Gail Eastwood

by An Unlikely Hero

  “Is Lady Vivian all right?” asked Lord Ashurst. “I was looking forward to hearing her impressions of the barrow.”

  “Oh, yes, she will be fine. Sometimes she just tires before the rest of us. She finds that very frustrating. Does she not, Nicholas?”

  “Yes. Yes, that she does.”

  There was nothing obviously strange about the conversation, Gilbey decided—it was merely his new perspective that made it sound that way. Nicholas beckoned to the others scattered about the field and suggested that it was time to start down.

  Lady Elizabeth came over to join them. “Really, Lord Edmonton—Nicholas—what a charming place this is! Perhaps we could come back here for a picnic later in the week?” She was all but purring and Gilbey was surprised that she did not brazenly commandeer Nicholas’s arm before he offered it.

  Venetia interrupted in sudden excitement. “Oh, Nicholas, my reticule! I don’t seem to have it. I wonder if I lost it inside the barrow?”

  Nicholas looked caught between the two women, and Gilbey sympathized with him. Now what was Venetia up to? Was this another of her tests?

  “See here, Lady Venetia, I’ll go with you to look for it,” Lord Wistowe volunteered. “My lantern is still lit.”

  “I don’t believe his lantern ever goes out,” Lord Ashurst commented softly to Gilbey.

  Gilbey did not laugh. The idea of Lord Wistowe alone in the barrow with Venetia actually made him bristle with anger. Surely Nicholas would not allow it?

  But Nicholas did not need to say anything. Gilbey realized he should have known Venetia would handle Lord Wistowe.

  “Why, you are so kind, sir,” she said sweetly. “My shoes are so muddy from going in the first time, perhaps you would just go in and look for me? The reticule is purple silk—I do hope I didn’t drop it in a puddle.”

  Gilbey did not believe for a minute that she had left her reticule behind, nor did he think that her appeal for help was a failed ploy to get a moment alone with any of the gentlemen. But if it was a test, why had she waited until several suitors in the group had already started down? It felt more as if she might be playing for time, delaying them from starting down the hill. But why? Why?

  He would have liked to have a moment alone with her in the barrow himself. He would have asked her exactly how much time she wanted to spend pretending to hunt for her reticule, and then he would have demanded to know the reason. Then you would have liked to show her a pleasant way to pass that time, came an unbidden thought, shocking him.

  Gad, he was no better than Wistowe. No, he was worse, for he wasn’t even honest about his feelings, pretending to himself that he wanted nothing to do with her. He wanted everything to do with her, and it was that fact that scared him the most.

  The marquess came back from searching the barrow, looking frustrated. Of course he had not found the reticule.

  “Oh dear,” said a crestfallen Venetia. “Where could I have lost it, then?”

  “Perhaps you left it in your carriage all along,” Gilbey said sharply before he could stop himself.

  Her eyes met his and he saw the wariness in them. Fool! he berated himself. If you set her on her guard you will never solve the mystery. But he was already a fool for even wanting to.

  Chapter Nine

  Aunt Alice looked thoroughly flustered by the time the delayed members of the party rejoined the others at the bottom of Sandler’s Hill.

  “I wondered what had become of you, Venetia. Er, Vivian? And, where is your sister, whichever one of you I am talking to? Ooh, I do hate it when you girls dress alike! Do you enjoy confusing all of us?”

  “Now, Aunt Alice, do calm down,” Venetia said soothingly, hiding a smile. “All is well. I simply thought I had lost my reticule, and we were delayed while Lord Wistowe very kindly looked for it. Unfortunately we did not find it.”

  “Your reticule? Lord Wistowe?” It amazed Venetia how quickly her aunt could recover from being upset. Suddenly the countess looked immensely pleased instead.

  Oh, Lord help me if now she thinks I’ve set my cap for Lord Wistowe! Venetia thought. However, she did not disabuse her aunt of that notion. She also did not identify herself.

  “As for my sister, she was tired and decided to come down in our carriage instead of walking down with us. I am certain that they will be arriving at any moment.” With concern she glanced toward the cart track, but saw no sign of the landau as yet. She prayed that Vivian’s seizure would be a short one.

  “Well! At least that tells me which twin is standing before me, Venetia, no thanks to you. I know it would be Vivian and not you who would think she lacked the strength to complete the walk with the rest of us.”

  Realizing, perhaps, that her comment might not be just what potential suitors cared to hear, Lady Colney laughed suddenly. “Of course the girl is perfectly healthy, just a little delicate. Too used to being pampered, I expect—nothing that a proper husband couldn’t put right.”

  It took every ounce of Venetia’s self-restraint not to throttle her aunt. She moved away and was dismayed when Lord Wistowe came with her.

  “I would be happy to help you look further for your reticule, Lady Venetia. Have you any other thoughts as to where you might have left it?”

  Truly, the man was incorrigible. She knew better than to suppose he really wanted to help. He couldn’t abandon the possible opportunity to get her somewhere alone. Obviously, he thought seduction was the way to court a wife—or perhaps he simply knew no other way, she thought with a sudden and surprising spurt of sympathy.

  “Frankly, Lord Wistowe, I believe Lord Cranford was right. I must have left it in my carriage. I will look as soon as my sister arrives.” She looked the rake right in the eye and hoped that he would understand her unspoken message. She took it as a hopeful sign when barely minutes later she heard him offer to escort Lady Elizabeth on her requested picnic later in the week—no doubt planning to omit invitations to anyone else.

  The landau arrived moments after that. Venetia hurried over in relief, hoping she would not have to invent any explanations about what had delayed it.

  She could see in an instant that Vivian was not yet fully alert, although the seizure itself was over.

  “I thought there’d be questions if we waited too long, my lady,” said the coachman apologetically.

  “No, no, you did just right,” Venetia reassured him. “I will handle things from here.” She climbed into the carriage and sat opposite her sister.

  “Netia?”

  “Yes, Vivi. I’m right here. Everything is all right. Just sit.” She took her sister’s hands. “Listen to me. I am going to go back out and pretend to be you. That should reassure everyone that you are really all right. You don’t have to do anything. Just try to pull yourself together. Do you know where you are?”

  Vivian nodded. “The carriage.”

  “We must let Lord Cranford and Lord Ashurst drive back with us, or they might suspect something is wrong. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  Vivian nodded again, biting her lip. “I’m sorry,” she said in an agonized whisper.

  Venetia just squeezed her hands encouragingly and then let herself out of the carriage. I must play a tired Vivian, she reminded herself, adjusting her posture and slowing her steps. She headed for Aunt Alice.

  “How is Vivian feeling now, Venetia? Or is that you, Vivi?” asked Cousin Adela, intercepting her.

  Venetia smiled sweetly. She could not count the number of times she and her twin had fooled their cousin over the years. “I am Vivian, Adela, and I am feeling better, thank you. Netia is waiting for me in the carriage, but I thought I should just reassure Aunt Alice before we set off, since she was worried.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.”

  Fooling Aunt Alice was not difficult, either. All Venetia had to do wa
s control the exasperation she usually felt when talking to her aunt. “I never meant to worry you, Aunt Alice. I just thought that with the dancing instruction planned for this evening, I would be wise to save some of my strength. Do you not think so?”

  Of course, Lady Colney could not disagree, and by now Venetia thought enough people had overheard her to scuttle any speculation about Vivian’s health. The real hurdle, she knew, would be the gentlemen. She really could not return to the carriage without having “Vivian” speak to Lord Ashurst and Lord Cranford. They were standing with Nicholas, debating some obscure point about the religious practices of the ancient Mound Builders.

  “Nicholas,” she said, touching her brother’s arm, “Venetia thought I had worried people, and that I should reassure them that I was all right.” She turned to the other two men. “Sirs, I apologize for leaving you so abruptly. It suddenly seemed to be such a good idea to save what strength I had left for the dancing this evening.”

  “Dancing?” Both the marquess and the viscount seemed less than enthused.

  Venetia could not imagine that they did not dance! But somehow she felt vaguely disappointed. “Yes, there is to be instruction this evening. My father has brought in a dancing master just for the occasion, to prepare us all for the ball next week.” She remembered to keep her eyes downcast, the way Vivian would.

  “Well, we are glad you are feeling up to it, Lady Vivian,” said Lord Ashurst gallantly. “You show great wisdom by reserving your energy.”

  She had half expected some biting comment from the marquess, but once again he surprised her.

  “Are we ready to head home?” Nicholas asked her.

  She knew what he really wanted to know—if they needed to delay any longer. But she was not sure. Lord Cranford had yet to say anything more than the one word he had uttered, and he was the one she was most wary of. If he was the blackmailer, he was the most likely to guess what had happened, although presumably he would say nothing. If he was not the blackmailer, she thought, he was still the most likely to sense that something was wrong—and to guess that she was not Vivian. He seemed to have an uncanny and unsettling ability to distinguish between them.

  She had to give Nicholas some answer, and give it the way Vivian would. She blinked and looked uncertain. “Why, I don’t know, Nicholas. Are all the others ready?” She made a show of glancing around. Would Vivian be recovered and ready for them? “If everyone else is ready, I suppose we should go. Netia is already waiting in the landau.”

  Lord Cranford fell into step beside her as they walked toward the carriage.

  “Have you had any opportunity to finish reading your book?” he asked.

  What book? She was instantly on her guard. “Which one?”

  “Oh, the one you were reading in the library,” he said very offhandedly. “Your father has kept us all very well occupied with planned activities, it seems to me.”

  “Yes, he does that, although he never joins in.” That was safe enough to say. “And no, I have not finished that book.” When had he seen Vivian in the library?

  “Perhaps we will run across each other there again, in that case. I will say I have given the things you told me a good deal of thought.”

  What things? She would have a few questions to ask Vivian. “Uh, good. Good. I was certain you would.”

  “Are you not curious to know what conclusions I may have come to?”

  “Conclusions? Why, yes, of course. What conclusions have you come to?”

  They had arrived at the carriage. “I think perhaps now is not the best time to go into them, all things considered,” he said, stepping back. “Perhaps later?”

  Did he think he was setting up a secret assignation with her sister? Was there something going on that she had not known about? She could not, did not, believe it. But she would get to the bottom of it. “Later, then,” she whispered as she turned away from him.

  It was Lord Ashurst who opened the door for her and handed her up the steps. As she climbed in she saw with relief that Vivian looked reasonably restored.

  ***

  There, Gilbey thought as he watched Venetia disappear through the door of the landau, that should rattle her a bit. He had concluded, of course, that she was not who she pretended to be, and that he was an even bigger fool than he already knew for getting involved with the St. Aldwyns at all. What had become of all his firm resolutions?

  Venetia was a very talented actress, he’d grant her that. She had imitated her sister almost exactly, even to the softer voice and the demure demeanor. But she had not fooled him for long. Earlier he had noticed that Vivian had secured her hat with a hatpin, and he thought it rather typical that Venetia had not bothered to do the same. His second clue had been the wary look in her eyes whenever she glanced at him. Why was he the one she seemed to particularly distrust? What was she afraid of? Of all the men there, surely he was the least likely to present any kind of threat.

  Not all the twins’ suitors might have agreed with that, he knew. Comments he had overheard after the archery tournament and even before it told him some of the other men suspected he was somehow arranging for all of the things that had happened. Was that what Lady Venetia suspected, too? Or was it something else? Whatever it was, he was getting tired of being so nice about it. If he was going to be suspected of something, he damn well wanted to know what!

  He climbed into the carriage after Lord Ashurst, and for a moment went right back to not knowing which twin was which. Across from him were blue-violet eyes with dramatic dark lashes, skin like porcelain, and lips the color of rose petals. Beside him he knew he would see the same—a second shapely smile set off by dimples, set in a second delicately sculptured face. Looking at the two young women sitting opposite each other was like gazing upon a reflection so perfect you could not tell which image was real.

  I don’t know what is real, he reminded himself. Certainly there was much more going on here than what appeared on the surface. If he stirred the waters around him, would both lovely images ripple and disappear? Every instinct screamed that he was placing his heart in danger, but he no longer seemed to care. At the end of the following week he would be leaving, no matter what piece of himself he left behind.

  He knew one thing—no force on earth was going to get him to dance that evening. He was a creditable dancer and he enjoyed it. But even now he recognized limits, and the thought of dancing with Venetia—touching her, exchanging flirtatious glances, moving with her to the rhythm of the music—was more than he could stand.

  He could sacrifice his heart; he had never planned to love. Losing his heart here would make his life simpler in the future. But he did not wish to lose his sanity as well. Just sitting in the carriage beside this woman he could not have was torment enough. He had no doubt that touching her would drive him mad.

  ***

  Vivian was so despondent after her seizure Venetia could not bring herself to upset her twin more by questioning her about Lord Cranford. Vivi had managed to affect a cheerful façade during dinner, but the strain had been clear. The questions would have to wait. Venetia was actually grateful when another poem appeared under their door while they were preparing for the dancing that evening after the meal. Vivian needed an additional distraction to help get her mind off what had happened.

  “At least ’tis not another note from the blackmailer,” Vivian said, delivering the paper to Venetia. “I cannot help thinking that if I had had the seizure in front of everyone, whoever it is would no longer have anything to hold over you. Perhaps we should just stop hiding my trouble and accept the consequences.”

  “Could we do that to Father, and to Nicholas? And I swear that is the one thing Aunt Alice fears most. Think of the scandal! Not to mention that we’d be throwing away your chance of finding happiness with a man who could love you. No, Vivi. There has to be another way out of this coil. W
e will find it.”

  To close the subject, Venetia looked down at the poem and read. “‘Twice the beauty, twice the worth / Twice the joy, twice the mirth / But twice the heartbreak, twice the sorrow / If love be scorned upon the morrow.’ I cannot say that the poetry has improved.”

  “What does it mean, do you think, Netia? Have we scorned anybody?”

  “Only everybody, I suppose.”

  “Whose heartbreak and sorrow is he talking about? His own, or ours? You could almost take that as a threat, depending upon your reading.”

  “Well,” said Venetia with a small chuckle, “if he means ours, I interpret that to mean he has a monstrously overblown opinion of his own worth and the depth of our distress when we discover he has given up on us. If he means his own sorrow, I’d say that was a much more flattering message.” She purposely did not address the possibility that the note was intended as a threat; she did not think it likely, and she also did not wish to upset Vivian any more on this day. “I consider the ambiguity to be a result of poor skill—he has sacrificed clarity of meaning for the sake of the rhythm and the rhyme.”

  “I hope you are right. I would hate to believe anyone was so impatient that he would give up by the third day of the party, or even would expect us to make a choice by then!”

  I would hate to believe we had more than one enemy among these guests, Venetia added to herself. “We will have to make a concentrated effort to unmask the poet this evening during the dancing. Try to draw out any interest in poetry among our partners.”

  Maybe somehow they would also get some hint of who might indulge in blackmail. Venetia had been forced to recognize the need to look harder at the other guests when she realized on Sandler’s Hill that she had doubts about Lord Cranford’s guilt. When she had found a moment to consider that revelation, she had uncovered some rather unsettling truths. She did fear and distrust him, partly because he did not seem to be dealing honestly with anyone, but also in large part because he stirred up feelings that she feared and distrusted in herself. She really did not know what to do about Lord Cranford.