“The point, sir, is that Hetty walked down on the sands, and I was too afraid to follow, having been warned against the inconvenience of sand in one’s shoes. Soon after that trip, Hetty left us to nurse a sick aunt in Northampton. Scarlet fever, I believe it was.”
“And what became of the erstwhile Hetty and her blue eyes?”
“She died, sir. Taken by the same fever as her aunt.”
“Oh.” He cringed. “I’m…sorry.”
“You see, sir, I suppose my point is that I should have seized the moment, taken a chance, and walked on the sand. We never know how long we have, do we?” The valet raised a hand to pat down that rebellious sprig of hair. “I still have the flower I took from Hetty’s bonnet, but it is brittle now. The once vibrant color has faded. Time takes everything away from us, sooner or later. But I never felt again for any other woman what I felt that day for Hetty. It was most extraordinary. As if I knew that she was meant for me, as if I recognized a soul mate. Love is a very odd and challenging thing, sir. I was too cowardly to accept it for what it was.”
James glowered down at his brandy. Love? Was he in love with that wretched, deceiving woman? He’d thought himself in love before, with Sophia, and look how that turned out! Yet he wanted to please Ellie and protect her. He wanted to make her happy. It seemed such a simple thing, but no one had done it before, evidently. For someone who laughed often, she was sad inside. He’d noted it when he sat beside her on that little bench in Brighton and they pretended to be other people. Or, perhaps, not pretending to be other people, for once.
“Of course, sir. I did not mean to suggest you capable of any such feeling as love,” Grieves continued as he turned away again. “The countess used to say that love was a weakness of the lower classes. I daresay she was as right about that as she was about all things, even those in which she had no experience.”
James tapped his fingers against the pleasing curve of his brandy glass and found himself thinking of other pleasing curves.
Of all the creatures to fall in love with. Just his luck that she should be wicked, wild, and extremely wary of capture.
Chapter 21
Ellie was too anxious to sit long with her aunt that afternoon and went upstairs to dress early. She flirted with the idea of falling ill to escape the dinner party at Hartley House, but then she made up her mind to be brave. Someone had to return Lady Mercy to her brother, and she must face James bravely and unashamed, give him his diamonds back, tell him it was over. It was not the sort of thing one could say in a letter. At least, she could not. At the best of times, her writing was full of blots and misspelled words. She couldn’t risk any misunderstanding. The connection must be severed now. It had been a fun game while it lasted. Yes, that was it. With merry laughter, she would tell him how entertaining it had been.
No use wavering, she admonished her reflection sternly in the cheval mirror. James wouldn’t want her with Josiah attached. For as long as the story behind her birth was an intriguing mystery, she could get away with things. No one really knew where she belonged, and so she moved about freely between the classes. Who could object? She’d made her story whatever she chose it to be, whatever her imagination could create. But now that Josiah Jankyn had appeared in her life, there could be no more fantasy.
Molly Robbins had done an excellent job with Ellie’s best sarcenet frock, sewn up the fallen hem and mended a tear at the shoulder. Despite this, Ellie feared it was still not nearly grand enough for Hartley House. Her transient lifestyle and lack of funds for herself had made it difficult to stay abreast of fashion. Her nicest clothes were all things the duke had bought her two years ago. It was lucky she didn’t go tonight to seek Lady Hartley’s approval, she mused sadly.
“You look lovely, Miss Vyne,” Molly exclaimed, standing behind her, just tall enough already at thirteen to peep over Ellie’s shoulder.
“Thank you, Molly.” But she was ready early. Now what? She’d simply pace up and down, getting more and more nervous, perspiring indelicately. All while convincing herself that she was not ashamed of her own father, not regretting that he came back to find her.
Aha! The Hartley Diamonds. Mustn’t forget them. She wanted nothing more tying her to James, for his sake. She hurried to her trunk at the foot of the bed, opened the broken lid, and knelt to rummage inside. Now, where had she put those diamonds—the very objects that started all this? They began it, and now they would mark the ending of it. Here, surely this is where she put them, under the torn lining.
No. Not there.
She slid her hand back and forth through the tear, but the knotted silk scarf with its priceless cargo was gone.
Panicking, she searched her trunk. The diamonds were gone. She’d lost them. James would be livid. She could already hear him blaming her for the loss. Or accusing her again of being a thief.
She sat back on her heels, hands clasped around the edge of the trunk, and ran her mind over the possibilities. Now be sensible. They had to be here somewhere. When was the last time she saw them? Before she left her sister’s house in London. She hadn’t looked for them since. Yet her trunk had been tossed in the air, dropped, banged about, opened and closed many times over the past few days.
Molly Robbins had taken everything out of it just the morning before. She must have seen the diamonds. It was odd that she hadn’t mentioned them. Had Molly taken the diamonds? No, it was not possible. Ellie had offered her anything she wanted from the trunk, but she meant clothes. The girl understood that surely. She was no simpleton.
“What is it, Miss Vyne?” Molly wandered over, seeing her in evident distress. It was most awkward. She’d have to ask the girl without making it seem as if she accused her of theft. She closed the lid. She could hear horses and creaking harness outside in the lane. The carriage had arrived for her.
Ellie’s pulse didn’t race. It flew like a hummingbird.
“Molly, when you went through my trunk yesterday morning, did you see a blush-pink silk handkerchief tied in a knot?”
“No, Miss Vyne.”
“Are you quite sure, Molly? Think hard, for there was something very valuable in that handkerchief.”
Molly looked frightened now, and her fingers twisted at the end of her long braid. “I…I don’t know…no, I…”
“Molly?”
“Oh, Miss Vyne, I’m sorry. I took it out and opened it.”
Thank goodness! At least now she knew where they were. But then the girl added, “I put them back where I found them. I looked at them only for a little while, Miss Vyne.”
How quickly the relief was snatched away from her!
“Are you certain you put them back, Molly?”
“Yes, Miss Vyne.”
“Then why are they not here?” Anxiety made her voice high and cross. She had to give those diamonds back to James tonight. There must be no further connection—no cause for him to follow her again when she left. “Did you take the diamonds? Tell me the truth, Molly Robbins.”
Molly shrank away, looking as if she might cry. “I put them back in the trunk, right where I found them. I swear I did.”
Downstairs, her aunt was calling for her and then for Lady Mercy.
Slowly she got to her feet. “I must go to dinner now.” Greatly vexed, she took another look around the room, hands on her waist. She certainly wanted to believe Molly’s protestations of innocence, but she couldn’t think who else…
Or could she?
Now she joined in the shout for Mercy Danforthe.
Fifteen minutes later, they were still shouting her name, because the little runaway was nowhere in the house.
***
A search party was quickly arranged, but it was a frigid-cold night, the moon a mere slip of silver, and since it had snowed off and on for most of the day, a pristine white shroud had settled over her tracks. An hour of searching around the village with rush torches produced nothing. Even Rafe Adamson, who had taken an immediate dislike to the arrogant girl, brought his spaniel to aid in the s
earch, although Ellie suspected he was merely eager to join in the activity and didn’t particularly care if the bratty girl was found. He solemnly proclaimed to Molly Robbins that her fine new lady friend was probably dead in a ditch somewhere with fox cubs chewing on her fancy, superior bones.
“Her brother, the earl, ought to be told, Ellie,” Aunt Lizzie exclaimed. “He should come here and help find his sister.”
Ellie had hoped the girl could be found before the earl need know she ever went missing again, but she realized her aunt was right. Unwilling to postpone her own search, she sent Molly Robbins to Morecroft in James’s carriage.
***
“I told you, James, that Vyne girl is flighty. I knew she’d change her mind. She won’t come. She dare not show her face in this house.”
He checked the mantel clock again. It was almost half past seven. The carriage should have returned with Ellie by now, especially at the rate Jasper drove. Something was wrong. He should have gone himself to fetch her. He shouldn’t have ridden away in such a temper that afternoon, but he was stupefied, frozen with jealousy when he saw her standing with the count in the churchyard. He had not dealt with it very well. For those few, horrifying moments, he’d seen a woman being taken away from him, leaving him for another man again. Just as it happened with Sophia two years ago.
Now here he waited, fearing Ellie might not come. Perhaps his grandmother was right, and he couldn’t be trusted to find his own woman. Or to keep her.
A moment later, they heard the bell, and his shoulders relaxed a half inch.
The Earl of Everscham stood, ready to admonish his naughty little sister for making him—as he’d put it earlier that evening—“traipse across the damnable, filthy countryside, looking for the wretched, ungrateful brat.”
The footman showed the guests in. It was the Shales. James’s heart slowed almost to a dead halt.
His grandmother looked victorious. “Did I mention I invited the Shales, James?”
“No, you did not.”
“I wanted to make up numbers at the table, and we must have some people of quality to converse with the earl. Good thing the Shales were nearby.”
Lord Shale had never met James in his true guise before, and upon their introduction, the first word on his lips was a startled, “Smallwick?”
James feigned no knowledge of this manservant with the curious name, but neither the Shales nor his grandmother believed a word of it. Fortunately, there was no time to discuss the matter, because Ophelia Southwold and Miss Bicknell arrived at that moment.
Ophelia immediately swept across the drawing room to James, staking her claim in an obvious fashion. Lord Shale looked relieved.
“Darling James,” she whispered, “I yearn to know everything.”
“Everything?” He frowned down at her, perplexed.
Ophelia took a quick survey of the other guests and assured they were all occupied in other conversation, whispered, “About that dreadful crook, the count de Bonneville. Your man Grieves explained that you are on a mission to track him down. I was quite distressed at being locked in that little room at the Barley Mow, but now I know it was for my own safety. Your pursuit of that common Vyne woman is entirely forgivable, since it is all for the purpose of capturing the count. All for the good of King and Country.”
He swigged his sherry and winced at the sweet taste.
“Your poor grandmother,” she said with a giggle. “She actually believes the rumors of your engagement. It is cruel of you not to let her into your secret, but I understand the necessity.”
James forced a smile.
“Now I am here to look after you. If only I could be of some service in your mission.”
He could bear it no longer. The anxiety of waiting for Ellie had frayed his nerves until he lost his grip on them. “Ophelia, if you desire to be of some use, I suggest you go back to London.”
That halted her giggles. Thin eyebrows bent high, her surprise too sudden to be hidden under the usual mask of cultivated carelessness.
“For your own good,” he added hastily, not wanting a fight with her here and now.
His grandmother’s voice rang out like a bell and cut through every other discussion. “My grandson arrived yesterday, unexpectedly and before he was wanted,” she was explaining to Lord Shale. “He was not supposed to come until New Year’s Eve, in time for my ball.”
James used the excuse of joining her conversation just to escape Ophelia. “But I was impatient to see you, Grandmama.”
“And I must heave myself off my sickbed to entertain, because you took a fancy to come early.”
Lord Shale’s subsequent, polite enquiry into her health was met with a stiff response.
“Well? Of course I haven’t been well,” the old lady snapped. “At my age, one is seldom well. A fact young people like my grandson fail to understand.”
James watched the Shales closely and wondered about their acquaintance with the count. “Did you have any success at the races this year, Lord Shale?” he asked as soon as his grandmother paused for breath. “I thought I heard young Trenton suffered a few bad wagers at Newmarket.”
Lord Shale replied, “My Trenton fell in with an unruly lot while at university. That is why I took him out, to keep a closer eye on him. You know how young men can be so foolish when they have nothing else to occupy their time. The devil makes work for idle hands. But hopefully he will soon be out of trouble. A married man with other things to think about.”
“A married man?” Lady Hartley inquired with a slow drawl.
Lord Shale beamed. “It is time he found a suitable wife and produced my first grandson. I cannot wait forever, as I told Trenton yesterday. Get the job done with as little fuss as possible. It is the only thing expected of him, after all.”
Trenton looked as if he might be sick, and James heard Lady Ophelia’s teeth click against her sherry glass as she hid a spiteful laugh.
When the front bell rang again, at least two men in that room were vastly relieved. James straightened his cuffs and prepared to face this woman who had better have a damn good explanation for being late.
All this trouble she’d put him in—making him fall in love with her.
But again he was disappointed. The footmen showed in a thin, bedraggled creature in a patched cape. A sense of foreboding quickly returned tenfold.
“Molly! What on earth has happened?”
His grandmother sat up, lorgnette raised to one beady eye. Her pug began to bark.
“You’re not the brat,” Carver Danforthe muttered redundantly, and fixed the poor girl in a merciless beam of his steel grays. “Unless no one’s fed her since she ran off. Where is she? What have you done with my little sister?”
Molly surveyed the drawing room, apparently rendered temporarily mute by the cavernous space and grandiose decorations. James took her bony arm and drew her to the warmth of the hearth, while his grandmother demanded to know, three times in quick succession, who she was. Her voice rose indignantly with every word, because no one answered her.
“Tell him,” Molly whispered, nodding in the earl’s direction, “his sister’s gone missing, sir.”
***
“When I catch the brat, I’ll tan her hide,” Carver Danforthe muttered, glaring out at the dark.
“You shouldn’t do that, sir.”
Startled, James looked down at the girl beside him. She hadn’t dared speak a word in anything above a whisper, until now.
“I’m not surprised she ran away. From the things she tells me, you are a cruel, horrid man. I’m glad you’re not my brother.”
Danforthe snorted unpleasantly. “I see she’s told everyone I beat her with my shoe again has she?”
No reply. After that burst of courage, Molly Robbins held her tongue.
“My sister tells monstrous fibs purely for attention,” the earl continued. “I’m quite accustomed to being the villain in my sister’s stories. But I certainly need not explain myself to you. Or to anyon
e. You believe what you like and think however ill of me you choose, little country ragamuffin.”
James saw the girl flinch, but she did not rise to the bait when he called her that. In fact, she was remarkably composed physically, sitting very straight, hands in her lap, lips tight. Yet haughty disapproval was written so plainly on her face it was almost comical.
“She’ll turn up again, just like the proverbial bad penny.” Danforthe yawned and stretched. “She always does.”
“One of these days she might not,” said James. “You should keep a closer eye on your sister.”
“You haven’t any sisters, have you, Hartley?”
“No.”
Danforthe sprawled in the seat, long legs spread wide, an arrogant sneer on his lips. “Then I think I know more about the matter than you. I’ll reserve the right to handle her anyway I choose.”
“And as she gets older, she’ll grow even more troublesome.” James might not have any experience with sisters, but he knew about difficult women.
“By then she’ll be someone else’s problem, won’t she?”
Danforthe was evidently looking to be rid of his sister as soon as legally possible. He had no time for her. His days and nights were spent in pursuit of pleasure. James knew the young earl kept a tight group of similarly entitled friends—young blades with names like Skip Skiffingham and Sinjun Rothespur. The sort of men he was once himself, before past regret caught up with him and he realized reckless youth couldn’t last forever.
“Once my sister’s safely married and out of the way, she won’t come back again. Good riddance.”
James heard the Robbins girl exhale in disgust. Danforthe must have heard, too, for his gray eyes narrowed, focused across the carriage, and fixed on her face. She slowly and grandly turned her head to watch the ink-black sky through the window of the carriage. Impressed, James hid a little smile behind his gloved hand and feigned a yawn.
“People who don’t know all the circumstances and have not heard them from unbiased lips,” added Danforthe, “shouldn’t be so quick to judge others.”
The Wicked Wedding of Miss Ellie Vyne Page 27