The Marriage Masquerade

by Cheryl Anne Porter

  “Did you do anything about your suspicions? Confront your cousin? Hire an investigator?”

  “When I first came home and found out about Geoff’s debts, I had a scene with Roderick where he denied being involved beyond the gambling. Still, I had my solicitor have someone discreetly look into the circumstances surrounding my brother’s death, but nothing came out of it. No proof, at least. I admit I let it go, or at least kept it in the family, wanting to spare my mother and her sister.”

  “I see. So there was nothing as obvious as—forgive me, I don’t mean to be insensitive—gunshot wounds or a knife?”

  Sam shook his head no. “Nothing like that.”

  Yancey worried her lower lip with her teeth. “Hmm. Who discovered that Geoffrey was dead?”

  “Actually, Mrs. Edgars, the housekeeper.”

  Yancey winced. “Lovely woman. But what was she doing in his rooms?”

  “Checking the maids’ work, evidently. Only they hadn’t been in yet because he hadn’t awakened. So, poor Mother. Until I could get here, there she was with only her sister, Jane, the dowager Duchess of Glenmore. And that bastard Roderick.”

  “You really don’t like him.”

  “I never have. But it goes deeper than simply not liking him. He’s cruel. Like a badger. Even as a child he was sly and underhanded. Always cheated at games. And tattled on Geoff and me. He even tormented poor Scotty.”

  “My. A most unlikable man.”

  “Exactly. And as I said earlier, he’s very much involved in court intrigues and the seamier social swirl of London. And the bastard had involved Geoffrey in his dealings, too. Corrupted him, he did.”

  “Certainly Roderick sounds jaded and unscrupulous, but, Sam, what would he stand to gain from your brother’s death? What does … I’m sorry, did your brother have that Roderick might want? The answer to that is your clue.”

  Sam eyed her. “I don’t suppose I can say. Roderick has his own title and lands and wealth. But he’s always been jealous of my brother and me. He says everything came so easily for us and so hard for him. When we were young, his own mother would throw our accomplishments in his face.” Sam stopped talking and frowned. “Poor bastard. I can almost feel sorry for him when putting it like that.”

  “He does seem pitiable.”

  “Well, if he was, he certainly outgrew it. Or grew into it, perhaps. He went on to become a nasty, vile man.”

  “Well, jealousy is certainly enough of a motive for some people to kill. No wonder you don’t wish him to know your private affairs. Is Roderick married?”

  Sam made a scoffing sound. “No. No self-respecting mother would consider him for her daughter. And that’s despite his being a duke. He’s simply not welcome in the finer homes. It’s that cruel streak of his, coupled with his well-known gambling and indiscretions of the bedroom. That sort of thing has cachet in some circles, but not in genteel drawing rooms or salons.”

  “No doubt. How old a man is he? I ask because from what you say it sounds as if he were a playmate.”

  Sam quirked his mouth. “Not by choice but by blood. But to answer your question, he’s thirty-five.”

  “Interesting. For some reason, I supposed him to be older. As if one must have many years behind one to be so accomplished at treachery. However, my many cases have proven otherwise.”

  “You sound very much the world-weary and seasoned detective. How many years do you have behind you?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “A mere child. And never married?”

  “No. Well, yes—to you, actually, and for the several months before we ever met.”

  He looked askance at her. “I fear I’m going to hate myself for asking, but will you clarify that for me, please?”

  “Certainly. Your mother thought I was your wife and wrote telling me that you were in trouble and needed my help.”

  Sam’s expression soured. “Why would she think I needed my wife’s help?”

  “She didn’t say in her letters. Perhaps with one son gone, she simply wanted her remaining son’s wife to be here with him and her.”

  Sam’s expression hardened. “That wasn’t possible.”

  And here was another, very interesting piece of the puzzle. “Again, may I ask why?”

  Sam looked away from her before answering. “All right. Because we were … estranged, at best.”

  “I see. Estranged.” Yancey was embarrassed for him and what had to be a painful admission. She watched Sam another moment before trying for his attention. “Sam?” He swung his gaze to her. “Is that, the estrangement, why no one here, with the exception of you, of course, knows that I’m not your wife?”

  “Yes. Like you, Sarah is American. We met and married in America and lived there. And separated there.”

  Yancey nodded. “And your mother knew of this estrangement?”

  “Of course. Now you tell me why my mother would think you are my wife.”

  “For two reasons. I have the same name, and I live in Chicago.”

  Sam shook his head wonderingly, roving his gaze over her face. “An amazing coincidence.”

  “I thought so, too. Now, from this point on I’m only guessing, but I have a theory based on many years of experience in matters such as this one.”

  “Guessing about what?”

  “Your mother. My guess is, for whatever reasons she has, she hired an investigator to find your wife. Not a very good detective, evidently, since he concluded I was your wife and reported my address to her. Obviously, she had him send his reports to her sister’s and not here since she didn’t want you to know of her activities. We know that much since Roderick told you she received a letter there.”

  “Go on.” Sam considered her with deepening gray eyes.

  Yancey’s next thought had her mouth opening in surprise. “But wait, I’ve just thought of something else. The address she gave me to answer her—and how I knew to come here—was this one. Why would she do that if she didn’t want you to know what she was doing?”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “She probably hadn’t thought it through that far.”

  “This is very frustrating. Why don’t we just wake her up and ask her?”

  Sam’s expression was one of mock horror. “No. You don’t know my mother, Yancey, but she is … dramatic. Easily overwrought. You’d have better luck right now getting answers from Mr. Marples the dog than you would her. I love her dearly, but I would rather be dragged behind horses than confront her with anything when she’s got herself into such a state as she was this morning. It could go on for days. It’s best to allow her to rest for now.”

  “Oh. I see. Well, perhaps you could look at her letters to me and see if you can discern any meaning in them that may have been lost on me.”

  “I would love to do just that, Yancey,” he drawled meaningfully, “except you said you don’t have them.”

  Caught. Yancey picked at a crumb on the table. “Oh. That.” Then she smiled brilliantly at him. “Well, that I lied about. I do have them.”

  He remained unamused. “You lied. How, then, am I supposed to believe you now when you say you are a Pinkerton come here to rescue us all?”

  “Because I do have the letters from your mother. They are addressed to me in Chicago. And if you need further proof of my employment, I have a letter I wrote yesterday to Mr. Pinkerton, one I tried unsuccessfully to mail since someone wouldn’t allow me to go into town unaccompanied. Now, why would I do that if I didn’t work for him?” Sam said nothing. Yancey exhaled her irritation. “I repeat … would you like to see the letters, Sam?”

  “Yes. I believe I would.” He tossed his napkin onto the remains of his breakfast and stood up, signaling for her to precede him. “After you.”

  “As you wish.” Yancey stood and, swishing her skirt out of her way with a practiced gesture, escorted the duke toward her rooms. As they passed through his bedroom again and into the dressing room, she commented, “I can certainly complain convincingly to your cousin—
strictly from a wife’s point of view, of course—that you are a messy person.”

  Behind her, he grunted what was no doubt a comment of her opinion. “That’s what servants are for. If I wished to clean up after myself, they would have no employment.”

  Still walking, Yancey threw her response to him over her shoulder. “I knew you’d say that about the servants. Tell me, did you have servants when you were in America?”

  “No. I did for myself.”

  “Not very well, though, I take it?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Sam could not believe her. Here he was trailing after her through her … yes, very neat … side of the shared dressing room and into her bedroom. And she was insulting him. “I’ll have you know that I did very well in America without servants. I had no problems,” he finally responded to her question.

  She whirled around. “No problems? Let me count them out for you. You tell me your brother died under suspicious circumstances.” She ticked his life off on her fingers. “You left your estranged wife in America. Your mother writes frantic letters to her—or me—begging me—her—to come here and help, but she doesn’t say why. Then, when I get here, you don’t disavow anyone of the notion that I am not in truth your American wife. And now you want me to masquerade as your wife to fool your family. I still don’t know why. And you have Roderick whom you obviously suspect of some foul deed or the capability to commit one. And you say you have no problems?”

  About halfway through her tirade, Sam’s growing impatience had tightened his jaw. He worked it now, feeling a muscle there jump. “What I said was I didn’t have any problems with neatness while in America. But allow me to ask some questions of you.”

  Petite, fiery, she gestured widely, her green eyes guileless, her dark auburn hair framing her lovely face. “Ask away. I have nothing to hide.”

  “We’ll see about that.” Sam steeled himself against his intense attraction to her because he had only a matter of hours to get everything in place before they faced Roderick, as well as his unsuspecting mother, that poor, dear woman, who would awaken to find that her daughter-in-law, whom she believed dead, had been miraculously resurrected and plopped down in England.

  Just as Sam opened his mouth to ask his questions, he heard behind him, back in his rooms, a rustling around and dishes clattering. The staff clearing away the breakfast? Damned quick and efficient—and inconvenient—of them. “Bloody hell. I’ll not suffer interruptions.”

  “Where are you going?” Yancey called out to his back.

  “Nowhere.” He strode over to the door to the dressing room, encountered the surprised Mrs. Edgars across the way as she entered his bedroom. “Mrs. Edgars, what are you doing in here?”

  She curtsied. “I thought I heard something, Your Grace.”

  “Indeed? Like what?”

  She folded her hands together in front of her. “I’m sure it was nothing.”

  Sam suffered the unsettling feeling that she’d perhaps been listening outside the door in the hallway. He certainly hoped not, given his and Yancey’s revealing conversation. But then he dismissed his disquiet. Mrs. Edgars was merely doing her job, and today he was suspicious of everyone, it seemed. “Well, carry on, then. Have this breakfast cleared away.”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Sam nodded to her, and then closed the door forcefully, making a point that he’d best not be bothered in his wife’s chambers. He marched over to Yancey, grabbed her arm and, ignoring her widened eyes and outraged sputtering protests, hurried her to her sitting room on the other side of her bedroom, where he also closed that door behind them. Still with her in tow, he took them to the windows where he finally released her and threw open the heavy drapes to light the dim interior of the room.

  Standing in profile to the long window, he turned to his guest, whom he needed most desperately to play the part of his very-much-alive wife. “And now, Miss Pinkerton Agent, you’re going to answer my questions.” He crossed his arms over his chest and, bending a knee, shifted his weight to one leg.

  Facing him, barely one-third his size, she mimicked his pose, right down to crossing her arms. “Ready when you are, sir.”

  “Fine. Earlier you said that my mother had written you letters, meaning more than one was sent to you. My question is, why did you allow her to go on thinking she was corresponding with my wife?”

  “There was no correspondence in the strictest sense of the word. Meaning I didn’t answer her letters.”

  “Not even to tell her she had the wrong woman?”

  “No. My work keeps me out in the field for weeks on end. So my mail is held by my landlady until I can retrieve it. By the time I got around to reading it all, your mother had written me four letters, starting last November.”

  This surprised him. “Why, I’d been here as long as four months before she sent the first one—”

  “Four months?” Frowning, Yancey began counting on her fingers.

  “What are you doing? Did I say something significant?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. So you left Chicago last July?”

  “Yes. Almost a year ago. Why?”

  She smiled up at him. “I’m so glad you told me that.”

  “Glad? Why? What in the world did my mother say in her letters?”

  “You may read them, if you like. But they all say the same thing, really. That she was very concerned about you and wanted your Sarah to come to England. She wrote that you desperately needed her help. But she didn’t say why you did.”

  Agitation seized Sam. He ran a hand over his jaw and planted his other hand at his waist. He looked away from Yancey and stared out the window. Then he heard himself speaking his thoughts aloud. “This is all so very strange. I must ask her first thing when she awakens.”

  “I’m sure she meant well, Sam. From the tone of her letters, I believe her heart was in the right place.”

  Sam turned to look at Yancey and was struck by her petite size and by the absolute fragility of her. Coupling that with her exquisite beauty and coloring, he could only compare her to the porcelain dolls little girls played with. “What am I doing drawing you into this intrigue, Yancey? You’re a stranger. An innocent in all this. I can’t involve you further and shouldn’t have in the first place.”

  Yancey knitted her brow into a show of surprise. “I’m afraid it’s not your decision. I involved myself by coming here to Stonebridge.”

  Sam hated that answer. “And I can end your charade right now by sending you away.”

  She struck a defiant pose, her hands planted at her narrow waist. “Are you speaking now as the imperious duke who owns everything and who can order me off the place? Because if you are, I’d best remind you that while you say you don’t need your wife’s help, you do say you need mine to help you fool everyone into thinking I’m her. And I still don’t know why. Not really.”

  “It’s not a simple thing to talk about, Yancey. In fact, it’s very painful.”

  She dropped her pose and looked uncertain. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  “No need to be. Instead, tell me why you came here, knowing my mother had the wrong person.”

  “Because about the time the first of your mother’s letters arrived, my cases—all of them undercover—began to go sour. Then someone exposed my identity. Remember the whorehouse?”

  His very droll reply was, “I shall never forget it.”

  “No doubt. In that incident, my identity was exposed to the lady of the night, who would surely talk, thus making me vulnerable. And that can be certain death in my line of work since I unavoidably make so many enemies among the criminal element. Mr. Pinkerton thought I should journey here to see if there was a connection.”

  Despite himself, Sam found himself intrigued. “Well, it does make a certain amount of lopsided sense, I suppose, given that your name is the same as my wife’s. Do you think, now that you’re here, that the events are connected?”

  She shrugged. “Too soon to tell. But given your
concerns with Roderick and your suspicions regarding your brother’s death, and the fact that the people involved—I include your mother, however innocent her involvement may be—seem to be coming right here to us all at once, I have to admit that I am intrigued.” She laughed. “I’ve never had a case like this one where I’ve not even had to leave the house to investigate it or to solve it, where the suspects arrive on the doorstep, as it were.”

  “Indeed.” Sam ran a thumb over his bottom lip and stared at Yancey’s beautiful face. “Tell me, why did you present yourself as the duchess when you arrived here? Why not the truth?”

  She exhaled. “When I was on your doorstep, it became apparent to me that the truth was not as expedient as a quick lie.”

  “How so? I don’t follow you.”

  “I know. Allow me to explain. Think about you and me and our intellects, Sam, and how difficult all this is to sort out between us. Also think about how much explaining we’re having to do to each other.” She paused as if to allow time for those points to sink in with him. “And now remember that Scotty answers your door.”

  Sam frowned. “What does he—?”

  “A kind soul, Sam, but not a towering intellect. Now add to that a driving rain when I arrived.”

  “I remember. So, a complicated story, Scotty, and a driving rain. With you so far.”

  “Good. He didn’t want to let me inside.”

  Understanding finally dawned. “Ah. Of course. So you said the only thing that would cut through his thickness. You said you were the duchess.”

  “Exactly. Sam, where did you get him?”

  “I didn’t. Nana did. It was right after my father died. She simply appeared one day with this big, big boy of about eight years of age and said his name was Scotty and that she was keeping him. That’s all anyone knows.”

  “You never questioned her further? Or Scotty, either?”

  Sam raised his eyebrows. “You’re free to try your expert hand at it with either one of them.”