Provocative in Pearls

by Madeline Hunter

  “I did not save these writings to keep a record of the danger. I have been looking for names of people. Look here. These are stories from the counties near my home, of people gone missing. Men, almost all of them. Then, these are reports of people found, after being lost or hurt. And these are names of those tried for crimes. If you match them up, there are six men who went missing and for whom there is no other information.”

  “Why have you saved these?” Daphne asked, fingering one of the stacks.

  “I was keeping track of which court sessions I had read about, and which I had missed, at first. I was looking for one name in particular, which is absent totally. Only recently have I noticed this oddity.”

  “So you were seeking information on a particular missing person?”

  “Yes. He is the young man I told you about, whom my cousin threatened to harm.”

  Celia slid a sidelong glance to Daphne.

  “He was an old childhood friend,” Verity explained, but she felt her face warming. “I must find out what happened to him, if Bertram indeed betrayed my trust.”

  “Of course you must,” Daphne said. “The unexplained absences of these other men do not signify, however. They may have just run away from their families and lives. Some will do that.”

  “Normally I would agree. However, look at this.” She set out several articles. “Both of these men were from Staffordshire, near Birmingham. Both of them had been questioned by the justice of the peace there about complaints from landowners. This JP did not arrest them, but then they went missing. And this one here, he disappeared after a confrontation on the road with Lord Cleobury. This other one was arrested in Shropshire after my cousin laid down information that he was causing trouble at the ironworks, but was freed. Then he disappeared too.”

  “They all probably ran away once attention turned to them,” Audrianna said.

  Probably, Verity thought. Yet the more that she had rearranged stacks of articles the last few weeks, the more she sensed that something was amiss with all these missing men.

  I can cause trouble for that son of hers. None will stay my hand. I can have him transported or worse, and who will feed her then? That was what Bertram had said when he made those threats. He had been smug in his power. Confident and hard.

  Daphne picked up the articles recently laid out. “It is odd that they all had run afoul of important people, but if they were instigating trouble, these are the people who would notice and try to stop them. You have told us plenty about your cousin, and Lord Cleobury is known for his hard views. This magistrate’s name is familiar to me as well, only I do not know why.”

  “It is not familiar to me,” Verity said. “I do not remember my father or even my cousin ever speaking of Mr. Jonathan Albrighton.”

  The name elicited a response from one of their party. Celia snatched the article from Daphne and peered at it.

  “Do you know of him, Celia?” Daphne asked.

  Celia frowned over the notice. “He was known in London a few years ago. I believe he went abroad. It appears he has returned, if it is the same man.”

  “Perhaps I will meet him when I go home,” Verity said. “I should like to, in order to assess his character and whether he finds any of this peculiar.” She swept her hand over the newspaper cuttings.

  “Are you planning a journey north soon?” Audrianna asked.

  “As soon as I can arrange it.”

  Her friends were too good to lecture her, but it was written on each of their faces, according to their characters. The possibility existed that she would not be arranging it soon at all, if her husband had a say in the matter.

  Damnation.” Hawkeswell muttered the curse while he watched a tall man darken the threshold to the card room at Brooks’s. “What in hell is he doing here?”

  Summerhays looked over his shoulder at the man in question. “He is a member, of course. He rarely comes, but—”

  “He is coming this way. He probably dragged himself from some whore’s bed just to seek me out to be clever at my expense. Prepare for a good row, Summerhays, because I’ll be damned if I will sit peaceably while he slices with that wit of—”

  “Castleford,” Summerhays greeted, as the man now loomed over their table. “Odd to see you here prior to nightfall, and at least half-sober at that. It is not even a Tuesday.”

  Tuesdays were the Duke of Castleford’s days of duty, when he devoted himself to the business of being a peer and a man of disgustingly huge fortune. The rest of the week he went to hell.

  Hawkeswell and Summerhays had once joined in the debauches. Maturity and responsibility had tempered their behavior the last few years. Castleford, however, had managed to escape any curtailment of the fun, but still managed to exert more influence in government and society than was fair for someone with such a dissolute life.

  The young duke looked down at them, amiable of face and bright of eye, his fashionably dressed brown hair falling with appropriate recklessness about his face. He was the picture of an old friend greeting the fellow sinners of his youth. Yet in those eyes the devil’s spark gleamed.

  Hawkeswell’s temper began coiling and not a word had been spoken yet.

  “What? It isn’t Tuesday?” Castleford drawled with mock shock. “I clear lost track. It is good to know, however.” He swung a chair over to their table, collapsed in a lazy sprawl on it, signaled for one of the servants, and ordered a very fine and expensive bottle of wine.

  “Your favorite, as I remember,” he said to Hawkeswell. “I hope I got it right, because I bought it to share with you.”

  “That is generous.”

  “It is incumbent upon friends to celebrate each other’s good fortunes. I hear that your bride has been found. You must be very happy, and relieved.”

  “Of course he is,” Summerhays said.

  The wine came. Castleford insisted three glasses be poured. He raised his toward Hawkeswell in silent salute.

  “So,” he said after the toast. “Where in hell was she all this time?”

  “Damnation, Tristan,” Summerhays said. “If you joined us only to be rude—”

  Hawkeswell gestured for Summerhays to stand down. “Did you wake early and refuse to imbibe all day just to be able to appear civilized when you asked me that question? Is your life so bereft of purpose that contemplating this meeting amused you for days now?”

  Castleford smiled slowly. “Yes. To both questions. Two days ago, upon hearing the news, I snapped sober at once. Zeus, there is a good story here, I said to myself. Perhaps the making of a comic opera.” He sipped some wine. “I have been trying to meet you accidentally ever since.”

  “If you wanted to find him, you could have called at his house,” Summerhays said.

  Castleford reacted as if that were a peculiar idea. He returned his attention to his quarry. “You should tell me the truth. The rumors that are raging do you no credit. I can hardly defend you if I do not know they are rumors in fact.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  “You have not told him?” Castleford asked Summerhays.

  “Hawkeswell, you do not need to listen to this,” Summerhays said. “He is more besotted than he appears.”

  “What. Kind. Of. Rumors?”

  Castleford sat forward, to speak confidentially. “You will be happy to know that I have taken note of who said what, in case you want to call anyone out.”

  “How good of you.”

  “That is what friends are for, is it not?”

  “No,” Summerhays said with exasperation. “Friends do not pour oil on fires just to amuse themselves. Damnation, if he does call someone out, you are going to regret this game.”

  “Summerhays still fears my temper, but the truth is I have been a citadel of calm for the last five years at least. I am not going to call anyone out. Now, what kind of rumors?”

  Castleford had more wine poured. “First, there is the gossip that she ran away out of girlish fear of the wedding bed. That story isn’t inter
esting at all. Much more colorful is the one that says she ran away after her experience in the wedding bed, because you bungled it to the point of horror.” Castleford offered a man-to-man gaze. “You will be happy to know that I offered to line up twenty women who would publicly testify on your behalf on the matter.”

  “No one would believe such nonsense,” Hawkeswell said. “The fool saying that will be known by his own stupidity.”

  “Exactly. Then there was the man who confided to me that he had it on good authority that she had been with her lover all that time. That is, I fear, a commonly held assumption, and the most popular on dit. That you were cuckolded even before the ink dried on the license.”

  The gossip had turned to impugning Verity. That Hawkeswell had suspected the same thing did not matter. He had a right to wonder, but others did not have a right to speak the lie as if it were fact.

  His temper began casting off the bonds. Like a sleeping dragon prodded awake, it strained against chains until they snapped, slowly, one by one.

  “Who confided this last bit to you?”

  “Do not tell him,” Summerhays warned.

  “If you are going to duel with someone, that is not the man who needs it,” Castleford said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Besides, as I said, that is on everyone’s lips, and you can’t kill them all. No, the one you want to kill is the one who told me that your wife has been in Shrewsbury, where she established herself as an abbess of a brothel of some renown among the radical elements of society.”

  The dragon burst free and roared fire. “What was this damned liar’s name?”

  “Bloody hell,” Summerhays said. “Castleford, do not give him that name.”

  “There is no need to, because he is not available for killing. I advised the rogue to make himself scarce because he was a dead man once Hawkeswell learned of it, and I would make certain he did. I heard this morning that he hopped the packet to France.”

  “Then why have you done this? Look at him.” Summerhays swung out his arm in Hawkeswell’s direction.

  Hawkeswell was sure that Sebastian appeared far more agitated than he. He drank some wine and contemplated taking a packet to France himself, and drawing and quartering this man who had insulted Verity.

  Castleford scowled at Summerhays. “Would you have remained silent if you heard his wife so dishonored? Would you have wanted me to remain silent if I had heard your wife spoken of thus? He needs to know it has been said, and he needs to call out the next person who repeats it.”

  “It was good of you to inform me,” Hawkeswell said. “And at such inconvenience to yourself too. I trust that you will send me word if you hear it again, so I can do what I must.”

  “Of course. However, I have had some time to think. A solid two days of abstinence permits that. I have devised a plan to divert attention from Lady Hawkeswell’s ill-timed marital interlude.”

  Hawkeswell caught Summerhays’s eye. Castleford appeared very pleased with himself. He assumed his plan was brilliant, which was normal. What was peculiar was that he had concocted a plan to begin with.

  “A plan?” Summerhays ventured.

  “A very good plan. Trust me, Hawkeswell, in a little over a month’s time no one will be whispering about your wife’s disappearance because they will be whispering about something more interesting instead. I will call on her this Tuesday, to set everything in motion.”

  “Your plan requires you to call on her?”

  “I need to see if she is worthy. That glimpse at your wedding hardly sufficed. If I am going to include her in my circle of friends, I should at least chat with her for a few minutes first.”

  Hawkeswell caught Summerhays’s eye again. Neither of them liked the sound of this.

  “When you say your circle of friends, you mean your Tuesday friends, I trust,” Hawkeswell said.

  “Initially, yes.”

  Hawkeswell had images of Verity lured into orgies and debauches. That he had enjoyed such things in his time did not mean he was going to allow his wife to.

  The dragon had begun dozing, but now it breathed fire again.

  Castleford became distracted by some men nearby who loudly argued politics. Hawkeswell tried to call his attention back. “Castleford . . . Tristan . . . Your Grace.”

  “Mmm?”

  “You can of course call on my wife tomorrow, while I am there. Or any other time, while I am there. But, I warn you now, never call on her when I am not there.”

  He thought that very funny. “Don’t be an ass, Hawkeswell.”

  “Hear me out. If your plan is benign, I thank you. However, if you think to end speculation about her absence by providing society with a better scandal about her behavior in your circle, do not even try it. And God forbid your pickled mind has decided to encourage speculation regarding an affair with you—”

  “You barely said the vows and she left you for two years, my friend, and that is the hard truth of it. I doubt she needs all this protection you now give her with such a heavy hand. However, I do not seduce the wives of friends, and while you and Summerhays have become boring, I still count you as one. My plan is simply a dinner party, with the very best of society. That is all.”

  “You do not give dinner parties for the best of society.”

  “No, I do not. They are tedious. However, in a fit of nostalgia for our old friendship that emerged from who knows where, I have decided to host one to which you and your wife will be invited.” He stood, annoyed by the suspicions expressed, although he knew damned well he had no right to be. “A month from this Tuesday. Expect invitations, both of you.”

  Before he could leave, Summerhays raised a finger to announce one more point. “Castleford, the best people will not attend your dinner party. You have offended almost all of them.”

  “That is true, but I said the very best, not the best. And the very best will come.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Every morning Verity ate breakfast in the morning room prior to going out to the garden. She always had tea, as a little indulgence to remind herself that being a countess had its benefits.

  The mail would arrive while she was there, and a few letters were always for her. Colleen would write to invite her to call on one of her friends who remained in town. Daphne or Celia would write to describe the progress on the new hothouse that they had decided to add at The Rarest Blooms. Audrianna would jot a note to arrange an outing.

  She recognized all the hands, so when a letter arrived that bore a different penmanship, it all but jumped out of the stack. She recognized this hand too. Nancy Thompson, Bertram’s wife, had sent a letter.

  Verity considered not opening it, but knew she must.

  Nancy addressed her by her title, then expressed excessive relief at her good health. She finally indicated that she and Bertram had taken lodging at Mivert’s Hotel, and asked for permission to call.

  The temptation to be very much the countess almost overwhelmed her. Cutting responses strolled through her mind, each one designed to sever any ties with her cousin and his wife. She might have used one if she thought it either possible or wise to create a permanent estrangement with the man whose business decisions would directly affect her fortune. Instead she went to the library, sat at a writing table, and suggested in a brief response that they all meet in Hyde Park this afternoon.

  She then jotted another note, to her husband, informing him of the appointment, and sent it above to await his wakening.

  Hawkeswell thought Verity appeared splendid as they alighted from the carriage in Hyde Park. She wore a hat that framed her delicate face with fair blue crepe and white plumes, and a promenade dress that emphasized her willowy form. She popped open a white parasol to protect her from the low sun, and together they entered the flow of people enjoying the fashionable hour.

  It was not crowded compared to the season, and so he spied Bertram Thompson from some distance away. Bertram’s needle-straight brown hair and middling, wiry form did not herald his arri
val so much as his very fair skin and sleepy eyes. Always at half-mast, those lids looked either haughty or bored no matter what Bertram’s actual mood.

  The woman at his side had taken as much care with her appearance as Verity had. The angled brim of Nancy Thompson’s hat ensured that her golden hair could be admired, and she held her parasol so the world could appreciate her proud expression, severely handsome face, and large green eyes.

  What had he thought when Colleen first introduced them? Graspers. Climbers hoping to grapple up faster than others by means of this marriage. He did not hold it against them. Having been born at the top of the heap, he understood why others would strain hard to clamber out of the lower parts.

  Except Verity, of course.

  The Thompsons came into clear view. Nancy paused when she saw Verity, then rushed forward with her arms open. Passersby noticed, as she had intended they would.

  “Lady Hawkeswell,” she exclaimed, forcing an embrace on a very stiff Verity. “My dear girl.”

  Bertram managed an awkward kiss on Verity’s cheek. “We are relieved and gratified that you have returned to us, and that you are well.”

  Hawkeswell hoped Verity never looked at him the way she looked at Bertram then. Although her cool fury was for him too, if one got down to it. All of her resentment about this marriage was in her eyes. Even if the gaze of blame focused on Bertram, the other two people present had been his accomplices.

  “I am glad to see both of you as well. That is a very lovely ensemble, Mrs. Thompson. That silvery gray suits you.”

  Neither relative missed the address, or its significance. The Countess of Hawkeswell had just signaled that henceforth formalities would be maintained.

  “Shall we all continue our walk?” Hawkeswell suggested. “We are creating an unwelcomed island in the river.”

  They paced together. Bertram muttered pleasantries and Hawkeswell muttered some back. The ladies carried the conversation, such as it was.

  “Is all well in Oldbury?” Verity asked. “I obtained county papers whenever I could, but I know that I missed most of the news about the people there these last two years.”