In the Arms of the Heiress (A LADIES UNLACED NOVEL)

by Maggie Robinson

  “Just think about it, Louisa. I don’t have to leave until January. We can still spend Christmas at Rosemont.”

  Grace examined her diamond rings, her face still flushed. “I’d like that,” she said, her voice brittle. “But I’d understand if you wanted to leave at once. Mrs. Lang, I’m going to have to dismiss you.” She raised a glittering hand to stop the housekeeper from speaking. “I know what you did, you did for me. But the consequences could have been dire for my niece’s happiness. She seems to love this man, though I cannot see why—there is something very odd about him to be sure, and it’s not because he doesn’t wear his smalls. You said your mother left you her cottage. You can go back there. I’ll give you a generous pension—you’ve served the family for decades and deserve a good, long rest.”

  “Y-yes, madam. I’m sorry if my judgment was at fault,” Mrs. Lang said. “I never meant to really hurt anybody, just scare them some and make them go back where they came from.”

  “I come from here,” Louisa reminded the woman.

  “We all of us have lapses from time to time,” Grace replied. “Pack up your things. Mr. Baxter will see to the bank draft for you.” She motioned the man to her side and whispered a figure in his ear that raised his gray eyebrows. “I don’t know that I’m happy with you, either, Percy. You should have kept a closer watch at the bank. Stratton and Son’s reputation is not to be trifled with. Hugh could be ruined—and the bank—if it’s discovered what he tried to do.”

  “I’m sorry, Mama.”

  “Oh, be quiet, Hugh. You are a disappointment to me, too. But now that Louisa is finally out of the way, it’s time for you to find a proper girl to marry. Someone who knows how to behave.”

  “Yes, Mama.” Charles wondered how long Hugh would play the obedient son before the façade cracked.

  But it didn’t really matter. Louisa was safe, and Charles was almost sure she’d be on that steamship to New York with him.

  Epilogue

  New York City

  June 1, 1904

  Dear Aunt Grace,

  It is with the heaviest of hearts that I write to tell you my beloved husband Maximillian is dead and I have married Charles Cooper—

  Damn, that would never do, unless Dr. Fentress was sitting right next to her when she opened the letter to revive her. Louisa adjusted the delicate hair clip Charles had given her as a wedding gift. It was a tiny jeweled orchid made of backless enamel. Louisa could stare at it for hours, so it was just as well when it was on her head she couldn’t see it and be distracted by it. If it had been a brooch or a bracelet, she’d never get a thing done.

  And there was so much to do. In half an hour, she had to meet the architect downstairs to approve the renovations to the showroom. A small shipment of Pegasus cars was due in two weeks, and she planned a champagne reception to celebrate. She still had some furniture to buy for their brownstone, and Charles’s side of their office needed a good painting. Now that he’d read that art book, he seemed to have decided opinions as they wandered through galleries on Saturday afternoons and was very hard to please.

  The weekends were the extent of their honeymoon, but as Charles said, they’d had their holiday the month at Rosemont. Once they’d arrived in the States, they’d been so busy getting married and scouting for living quarters and an office space, they had no time for anything else.

  Charles didn’t even have much time for his nightmares. When they came, they were fewer and farther between, and Louisa held him fiercely until they passed.

  The wedding ceremony had been at city hall, where no one had ever heard of the scandalous Louisa Stratton or the dashing Maximillian Norwich except their witnesses, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Robertson. Charles’s family had been an ocean away, although Louisa had met them before they sailed. Hardworking people, who were surprised when Louisa’s attorney set up trusts for all their children. Charles’s brothers would never take a handout themselves, but it was damn difficult to deny your children opportunity, especially when charmed by Louisa Stratton.

  So the wedding was quiet. But everyone would be hearing about Charles Cooper and his plans for the Pegasus Motor Company soon. Right this very minute Charles was inspecting a potato field on Long Island that would be the ideal site for an automobile plant. He had invited her to go out on the train with him, but she really, really had to write to Grace. She’d put it off long enough—the few lines she’d scribbled since she’d gotten settled did not begin to tell the story. Louisa pulled out a fresh sheet of paper from her office desk drawer.

  Dear Aunt Grace,

  This will come as a surprise, so I hope you are sitting down and have smelling salts nearby. Perhaps Dr. Fentress is somewhere about. If he isn’t, he should be. Please give him my love. There is no reason why you should not accept the man’s constant devotion and make him the happiest of men. Life is uncertain, and one should open one’s heart to possibilities. Neither one of you is getting younger, if you will pardon my frankness. You know my runaway tongue, but I do mean well, just as I believe you do.

  You were right about me—I am an impossible hoyden. Headstrong. Impulsive. But for once I did a silly thing, and it turned out to be very smart.

  Last December, I hired a decorated war hero, Captain Charles Cooper, to pose as my imaginary husband Maximillian Norwich through the Evensong Agency. Yes. Imaginary. I invented him to make you think I was perfectly well taken care of. You said Max sounded too good to be true, but Charles is even better. We are now married in actuality and could not be happier. I hope you will forgive us for tricking you, but I’d say we were punished enough when we first arrived at Rosemont.

  I know you are incensed that I am working alongside my husband, but I’ve discovered ways I can be useful to him—it is the oddest thing, but Americans love to hear English people speak. For some reason, they think we are far more intelligent than we are. I can rattle on for ages, and they hang on my every word!

  Of course Charles truly is brilliant in his way. He went to Harrow. He is a positive whiz with figures, and a whiz at other things that would make a proper lady blush—but then I’m not a proper lady.

  You don’t care much for modern music, but I’m sure you’ve heard “A Bird in a Gilded Cage.” That’s where so many of us women wind up, isn’t it? Protected “for our own good.” Covered up at the end of the day. Charles doesn’t want to put me in a cage, and views me as something more than an ornament on his arm. He still gives me all the protection I could ask for, but freedom and respect, too, although he is not quite so enamored of my voice as the Americans. Wish us well, if you are able. We can visit Rosemont at Christmas if you will have us.

  With love to everyone,

  Your affectionate niece,

  Louisa Stratton Cooper

  There. That wasn’t too awful. And she wouldn’t be around to hear Grace scream. But it probably would be sensible if she didn’t open Grace’s letters for a little while until the dust died down.

  Louisa blotted the letter and tucked it into an envelope. She closed her eyes and clenched her fists, trying to imagine what the next few months would bring, but her famous imagination failed her. Pretending just wasn’t as much fun as it used to be.

  She’d just have to wait and see, like any ordinary heiress who was married to an extraordinary man.

  TURN THE PAGE FOR A PREVIEW OF MAGGIE ROBINSON’S NEXT LADIES UNLACED NOVEL

  In the Heart of the Highlander

  COMING IN OCTOBER 2013

  FROM BERKLEY SENSATION

  Mount Street

  London, May 31, 1904

  Mary Evensong was tired. Tired of wearing smoke-gray spectacles that covered her hazel eyes. Tired of wearing an itchy gray wig that covered her russet hair. Tired of the problems that came in by the sackloads every time the mailman rang her doorbell.

  And most especially tired of her Aunt Mim, who was the original Mary E
vensong and refused to stay retired.

  Every day when Mary locked up the Evensong Agency offices and trudged upstairs to the elegant apartments above, she had to face Aunt Mim’s questions and Aunt Mim’s gouty foot. It was the gouty foot that had been both their undoing. Mim had been running both her employment agency and people’s lives since 1888, after a successful career as housekeeper to a duke. Instead of relaxing in the handsome cottage the duke had provided once she turned fifty-five, after forty years of exceptional service to the family, Mim Evensong sold it, took her savings, and set up her business in London. She knew what great—and not so great—houses needed in the way of reliable servants.

  She also knew what flighty young society girls needed. She’d had experience helping to marry off the duke’s five difficult daughters, and had sat up with the girls more nights than she could count discussing the vagaries of young gentlemen. Her cleanliness, canniness, and common sense made her uniquely qualified to solve various domestic disasters.

  But one morning in 1900, just in time to herald in the new millennium, her big toe began to throb. Soon the other toes joined it. Her ankle, too. Now it was with the greatest difficulty that she rose from her chair and hobbled to the window to watch the traffic on Mount Street. There was no thinking of her going downstairs to her thriving business to interview footmen or to meet with a mama in her private office to discuss a daughter’s slide into scandal with an impoverished musician who insisted on playing ragtime instead of Richard Strauss.

  So four years ago, Mim had invited her namesake niece Mary to make her home with her and learn the ropes of the Evensong Agency. Mary was a spinster, just as Mim was—the Mrs’ was an honorific that had been granted to her as the duke’s housekeeper as she rose up the ranks.

  Mary really had nothing better to do—both her parents were dead, her brother married and running their grocery shop. She faced a dismal future of keying the cash register and unpaid babysitting for her hellacious little nephews.

  Mary was a sensible young woman, and looked forward to a new life in London, one without frogs in her bed and the constant chatter of her bossy sister-in-law at home. She would not miss the scents of overripe melon and problematic sausages at work, and so she hung up her spotless apron there with no regrets.

  It was only when she arrived in town that Mim’s plan for her looked less than sterling. Mim was harboring the fond delusion that one day her foot would miraculously reduce in size and she could return to the massive mahogany desk in her corner office. The fact that she was in her seventies did not dissuade her from feeling the company could not function without her and her vaunted wisdom. It was imperative to continue its lucrative services, and imperative that her clients trust the dispenser of those services as they had these dozen years.

  Young Mary did not look especially wise. True, she had a broad forehead and shrewd hazel eyes, but her hair was reddish and some people thought redheads were unbalanced. She was short of stature, too, though Aunt Mim was of a similar height and her lack of inches had never stopped her from being terrifying when the situation called for it. If the agency was to carry on and prosper, a disguise was necessary. Thus Mary was bewigged and bespectacled—just temporarily, Mim assured her, until she could get back on her feet, so to speak. No one would really look at her—older women in large black hats were a dime a dozen, nearly invisible in their ancient ubiquity, so Mary should have no fear of discovery.

  An army of doctors had been discreetly consulted, and Mim was no closer to waltzing than she was before they mounted Mount Street’s steps. And poor Mary never got a chance to waltz at all—she was too busy pretending to be an elderly woman, and growing into the part more perfectly every day.

  Something must be done. But not today. Today was . . . taken.

  There was a rap on the frosted glass of her office door, and her secretary, Oliver Palmer, poked his head in. “Lord Raeburn is here to see you, Mrs. Evensong.”

  Oliver was a handsome young man with impeccable manners. He made an excellent impression at the reception desk and was totally discreet. If he suspected Mary was not exactly who she purported to be, he never gave any indication of it. He had secrets of his own.

  Oliver had been frank about his unfortunate situation—and his hunger—when Mary had interviewed him. Flat broke, he’d come about another job, but Mary claimed him for her own and he was now invaluable to her. Oliver’s finger was firmly on the pulse of all society gossip. It was he who’d provided the newspaper clippings about Lord Raeburn, not that she’d needed reminding. She remembered the grainy scowling photographs on the front pages.

  Accident, though there had been invisible quotation marks on the word. Open window. Insufficient evidence.

  “Oh, dear. Do I look all right?” Mary could have bitten her tongue. She’d never asked Oliver such a thing no matter how noble her clients were, and he gave her an odd look. Lord Raeburn was only a baron, after all. And after what happened in Scotland, no decent woman should even give his good opinion a second thought.

  “Very handsome, as always, Mrs. Evensong. Your hat is very becoming.”

  It was perhaps ridiculous to always wear her hat indoors, but with judicious pinning, it kept her wig on straight. “Send him in. We’ll need a tea tray.”

  “If I were you, Mrs. E., I’d offer the fellow a whiskey.”

  “I’m sure you’re right. See to it, would you, Oliver?” There was single-malt whiskey in a cabinet somewhere. The Evensong Agency always had everything at hand and in hand. In the past four years, Mary Evensong had found husbands for heiresses, valets for viscounts, and even a dairymaid for a marquess who kept a Hertford cow in his kitchen, much to the consternation of his cook. The agency was famous for achieving the unusual—in fact, her aunt had hit upon “Performing the Impossible before Breakfast since 1888” as its motto.

  Some members of the peerage, like that marquess, were known for their eccentricity. Lord Alec Raeburn was not one of them. What he was known for caused Mary’s heart to beat a little faster.

  If he had a simple staffing problem, he would never have bothered to come himself. So the nature of his visit must be personal. She doubted he was looking for a new wife—his old one had not been dead a year, and the scandal surrounding her death would take much longer to die down. Mary was not naïve enough to think he was celibate after all the rumors, but surely it was too soon to seek her matchmaking services.

  Mary cleared her throat and drummed her gloved fingers on her desk. Her hands were nowhere near as wrinkled as they should be, so she wore her gloves at all times, too. And right now, her palms were damp with perspiration.

  The clacking of the typewriter keys ceased in the outer office. Her girl stenographers were no doubt swooning—discreetly, she hoped—as Lord Raeburn made his way to her inner sanctum. It was with the greatest difficulty that Mary stopped herself from swooning along with them as Oliver opened the door to announce Lord Raeburn.

  As if one wouldn’t notice the man. A woman would have to be blind or dead not to respond to his physical presence.

  For one thing, he was more or less a giant, but in the best possible way. Mary had been to a fair once that advertised “the tallest man in Britain,” but the poor fellow had been the ugliest man in Britain as well. Lord Raeburn was not ugly, except perhaps for his attire. He wore a walking kilt in his family’s tartan, an unfortunate combination of yellow and black that reminded Mary of angry bees. But his black jacket molded to his massive shoulders and matched his longish hair and neatly trimmed beard. Mary was not at all fond of beards, but somehow she didn’t think Lord Raeburn was hiding a weak chin. His eyes looked black as well, giving her and her office intense scrutiny while she stumbled to her feet and extended a hand.

  “Good afternoon, Lord Raeburn,” she said briskly, hoping she could trick herself into feeling as confident as she sounded. “Won’t you sit down? Oliver, bring us in the refreshmen
ts we discussed, please.” She needed a stiff drink herself—she was feeling like a giddy schoolgirl. He was gorgeous. No wonder women fell at his feet.

  And out his windows.

  Lord Raeburn tucked himself into one of the leather client chairs. It was a very tight fit. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. I’m bound for home in a few days, and I have to know I have your help before I go.”

  “What can the Evensong Agency do for you, my lord?”

  “I’m not sure you can do anything. But I’d like you to try. I won’t beat about the bush. Do you think I murdered my wife?”

  Mary took a quick breath, then stalled for time with a question of her own. “Does it matter what I think?”

  “It might. If you just take my money and pay me lip service, there’s no point in me hiring you now, is there? We Scots don’t like to waste our time. Or our gold.”

  Her spine stiffened. “I can assure you the Evensong Agency does not take on clients merely to humor them and pad out account books. If we can perform a legitimate service, we do our utmost to fulfill our obligations.”

  “So you won’t say if I’m a killer or not.”

  “I’m afraid I’m not sufficiently acquainted with the particulars of the case,” Mary lied. Oliver kept scrapbooks filled with the most interesting articles under his desk. Lord Raeburn had one all to himself.

  Oliver chose that moment to step into the office with a silver tray. There was not only a decanter of whiskey but a pretty china teapot on it. They were silent as Oliver arranged and poured. Mary reconsidered her thirst and decided to keep her wits sharp, settling on a cup of oolong. To her surprise, Lord Raeburn did the same.

  “Thank you, Oliver. That will be all.”

  “I’ll be just outside if you need me, Mrs. Evensong. Just outside.”