The Secret History of the Pink Carnation pc-1

by Lauren Willig

  “Mrs. Selwick-Alderly said I could look at these papers for my dissertation research,” I tried to reassure him.

  He continued to eye me as though I were a Victorian scullery maid caught parading around in the mistress’s best diamond tiara.

  “I’m getting a PhD,” I added. “From Harvard.”

  Why had I felt the need to say that? I sounded like one of those intolerable academic types who wore leather patches on their tweed jackets, affected horn-rimmed spectacles, and pronounced “Hahvahd” without any Rs.

  Golden Man clearly thought so, too. “I don’t care if you’re David bloody Starkey,” he snapped. “Those papers aren’t open to the public.”

  Forget golden. He was being rapidly demoted to bronze. Tarnished bronze, at that.

  “I’m not the public,” I pointed out as Chic Girl slipped unobtrusively back through the open doorway. “Your aunt invited me here, and offered me the use of these papers.”

  “Damn!” he cursed explosively.

  “Really, Colin,” she of the enviable boots broke in, “I don’t think—”

  “Colin?” I took a step forward, eyes narrowing as a nasty suspicion began to form. “Not Mr. Colin Selwick of Selwick Hall?”

  Suddenly, it all made sense.

  I dropped the disputed bundle of papers on an overstuffed chair. “Not Mr. Colin Selwick who likes to send nasty letters to American scholars?”

  “I wouldn’t say—” he began, looking harried, but I didn’t let him get any further. After all, if I was going to be flung out of the house like a disobedient Victorian scullery maid, I might as well go out with style.

  “ ‘Badgering private persons with impertinent requests for personal papers may be appropriate on your side of the Atlantic’?” I quoted triumphantly.

  Chic Girl looked horrified. “Colin, you didn’t!”

  I began to think I could forgive her the boots. “Oh, yes, he did.”

  “I was having a bad day,” Colin Selwick muttered, shifting uncomfortably on the wooden chest. I hoped he was sitting on a splinter. Make that several splinters. “Look, you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the—”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” I said sweetly. “You were quite, quite clear, Mr. Selwick. Oh, wait, wasn’t there also something about academics who have nothing better to do than waste taxpayer money on dilatory pursuits that are about as much good to the public as a moldy ham sandwich?”

  “I never—”

  “I just added the moldy ham sandwich bit,” I clarified for Chic Girl’s benefit, “since I’m afraid I don’t remember just which thrilling analogy Mr. Selwick employed to describe my utter uselessness to human existence.”

  “Do you always memorize your correspondence?” he demanded in exasperation, pushing off from the trunk.

  “Only when it’s as memorable as this one was. You have quite a knack with the poison pen.”

  “And you have quite an overwrought imagination.” With two long strides, he bridged the swath of carpet separating us.

  “Are you saying I’m making this up?” I yelped.

  Colin Selwick shrugged. “I’m saying you’re exaggerating wildly.”

  “Right. I’m sure your behaving like a boorish lout just now was all a product of my hyperactive imagination, too.” I had to tilt my head back to glower at him.

  From my vantage point just beneath his chin, I could see the muscles of his throat constrict. Swallowing some choice Anglo-Saxon words, no doubt.

  “Look,” he said in strangled tones, “how would you feel if you saw a perfect stranger pawing through your private possessions?”

  “This isn’t exactly your underwear drawer. And as far as I can tell, these papers aren’t even yours.”

  Mr. Colin Selwick didn’t like that. Underneath his sportsman’s tan, his face was turning a mottled red. “They belong to my family.”

  A slow smile spread across my face. “You don’t have any authority over these documents, do you?”

  “Those. Papers. Are. Private.”

  I’d never actually seen anyone speak through gritted teeth before. No wonder English dentistry was in such a dreadful state.

  “Why?” I demanded recklessly. “What is it that you don’t want me seeing? What are you so afraid of?”

  “Colin . . .” Chic Girl tugged anxiously at his arm. We both ignored her.

  “Did the Purple Gentian sell out to the French? Have a thing for women’s underwear? Or maybe it’s the Pink Carnation you don’t want me finding out about? Ha!” An involuntary twitch—perhaps a repressed attempt to strangle me?—gave me the clue I was looking for.

  I shoved my hair back behind my ears and leaned forward for the kill, never taking my eyes from his. “I’ve got it! The Pink Carnation was . . . French!”

  At that inconvenient moment, Mrs. Selwick-Alderly hurried in, dressed for going out in black and pearls. We all froze like naughty schoolchildren caught brawling in the playground.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, dears! Colin, I see you’ve met Eloise?”

  That was one way of putting it.

  Colin mumbled something in the general direction of the carpet.

  Draping a cashmere stole around her shoulders, Mrs. Selwick-Alderly added, “Eloise is working on a fascinating project about the Pink Carnation. You must tell Colin about it sometime, Eloise. The Pink Carnation has always been something of a passion of his.”

  “So I gathered.” My tone was as dry as well-aged sherry.

  Colin sent me a sharp look.

  I permitted myself a slight, sardonic smirk.

  Colin returned the smirk with interest. “Too bad she has to be going.”

  Going. My smirk disintegrated faster than the embers of the fading fire. He who smirks last . . . There was no denying that Colin Selwick had won that round. Of course, I should have realized that if Mrs. Selwick-Alderly was going out, I would have to go home, home to my lonely basement flat, and my frozen Sainsbury’s dinner, and the All-England televised darts championship. And if Colin Selwick had his way, I would never be invited back.

  What time was it? Late, said the midnight-dark sky beyond the cream-colored drapes. At a guess, it was dinnertime at least, probably later. I cast an agonized glance at the half-read papers on the chair—not only was I no closer to the identity of the Pink Carnation, but I was dying to know if Lord Richard ever did kiss Miss Amy Balcourt. Did he tiptoe over to her side of the boat in the dead of night, stand on his tiptoes . . . and smooch Miss Gwen by accident? It was like being torn away midway through an episode of The Bachelor.

  But Mrs. Selwick-Alderly, stole around her shoulders, was clearly ready to leave.

  “I’m so sorry.” I turned penitently to Mrs. Selwick-Alderly. “I probably should have left ages ago, but I was so wrapped up in Amy’s letters that I lost all track of time. I can’t thank you enough for your kindness and hospitality.”

  “We wouldn’t want you to be late for an engagement,” Colin Selwick broke in impatiently.

  “That would only be a problem if I were going somewhere.”

  “In that case . . . ,” Mrs. Selwick-Alderly began.

  “Well, we are,” Colin said rudely. “Good-bye.”

  “In that case,” Mrs. Selwick-Alderly repeated, with a look of gentle reproach for her erring nephew. “There’s no reason you can’t stay.”

  It was like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny all rolled into one. “Do you really mean it? Are you sure it wouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience?”

  “No reason?”

  “It’s not an inconvenience at all. Serena, would you show Eloise to the spare room before we go? There should be some old nightgowns in the wardrobe.”

  Colin made a low, grumbling noise. “Aunt Arabella, are you sure this is wise?”

  She met his agitated gaze serenely. “You know the contents of that chest.”

  “But the Pink—”

  Her head swayed infinitesimally in negation. “The one doesn�
�t necessarily lead to the other, you know,” and in her voice was both reassurance and warning.

  She slipped quickly back into the prosaic. “Now, Eloise, the bathroom is the third door to the right, and you’ll find the kitchen straight back and to the left. Please don’t hesitate to help yourself to anything in the cupboards. And don’t worry about the washing up; Consuela will be here in the morning to take care of that. Is there anything I’ve forgotten?”

  Colin mumbled something. It sounded like, “Common sense.”

  Mrs. Selwick-Alderly ignored him. So did I.

  “I’ll take very good care of the papers,” I promised, eyes shifting to the treasure chest in the corner. All those lovely letters to read . . .

  “Be sure that you do,” Colin Selwick said shortly. “Aunt Arabella?”

  He did a very good job of stalking from the room, back straight, head high. But he spoiled it with a backwards glance over his shoulder. His face was rigid with frustrated anger, and I could tell that he wanted nothing more than to sling me over his shoulder and fling me out the nearest doorway. Or window. He didn’t look like he was in the mood to be picky about the means of egress.

  I wish I could say that I met his gaze with level dignity. I didn’t.

  I grinned—an honest-to-goodness, gum-baring, playground grin.

  Turning on his heel, Mr. Colin Selwick slammed out of the room. A moment later I heard the front door close—not quite emphatically enough to be a slam, but with enough wrist behind it to imply that somebody was more than a little bit miffed.

  Still grinning, I sank back down onto the Persian rug. Round two to Eloise. It might not be dignified, but, oh, it did feel good to see Mr. Colin Selwick seething and helpless. Leaving aside his unpardonable rudeness to a guest, I’d been longing for revenge ever since I’d opened that insufferable letter of his. Did I mention that the envelope gave me a paper cut? Just to add injury to insult.

  What on earth was his obsession with family privacy, anyway? I wondered, as I stretched out an arm to snag the papers I’d dropped on the armchair. You’d think he’d caught me reading his diary.

  It was curious that he had felt the need to curb his temper in front of his aunt. Maybe he stood to inherit from her and was afraid of incurring her ire? It was a classic television drama plot: elderly, eccentric relative, bad-tempered young heir. That could put a whole new complexion on Mr. Colin Selwick’s explosive reaction to me. Maybe it wasn’t really about the Pink Carnation papers at all. Perhaps his real fear was that I’d worm my way into his aunt’s good graces through my interest in the family history and oust him from his inheritance.

  It was an amusing image. I pictured myself in a smartly cut black dress and a 1920s hat with spotted veil, perched on a little gilt chair while a gray-faced solicitor droned, “And the bulk of my estate I leave to Miss Eloise Kelly.” Colin Selwick, in spats and slouch hat, would curse loudly and storm from the room, his hopes forever thwarted. That would teach him to write rude letters. An amusing image, but Colin Selwick would have to be more than a little bit mad to see a potential rival in every little American grad student who wandered into his aunt’s flat. And the inheritance theory failed to explain the intolerable rudeness of his letter to me well before he had seen me cozily ensconced in his aunt’s parlor.

  Not that it mattered. Mr. Colin Selwick’s psychoses—and I was sure a good psychiatrist could diagnose him with quite a few—were his own concern. In the meantime, I had the trunk of papers all to myself, and a whole night to read them in. Why waste time speculating about insufferable modern men when one could read about swashbucklers in capes and knee breeches?

  Even if, from Amy’s letters, it appeared that Lord Richard Selwick was quite as infuriating as his obnoxious descendant.

  At least Lord Richard had a good excuse, I decided charitably. Hiding a secret identity must put a considerable strain on a man.

  Setting the precious bundle of papers down next to me, I tugged off my gangrenous boots, tucked my feet up under me, and leaned my back against the side of the armchair. Ruffling through the documents in my hands, I selected one from Lord Richard Selwick to his friend Miles Dorrington and resumed reading.

  I would give Lord Richard a chance to prove himself more congenial than his aggravating descendant. . . .

  Chapter Nine

  Edouard’s carriage wasn’t there.

  Amy looked out over the street for the fifth time in as many minutes. There was still no sign of a carriage bearing the Balcourt crest. The dock at Calais lacked the bustle and flurry Miss Gwen had frowned over at Dover. In the weak, early morning light, the wharf was almost eerily deserted. Only one carriage had braved the dawn chill, a battered black carriage with a broken sidelamp, and starbursts of mud along its sides. When they had wobbled off the ship an hour before in predawn dark, Amy had seen the bulk of a carriage, and assumed it must be Edouard’s. The coachman’s striding past them and making straight for the cargo in the hold had dispelled that happy notion. With little else to do, Amy tugged her shawl tighter and watched idly as three men in rough work clothes trotted up and down the gangplank, heaving assorted boxes and bundles into the carriage. Surely Edouard would arrive soon?

  Amy started at the sound of hooves racketing against cobblestones. Four black horses trotted into view, followed by a sleek black carriage. The coachman rose on his box and gave an unservile halloo in a decidedly English voice. He was answered by the all too familiar tones of Lord Richard Selwick. It was utterly unfair, thought Amy, that a man as devoid of honor as Lord Richard should have his coach arrive on time while theirs was nowhere in sight. Where was the justice in that? Shouldn’t he be at the top of the list for divine retribution for his perfidy? Oh well, there was yet time for justice to be served. Maybe his carriage wheel would fall off and leave him stranded in a ditch.

  “Hullo, Robbins!” Richard left his perch atop a pile of trunks and strode over to his carriage. “Have a nice drive?”

  “As nice as can be had on them damned French roads, milord—begging your pardon, ladies,” the coachman hastily added, as Miss Gwen’s loud sniff of reproach alerted him to the presence of three rather disheveled female persons on the wharf. “All pits and potholes, they are,” he earnestly explained to Miss Gwen.

  Miss Gwen sniffed again.

  Feeling that he’d done the best he could to atone for his profanity, Robbins shrugged and turned his back on the old harpy with the strange hat. “When do I get to drive on good English roads again, milord?”

  “When Bonaparte donates his collection of antiquities to the British Museum,” Richard said dryly. The words came out by rote; he and Robbins had been through the same routine several times before. Richard’s attention had shifted to the tousled collection of females huddling on the windy wharf.

  The second he looked at Amy, she scowled violently.

  It would have been quite an effective scowl if the wind hadn’t blown her curls into her face. Richard couldn’t help grinning as he watched Amy paw clumps of hair out of her mouth. She looked like a bedraggled kitten dealing with fur balls.

  He, of course, didn’t feel one way or the other about the girl. Well, all right, he did feel quite an uncomfortable tightening in certain parts of his breeches when the wind flattened her skirts against her legs, just as it was doing now, outlining her—Richard let out his breath in a rush. It was best not to think about what the wind was outlining. At any rate, aside from lust—which, he quickly reminded himself, was a physical reaction, which could have been brought on by any other female with kissable Cupid’s-bow lips and intriguing curves outlined by fine yellow muslin—he felt nothing for her. She was just a chance acquaintance, and if she happened to dislike him, that was her own affair. He scarcely knew her.

  He did, however, know Edouard de Balcourt. Balcourt would think nothing of leaving his female relations stranded in Calais for a week, if sending the carriage to pick them up didn’t suit his own schedule. Richard could easily imagine Balcourt bein
g distracted by a fitting for the latest style of breeches and completely forgetting to send the carriage at all. He didn’t like to think of three gently bred young ladies being stranded by the wharf. Certainly, there were inns in Calais, but they catered to a very different sort of clientele. No doubt there was at least one respectable establishment, but docks, as Richard knew far too well from his peregrinations back and forth across the Channel, tended to attract the most unsavory sort of riffraff. With that deadly parasol of hers, Miss Gwen made a formidable guard—whoever picked her to look after Amy and Jane had known what they were about—but, even so . . . Richard imagined Henrietta stranded for a week in Calais and his lips tightened grimly. There was nothing for it but to take the women back to Paris with him.

  Amy caught Richard’s eye, flushed, and quickly looked away again. “Insufferable man!” she muttered.

  “Amy, I really wish you would tell me what happened between you and Lord Richard.”

  “Shhhh! He’s coming this way!”

  Casually swinging his hat in one hand, Lord Richard strolled towards them . . . and past them, bowing to Miss Gwen.

  “Madam, your carriage seems to have been . . . delayed. May I be so bold as to offer the use of mine?”

  Oh no, thought Amy. Oh no, no, no.

  Amy drew herself to her full five feet and three inches and set her chin. “That really won’t be necessary! I’m sure Edouard’s coach will arrive any minute now, don’t you think? There are dozens of reasons why it might have been delayed. Broken wheels or bandits or . . .” Amy’s voice petered out. Miss Gwen and Lord Richard, on either side, were looking down at her with frighteningly similar expressions of polite incredulity. “Well, I’m sure there must be bandits, and a broken wheel could happen to anyone!”

  “Indeed.” Lord Richard positively exuded skepticism in a highly unpleasant way.

  Richard felt highly unpleasant. Here he was, trying to do something nice for the girl, dash it all, despite all of the extremely rude things she had said to him the night before, and she was treating him as though he had offered to convey her to a leper colony! She could at least attempt to be civil in return. For heaven’s sake, it wasn’t as though he had murdered her parents.