, it’s probably time to turn back,” she muttered, breaking off a leaf from an overhanging branch. “You’ll have Miss Lucinda to attend to, and you’re both going to Lady Richmond’s ball tonight, I know. But you will marry Ralph someday, and you will be happy. I will watch Lord Silverton being married in four weeks’ time and know that I will never be happy.”
Lissa put out her hand and squeezed her sister’s briefly. “You will find someone else,” she said. “You’re young and beautiful, and you are feted by the whole of London it would seem. I am proud of you, even if you think I’m not. Already, in less than a year, there’s been Lord Nash and then Lord Silverton, and while I don’t approve of your…liaisons, it proves there’ll be others.”
There was a curious look in Kitty’s eye as she whispered, “I can’t believe you’re insinuating what I think you are, Lissa! That I can so easily transfer my affections. I knew Lord Silverton for months as a good and loyal friend. I would do anything for him except ruin his future and relations with his family. No, there will never be another of his caliber. He and I were good together. We love each other. There’s no changing that! Just like there’s no changing the way you feel for Ralph.”
“Now!” Her trembling mouth turned up into a smile. “If you’re going to be out on the town tonight, you can’t possibly disgrace the family name with the poor ensemble that is all you have at your disposal, so I shall send Dorcas around with several suitable possibilities.”
Lissa was glad the conversation had ended on a better note, but she shook her head. “I can’t possibly, Kitty.”
“No, I insist!”
“It’s not your generosity I’m turning down. I truly thank you. But I couldn’t possibly turn up somewhere in what would be a gross putting forward of myself, suggesting I had ideas beyond my station. It would look like I wanted to cast Miss Lucinda into the shade.”
“Ideas beyond your station?” Kitty’s look was sad. “Lissa, you are the daughter of Lord Partington. Is it ‘above your station’ to wear a beautiful gown to an event that…that Araminta and Henrietta will be attending in lavish ball gowns? Don’t you want to show them up? Prove you’re just as good?”
“But I’m not.”
“Not as good as Araminta?! Please!”
They both grinned at that, and then Lissa ended the camaraderie with a worried look at the fading light. “I’ll have to go in now and see to Miss Lucinda.” She put out her hand feeling much more charitable toward Kitty now, despite the fact that Kitty was as impulsively misguided as ever. Kitty had always wanted to be better than Lissa knew that they could be. They’d been born in sin. Their brother Thomas could ride above the stain to his birthright through industry and the backing of influential sponsors.
Kitty had sunk to the lowest depths of degradation possible, but Lissa could still cling to tenuous respectability as a governess.
“Oh Lissa, you’d look just lovely in the pale green silk and roses. I do wish you’d consider it!”<
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“If it’ll make you happy to say I’ll consider it, then all right.” Lissa tried not to show her sadness as she gazed at Kitty’s animated face. Already her sister had put the unfortunate aspects of their conversation and situation behind her, and was gaily contemplating future happy pursuits. But what would happen to poor Kitty when her looks were faded? She’d have nothing.
No, it would be up to Lissa to maintain her impecunious little sister, when Kitty had run through all her funds, and there was no gentleman to support her.
“I wish you well for tonight’s performance, Kitty,” she said, turning.
“And I wish you well for finding out something important at Lady Richmond’s tonight.” Kitty put her hand on Lissa’s arm. “You are very clever at keeping things close to your chest. I don’t wonder you were chosen for a position of such discretion, and I’m sure you’ll find out exactly what we need to find out if we’re to help Ralph. I want to see the pair of you happily married, truly I do!”
“That’s very sweet,” said Lissa, thinking how far distant any such a possibility seemed right now. “And I’m sure you’ll do whatever you can to find out who else might have an axe to grind with Lord Debenham though, of course, Araminta only wants such information so she can protect him in order to protect herself.” She sighed. “I’m sure it’s all far too complicated for you to have to worry about. Goodnight Kitty.”
Chapter 18
Kitty plastered on a cheerful smile as she farewelled her sister, but it was hard to keep her shoulders back and walk without showing the real depths of her sadness. Lissa and Ralph were deeply in love and all that held them apart was a lack of money.
Kitty and Silverton were madly in love, but the factors that held them apart were insurmountable.
Still, she was an actress, a celebrated actress, she had to remind herself. In a few hours, she’d be performing on stage and presenting herself to an adoring public as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Lissa clearly had little admiration for the choices she’d made, nor for her ability to make any difference in solving a mystery that had such important ramifications for her sisters—Lissa and Araminta—but Kitty would show her.
She just wasn’t sure how.
Therefore, it was an enormous surprise when directly after the performance, she was given notice by her dresser that a lady wished to see her in private and was there somewhere they could repair to.
“A lady? Did she say who she was?” Kitty wondered fearfully if it could be Miss Mandelton come to accost her having heard rumors about her past liaison with her future husband. Not that she believed Miss Mandelton would have the courage to do such a thing. Carefully nurtured females such as she were trained to keep their heads demurely down, preferably over stitching their husband’s shirts or infants’ nightcaps, and to pretend they had no knowledge of the deviant underworld to which Kitty belonged.
“She didn’t say miss, but I knew it were Lady Debenham.”
“Lady Debenham!” Kitty sat down abruptly at her dressing table. She glanced at the door. “Tell her she can speak to me here and we’ll be private. Make sure no one else interrupts us, Betsy.”
What on earth did Araminta have to say to her that it required such cloak and dagger? Araminta would have recognized Kitty at her birthday celebration at The Grange, and was no doubt horribly uncomfortable at the memory of what she and Kitty had shared when Kitty had taken her to Mrs. Mobbs’s.
“The audience seemed to like you well enough.” Araminta swept in, ostrich feathers waving, her beautiful gown molding her form. “You certainly played a passable nymph. I daresay you can be whomever you choose, and that’s quite a gift.”
Did Lady Debenham know that Kitty was also Lord Partington’s daughter? She knew Lissa was, but judging by the airy way she tossed her fur tippet over one shoulder and seated herself upon the spindly chair Kitty had pulled across from the window, Kitty doubted that she knew Kitty was also her father’s daughter.
“Now,” said Araminta, “you are no doubt wondering why I’m here, and since my husband is waiting at home to take me to Lady Richmond’s ball, I shall be brief. The fact is, Miss Bijou, that I have a problem, and I need you to help me get to the bottom of it. You were in possession—and no doubt still are—of my ruby and diamond necklace.”
So that was it. She wanted it back. Anger bubbled through Kitty’s veins as she said, “I was given that necklace by Lord Nash who paid for it, honestly. When your husband demanded it back, nevertheless, my…friend, Lord Silverton, paid him its value so I could keep it.” Crisply she added, “Therefore, the necklace has been paid for twice over, and I refuse to relinquish it.”
“I’d heard there was quite a story to that necklace. However, I’m more interested in how it came into Lord Nash’s hands than anything else.”
Kitty looked at Araminta askance. “I’m not sure a lady like you would want to know.”
Araminta glanced at the door and then thrust her chin out at Kitty. “I need to know the truth. Where did Lord Nash acquire the necklace?”
Kitty sighed. “He bought it from an unsavory woman called Maggie Montgomery. It was one of the objections I had to marrying Lord Nash. That, and the fact that the necklace had belonged to you first, though I didn’t know that at the time.” When she saw the confusion on Araminta’s face, she explained, “Maggie Montgomery is the madam of a house of ill repute…if you know what that is.”
“A brothel!” Araminta jerked as if stung. She began fanning herself furiously but waved away the drink Kitty offered her. “I need your help, Miss Bijou. You helped me once before, and maybe you think I wasn’t grateful enough, but let me assure you I was.” Stopping abruptly, she bit her lips. “That is, assuming you were discreet.”
“I vouchsafed nothing about assisting you when it looked likely your babe might come early, if that’s what you mean.”
“Just as well for you…” However, Araminta said the words distantly. She seemed more concerned with other thoughts until she refocused her gaze upon Kitty and said suddenly, “I need you to come with me this evening and meet someone. Or rather, someone intends to meet me at midnight, and they want five hundred pounds—which I don’t have.”
“A ransom demand?” She remembered Araminta’s evasiveness during the conversation she’d overheard between Araminta and Ralph. “Over what?”
“I’m not telling you. But I want you to meet this person in my stead, and I’ll be watching to see who it is. It’s twenty minutes before the clock strikes so we’ll need to hurry.”
“You’re asking me to do this dangerous thing out of the goodness of my heart?”
“Of course not. I’ll pay you well, naturally.”
“What if I have other plans? I’m sorry, Lady Debenham.” No, Kitty wasn’t sorry, but furious that Araminta thought she could toss out directions in such a manner.
Araminta looked outraged before she forced a smile. “Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Have other plans?”
“Well…”
“Your liaison with Lord Silverton has ended, has it not? Very charming man. I remember I met you the first time in his company. But perhaps you have already allied yourself with someone else.”
“No, I have not! But all right, I’ll go with you.” Kitty would have anyway if Araminta had not been so selfishly beastly about assuming she would. A blackmail attempt? Kitty imagined Araminta would be ripe for all manner of blackmail attempts the way she conducted herself; however, since Kitty and Lissa were hoping to discover the identity of an extortionist who was operating amidst the ranks of the ton, this was a good start.
Araminta was quiet as they climbed into a hackney and made the short journey to the cemetery where they were to meet the blackmailer. She was more nervous, perhaps, than she’d first appeared, for when Kitty asked, “Are we here?” she made a strangled noise and indicated for Kitty to lead the way as they left their conveyance and trod a twisting path through a small pine forest.
Shortly after arriving at the designated meeting place, Kitty heard the soft tread of footsteps upon the gravel. Suddenly, she was terrified. Perhaps Lord Debenham had planned to take his wife to task, and it was, in fact, himself who was going to confront Kitty. He’d be completely unimpressed if he discovered the woman who supposedly had stolen his wife’s necklace was here in Araminta’s place. Oh Lord, she hadn’t considered that. Lord Debenham? Indeed, it was quite possible though she’d discounted him because he’d already received payment from Lord Silverton. Of all London’s gentlemen, he was the one who terrified her most.
But it was a woman, large-busted with ostrich feathers in her brassy hair, and a terrifyingly familiar voice who stepped into a pool of moonlight as if she’d stepped in front of the stage lights. She was veiled, but the gaudy scarlet and black high-waisted gown with its overdone embellishments that accentuated her ample proportions, proclaimed exactly who she was. Kitty had seen Mrs. Montgomery wear this gown on numerous occasions.
“So Lady Debenham, have you the money?”
Kitty could only gasp as she shook her head.
“Then what have you instead, dearie? That little one takes a fair bit of feeding. Reckon he’s chewed up more than a diamond and ruby necklace is worth.
Kitty could not stay here and look that awful woman in the face. Equally, she wasn’t at all sure she could stomach what she was hearing. A baby? What did she mean? Had this anything to do with Araminta’s first season which had ended under a cloud?