Tears appeared in the woman’s eyes. Jocelyn had seen Antoinette produce tears at will, twisting stupid Harold and any man in her company to her pleas. She was not impressed when Tony began patting the corner of her eye. In fact, she was fairly certain the lace-edged, monogrammed handkerchief Tony wielded had once belonged to Jocelyn’s mother. Her brother and his wife must be deep in debt, indeed, if they could not afford new linen.
“I have tried so very hard to be the good Englishwoman,” Antoinette wept. “But the English are so . . . how you say? Bigoted? The ladies will not accept me. I have only the birdies for company. If you would see fit to forgive me, perhaps we can help each other.”
The act almost had Jocelyn convinced she had treated Antoinette harshly—until Blake arrived, looking rumpled and annoyed and covered in dust. He waited patiently for an explanation, jarring Jocelyn back to reality.
“Lady Carrington, may I introduce my husband, Blake Montague? Blake, my sister-in-law. I believe she was just leaving.”
Antoinette patted her teary eye and peered up at him from beneath her bonnet. “You would not deprive a poor lady from seeing her pets, would you?”
Blake shot Jocelyn an inscrutable scowl, caught Tony’s elbow, and steered her toward the door. “The pig and roosters are in the yard, my lady. I will be happy to let you pet them. You might take them with you, if you prefer.”
Jocelyn nearly choked on laughter at the dismay in Antoinette’s expression. She did not know what her brother’s wife meant to steal, but a pig was apparently not on the agenda.
After Tony had left in a huff, Blake returned to his carriage house office to work on the one coded message he possessed. He spun his homemade wheel to note the next combination of letters. Twenty-six letters and nine numerals had an almost infinite number of combinations.
Just as he was thinking he would perish of hunger and ought to see if supper was far off, Jocelyn poked her head through the trap door in the floor. “Thank you for removing Antoinette.”
Trying to avoid further distraction, he noted the sequence of numbers and turned the next wheel. “It was my pleasure. Is she demented?”
“No more so than the rest of us. Did she have more to say after you dragged her out?”
“Only that she would ruin us, and she will have her vengeance,” he repeated, attempting to concentrate on his work while the loft filled with the scent of lavender and his mind conjured images of his bride’s magnificent, naked breasts.
“Hmm,” she murmured, climbing into his apartment and glancing around.
Blake lifted his head at her odd reticence and watched her chew her lovely bottom lip in thought. Something was on her mind. Prurient images fled when faced with real problems. “What did the duke say?” he demanded.
“He didn’t,” she answered. “Lady Bell says he’s at his hunting box in Scotland. Unless you are interested in traveling north to discuss Percy’s price, we are left to deal with Mr. Ogilvie on our own.”
“He’s a twit. It’s Ogilvie’s choice of companions that concerns me. Can you arrange to send Harold and his wife to perdition?”
“Harold? Harold is a twit, too. A good stout stick should take care of him.”
Blake suspected his gentle wife had never had the physical courage or ability to defend herself or Richard. She must have spent nights dreaming of wielding cudgels and swords. He believed she’d mentioned stout sticks in reference to Harold in the past.
She did not putter or natter or do anything more than fill the vast empty space with her beauty. That’s all it took to distract Blake from his work. With a sigh, he set the wheel and his pen down and let himself enjoy his wife’s charms. It wasn’t as if he had a chance in hell of breaking this code without more information than he possessed, and it was obvious she was chewing on a dilemma of her own.
“Have you ever taken a stick to Harold’s hide?” he asked, trying to imagine his delicate wife attacking a stout pig and deciding she was far more likely to damn one with smiles. Jocelyn hated confrontation, he realized. Her small deceits were a manner of self-protection against bullies like her wretched brother.
“Not as I should have,” she said absently, lifting a kitten that had followed her up. Blake wasn’t certain he’d seen this creature before.
“Then you should learn to fight back,” he suggested. “He’ll think he wins otherwise.
She shrugged. “Staying out of the pig’s way is safer.”
“You insult pigs by calling him one. Pigs are quite clever. Cows are stupid.”
She rewarded him with a golden smile. “At last, the country boy emerges! I am not so careful with my nomenclature. Perhaps I should call him Viscount Steer.”
Blake laughed. “That’s vicious if you know what a steer is.”
Her batting lashes and false smile told him she was perfectly aware that a steer was a neutered bull.
But she had not come here to discuss Harold’s beastliness. “What else does Lady Bell have to say?”
“That Harold is spreading rumors that he has loaned Carrington House to his witless sister and her impoverished husband out of the kindness of his heart, to keep us off the streets. And Mr. Ogilvie is claiming you stole his pet and cheated in a duel. I daresay Antoinette is also offering her fair share of scandal broth.”
“All lies,” Blake said with a shrug. “Why do we care if nodcocks tell lies?”
Jocelyn sighed in exasperation. “Because it becomes exceedingly difficult to obtain important invitations when one’s reputation is being smeared by a viscount and the nephew of a duke,” she stated in a voice that reflected her hurt. “We have not been invited to Lady Jersey’s soiree.”
Harming Jocelyn in any way riled Blake’s anger. “Why in damn... Why would they do that?” he demanded, keeping his voice below a thunder blast so as not to terrify her.
Ogilvie might be childishly spiteful about losing the duke’s favor, but Carrion had no cards in this game. Or did he? What did Jocelyn’s brother have to gain by cutting her off from society? Or from undermining Blake’s reputation?
There hadn’t been any more incidents that had threatened his life. Would Harold think he could get his hands on Jocelyn’s money if her husband went to war? Very likely, since Harold knew her weakness—that her family would always come before money. Perhaps he thought Blake would have no choice but to join the army if London society turned its collective back on him.
Except the peculiarity of a French thief and Jocelyn’s mother mentioning the arrival of Antoinette’s French brother, followed by Lady Carrion’s odd visit, didn’t fit the puzzle.
“Harold does these things to be mean?” Jocelyn suggested, falling far short of his theories. She was not much inclined to suspicion.
Blake rose from his makeshift desk, crossed the room, and took his slender wife into his arms. He rested his chin on her hair and recalled pulling the silken strands through his fingers that morning. Somehow, her softness eased his need to beat up bullies.
“And you have a suggestion that you’re afraid to propose. How can I convince you to trust me?”
Letting the kitten escape, she leaned against his shoulder and shook her head. “You are a man. Men generally do not understand what women must do to get their way, as you call it. Men can pound freely on the doors of all society. Men can shout and argue and beat their enemies with fists. Men can hire lawyers, buy bullies, gather wealth, and use it like a club. Women can only smile and whisper among themselves.”
“Smiling and whispering accomplish a great deal, then,” he said dryly. “We might not be married were it not for smiling and whispering. So what have you and Lady Belden conjured between you?”
“A masquerade,” she murmured into his shoulder, tensing as if expecting his reproof.
“Will there be dancing?” he asked.
She lifted her head then and met his eyes with laughter. “Yes, of course. I would keep you busy while I work my wiles. I have never danced with you. Are you very good?”
“Of c
ourse. Dancing is a matter of patterns and athletic skill.” He bent and claimed the kiss he deserved for suppressing his need to strangle odious bastards.
To hell with decorous masquerades. If Carrington and Ogilvie aimed to harm his beautiful wife with their malicious rumors, they were going to die—or at the very least, wish they were dead.
Familiar drunken laughter filtered through the walls from the gaming room to the quiet smoking room. Nick Atherton curled his lip in distaste. “I say, the quality of this club’s membership is deteriorating. Really, we must find better accommodations.”
Lord Quentin snorted and puffed on his cigar. “You can’t afford better. Who is offending your delicate ear now?”
Nick eyed his companion with disfavor. “Someday, my lord, someone will take down your arrogance a peg. Meanwhile, I intend to determine why Carrion is allowed in my place of leisure.”
“Carrion?” With interest, Quentin imitated Atherton and rose from his comfortable chair. “I assume you mean Carrington? He’s been up to something with our friend Ogilvie for some time now.”
“He has his piggy snout in the air about his sister snaring the estate he lost, I daresay, but I can’t imagine what he thinks he can do about it,” Nick commented.
He ambled into the gaming room and settled in a dark corner, partially hidden by an antique room divider painted with nubile, naked maidens. Pulling a deck of cards from his coat pocket, Nick distributed them on the green baize table. Quent took a chair beside him where he could observe the room better.
But Nick needed only his ears to determine the participants at the table on the back wall.
“My stepmama has wits to let, as do her offspring,” Viscount Carrington claimed. “I control Jocelyn’s inheritance, so it’s not as if that scoundrel Montague can run off with it. I’ve let them use the old place in Chelsea in hopes they’ll stay out of trouble, but I don’t put much hope in it.”
Quent’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but he was smart enough to listen rather than engage. Nick clipped the end of a new cigar and leaned back in his chair. “What does he hope to accomplish?” Nick asked the other man quietly.
“Destroy their social credibility is the obvious. Possibly establish that he has funds with which to wager.” Quent picked up the cards he’d been given while watching the back table. “Carrington isn’t clever enough for much more than the obvious. So if there’s more to his insults, someone else is behind it.”
“They stole the duke’s bird,” Ogilvie was saying petulantly. “His Grace says if I don’t get it back, he’ll cut me off without a shilling. You promised to retrieve it for me.”
“I did not,” Carrington retorted. “I said I’d pay you back as soon as I get my hands on them. My wife wants the blithering things returned. Don’t know what His Grace wants with the noisy creature anyway. I was glad to have them off my hands, but Tony is pouting.”
“Montague meant to shoot the bird,” another player said. “It might be dead by now.”
Nick snorted and studied his cards, but he wasn’t paying attention to the hand he held. The speaker was Viscount Ponsonby, who was connected to every noble family in the ton. Carrington was playing in deep waters.
“Or he could be using it to catch French spies,” another lordling said with a chortle. “Montague has even been bothering Castlereagh with his mad theories.”
Nick scowled, recognizing one of the secretary of state’s minions.
“Ho, your wife is French, Carrington,” Ogilvie shouted drunkenly. “Montague can catch her!”
“That ain’t funny, Bernie. Tony’s brother is offering a reward to get the birds back. You’d better be thinking of a better way to do that than by insulting my wife.”
Nick and Quent exchanged glances. Carrion’s French brother-in-law wanted the birds?
The drunken argument descended into insults. Nick dropped his cards on the table, picked up his snifter of brandy, and rose from his chair. Quent merely sat back and puffed on his cigar, willing to be entertained.
“I say, old chap, did I hear you’re offering a reward for birds?” Nick inquired, swaying drunkenly toward the back table, cigar in one hand, brandy in the other.
Carrington glanced at him in annoyance. “Not just any birds. My wife’s birds.”
Nick frowned as if pondering the deeper meaning of birds. “Your sister has your wife’s birds?”
“My sister is a bird-wit! And her damned husband is poking his nose where he shouldn’t. He’s as nocked in the noggin as the rest of them!”
Nick nodded wisely. “Got sisters like that.” He leaned forward confidingly, getting into the viscount’s face and puffing smoke in his direction. “Get a bailiff,” he whispered, drunkenly tipping his snifter.
Carrington shoved him out of his face. The snifter jerked, slopping golden brandy into the viscount’s lap.
“Oops, sorry about that, old chap,” Nick blustered, pounding his victim on the back as if that would help the alcohol dousing his breeches. “Have a cigar.”
He dropped his smoking tobacco on Carrington’s lap and staggered off, leaving the table of sots screaming as flames immediately licked from the alcohol up the cloth covering the table.
“Doeskin,” Nick murmured in disgust as Quentin caught his elbow and steered him away from the shouts and flames. “Was really hoping for silk.”
“Silk breeches in a club?” Quentin asked, hiding his amusement. “One would think you’ve done this before.”
Nick sighed heavily. “A regrettable regression to youthful failings. Forget you saw that and send a word of warning to Blake.” Nick straightened as they stepped into the chilly autumn evening. “Carrion is a dimwit, but there’s more here than meets the eye when he starts offering a reward from a Frenchman.”
“You know the Frenchman in question?” Quent asked.
“That I don’t know him is the problem,” Nick responded enigmatically.
27
Feeling very mature and responsible after leaving instructions with the servants for the next day’s menu and duties, Jocelyn wandered into the parlor in search of company. Blake had followed her inside after agreeing to the masquerade, and she didn’t think he’d left the house after dinner.
He had slept in her bed last night. Would he do so tonight? More important, would he finally demand his husbandly rights? Did she want him to? Restless, she practiced not thinking about it. There was only so much maturity she could manage in a day. She’d hoped to find her husband alone, but the parlor was oddly empty.
Her mother and Richard gravitated toward books and were likely in the study. On top of everything else, now she must feel guilty about putting Blake out of the room he deserved for his work.
With trepidation, she traversed the corridor and peered around the study door to see if anyone was there—and blinked at the scene within.
Lady Carrington sat in the window seat with Africa on her shoulder—the female Grey was easily differentiated from Percy by one nearly bald wing and the pattern of white on her face. Her mother was feeding the bird bits of lettuce while perusing what appeared to be one of Blake’s cryptography texts. Bitty lay sleeping at her feet, her furry legs jerking in dreamland.
The sight of the bird outside the conservatory was cause for alarm. Men did not like birds messing on their books and papers. Jocelyn had horrible memories of all the times she’d chased Richard’s birds to save them from Harold.
But this was her home now. She would chase any man who hurt Richard’s creatures. She relaxed and took comfort in the rest of the warm family scene. Richard had Blake’s code wheel scattered in discs across the desk, apparently amusing himself with lining up the letters in order. She would pray Blake didn’t kill him for taking apart his work, except a pair of dirty boots sprawled across the carpet gave evidence that Blake was present.
She had to push the door open more to observe what her toplofty husband might be doing on the floor.
Percy pranced up and down Blake’s back w
hile Blake added a notation to her mother’s lengthy genealogy chart. Jocelyn had to grasp the door latch to keep from falling into the room with shock.
When Percy squawked an obscenity, Blake absently replied, “Fermez la bouche.” The parrot then retorted in French. Jocelyn had forgotten most of what she’d learned from her brief time with a French tutor, but the elegant Gallic for Close your mouth had been one of her favorite phrases to toss at her older sisters. Percy’s garbled response was a little less translatable.
She scrubbed at a tear of joy as she realized how well her new husband fit into her eccentric family. She had expected him to decamp to his apartment immediately after dinner. Instead, he was apparently enlisting her family’s help in his efforts to decrypt the code, while applying himself to their endeavors in return.
Blake didn’t really hate people—he simply despised his family’s cosseting. And he disliked fools. He wasn’t a saint by any means. But her family was intelligent and so self-absorbed that they didn’t waste time fussing. He could be his curmudgeonly self in their company, and they didn’t even notice, much less complain.
She slipped in to peruse the bookshelves in the vague hope she might find a volume on costumes. She didn’t like to go into debt for the elaborate ones sold by tailors and modistes for masquerades. She’d have to concoct them on her own.
“Ma belle épouse,” Blake murmured as she entered, proving he’d known she was there, even though his back was to her.
“Belly up to the bar, boys,” Percy countered.
“Blake believes his lineage also traces back to Charlemagne, dear,” Lady Carrington said, directing her comment to Jocelyn. “He is looking for our common ancestor.”
“How very . . . useful,” Jocelyn said, hiding a smile. “An eminent cryptographer tracing English ancestry to France. Very original employment of your skills.”
“Eminent. I like the sound of that.” Blake turned on his elbow so he could see her. Percy hopped to his head, and he swept the bird off before it could feed on his nose. “But brushing up on my French is helping with the code. Vowels are the most common letters in both languages, but consonants differ. I am trying to think like a Frenchman.”
The Devilish Montague Page 23