One Touch of Scandal
Page 22
“Was it something I said?” Lazonby pushed back his chair.
“No, I am having some special guests to breakfast in a quarter hour,” said Ruthveyn. “Napier and Ned Quartermaine.”
“Napier and Quartermaine?” Lazonby echoed. “Have you quite lost your mind?”
“Yes, they will both be surprised, I daresay.” Ruthveyn calmly poured a fresh cup of tea. “But I think it’s time the two got to know one another, don’t you?”
Lazonby shrugged and strolled from the dining room.
Ruthveyn snapped his copy of the Chronicle back open and laid it flat upon the table. The cause of his nascent headache—the morning headline—still stared back up at him, taunting and ominous: No Arrest in Belgrave Square Murder.
The article painted an ugly picture of Belgravia’s rich up in arms and the Metropolitan Police as dawdling and disinterested. It was not the sort of criticism that Sir George Grey, the Home Secretary, would long be able to tolerate politically. More articles like this, and there would be demands for an arrest from the highest levels in the land. And Ruthveyn could not but wonder if he had Jack Coldwater to thank for yet another piece of journalistic butchery.
On that thought, he got up and tossed the paper in the rubbish bin, then rammed it home with his foot.
Her coffee nearly finished, Grace was alone in the dining room when Lord Lucan Forsythe came in, attired in a dashing striped waistcoat, his mop of gold curls perfectly styled—just the sort of curls, thought Grace sourly, that enterprising young misses dreamt of running their hands through.
His gait hitched on the threshold. “Mademoiselle Gauthier!” he said, as if she did not, in fact, breakfast every day at seven. “Good morning. Am I to have the pleasure of your company over my coffee and kedgeree?”
“So it seems, Lord Lucan.” Grace looked at him over her cup and inwardly sighed. She was feeling sorry for herself and really not in the mood for company. “You are up bright and early,” she managed to say. “You are preparing, I daresay, for this morning’s nature walk?”
“Yes, yes, the nature walk!”
Lord Lucan flashed a tight smile, then went at once to the sideboard and began to fill a plate. Grace watched a little grudgingly from her chair. The young man looked as much like an angel as his elder brother resembled Satan incarnate, and yet she had the most overwhelming suspicion that Lord Lucan was the one who was up to no good. Then, feeling slightly ashamed, she relented.
So he was up at an early hour. What of it? He had been kind to her—and nothing more than lightly flirtatious, particularly since the fork wounds on the back of his hand had healed. He was also quite good with the boys and spent a great deal of time with them—though Grace had recently discovered the reason for the latter. He was in debt to his sister.
He turned from the sideboard and set down his plate with a heavy thunk. “Mademoiselle, may I warm your coffee?”
“Coffee?” Grace lifted her gaze from his towering heap of food. “Oh. Merci.”
“Sugar?” he asked, tipping the pot.
“Just black, thank you.”
“May I refill your plate?”
“No, but you’re very kind.”
He smiled again, but it looked a little strained round the edges. Grace was certain of it now. He was up to something. Her intuition in such matters was unfailing.
Lord Lucan sat down and fluffed out his napkin. “Have you any special plans for the day?” he politely inquired.
Grace lifted her eyebrows. “Beyond being a governess?” she said lightly. “No, as usual, that will take up the bulk of my day.”
“Oh, dear.” He made a sympathetic face. “It does sound onerous when you put it that way.”
“Then I would advise you, Lord Lucan, never to put yourself in such straits that gainful employment becomes a necessity,” she remarked. “It cuts into one’s social life something frightful.”
He laughed as if she were the cleverest creature in the universe. “My brother will thank you for that advice, mademoiselle,” he said. “And I was wondering, too, about that nature walk?”
“Oui?” Grace felt her smile fade.
“I was wondering,” he said slowly, “if I might prevail upon you to take the boys instead? You see, my chum Frankie—Francis Fitzwater—is in rather a bad way, and a friend asked if I might call upon him, just to see—”
“Frankie Fitzwater,” said an acerbic voice from the doorway, “is a charming, out-and-out rotter. A blighter. A bounder. Even, occasionally, a cad. And if he’s in a bad way, it’s something to do with a horse. Or a horse race. Or a game of cards. If not something worse.”
Grace looked up to see Lady Anisha standing in the door, her arms crossed over her chest.
“Good morning, Nish.” The young man leapt up to draw out her chair. “You are looking lovely this morning.”
“Balderdash, Luc.” Anisha strolled into the room. “And Friday, by the way, is Michaelmas. So if you wish to escape indentured servitude, you may repay your loan in cash rather than blood once you get your allowance. Until then, if you want out of your two hours with the boys, it is I to whom you should be speaking, not Grace.”
Luc hung his head. “Very well,” he said. “I’ll take the lads. I gave you my word as a gentleman, and I shall honor it.”
“Good,” said his sister.
“But Frankie really has been brought low, Nish, I swear it.” Lord Lucan’s eyes took on the cast of a starving Bassett hound. “His mistress threw him off, and he’s been on a three-day binge. Drunk as a lord from Friday until Monday, and now Morrison says they can’t get ’im out of bed. I thought…well, I thought if I asked him to take me down to Tattersall’s this morning to buy those matched grays, it might perk us both up?”
Anisha said no more but merely poured her coffee, filled her plate, and sat down at one end of the table. She took one bite of her kedgeree, then stabbed her fork into it on a curse. “Dash it, Luc, don’t look at me like that! Do you think me the veriest idiot?”
“No, of course not.” Luc hung his head again. “I think you are kind. And compassionate. Like…why, like Mademoiselle Gauthier.”
Anisha flung down her fork. “Oh, the devil!” she said under her breath. “Go on, then. But the next time I hear Frankie Fitzwater’s name, it had better be because his obituary is in the newspaper!”
His pile of food forgotten, Lord Lucan leapt up, kissed his sister soundly, and fled.
Anisha propped her elbow on the table and let her head fall into her hand. “God, I’m such an fool.”
Grace cleared her throat. “I knew he was up to something the minute he came into the room,” she remarked. “I shall be happy to take the boys. It is my job, and the lesson plan was mine, after all.”
Anisha rose and went to one of the deep windows that looked out over the rear gardens. “The truth is,” she said, pulling back the underdrapes with one finger, “this fog is not going to clear for another hour. There is no rush.”
“As you wish,” said Grace. But she had the oddest notion that Lady Anisha was up to something, too. She pushed back her chair as if to go.
“Oh, do not leave just yet,” said Lady Anisha. “Here, have more coffee.”
Grace relented and wondered vaguely if one could drown in coffee. Lady Anisha had been giving her odd, sidelong looks for the last three days, though there was nothing she could possibly know. But it wasn’t nothing that now danced in Anisha’s eyes. It was burning speculation.
But two could play at Anisha’s game.
Anisha set the pot back down. “Isn’t it odd,” she said musingly, “how much time Adrian is spending at home? And how frightfully restless he is? What do you think is going on?”
Grace hesitated before she answered. She wished she did know what was going on. Ruthveyn had been walking wide circles around her all week, and yet so often she could feel the heat of his eyes upon her. And at night, she could still feel the heat of his hands and his mouth as they roamed restlessly over h
er—even the weight of his body bearing down into the softness of his mattress—but these were only memories. Vivid, yes, and kept perilously close to her heart, but Ruthveyn had not invited her to his bed again, and Grace was wretchedly certain that he never would. Absent the haze of euphoria, perhaps she did not seem worth the risk.
“I’m sure I couldn’t speculate about Lord Ruthveyn,” said Grace, “but speaking of odd behavior, I have been meaning to mention something a little peculiar that Teddy did. When he was ill Sunday night, I noticed he had drawn something strange on his arm.”
“Did he?” Anisha had resumed eating her breakfast. “Well, most everything Teddy does is strange. What did he draw? Not parts of the female anatomy, I hope? Because he and I already discussed that.”
Grace had to laugh; it sounded just like Teddy to do such a thing. “No, it was that strange symbol on Lord Ruthveyn’s cravat pin,” she said. “The one with the gold cross? When I asked Teddy about it, he said his grandfather had such a mark.”
For an instant, Lady Anisha blanched. Then, “Oh, that!” she said, making a dismissive gesture with her fork. “It is just a family tradition. A tattoo. Ignore it.”
“A family tradition,” Grace echoed.
“Why?” Anisha cut a strange glance at her. “You have not, by chance, seen one elsewhere, have you? I mean, if you have, perhaps we might discuss it. As the mature, adult ladies we are.”
“I just thought it looked vaguely familiar,” she said quietly. “Do your brothers have them?”
Lady Anisha appraised her carefully across the dining-room table. “Why, I am not perfectly sure,” she finally said. “It is a matter of personal choice, I suppose. What do you think? If you were to hazard a guess, I mean?”
“If I were to hazard a guess,” said Grace slowly, “I would say that Ruthveyn does and that Lord Lucan does not.”
“Hmm,” said Anisha. “Interesting.”
“And if you wish to know,” Grace went on, “whether or not your brother is bedding the help, you should probably just ask him.”
At that, Lady Anisha gasped so hard she inhaled a little coffee and was compelled to hack violently into her napkin. “My, but that is plain speaking, Grace!” she said when she had recovered herself. “But to be honest, I already asked. And as usual, he’ll tell me nothing.”
“Well,” said Grace calmly, “your brother is not a fool. I daresay he can tell the difference between a female who wishes merely to sink her claws into him as opposed to one who simply appreciates him for what he is and hopes to move on with her life. At least, that would be my guess.”
“If you were to hazard a guess,” Anisha added. “You must be quite a good guesser, Grace.”
“Yes, and a good cardplayer, too,” she said. “Unless I make the mistake of playing with Rance Welham—excuse me, Lord Lazonby—which I stopped doing years ago.”
A sly smile curved Anisha’s mouth. “No, and you must on no account play charades with that rogue,” she added. “He is so good, everyone thinks he cheats. In fact, that’s more or less how he got convicted of murder, I believe.”
“I’m sorry,” said Grace. “I do not follow.”
“I believe he was so good, someone decided he was a cheat,” said Anisha. “But since they couldn’t catch him at it, they decided to simply cheat back.”
“You mean Lord Percy Peveril?” said Grace.
Anisha lifted one of her narrow shoulders and took up her coffee cup. “From all accounts, he was an idiot,” she said pensively. “No, it was someone else. Or that would be my guess, were I to hazard one.”
“We are doing a lot of guessing today,” remarked Grace. “What do you think—does Lord Lazonby have one of those marks? And if so, where?”
Anisha lifted her eyebrows at that. “Why, I suspect he does,” she went on. “As to where, I could not say.”
Grace hesitated a moment. “I could,” she said.
Then she got up, shut the door, and told the story of the lieutenant’s wife.
“I was all of twenty-one, mind, and brought up in the army, which is not the most genteel of environments,” she added when Anisha’s eyes nearly popped from her head. “But the lady’s description was most marvelously detailed, and even then, it jogged my memory.”
“Yes?” Anisha was all ears now. “About what?”
“About that symbol,” Grace said. “When she described it, I was quite certain I had seen it somewhere.”
“But that’s not very likely, is it? In North Africa?”
“Well, that depends, I think,” said Grace, “on precisely what it means.”
Lady Anisha pushed back her chair and stood. “And I think that I had best go get ready for our nature walk,” she said. “We may have lots to talk about—regarding nature, I mean.”
But at the last instant, Grace caught her arm. “Teddy told me something else, too,” she said quietly. “He told me that the servants believe Lord Ruthveyn can look into a person’s eyes and tell him the time of his death.”
All the color drained from Anisha’s face, and a stillness fell across the room. “Good Lord,” she finally whispered. “We have not been here above six months. They are quick with their black tales, are they not?”
“Servants will talk,” said Grace consolingly, “but Teddy seemed more amused than anything else. As to me, I do not mean to make trouble for anyone. Certainly I shan’t spread gossip—well, save for the tale about Rance’s arse.”
“That was a good one,” Anisha admitted, grinning.
“Too good, really, not to share.” Grace grinned back. “But as to your brother, Anisha, please know that I mean him no harm. Indeed, I owe him more than I can ever repay. But I do worry about him. And if ever there was…anything that I might do—or not do—that you think would benefit him, I hope you will let me know? And then I could…well, not do those things.”
“Or not,” said Lady Anisha. “Not not do them, I mean. Because my brother knows his own mind, Grace.”
“Lovely.” Grace smiled, and drew open the door. “It seems we have struck a gentleman’s agreement, then.”
“Is this your idea of a joke, Ruthveyn?” Royden Napier flung a piece of paper onto the breakfast table.
“Not in the least,” said Ruthveyn, waving at an empty chair as he sat back down. “This is my idea of breakfast. Try the kippers. They are very good indeed.”
Across the table, Ned Quartermaine merely stretched out his legs and steepled his long, thin fingers.
“Your gall knows no bounds, does it?” Napier snatched up the paper again. “You have dragged me down here on the pretext of—here, let me see—breaking developments in the Holding case?” He motioned at Quartermaine. “What ‘breaking developments’? As if you are not thought trouble enough down at Number Four already! Have you any notion what Sir George would say to my hobnobbing with a bookmaker and a turfite?”
“The mind boggles, does it not?” said Quartermaine quietly. “Perhaps next time he’s by my club, I shall ask him.”
Napier went rigid, his lips whitening.
“Oh, sit down, for God’s sake,” said Ruthveyn, waving an expansive hand. “We Scots must simply accept, Napier, that half of London is in hock to men like my esteemed associate here.”
“I’m a man of business, Napier,” said Quartermaine, “but I haven’t all day, what with all the gentry waiting to be fleeced and Her Majesty’s laws to subvert. Now, Lord Ruthveyn has somehow persuaded me it would be in my best interest to share some information with you. You may have five minutes of my inordinately valuable time. Do you wish to hear what I have to say? Or shall I hand my information to Sir George myself? And yes, I do occasionally see him.” With that, he extracted yet another fold of paper and laid it on the table.
Napier jerked out a chair and sat down. “I apologize,” he said stiffly. “But Ruthveyn here seems to think the laws of the land are his to subvert as well.”
Ruthveyn merely raised his hand, and a warm plate was brought and se
t down before them. “Do have one,” he suggested. “It will improve your mood.”
Napier simply glowered, but Quartermaine leaned over the plate with interest. “What the devil are they?”
“Makrouts,” said Ruthveyn. “A sort of a fried biscuit stuffed with fruit and dipped in honey. Belkadi had the chef specifically trained to make it—amongst other delicacies.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Quartermaine, whose taste for fine dining was no secret.
But they reached across the table at once, their hands brushing. Ruthveyn’s eyes caught Quartermaine’s just an instant. He felt a blade of light cut close to his temple, then the flash of an image; a passing vignette, like something glimpsed from a carriage window.
He jerked back his hand. “Please, after you.”
Quartermaine took one, turned it this way and that, then bit in, chewing with relish. “Oh, bloody good,” he said, his eyes widening.
“Magnificent, is it not?” said Ruthveyn quietly. “Which reminds me, Quartermaine—do you know what the Berbers do to a man who tries to steal from them?”
“Haven’t a clue,” said Quartermaine, biting into the pastry again.
“They chop off his hand. The one he eats with, generally.”
Quartermaine seemed to choke on the pastry.
“Are you right-handed, Quartermaine?” Ruthveyn murmured. “Ah, yes, I feared as much. I advise you to rethink your strategy.”
Quartermaine got the food down at last. “And what is it, precisely, you think I’m scheming to steal?” he demanded.
“Belkadi’s chef,” said Ruthveyn. “He will take it very ill. I suggest you stop meeting with the man and put an advertisement in the Times.”
For a moment, Quartermaine looked vaguely apoplectic. He set down the rest of his pastry and shoved the note at Royden Napier. “I’m wanted across the street,” he said. “This is what you need. Send word if you have questions.”
Napier opened it and let his eyes run down its length. “Lists? Of what?”
“Josiah Crane’s unsecured gaming debts,” snapped Quartermaine. “With the name of the establishment or individual, the date of indebtedness, and whether or not they have been repaid. You will see, alas for Mr. Crane, that the vast majority are outstanding.”