“If those standards only concern appearance, I imagine you’ll do.” Phineas smiled. “Don’t bungle the silverware, though.”
Rafferty overlooked the implication that he failed in other areas. A wry smile twisted his lips. Arianne herself had made that quite clear. Rafferty glanced at Phineas. “Did I ever thank you for that quick course on silverware you gave me before Lady Arianne’s eleven-course feast? I seem to recall I was in a foul mood that evening.”
“That you were.” Phineas’s tone softened, perhaps to match Rafferty’s own contemplative one. “But you’ve returned the favor on numerous occasions. Shall we join the ladies downstairs? I hope the legation has a superior cook. I could manage one of Lady Arianne’s eleven-course meals.”
Rafferty paused. “You go ahead. There’s something I should do first.”
“Don’t take long, or I’ll be testing Lady Arianne’s theory on edible flowers.” As if to confirm his appetite, Phineas’s stomach growled. He was just about to leave the room when he turned. “I should have asked. Did you learn anything in the examination of the office?”
“I did,” Rafferty said. “We’ll discuss that later.”
ARIANNE GRIPPED THE TALL BEDPOST WHILE HER MAID fastened the back of the rose pink satin bodice. “How are you getting on with the other servants?” she asked Kathleen.
“Just fine, ma’am.” Kathleen tightened the fabric lacing so that the long cuirasse bodice would mold seamlessly to her mistress’s corseted silhouette. “So many of the girls are from Ireland, it’s like being back home.”
Arianne remembered Mr. Barings’s observation on the Irish Rose about Ireland’s chief export. Whole families of immigrants had traveled the Atlantic in worse conditions than they had experienced on the Rose. The thought made her shudder.
“I’ve been assigned a room upstairs with another girl from Limerick. Mrs. Watson, the housekeeper, seems fair enough—a bit gruff, but I’ve heard of worse.”
Lady Weston had introduced Mrs. Watson when they made their house tour. The woman hadn’t seemed gruff then, but the iron fist of most housekeepers was sheathed in a velvet glove when the mistress of the residence appeared.
“There aren’t as many on the service staff as at the Duke’s residence.” Kathleen tied the lacing and hid the ends, then checked the drape of the satin flounce over the bustle. “They were anxious about you, ma’am. I told them you were as kind an employer as they’d ever have.”
“Thank you, Kathleen.” Arianne stepped from the bedpost to the front of the tilted mirror. She hesitated, soothing her hand over the brocaded silk panel that fell in the front of the dress. “Did they ask about Mr. Rafferty?”
“Aye.” Kathleen moved to Arianne’s side and patted a lock of hair in place. She smiled. “I told them that you’d just married and I hadn’t had a chance to work under him yet.” She hesitated a moment, then glanced at Arianne’s reflection in the mirror. “I meant to wish you well, Your Ladyship. I wish I would have known about the wedding. I would have fixed your hair extra special or made a little tussie-mussie out of some of your flowers, if you would’ve let me.”
“Thank you, Kathleen. Had it not been of such a sudden nature, I would have appreciated those efforts.” She and Rafferty had decided not to tell Kathleen about the ruse. Only Phineas and Mrs. Summers were aware of the deception afoot, and Mrs. Summers had chosen to remain on the Irish Rose. She said Arianne didn’t need her anymore. She was wrong. Arianne wished there was someone she could confide in about her attraction to Rafferty and the consequences to Sanctuary if she followed her heart.
“You look lovely, Your Ladyship,” Kathleen said.
Arianne smiled in response and picked up her fan. “Then I suppose it’s time to join the others.” Evening had little effect on the heavy heated air of Washington. She could understand why so many traveled away from the city in the summer. Arianne had no wish to see the misery that July temperatures would bring.
Before she could reach the door, the knob turned and Rafferty entered.
Her breath caught. He looked magnificent. The perfect image of a confident, competent diplomat. She remembered Mrs. Summers’s observation several weeks ago that debutants would be eager to be considered for Rafferty’s hand, and gazing at the man before her, she’d have to agree. But it was the rougher, less refined Rafferty that stirred her senses. She had seen the powerful play of muscles across his chest and felt the rasp of his unshaven chin against her sensitive skin, and she knew those things lay beneath the tailored clothes. The memory made her body spring alive beneath her stays.
“You look lovely this evening,” he said, crossing the room toward her. His eyes warmed. “I thought I should escort my beautiful wife for our first dinner at the legation.” His gaze shifted to where Kathleen gathered Arianne’s spent clothing.
Ah yes, it was part of the ruse. She smiled, accepting his kiss on her cheek.
He placed his hands on her constricted waist and pulled her against his chest. Her own hands lifted to his biceps. A wife would not push her new husband away, she reasoned. His lips traced a path from her cheek to her ear. “Are you ready?” he whispered.
In the back of her mind, another whispered, Are you ready for me? Arianne’s body stiffened, fully engrossed in the humiliating memory of her willing submission to the Baron. A shiver raced down her spine.
Rafferty stepped back, his hands still on her waist. His brow furled. “Is something wrong?”
Arianne shook her head, even though the remnants of that shameful memory still tingled along her neck. “I’m fine,” she insisted, snapping open the fan. “It must be the heat.” She forced a bright smile on her face. “Shall we go down?”
THEY FOUND PHINEAS AND LADY WESTON WAITING IN the breakfast room, a smaller, more intimate dining area than the impressive banquet hall. A large floral arrangement graced the dining table set for four. Rafferty imagined Arianne’s fingers twitched to remove the blossoms to subjugate to her various tortures. His lips tugged back in a smile as he perused his “wife.” She had an analytical mind in the way she studied flowers, a quality he had foolishly overlooked when confronted with her diversion. He had thought she was simply a fashionable aristocrat with an overabundance of time and a lacking of practical application for it.
“Rafferty, you’re smiling,” Phineas announced. “You must tell us what has caught your fancy.”
Rafferty sent an ineffective glare toward Phineas. “I was observing that my wife’s beauty surpasses that of the floral arrangement.” He shifted his gaze to Arianne, whose wide eyes reflected her surprise. “Such captivating charm should be immortalized in a flower of her own.” He lifted his glass of wine. “May I propose a toast to the lovely, enchanting Lady Arianne Rafferty.”
“Here, here,” Phineas echoed and lifted his glass. Rafferty watched a lovely flush rise to her cheeks.
Lady Weston sipped her wine, along with the others. “You two remind me of myself and my Lord Weston, may he rest in peace, when we were young. I must say that it does my weary heart good to meet the man so obviously in love with my Annie.” She pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed it at her nose. “Her father was such a curmudgeon, I’m sorry to say. He never appreciated what a gift he had in Annie. I’m so pleased she found someone who values her the way we do.”
Given his recent understanding of her true parentage, facts and clues were falling into place as if he’d been doing his own investigation. He glanced at Arianne, but she concentrated on her soup.
“Tell me, Lady Weston, does La . . . Arianne favor her mother?”
“She’s the spitting image of that fair lady,” she replied. “I’ve often thought that was the reason her father kept her in distant finishing schools all those years. The sight of his daughter reminded him overly much of his dearly departed wife, the Duchess of Bedford.”
Or the sight of her reminded him of his unfaithful wife, Rafferty mused. Either way, Arianne suffered.
“It was kind of you to
take her in,” Rafferty said.
“We did what we could, but Annie was the daughter of a duke. We couldn’t call her one of our own.” She smiled at Arianne, who averted her gaze, biting her lip in the process. “But she was as close and dear to us as our Kitty.”
Rafferty supposed he and Arianne had more in common than he’d anticipated. The Fenians killed his family while her father merely abandoned her. In both cases, they matured without a place to call home. He could see as well why Lord and Lady Weston were so important to her. Important enough to risk everything to restore a dead man’s reputation? He frowned. Perhaps not. But Lady Weston’s information did add to his greater understanding of the woman he would abandon later tonight.
“I wish I could stay longer to help you two adapt to Washington society, but it’s time that I take Lord Weston home,” Lady Weston said, slicing into her roasted veal. “I assume Annie has mentioned that I’ve arranged for you and she to meet the president tomorrow. I shan’t be able to accompany you, but—”
“Tomorrow?” He looked at Arianne. “Phineas and I have already made plans for tomorrow.”
“One does not refuse a meeting with the president,” she said with a tight smile.
“Oh dear heavens, no.” Lady Weston shook her head. “To refuse a meeting with the head of the host country would be a stain on the entire legation.”
Rafferty grumbled beneath his breath. The president’s meeting would push his own investigations back a day. Christ. They could have taken the SS Germanic for all the good the extra days did for him. He stabbed his veal with perhaps more force than needed. However, as he chewed, he remembered that if they’d taken the SS Germanic, he’d have missed Arianne’s passionate kiss and the sight of her in that wet nightgown.
“I shall assume that one-sided smile means you appreciate the veal, Mr. Rafferty.” Lady Weston sliced a small piece for herself. “The legation has an excellent cook.”
“How did you know that we’d arrive in time to meet with the president?” Rafferty asked. “The SS Germanic doesn’t dock for two days.”
“Lord Henderson sent a telegram that you had just left London by steamer. When I asked for the appointment, I thought you would have arrived several days ago.” Lady Weston considered Rafferty. “You must have had a stormy crossing.”
Rafferty and Arianne exchanged glances. He wondered if she remembered that uncomfortable stairwell with the same fondness as he.
“We encountered one storm at sea,” Phineas said. “We survived it well enough.”
Lady Weston shuddered. “I’m not looking forward to that aspect of returning home. But you’ve had the worst behind you. It should be smooth sailing for the both of you from here on.”
Rafferty somehow doubted that. There was Arianne: calm, elegant, and stubborn as an ox in a peat bog when it came to him. There was a corpse in the front salon whose honor he was expected to vindicate, a spy in the household in league with the murderer who destroyed his family, and an introduction tomorrow to a man who probably expected a refined diplomat—not a charlatan like him. With all due respects to Lady Weston, she hadn’t a clue what she was talking about.
Sixteen
“A KEY,” PHINEAS OBSERVED, HIS VOICE BARELY above a whisper. “What is it for?” They had adjourned to Lord Weston’s study, presumably for whiskey and conversation. Lady Weston had excused herself soon after the almond pudding. Arianne made her excuses as well, thus the men were free to quietly discuss Rafferty’s discovery, ever mindful that a Fenian sympathizer in servant’s attire still roamed the halls if Barnell’s letter to Eva was correct.
“I suspect a safe,” Rafferty said. “The question is where? I didn’t notice a floor safe when I was here earlier.”
They both turned toward a large painting of the moonlit Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey on the Thames. They carefully lifted the painting from the wall but found no safe hidden there. They checked behind the harsh photographic rendering of Queen Victoria, to no avail. For the next two hours, they quietly and carefully checked the wall behind each book in the study, but they discovered only painted wall, and in one section, a box of hidden cigars. Rafferty imagined Lady Weston disapproved.
“There’s no safe in this room, Rafferty. Are you certain it goes to a safe?”
Rafferty squeezed the metal in his palm. “It’s too small for a door. Based on the lengths he used to hide it, it’s a safe key. But the safe could be elsewhere in the house. That way if one or the other were found, it would be more difficult to put the two together. Ingenious, actually.”
“We need to search the entire residence?” Phineas asked, his displeasure evident. A floorboard creaked overhead, reminding them both that the hour had grown late, but it put something else in Rafferty’s mind.
“Perhaps not,” he said. “I would think Lord Weston, and all the ministers before him, would want to keep secret information private with access limited to those trusted most in the household.”
Phineas furled his brow and shrugged.
“The master’s chambers,” Rafferty explained. “If we can’t find the safe there, then we’ll search the legation room by room.”
ARIANNE SAT AT THE WRITING DESK IN THE BEDROOM composing a list of all she needed to do as the new mistress of the legation. The merchants opened their doors early in the morning, and she planned to be there. While she had ordered cards in London with Rafferty’s name and Washington address, she needed to order new cards for herself. Fortunately, current etiquette stipulated that a woman’s card should not include an address. The stationer should be able to process the order in a timely fashion.
She needed to speak with the cook about her expectations for meals and with the housekeeper regarding servants. Her pen paused. Eva’s letter had mentioned someone in the employ of the house was sympathetic to Mr. Barnell’s cause. She’d need to be observant. Perhaps this was something she could ferret out for Rafferty. He had so much on his plate, and yet . . . he took it all in stride. Even the unwelcome news that a presidential invitation took precedence over his investigation was met with little more than low-pitched grousing. She’d known other men who would have aggressively expressed their displeasure over something less significant.
A soft knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. Rafferty entered as if conjured from her musings. She pulled the lapels of her dressing gown together over her nightgown. An impulsive action on her part—silly, really, as the man had seen her in much less. The movement drew his gaze to her chest, making her feel as a mouse caught in the sights of a very hungry cat. She swallowed.
“I thought we had reached an agreement over possession of this room,” she said, knowing there was little she could do to buttress her claim. Bravado remained her sole weapon.
“Have you forgotten that for the purposes of our subterfuge, my wardrobe and personal effects are here?” he asked, his eyes crinkled. “After all the effort you’ve expended to have me dress in this fashion, do you wish me to sleep in these clothes?”
“No, not at all.” She relaxed and shook her head. “My apologies. I shouldn’t have presumed . . .”
He eased closer to her, untying the knot of his neck cloth. “What exactly did you presume, Arianne?” His eyebrow raised. “Did you assume that I’d revert to the morally depraved scoundrel you first met in Lord Henderson’s office?”
“I assumed you’d collect your clothes and change elsewhere,” she said, holding her ground.
He laughed. “Indeed I shall, in deference to your innocence. But for the sake of any watchful eyes in the household, allow me to linger a bit longer in my own quarters.” He removed his jacket, then disappeared into their shared closet.
He assumed she was still innocent. In many ways she still was. Her experience had not been expansive, nor particularly pleasant, but in all the ways that truly mattered, she could no longer claim that description. However, he had no need to know that.
She returned to her list. The timing of their arrival in Washing
ton was awkward. According to Lady Weston, so many of those who mattered had already left the city for the summer. Given the restricted hours allowed for calls and the return of same, she’d have to race about the unfamiliar city like a street peddler hawking rotting fruit. They needed a social function that would draw those remaining in Washington to the legation.
A light repetitive thump from the tiny closet room caught her ear along with the realization that Rafferty was taking extraordinary time gathering bits of his wardrobe. “Rafferty?” she called lightly.
No response. She didn’t wish to raise her voice in case “the watcher” had ears as well. She decided to investigate.
The drawers in a small chest were extended while Rafferty judiciously slid his hand behind her gowns and foundation pieces that hung on hooks on the closet’s walls. He rapped his knuckle lightly, listened, then moved on.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
“Looking for a safe, or a hidden compartment behind these walls,” he explained tersely.
She frowned. “Why would you believe there’s a safe in the closet?”
“I found a key carefully hidden in Lord Weston’s study. It has to fit somewhere.” He rapped on another section before moving on again. “I’ve already searched the study.”
A key! Now that was promising. No wonder Lord Henderson said Rafferty was competent. “What can I do?”
“Search the bedroom for a safe or a locked box.” His knuckles tapped on a new section of the wall, then he stepped around a hanging gown to start the process once more. “I’m almost finished here.”
Together they looked under tablecloths, tugged on the bricks on the fireplace looking for loose mortar, tapped on the walls, and checked drawers. Nothing.
Redeeming the Rogue Page 20