Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02]

by The Impostor

  “Think you these are my first steps?”

  The look he sent her was priceless, equal parts surprise and suspicion. She was laughing at him again and he knew it. “I beg your pardon?”

  “My lord, I am quite able to walk on my own. I have been practicing for years, you know.”

  He snatched his hand away. “My profoundest apology, Mrs. Simpson. I did not mean to offend.”

  Clara sighed. “What a shame.”

  “What is?”

  ‘That a man as well endowed as you should lack a sense of humor.”

  His jaw dropped. “Endowed?”

  “But of course! You are a handsome, titled man of means and obvious education.”

  “Oh,” he said faintly. “That endowment.”

  Clara’s thoughts hadn’t taken that particular path until that very moment. She shot him an embarrassed glance at the same moment he sent her a look of barely repressed hysteria.

  Her lips twisted mightily but she could not hold back her snicker. That broke the dam for them both. Clara was forced to turn away with one gloved hand over her mouth, but Lord Reardon frankly leaned upon a lamppost and brayed.

  Clara slapped him on the arm with her reticule. “Do stop,” she choked out. “Or I shall … not be able to.”

  With a last weak chuckle, Lord Reardon handed her his handkerchief to wipe her streaming eyes. Clara handed over her own bit of lace in return. He took it into his large square hand and stared down at it, his jaw working.

  “Is it not manly enough for your taste, my lord?” Clara smiled. “Do you not share Sir Thorogood’s penchant for lace?”

  “That is not the case at all, Mrs. Simpson,” he replied, dabbing at his eyes, then tucking her hankie into his pocket. “I shall have it cleaned, and therefore I shall have an excuse to see you again.”

  Despite herself she was flattered. She shouldn’t be so affected by pretty words, but after all, she’d never had a great deal of male attention in her life. Not many fellows spared interest for bookish girls with poor-quality clothing and a notorious father.

  Could it simply be the dress? Had she indeed been wrong all this time about the unimportance of fashion?

  Could Lord Reardon indeed be that shallow?

  “My lord, perhaps you should understand that I do not normally look this way.”

  “No? How so?”

  Toying with her parasol handle, Clara glanced away. “I mean to say that … this is not how I often appear. I tend to ignore fashion for function, and I seldom care for—for figure improvement.”

  He stopped walking and turned to her, smiling. She felt her jaw begin to drop and quickly picked it up again. He was simply too beautiful for words.

  When she’d encountered him two nights past, her first thought had been that he ought to be required to share his beauty with some deserving woman. Now, she wondered if perhaps he’d been fashioned purely to ornament a woman’s days. Lord knew she could happily stare at him for hours.

  Her fingers twitched. Did she have a pencil in her reticule?

  “What do you care for, may I ask?”

  She held up one hand for silence. The way the sun struck his hair showed many golden glints among the light brown …

  Oh, if only she were a painter! Unfortunately, she had never taken to oils well. But she could and would capture the magnificent line of his cheekbone and jaw.

  “Don’t. Move.” She fumbled in her bag for the pencil and then stooped to unwrap the topmost layer of brown paper from one of her parcels.

  Spreading the paper out over a bench seat took only a moment, then she was ready to begin. She looked up to see him staring at her oddly.

  “Oh.” She’d forgotten to ask his permission to draw him. So many times she’d stolen clandestine drawings, she’d forgotten that it was mannerly to ask first. “May I sketch you?”

  His only reply was a tilt of his head. She jumped up and moved it back into the proper position by cupping his jaw in her bare hands. She’d removed her gloves to draw without even realizing it, but the heat of his skin on her palms shocked her back to her position.

  She snatched her hands away, very much as he had earlier. He must have remembered, as well, for he grinned. “I am quite able to move my head by myself. I’ve been practicing for years.”

  Chagrined, she shook her head. “You’ve been practicing to be very patient, as well. I’m sorry. It is just that you are so nicely … formed. I only thought to capture the way you looked just now.”

  “By all means.”

  She smiled, then dove back to her paper. “You see, I find it interesting why some people are considered handsome and some are not. A slight difference in the nose, perhaps. Or too much chin or not enough—”

  With quick sure strokes, she’d captured him on paper. As she quickly delineated that particularly Grecian angle of his jaw, the part of her mind not occupied with drawing wondered where she’d seen it before.

  Well, he had spoken to her once before today, she mused as her fingers still moved swiftly over the paper. Likely she’d noticed it then.

  Yet she felt as if she’d drawn it quite recently, though the only subject she’d sketched lately had been Sir Thorogood—if one didn’t count her many idle sketches of Monty.

  From her brief moments with him in the dimness, all that she’d really taken away was the memory of how Monty’s jaw was more rugged, his chin more chiseled and square. And that particular dip to his bottom lip, which took his masculine mouth one step over the line into sensual. She wondered if the rest of his face was nearly so perfect. The silken mask covered everything above the tip of his nose, even his ears, which was unfortunate. She burned to see Monty’s ears. If there was one flaw she was unforgiving about in a man’s appearance, it was a pair of jug-handle ears.

  It made her shallow, she knew, and it was a flaw that she someday fully intended to eradicate from herself, but for now, the artist in her hoped mightily that Monty’s ears pinned down close to his skull—

  “Have you done yet?”

  Clara yanked herself back to the moment at hand. She looked up to see Lord Reardon, not Monty, before her. She looked down, however, to see variations of her masked thief covering the brown paper, overlapping her sketch of Lord Reardon, some with large ears, some not.

  Quickly she rolled the paper and stuffed it under her parcels. “Not yet. I was simply doing a few—preliminary studies.” Not quite a lie. She unwrapped another layer of the thankfully generous shop wrapping from her topmost parcel and began again.

  This time she kept her mind firmly on her subject, and in a few moments she had a very acceptable drawing of Lord Reardon as he leaned one elbow upon an elm.

  “There.” She sat back and looked from the man to the sketch. When she took it home and used it to draw from, she would widen his shoulders a tad … and his boots hadn’t come out precisely correct. He wore low heels, unlike so many of the dandies, which gave a square and manly quality to his stance. She quite preferred it to Sir Thorogood’s mincing posture.

  “What do you think, my lord?” Lord Reardon had come behind her to look over her shoulder. He didn’t respond immediately. Worried that he was not pleased, she looked up into his face and froze.

  There was something in the back of his eyes, something hot and black like coal that was about to ignite. …

  Then it was gone, and there was only a genially smiling fellow reaching over her to lift the drawing from the bench seat. “My word, you are a talented creature! It’s the very image of me!”

  Clara shook off the odd hunted tremor she’d felt. She truly was not used to the presence of men, to be so threatened by what was probably a simple moment of attraction.

  It was likely only the dress, anyway.

  As Lord Reardon continued to exclaim over the drawing, Clara began to relax and even to enjoy his fulsome words. He was full of wind, of course, but for once it did feel nice to be on the receiving end of praise for her work.

  “May I keep this
?”

  She nodded, although she’d thought to use it to draw from. Still, his attention was flattering and he’d been very patient. She rolled the drawing and handed it back to him.

  He accepted with every evidence of delight. “You must show me more of your drawings, Mrs. Simpson. Do you have a large portfolio of work?”

  Not at all, as she hadn’t kept one for nearly a year. “I fear not, my lord. I don’t often sketch my friends anymore.” Entirely true, if a bit misleading.

  “Well, you must draw someone else for me. A mutual acquaintance perhaps, so I’ll not have a stranger looking at me from my study wall?”

  He meant to hang something of hers in his home? A bolt of pure artistic joy shot through her, far exceeding the minor pleasure she’d felt in his flirtation. Eagerly she leaned forward.

  “Whom do we both know, then? Shall I draw your cousin Cora?” Not the first subject she would choose, for Cora Teagarden was rather ordinary. Pleasant, but not much artistic scope there.

  Apparently Lord Reardon felt the same. “Ah—I think not.” He settled next to her on the bench.

  Clara felt that nervous tremor move through her once more. She was being a bit silly about this. After all, she was a widow, not a green girl. The proprieties were much relaxed for her now. She could certainly sit with a gentleman on a public park bench and feel not a moment of disquietude.

  Of course, that depended on the gentleman, didn’t it? Was it Lord Reardon’s extreme good looks that had her so unsettled? And was this a good unsettled or a bad unsettled? Was she fearful or stirred by his nearness? She honestly did not know. He was terribly attractive—

  “—Sir Thorogood?”

  Clara’s habit of keeping her thoughts to herself came in most handy at that moment. She was quite sure that the look she sent Lord Reardon was merely a blank look of misunderstanding, and not the panicked glazed stare of a captured rabbit.

  She forced herself to inhale, then exhale, in a natural fashion. Next, a slow blink and an apologetic smile. “So sorry. I was woolgathering. Did you say that you would like me to draw Sir Thorogood for you?”

  Lord Reardon had his gaze fixed on her face. Was he watching her closely, or simply pondering her lack of intelligence?

  “Yes. I saw you speaking to him at length the other night, and thought perhaps you knew each other well, as you are both artists.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice faint. “Both.”

  “Have you known him long?” Lord Reardon’s voice and manner took on a boyish eagerness. “I have been collecting him for some time. I should very much like to have him sign some of his work for me.”

  Goodness, Lord Reardon was a devotee? He was pursuing her to get closer to Thorogood?

  Sickening relief swept through her, leaving helpless hysteria behind. Well, wasn’t this his lordship’s lucky day! He was about as close as he was ever going to get to Sir Thorogood, at least without a bouquet of flowers and a wedding proposal!

  “I … shall recommend you to him at dinner tonight, my lord. Although I do not know him well, he seems a friendly sort of person.” More like a fame-grabbing monstrosity, but who was she to quibble?

  Lord Reardon was most appreciative, and carried on some more about her talent, but for Clara the fun had gone out of the afternoon. All she could think of was tonight’s encounter with Sir Thorogood, and her mission to expose him for what he was.

  After one too many times of having to recall her attention, Lord Reardon gave up on conversation and walked her back to where Cora Teagarden waited with Beatrice and the twins. Clara managed to say goodbye in an unexceptional manner despite her occupied thoughts, but she scarcely remembered the ride home.

  How in the world was she going to be able to expose the impostor tonight?

  Chapter Nine

  Dalton Montmorency, Lord Etheridge, flipped back Sir Thorogood’s puce coattails and sat his blinding yellow satin rear on the seat of his plainest carriage, the one he used to blend into the crowded streets.

  Even the horses were nondescript, right down to their middle-aged hooves. No livery, no crest, no way to distinguish his vehicle from hundreds currently on the streets of London.

  Still, he pulled the shades tight, for his finery would certainly not blend in. Traveling from his own home in costume was a risk, but he couldn’t spend every moment at the club, either. His own affairs required his attention, although harvests and granaries were duller than dull.

  How he wished he were contemplating harvests and granaries at this moment.

  Instead, he was looking forward to an evening at the Trapps’. How could he have known that the annoying Mrs. Simpson lived there, as well? He’d accepted the invitation after learning that Oswald Trapp lived in Smythe Square, thinking that questioning Wadsworth’s neighbors might turn up something interesting.

  If only he had known …

  Dalton rubbed the back of his neck, feeling the tension grow between his shoulder blades at the mere recollection of Mrs. Simpson’s shrill titter. Perhaps Trapp was a drinking man, he thought desperately. Perhaps he would be offered a whisky before dinner.

  Perhaps he could turn around right now and send his regrets.

  He actually twitched with eagerness at the thought, his fist rising to bang the roof for Hawkins’s attention. Then long years of training took over.

  One did not neglect an accepted invitation. One did not disappoint a hostess at the last moment.

  One did not turn tail and run from the field of battle.

  God, he hoped Trapp was a drinking man.

  The dress was enough to drive any man to drink. Even Clara had the urge to toss back a sherry at the sight of herself in the looking-glass.

  When she thought of how much she’d paid to look—how had Madame Hortensia put it? Ah, yes, like an overturned feather duster.

  A giant pink feather duster. With feet.

  Mercy, perhaps she’d have a whisky herself.

  Or three.

  She was nearly as wide as she was tall. Flounce upon flounce of tongue-pink organza rose to the high waist, just under her bosom, which was pleated pink satin encrusted with tiny silk bows and pearls.

  “Oh … my.” Bea’s voice from the doorway was breathless.

  Clara turned to see her sister-in-law standing wide-eyed, with one hand pressed to her throat. If even Beatrice was struck speechless, then Sir Thorogood was likely going to be turned to stone.

  I am a pink organza Medusa. She chuckled. Then she did a quick spin so that Bea could get the full effect of the flounces. “Do you like it, Bea?”

  “Ah … well … what a charming color on you!”

  It was, actually. Clara examined herself in the glass. Pink made her look fresh and young and turned her hazel eyes to deep green.

  Oh, lovely, she thought irritably. It wouldn’t do to actually win Sir Thorogood, now would it? What she wanted was to get close enough to discover his motives and to expose him as false, if possible. Still, if he found her attractive in this monstrosity, then he was even sillier than Bea and therefore of no threat whatsoever.

  Perhaps a silly hairstyle to go with the dress? She grinned at Bea in the mirror and piled her hair high upon her head. “Have you any more ostrich plumes, Bea? And may I borrow your face powder and kohl again?”

  Dalton stopped counting the ticks of the clock perhaps an hour into dinner. He’d lost count between the soup and the roast. He then pondered formulating the mathematics behind the placement of the flowers on the dining room wallpaper, but then decided that even he was not that bored.

  Mrs. Simpson seemed somewhat more composed this evening, though as silly as ever. Her gown was proof of that, for he had never seen a more overdecorated garment in his life. It was as if she could not decide between the pearls, ribbons, or flounces and had therefore chosen all three. The woman looked like a cake, for pity’s sake!

  A pink cake, topped by pale shimmering cleavage. His memory veered back to when he had seen those same breasts
bare and gleaming in the starlight. Saliva flooded his mouth and his throat tightened.

  Perhaps it was time to take a lover. If he found himself tempted by a woman as empty-headed and Simpson, as Clara Simpson, then he was surely a man on the edge of celibacy-induced madness.

  Even now her annoying titter scraped along his every nerve as she misinterpreted a perfectly serious statement made by Mrs. Trapp as a jest.

  “So amusing, Beatrice! I’m sure Sir Thorogood doesn’t think we volunteer at the hospital because we feel strongly about the war effort!”

  She leaned close to Dalton as if to impart a secret. Dalton restrained himself from leaning away, although he did find his gaze dropping a bit lower than her face, just for an instant.

  “The twins and I are looking for husbands!” she said in a whisper that could have been heard across the Covent Garden piazza on Market Day.

  Mrs. Trapp stared open-mouthed at her sister-in-law for a moment before turning to Dalton and stammering a meaningless comment on the weather.

  Gratefully, Dalton turned to support his hostess’s change of subject. Though not the most intellectual of women, Mrs. Trapp seemed a sane and solid relief after the past hour of enduring the shallow twit who sat beside him.

  When had he begun to yearn for a woman whom he could talk to?

  A woman, not a wife. A lover would be pleasant but he was against the use of mistresses, nor did he want to dally with one of the wandering wives of the ton. He still believed in solemn vows, even if they didn’t.

  The alternative was to approach a widow of independent means, so he would not feel as though she were selling herself to him for security.

  Wonderful. Now he had it all figured out. But where in the world was he going to find an attractive widow of means and a certain age, who possessed brains and heart and absorbing conversation?

  Not to mention a few bedroom skills, reminded his baser nature. For a brief moment, Dalton tried to imagine sharing Mrs. Simpson’s bed. Despite her obvious penchant for him, she was a respectable woman. A widow, but not poor by the look of her sickening gown. Of a certain age—well, Mrs. Simpson could be no more than in her late twenties.