“I plan to leave early in the morning.”
“Bien. We shall manage. Now the green next, I think.”
Maris endured Madame fitting her into three more dresses. She had to admit she looked uncommonly well in all of them, or would when minor adjustments were made. Betsy returned with Yvonne and watched with concentration while the junior dressmaker applied a subtle hint of color to Maris’s lips and cheeks. Something was done to her hair as well, which made Maris almost reluctant to put her hat back on.
As it happened, she was not given that choice. Once she was measured, Madame decided the violet walking dress and matching coat needed no alteration and Maris would be wearing them out of the shop. A tiny pouf of matching velvet and feathers was found in the back room and affixed to her head. Maris could only blink at her reflection. She had never been so stylish.
Or so very purple.
“Et voila! Now you are fit to take the town by storm. I shall send everything round this evening to your hotel. Your own things as well, although I do hope you will not ever wear them again.”
Somehow Maris agreed to gloves and stockings and a host of other fripperies in addition to the four new dresses. The afternoon would prove costly, and it was utter nonsense to try to make lamb out of mutton. She was four-and-thirty, well past her prime, and no one cared how she dressed.
“Oh, Lady Kelby,” Betsy gushed. “You do look a treat!”
“Handsome is as handsome does,” Maris grumbled. Feeling ridiculous, she swept out of the shop with Betsy at her heels. At least her half boots were still her own and comfortable. She hadn’t gone but half a block when she heard a shrill whistle behind her.
“It’s that captain, my lady!”
Whistling at me on the street? “Keep walking, Betsy, and don’t look back.”
“But he’s running down the street after us!”
Damn. Even worse. Whistling and running. What was the matter with the man? They would attract attention. No one knew her in London, and that was the way she wished to keep it.
Captain Durant was at her elbow in seconds. “I almost didn’t recognize you, Lady Kelby,” he said, smoothly taking her arm and matching her stride. “If it wasn’t for little Betsy here, you might have escaped my notice altogether.”
“Why are you still here?” Maris hissed.
“It takes more than one fussy Frenchwoman to get rid of me. I say, Madame Bernard has outdone herself. You look absolutely magnifique.”
“Oh, do shut up.” Maris could feel a natural blush augmenting the rouge.
“It’s only right that I escort you back to Mivart’s now that I took you out of your way.”
“I can find my own way back, I do assure you.” She found it impossible to disentangle her arm from his.
“I also wanted the opportunity to give you this.” He thrust a small box into her hand.
“What is it? You should not be giving me gifts, you know. It isn’t right.”
“Be forewarned. Anyone can tell you I never do the right thing.”
That was certainly true so far. The captain stopped walking, and Maris stumbled.
Betsy barely avoided careening into them, looking far too interested in the box once she righted herself.
“Betsy, I believe I left my handkerchief in Mrs. Bernard’s shop. Could you fetch it for me, please?”
The maid’s disappointment was obvious, but she left them alone.
“Open it.”
“On the street? You’re mad.”
“Indubitably. I’m here with you, am I not? Here, I’ll do it if you won’t.” He quickly opened the box. The butterfly hatpin twinkled on a bed of midnight blue velvet.
“How did you . . .”
He couldn’t have known it had caught her eye unless he was a mind reader. And if he was a mind reader, she devoutly hoped he couldn’t untangle her jumbled thoughts.
She was unused to getting gifts of any kind. Henry gave her unlimited pin money, but had never had a sentimental inclination in his life. Birthdays and Christmases had passed unacknowledged.
Maris closed the box. “You shouldn’t have. I cannot accept this.”
He smiled at her, unperturbed. “Yes, you can. Consider it an apology. We met under rather indelicate circumstances. I was, to put it bluntly, a cad. One small gift cannot even begin to express my shame.”
Maris stared at him. Hard. There was a definite spark of mischief in his eyes. “You are no more ashamed than I am Queen Elizabeth.”
Reynold Durant’s smile broadened. “I see I cannot put anything over on you, Lady Kelby. But it’s a pretty little thing, and it suits you. Here, let me.” He took the package from her hand and pulled the pin from its velvet. Before she knew it, he was sliding the butterfly into the purple cap on her head.
Right on the street. Where anyone might see them. The act was so intimate, Maris lost her power of speech, which seemed to be a recurring condition in the captain’s presence. Betsy had been goggling at them, but her eyes would be rolling straight out of her head to the pavement below if she was there.
Durant stepped back. “There. Now you are truly à la mode.” He tucked the box into a pocket and placed her leaden arm into the crook of his elbow. “I shall make arrangements to join you at Kelby Hall by the beginning of next week.”
It was Thursday. Maris would spend all the next day traveling. Thank heavens the captain would not be shut up in the Kelby coach with her. She would need a day or two simply to recover from the day’s attentions.
How on earth would this all work? She needed to talk to Henry. But what could she say that wouldn’t worry him? He was so desperate to deny David his birthright. Damn primogeniture and entail. It was not as if men were any wiser than women in estate management. Maris left the running of the house itself to her capable staff, but had long helped Henry and Mr. Woodley with estate matters. Henry was a generous landlord and employer, but more out of indifference than anything else. He assumed money would smooth the way so he wouldn’t have to be bothered with petty domestic details.
Well, this one domestic detail he’d have to discuss. Captain Reynold Durant’s improper deportment was a complication they couldn’t afford to ignore.
Chapter 5
When the crested coach rolled up the long copper beech avenue, it was close to midnight. Maris had finally fallen asleep some miles back, but was gently shaken awake by Betsy.
“We’re home, my lady.”
Flambeaux were lit, and footmen scurried out into the dark, joining the outriders in divesting the carriage of its occupants and baggage. The December night air was chilly, and Maris wrapped the fur carriage robe closer before she abandoned it altogether. She must look a fright. She’d discarded her hat hours ago, and her gray traveling costume was wrinkled. Her new clothes were safely packed in the trunk in the boot, but she picked up the book she’d purchased for Henry. He would be up despite the hour. It seemed he slept less and less lately, but did not lose a fraction of his keen intelligence despite his fatigue.
Maris knew where to find him, but wasn’t sure she’d find the words to tell him what she had done. She waved away Betsy’s offer to freshen up and headed straight for the library. The room was bright as daylight with candelabra on all flat surfaces. Her husband’s face lit with a smile as she approached, and he pushed himself up from his chair.
Where he had once been tall—as tall as Captain Durant—he now stooped a bit. His black hair had turned silver before Maris married him, but he was still a handsome man. When she was a child, he’d treated her like an extra daughter, but she had worshipped him, making her own father a little jealous.
Apart from their difficulties in the bedroom, the marriage had been everything Maris had ever hoped for. They shared common interests, and he was the only man who did not make her nervous. The seventh earl of Kelby respected her mind and treated her as an equal. Henry knew her better than she knew herself, as he proved immediately.
“Maris, my dear, what have you been
up to? You look guilty as sin. And don’t try to fob me off with a book, even if it’s one I’ve been longing to get my hands on.”
Maris put the book on the desk and sidled around it, enfolding herself in Henry’s open arms. She was safe there, had always been. She cupped his thin cheek and kissed it. While he had been unable to perform in the strictest sense, their marriage bed had not always been cold. Much to her embarrassment, Henry had tended to her in the earliest stages of the marriage, and she knew what it felt like to flame under a man’s touch.
David Kelby had ruined that comfort for her.
She searched Henry’s face, pleased to see his dark eyes bright and unclouded. “How are you feeling? Have you been eating?”
“Mrs. O’Neill has been even more terrifying than you are. I’ve behaved just as I should in your absence. I missed you.”
“And I you.”
He raised a white brow. “But?”
“Oh, Henry. I may have done a foolish thing.”
“Sit down, my love, and tell me all about it. Shall I ring for tea?”
She shook her head and left the warmth of his embrace with reluctance. Her gloved fingers picked nervously at her gray skirts. She couldn’t sit down and face Henry’s sympathetic gaze, didn’t deserve his affection. She’d betrayed him once to her regret, and was about to do so again. This time, at his bidding.
Maris was heartsick, but knew how much a child would mean to Henry to carry on Kelby Hall’s mission. David was no fit steward for the treasures within.
But would Captain Reynold Durant’s son have appreciation for its history?
“I-I went to London, as you know,” she began, once her husband was seated back in his chair.
He pushed aside the papers he’d been working on and folded his hands in expectation. “Yes. I hope you didn’t spare any expense on your purchases. You’ve worked too hard lately.”
Maris was certain Madame Bernard’s bill would be astronomical. “I did buy a few things. But that was not the true purpose of the visit.” She took a breath. “I found Captain Durant.”
The only sound in the room was the quiet rumble of the fire. The room was overwarm, but Henry said his old bones craved the heat of the Tuscan sun. He was staring at the leather blotter with particular intensity.
Maris stole a glance at him. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
He raised his black eyes to hers. “I asked you to leave it to me, Maris. This business is not fit for a lady. Perhaps there’s still time to find someone else.”
“Henry! You are forgetting I’m smack in the middle of ‘this business.’ ” She would leave aside his claim of sufficient time. Mr. Ramsey had not been especially encouraging about procuring another gentleman for this deviant purpose. “C-Captain Durant has agreed to come to Kelby Hall within a few days.”
“How did you ever persuade him? His last letter was most definitive. He did not want the job after all.”
“I didn’t seduce him, if that’s what you are implying,” Maris said, stung.
Henry chuckled. “Nay, you haven’t an ounce of seduction in you, my love. You’re a good girl, more’s the pity. If we had met when I was a young man, things would have been different. You’ve always been an apt pupil.” He sighed and picked up his spectacles. “So Durant changed his mind. He doesn’t want more money, does he?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“He said something about a sick sister.”
“Yes, so he told me. His concern for her is in his favor, I suppose.” It went some way to explain why he had ever agreed to this scandalous scheme to begin with.
“What did you think of him, Maris?”
She felt like she was treading into quicksand. She loved Henry, but there was no denying Captain Durant was an attractive man. Henry would know at once if she was lying. His illness and age had not robbed him of any of his acuity. She ceased her pacing and dropped into a chair. “He’s very handsome.”
“That should make it a little easier to bear, then. The intimacy,” Henry clarified, as if she needed explanation. “I fully appreciate the sacrifice you’ll be making for me, Maris. This goes well beyond humoring an old man. You’ve been a good wife to me, a great helpmeet. Some might say you’ve thrown your youth away on me, missed opportunities. Captain Durant will go a little ways to making it up to you.”
“I don’t need any making up! You’ve been everything that is kind and good. Even when you are consumed with your studies, I’ve been consumed right along with you!”
“My little bluestocking,” Henry chuckled. “There is more to life than books and bits of shattered pottery. Even I know that.” He placed the spectacles on his nose and shuffled the papers he’d been reading back into order. “You must be exhausted. Go on to bed. We’ll talk about this more in the morning.”
“W-Won’t you come to bed with me?” They no longer shared a room, but if this fiction of creating a child together was to be preserved, they needed to appear close again.
“I suppose you are right. It is very late, isn’t it? But you know how restless I am, Maris. You won’t get a wink of sleep.”
“I don’t care about sleep. I just want you to hold me, Henry. Like you used to.”
“It would be my privilege,” he said softly. “Go on upstairs. I’ll join you shortly.”
But when Maris woke at dawn, she was alone.
It took Reyn two days’ travel to join the Kelbys. As usual, he visited his sister on Sunday, but stayed the night to break up the journey and give old Phantom a rest. He’d purchased two sober, scholarly-looking waistcoats, and a pair of clear glass spectacles that, in his own eyes, did nothing to make him appear any smarter. But if they helped trick the servants at Kelby Hall—and the villain David—they were a small price to pay out of his ill-gotten gains.
It was still afternoon when he rode down the beech avenue, the golden façade of Kelby Hall glowing in the sunlight. Despite his disinclination, he’d read up a bit on the house in one of those “great families of Britain” books. The old earl’s ancestors had stolen the honey-colored stone from a nearby monastery. The building had an ecclesiastical look about it still, with winged stone angels over the carved oak front door and long gothic windows on the ground floor. What Reyn was about to do beneath its gabled roofs flew in the face of most of the Commandments.
The massive front door was opened by several footmen in silver and green livery well before he was anywhere near it. A groom appeared instantly to lead Phantom away, and Reyn was ushered into the vast paneled entry hall by the butler Amesbury, who was almost as old and starchy as the earl.
At one time, the room would have welcomed travelers with banquets and minstrels, but it was empty save for some massive paintings, tatty tapestries, and a couple uncomfortable-looking chairs before a sputtering fire at the far end. A waste, that. Who would sit there waiting for someone to knock on the door? Not that one would even need to knock. The staff at Kelby Hall seemed frighteningly on top of things.
That might prove to be a problem. Reyn took the spectacles out of his pocket and slid them onto his nose, hoping the length of it would keep them up. Durants tended to have long noses, giving them a Continental look. While in the army, he’d been teased for resembling the enemy. The back of his ears itched already from the metal stems.
Amesbury bent slightly at the waist. “We were expecting you, Captain. If you follow me, I’ll show you to your room. I trust you will find everything to your liking.”
Reyn followed Amesbury up a wide oak staircase, sure he’d be satisfied with the accommodations. He could tell the butler a thing or two about sleeping on the ground, and being glad of it—glad to be alive.
Reyn’s new London lodging was pleasant enough, but nothing compared to the elegant suite of rooms he was led to, once they’d climbed another set of stairs and walked to the end of an endless hallway. Old Amesbury was a bit breathless, but pointed out the desk in a corner of the sitting room, fully equipped for a man of lette
rs with pens, pots of ink, a stack of foolscap, and clean ledgers. An open door led to a light-filled bedroom, which overlooked the tree-lined avenue. Through yet another door was a dressing room with its own copper tub and cedar wardrobe. A brace of maids entered with towels and jugs of water for the washstand, and a footman delivered Reyn’s well-stuffed saddlebag.
“I trust your trunks will be arriving shortly?” Amesbury asked.
Reyn had packed his most essential needs within the confines of the worn leather bag. He supposed it all looked inadequate for a month’s stay, but he wasn’t sure yet he’d be staying a month. If he did, he’d get a Christmas in the country out of it.
“My valet has it all in hand.” Reyn shrugged. Likely Gratton was drinking himself silly at that very moment in relief over not getting sacked. It had been a near thing once Reyn found out the man had directed Lady Kelby to the Reining Monarchs Society. If Reyn needed anything else for this “visit,” he could send word. The valet’s wages and his rent were paid up through the end of the year.
By January, Reyn might have a better idea how to spend his time as a civilian. Inventorying might prove interesting, if one didn’t want to read legible penmanship.
“Lord Kelby will see you in the library once you’ve refreshed yourself. Dinner will be brought to your rooms at eight o’clock, if that suits you.”
So, he wasn’t to dine with the family. Just as well. Reyn was not there as an honored guest, and he certainly did not have evening clothes with him. He was an employee, nothing more.
Not the sole hope of Clan Kelby.
“That suits me perfectly, Amesbury. I think I can remember where the library is.”
“Should you need assistance, sir, just ring. The staff is at your disposal. When it comes time for you to begin your duties, a set of stairs to the attics is convenient just through the door opposite your suite. You need not trouble yourself navigating all through the house.”
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