Deception

by Amanda Quick

  Jared ignored her outburst. “Olympia, I wish to speak with you.”

  “Not now, sir. This has been a most unpleasant day. I am going to my bedchamber to rest before dinner.” Halfway up the stairs, she paused and glared back at him. “By the by, sir, did you truly sink so low as to press my nephews and Mrs. Bird to speak to me on the subject of marriage?”

  Jared walked to the foot of the stairs and gripped the newel post. “Yes, Olympia, I did.”

  “You should be ashamed of yourself, sir.”

  “I am quite desperate, Olympia.” Jared smiled a strange, wistful smile. “I will do anything, say anything, sink to any depths, resort to any tactic in order to make you my wife.”

  He meant it, Olympia thought. In spite of her foul mood and aching head, a thrill of excitement went through her. The last of her resistance melted like wax in a fire.

  “There is no need for any more such maneuvers, sir,” she said, still annoyed with him and vividly aware of the risk she was taking. “I have decided to marry you.”

  Jared’s hand tightened fiercely around the carved top of the newel post. “You have?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you, Olympia. I shall endeavor to see that you do not regret your decision.”

  “I very probably shall regret it,” she said waspishly, “but I cannot see any help for it. Please leave me alone for a while.”

  “Olympia, wait one moment.” Jared searched her face. “May I ask why you changed your mind since I last saw you, my dear?”

  “No.” Olympia continued on up the steps.

  “Olympia, please, I must know the answer. My curiosity will eat me alive. Did the boys convince you to change your mind?”

  “No.”

  “Mrs. Bird, perhaps? I know she is very concerned about your reputation, even if you are not.”

  “Mrs. Bird had nothing to do with my decision.” Olympia was nearly to the top of the stairs.

  “Then why have you agreed to marry me?” Jared called.

  Olympia paused on the landing and looked down at him with cool hauteur. “I changed my mind, sir, because I have come to realize that you excel at the task of superintending a household.”

  “What of it?” Jared asked warily.

  “Why, it’s quite simple, sir. I dare not lose you. Good staff is so very hard to get, you know.”

  Jared gazed at her in amazement. “Olympia, surely you are not marrying me simply because I can provide you with an orderly household.”

  “Personally, I think that is an excellent reason for marriage. Oh, there is one more thing, sir.”

  Jared’s gaze narrowed. “Yes?”

  “Do you happen to know what the word Siryn might refer to?”

  He blinked. “A siren is a mythical creature who lured unwary sailors to their doom.”

  “Not that sort of siren,” she said impatiently. “I mean Siryn spelled with a y.”

  “Siryn was the name of the ship that Captain Jack sailed while he pursued his career as a buccaneer in the West Indies,” Jared said. “Why do you ask?”

  She gripped the railing. “Are you certain?”

  Jared shrugged. “That is what my father claims.”

  “The drawings on the endpapers,” Olympia whispered.

  Jared frowned. “What about it?”

  “The drawings on the endpapers of the diary are pictures of old-fashioned vessels sailing on storm-tossed seas, surging seas, if you will recall. One ship bears the figure of a woman on the prow. A siren, perhaps.”

  “I am told Captain Jack’s ship had such a prow figure.”

  Olympia forgot about her headache. She picked up her skirts and flew back down the stairs.

  “Olympia, wait. Where are you going?” Jared demanded as she rushed past him.

  “I’ll be in my study.” She turned in the doorway. “I am going to be very busy for a while, Mr. Chillhurst. See to it that I am not disturbed.”

  Jared’s brows rose. “Of course, Miss Wingfield. As a member of your household staff, it is my pleasure to carry out your instructions.”

  Olympia slammed the study door in his face. She went over to her desk and opened Claire Lightbourne’s diary.

  She stood gazing down at the design which decorated the endpapers at the front of the diary for a long time and then, very slowly, she picked up a penknife.

  Five minutes later she tugged back the picture of the Siryn sailing the surging sea and discovered the map that had been tucked beneath it.

  It was a map of an island. An uncharted island in the West Indies. But it was not a complete map, Olympia saw. It had been torn in half.

  The other half was missing.

  There was a sentence written on the bottom of the map fragment.

  The Siryn and the Serpent must be joined, two halves of a whole, a lock that awaits a key.

  Olympia quickly turned to the back of the diary and looked at the picture of the ship that sailed a tumultuous sea. Sure enough, the figure on the prow was that of a serpent.

  Eagerly Olympia pried up the back endpaper.

  There was no sign of the other half of the map.

  Chapter 12

  Jared placed his appointment journal to the left of his breakfast plate. Appointment journals were very reassuring things, he thought. They gave a man a sense of control over his own destiny. It was no doubt a thoroughgoing illusion, but a man who was prey to excessive passions treasured certain illusions.

  “Lessons shall be conducted from eight until ten this morning, as usual,” Jared said. “Today we shall be studying geography and mathematics.”

  “Will you tell us another story about Captain Jack in the geography lesson, sir?” Hugh asked around a mouthful of eggs.

  Jared glanced at Hugh. “There is no need to talk while you are eating.”

  “Beg pardon, sir.” Hugh swallowed the eggs in one gulp and grinned. “There. I’m finished. What about a Captain Jack tale?”

  “Yes, Mr. Chillhurst, I mean, my lord,” Robert said. “Will there be another story about Captain Jack?”

  “I want to hear about how Captain Jack developed a special clock to help find longitude at sea,” Ethan said eagerly.

  “We already heard that tale,” Robert said.

  “I want to hear it again.”

  Jared covertly studied Olympia who was absently munching toast spread with gooseberry jam. The look in her eyes made him uneasy. She had had that same remote, preoccupied expression since she had come downstairs to breakfast.

  There had been no well-planned accidental collisions in the hall outside his room today, no yearning glances, no stolen kisses, and no blushes. An inauspicious way in which to begin such an important day, he thought.

  “I believe there is a rather educational tale involving longitude calculations on one of Captain Jack’s voyages to Boston,” Jared said. He consulted his appointment journal again. “After the lessons have been completed, I shall escort your aunt to the library of the Society for Travel and Exploration.”

  Olympia perked up a bit at that. “Excellent, there are one or two more things I wish to check in the society’s map collection.”

  One would never guess that this was her wedding day, Jared thought grimly. Evidently she was far more excited about the prospect of going to the library to prowl through old maps than she was about the notion of marrying him.

  “While you are working in the society’s library,” Jared said, “I shall keep an appointment with Felix Hartwell. We have business matters to discuss. Robert, Ethan, and Hugh shall fly their kite in the park. When I am through, it will be time for the midday meal.”

  Ethan kicked his heels against the bottom rung of his chair. “What are we going to do this afternoon, sir?”

  “Kindly refrain from kicking the chair,” Jared said absently.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jared gazed at the next item on the schedule and felt every muscle in his lower body grow rigid with anticipation and apprehension. What would he
do if Olympia had changed her mind?

  She must not change her mind.

  Not now when he was so close to possessing his own personal siren.

  Not now when the only woman he had ever wanted with such passionate intensity was almost within his grasp. Not now.

  “After we have eaten,” he said, exerting every ounce of his self-control to keep his voice even, “your aunt and I will see to the formalities of our marriage. The arrangements have all been made. The matter should not take very long. When we return—”

  Silver crashed against china at the opposite end of the table.

  “Oh, dear,” Olympia murmured.

  Jared glanced up in time to see a pot of gooseberry jam fly off the edge of the table. The spoon that had been sticking out of the pot went over with it.

  Ethan smothered a giggle. Olympia jumped to her feet and bent down to dab ineffectually at the carpet with her napkin.

  “Leave it,” Jared said. “Mrs. Bird will see to it.”

  Olympia sent him an uncertain look, lowered her eyes, and quickly sat down again.

  So she was not nearly as disinterested in the matter of her marriage as she had appeared. Something inside him relaxed slightly. He propped his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers, and concentrated again on his appointment journal.

  “Dinner will be served earlier than usual tonight,” he continued, “as we shall be going to Vauxhall Gardens afterward to view the fireworks this evening.”

  Predictably enough, a cheer went up from Ethan, Hugh, and Robert.

  “I say, that is an excellent plan, sir.” Robert’s face was alight with anticipation.

  “We have never seen fireworks,” Ethan confided gleefully.

  “Will there be a band playing music?” Hugh asked.

  “I expect so,” Jared said.

  “And may we have ices?”

  “Very likely.” Jared watched Olympia’s face to see how she was taking the prospect of celebrating their wedding at Vauxhall Gardens. It occurred to him rather belatedly that some women might be heartily offended.

  But Olympia’s eyes were suddenly glowing. “A wonderful notion. I should love to see the fireworks.”

  Jared breathed a silent sigh of relief. Who said he did not have a romantic bone in his body, he thought.

  “May we go for a stroll on the Dark Walk at Vauxhall?” Robert asked with a suspicious innocence.

  Jared scowled briefly. “What do you know of the Dark Walk?”

  “One of the boys that we met in the park yesterday told us all about it,” Ethan explained. “He said it was quite dangerous to go down the Dark Walk.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Robert said. “We were told that sometimes people who go along the Dark Walk at Vauxhall are never seen again.” He shuddered. “Do you think that is true, sir?”

  “No, I do not,” Jared said.

  “Another boy that we met said he knew of a certain maid who had worked in his house for years who had disappeared on the Dark Walk,” Robert informed him. “She was never seen again.”

  “Ran off with a footman most likely.” Jared closed his appointment journal.

  “I should very much like to go for a stroll on the Dark Walk,” Robert said persistently.

  Hugh made a face at him across the table. “You only want to go on the Dark Walk because that boy in the park dared you to do it. But it wouldn’t count if all of us went for a stroll on it together. Lord Chillhurst would be there to scare off the villains.”

  “That’s right,” Ethan added triumphantly. “The villains would not come around if his lordship and the rest of us were there with you. You’d have to go along the Dark Walk all by yourself in order to win the dare. You’d be too frightened to do it, I’ll wager.”

  “Yes,” Hugh taunted. “You’d be frightened to take a walk on the Dark Walk all by yourself.”

  Robert glared at his brothers. “I’m not afraid to go down the Dark Walk.”

  “Yes, you are,” Hugh said.

  Jared arched one brow at the twins. “That is quite enough. An intelligent man does not respond to the dares and taunts of others. He rises above such foolishness and makes his own decisions based on reason and logic. Now, if you have finished your breakfast, you may go prepare for today’s lessons.”

  “Yes, sir.” Hugh gave Robert one last sly look as he jumped out of his seat.

  Ethan snickered and got to his feet.

  Robert manfully ignored his brothers as he rose and made his bow to Olympia.

  Jared waited until he and Olympia were alone in the room. Then he gazed down the length of the table. “I trust today’s schedule meets with your approval, my dear?”

  Olympia gave a small start. “Yes. Yes, of course.” She waved her spoon in a vague fashion. “You’re very good at schedules and such. I vow I have come to rely upon you in matters of that sort.”

  “Thank you. I do my best.”

  Olympia scowled briefly. “Are you laughing at me, Chillhurst?”

  “No, my dear. It is myself I find rather amusing more and more often of late.”

  Olympia’s eyes brimmed with disconcerting perception. “Jared, why do you mock yourself and your own passions? Is it because you do not like to admit that you are capable of strong emotions?”

  “It has been my experience that forceful passions have a generally negative effect on a man’s life. They lead to foolish excesses, dangerous adventures, and reckless behavior of all sorts.”

  “Only uncontrolled passions lead to such bad endings,” Olympia said gently. “Your passions are always under control, sir.” She blushed furiously. “Except, perhaps, when you are in the throes of romantic passion.”

  “Yes,” Jared said, “except when I am making love to you.” He met her eyes. You are my great weakness, my most vulnerable point, my Achilles heel. My siren. Jared finished his coffee and set the cup down with due deliberation. “You must excuse me, Olympia. My students await me.”

  “Jared, wait, there is something important that I wish to tell you.” Olympia put out her hand as he went past. “It is about my latest discovery in the Lightbourne diary.”

  “My dear, the one thing that I will not discuss on my wedding day is that confounded diary. You know how much the damn topic annoys me. Once and for all, I do not want to hear another word about it.” Jared lowered his head and brushed his mouth across hers.

  “But, Jared—”

  “Try to spare some thought for the wedding night which awaits us, siren,” he ordered softly. “Perhaps you will find it almost as interesting as the Lightbourne diary.”

  He walked out of the breakfast room.

  “You wish me to open up your townhouse?” Felix leaned across his desk to pour himself a glass of claret. “Certainly. I shall be happy to see to the matter for you. You’ll be requiring staff, of course?”

  “Yes.” Jared tapped his fingertips together, thinking swiftly. “But you need not bother with a housekeeper. We already have one.”

  Felix gave him a skeptical glance. “The one you brought with you from Upper Tudway? Doubt she’ll know how to run a gentleman’s house here in town. She won’t have had the experience.”

  “We shall manage.”

  Felix shrugged. “Your decision, of course. Claret?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Very well, then, allow me to toast your impending nuptials.” Felix took a long swallow of claret and put down the glass. “I must say, you’ve gone about this matter in a most unusual fashion. Perhaps you’ve inherited some of your family’s tendency toward eccentricity after all.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Felix chuckled. “You can hardly announce the glad tidings to the polite world in the papers because the ton already believes you to be married. May I inquire how you intend to celebrate this momentous occasion?”

  “We are taking my fiancée’s nephews to Vauxhall tonight to see the fireworks.”

  “Vauxhall. Good lord.” Felix grimaced. “What does your
bride think of this plan?”

  “She is content to leave that sort of thing to me. On another subject, Felix.”

  “Yes?”

  Jared reached into his pocket and brought out Torbert’s handkerchief. “I want you to see that this gets returned to Mr. Roland Torbert. Along with it, you will convey a message.”

  Felix eyed the handkerchief curiously. “What is the message?”

  “You will inform Torbert that if there are any more incidents such as the one which caused this handerker-chief to be abandoned in Lady Chillhurst’s garden, he will find himself dealing personally with her lord.”

  Felix took the handkerchief. “Very well, but I doubt that you face much of a threat from that quarter, Chillhurst. Torbert is not the sort to be slipping in and out of ladies’ gardens.”

  “No, I do not think I need worry about him overmuch.” Jared stretched out his booted feet and regarded his old friend. “There is one more thing that I wish to discuss. Have you had an opportunity to speak with the insurers?”

  “Yes, and the results were no more useful than the results of my other inquiries.” Felix got to his feet with a troubled expression and began to pace the room. “You will have to accept that the person behind the embezzlement scheme was Captain Richards. There simply is no other explanation.”

  “Richards has been with me for a long time. Almost as long as you have, Felix.”

  “I’m aware of that, sir.” Felix shook his head. “I regret to be the bearer of such ill tidings. I know how important loyalty and honesty are to you. I understand how you must feel about being deceived by someone you have trusted for years.”

  “I told you the other day that I do not care to play the fool.”

  Half an hour later the hired hackney rattled to a halt in front of the fashionable Beaumont townhouse.

  Jared got out. “Wait for me,” he called up to the coachman. “I shall not be long.”

  “Aye, m’lord.”

  Jared pulled his gold watch out of his pocket and glanced at the face as he went up the steps. He had left the boys at home with Mrs. Bird while he paid this call on Demetria.

  He did not have much time to waste before he was due to fetch Olympia from the library, but he told himself that would not be a problem. He did not have a great deal to say to Demetria.