Gabby frowned. Her inclination was to ignore the mannerless rogue, but such uncharacteristic callousness on her part would no doubt provoke a great deal of curiosity in her sisters. The wounded man was supposed to be their brother, after all.
“Gabriella!”
“Give that to me,” Gabriella said shortly, taking the tray from Claire. It was surprisingly heavy, she registered as her gaze met her sister’s. “Wickham’s sickroom is no place for you and Beth. Go ahead downstairs and tell Stivers to serve luncheon, and I will join you in just a few minutes.”
“But Gabby . . .” Beth cast an interested look through the door, which was held open by Barnet’s bulk. But the arrangement of the earl’s apartments was such that only a pair of gold brocade armchairs set before the fireplace could be seen.
“Go on,” she said firmly, turning to enter the room.
“Miss, you can take that back in there if you choose, but I’ve been told to have the kitchen put up some good slices o’ beef and maybe a puddin’. The c—I mean, ’is Lordship’ll ’ave my ’ead if I don’t obey orders.”
“He won’t have mine, however,” Gabby said, with more certainty than she felt. Giving her a look of respect, Barnet held the door for her. She walked into the room, and Barnet closed the door behind her. Faintly she could hear his and Claire’s and Beth’s footsteps fading away down the hall.
She was alone with a man she had every reason to fear. The thought made her hesitate. She paused, glancing toward the bed, conscious of feeling rather like Daniel as he stepped into the lion’s den.
11
She looked slim and delicate and as nervous as a subaltern in a room full of generals. Her eyes were wide as they fixed on his face. Her skin was pale. Good, he thought with a spurt of satisfaction. He hoped he made her nervous. He wanted to make her nervous. Nervous enough, at least, so that she would think twice before revealing the truth about him to anyone else.
Being tied to a bed while he recovered from the wound she had inflicted on him was, in his opinion, a recipe for disaster. To begin with, he had no way to prevent her from going back on their bargain. He could only trust that her own self-interest would keep her tongue between her teeth.
But that trust was, at best, a fragile thing. The fine line he’d been walking since he’d stepped into Marcus’s shoes had, now that she and her servant knew of the deception, just been pared down to the most insubstantial of silk threads. Before, he’d only had to worry about running into someone who knew either Marcus or himself. As Marcus had lived all his life in Ceylon and had never set foot in England except for one brief visit many years before, and he himself had spent his earliest years in Ceylon before moving to India, the possibility was real but, he’d considered, sufficiently remote to make the deception workable. Still, he felt like he’d been walking on eggshells since his assumption of Marcus’s identity.
The events of the previous night had turned those eggshells into liquid, and he was very much afraid that he was sinking fast.
“Come here,” he said to her in much the same tone that he would have employed with one of the men under his command.
Her spine stiffened, her chin came up, and her eyebrows lifted haughtily. Despite the unbecoming black dress that looked like it had been made for a woman twice her age and size, she was suddenly every inch the great lady, and he, from the expression on her face, was so much dust beneath her feet.
If he hadn’t felt so infernally weak and uncomfortable, he would have smiled.
“Please come here, my dear Gabriella,” he amended, before she could turn on her heel and leave the room, as her expression indicated she might well do. “There is something I wish to say to you.”
“What is it?” Her tone was ungracious, but she came. He suspected, however, that her obedience had more to do with the weight of the tray she held than any act of submission to his will.
“I would remind you of our bargain.”
She seemed to stiffen again, and her steps faltered briefly. Her voice was cold as she answered, “You may be sure that I need no reminder. I won’t go back on my word.”
“You must tell no one, remember.”
“What, do you think I’ll go chattering of this to all and sundry? I won’t.” She didn’t sound particularly happy about it. “To have it known that I have agreed to such a thing will not increase my credit with anyone, believe me.”
“If it’s any comfort to you, it certainly increases your credit with me.”
“It’s not.” She set the tray down harder than was necessary on the bedside table, so that the spoon rattled and the broth sloshed. As he noticed that the tray was the same one he had just rejected, he scowled.
“I told Barnet to take that back to the kitchen and get me something fit to eat.” His tone was abrupt again, more abrupt than he had meant for it to be.
“Barnet was merely following Mr. Ormsby’s orders when he brought this up.”
She frowned at him. The curtains were pulled back from the long windows that looked out over the courtyard at the rear of the house, and bright sunlight touched her face. Her eyes really were the clear gray of rain water, he noted in passing, and her profile was as delicate as a cameo’s. She was possessed, as he had first learned last night when he’d held her in his arms, of a far greater share of feminine charm than was apparent at first glance. The disparity between the image she presented to the world and the woman he caught quick glimpses of intrigued him.
“That pap will kill me more surely than the wound you gave me,” he said sourly, taking a surprising degree of pleasure in watching the play of sunlight over her face. As he had intended, she looked guilty. Good. He wanted her to regret blowing a hole through him. Guilt was something he could use to his advantage.
“You must eat it or nothing until Mr. Ormsby says otherwise, nonetheless,” she said in a severe tone. He was, he realized suddenly, quite possibly not nearly as intimidating a sight as he might wish. Lying flat on his back in bed with his head propped on a pair of pillows, unshaven, undoubtedly pale, clad in nothing more than a nightshirt with the bedclothes (newly smoothed by Barnet) tucked around his waist, he wasn’t exactly in a position to enforce any commands he might give utterance to. Certainly Gabriella no longer seemed to regard him with fear. She was looking at him, rather, as if she were a governess and he the troublesome small boy in her charge. “Can you eat this by yourself?”
“I’m not a child,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Of course I can eat it by myself. If I choose to do so, which I do not.”
“Show me, then.” It was in the nature of a challenge. She picked up the tray and set it on his lap, then stood regarding him with her arms akimbo and a marshal light in her eyes. “Go on, pick up the spoon.”
He eyed her. “I do not choose . . .”
“You can’t, can you? How it must gall someone who is so accustomed to bullying the powerless to be too weak to lift a spoon!”
Mouth compressing, he rose to the bait hook, line, and sinker, and knew that he was doing so even as he did it. What made it worse was that, as he dipped the spoon into the broth and started to lift it toward his mouth, the muscles in his arms seemed to turn to jelly and his hand began to shake. Broth sloshed onto the tray.
“Let me help you.” Sounding resigned, she took the spoon from his hand and returned it to the broth as his traitorous arm subsided to rest limply atop the mattress. Then, sitting down on the side of the bed, she dipped the spoon into the broth again and lifted it toward his mouth.
He didn’t know whether to feel amused, affronted, or grateful at being treated like a puling infant. As he stared at her, his expression, he guessed, was a combination of all three.
“Open your mouth,” she said in the tone of one as accustomed to command as he was. Surprising himself with his own meekness, he obeyed, and she tipped the warm broth down his throat with brisk efficiency. The salty liquid tasted surprisingly good, and he realized that he was hungry. He swallowed more eagerly th
an he was willing to let her realize as she continued to spoon broth into his mouth.
“Tell me something: how is it that you knew my brother was dead?”
The soft question caught him by surprise, and he almost choked. Coughing, he managed to swallow, and gave her a cagey look.
“I might ask the same of you,” he said when he could speak.
“I will answer quite freely, to you at least: I had sent Jem to Marcus with a message. He was there when—it happened.”
“Was he, indeed?” It was surprising, then, that her servant had not come to his notice. But he had gone chasing after the killer in a paroxysm of grief and fury, while Jem, it was to be presumed, had stayed at the scene. Marcus’s message had said I’ve found what you seek. What he sought he sought so urgently that it overrode even his need to return to Marcus’s side. Marcus was dead; there was no mending that. All he could do was search for the killer: one who, if Marcus had been correct, and his murder made it almost certain that he had been, counted murder as the least of his crimes. Following the trail of Marcus’s murder was the only lead he had; he could not allow it to grow cold.
Still, he very much feared that it, too, might come to naught as had so many leads in the past months. This role-playing was a chancy thing at best. If the killer made no move to remedy what hopefully would be seen as a mistake, he might search as diligently as he pleased without success. It was like looking for a single straw in a field full of hay.
“Well?” Gabriella was looking at him impatiently, even as she spooned the last of the golden liquid into his mouth. He swallowed, realizing that he felt much better now that there was food—even of such a tepid and unpalatable sort—in his system. Her question was unanswerable, of course. He would never, could never, reveal anything of the quest that had brought him to this place.
“You have the most . . . kissable . . . mouth,” he said pensively instead, leaning back against the pillows and letting his lids droop until his eyes were half shut. To tease her seemed a poor reward for her care of him, but it had the desired effect: her eyes widened and her lips parted as she stared at him with shocked surprise. He continued with a growing smile: “For dessert, I could fancy just a taste. What do you say?”
She surged to her feet. Her movement caused the dishes to rattle, and for a moment he feared that he might find himself awash in ale. Quickly he grabbed the glass to steady it, glad to find his strength recovered enough to permit him to do so, and looked up to find her eyes flashing like silver fish in a pond as she glared down at him.
“You are a nasty, vulgar libertine,” she said through her teeth. “I should have known better than to feel sorry for you. I wish I’d let you starve.”
With that, she turned on her heel and stalked with a great deal of dignity out the door. He smiled faintly as he admired the gentle sway of her backside beneath the too-big skirt. Really, she was not nearly so shapeless as he had at first supposed.
12
Gabby was still seething as she joined her sisters downstairs. To think that she had felt sorry for him, sat on his bed and fed him soup, began to feel a degree of comfort in his presence. She should have known better. She did know better. But he had charm enough to lure turtles from their shells, and she had fallen victim to it.
It would not happen again.
“What did Marcus want?” Beth asked as Gabby joined them at table. Taken by surprise, Gabby could only blink at her sister for a moment. Then she forced herself to push the scene she had just left to the back of her mind, and dredge up a suitable pleasant expression to go with a suitable pleasant reply.
“He wished only to inquire about our well-being. I assured him that we are fine.”
Beth looked as though she would ask something else and Claire seemed on the verge of chiming in, so to give their thoughts a new direction Gabby hastily inquired of Twindle, who had joined them in the dining room, where in her opinion the most fashionable shops were to be found. This diversion worked; Claire and Twindle chatted animatedly, Beth chimed in from time to time, and Stivers’s input was eventually sought. He in turn canvased the household while the ladies partook of a quick, light luncheon. Finally what was felt to be a definitive answer was returned, and the sisters, plus Twindle, sallied forth on their first daylight foray through London’s streets.
To their country-bred eyes, the sights that greeted them on every front were nothing short of dazzling. On the one hand were edifices, monuments, and museums, and buildings the height and ornate facades of which caused them to marvel. On the other hand were the inviting expanses of green that were described, in a guide which Beth the enterprising pulled from her reticule, as Hyde Park and Green Park. Everywhere people thronged, in carriages, on horseback, on foot, and vehicles clogged the streets. By the time Bond Street, which both the household and the Pocket Guide assured them was the most select boulevard for the acquisition of elegant goods in town, was reached, even Gabby felt as though, if she did not take care, her jaw might hang open as Beth’s had done before Claire had adjured her, in the name of saving them all from looking like the veriest bumpkins, to please shut her mouth.
At first, conscious of their own sartorial shortcomings, they were a shade hesitant about entering the establishments of the most fashionable dressmakers. Those elegant boutiques were rife with beautifully gowned ladies of the beau monde on the prowl for the latest styles, and Gabby felt as out of place among them as a Puritan miss mistakenly wandered into King George’s court. But the silks and satins and muslins and gauzes on display were of such mouthwatering colors and textures, and the styles of the gowns themselves were so enticing, that they could not help but be drawn in, and soon found that they were enjoying themselves immensely, even Beth. By the time they had entered the rarified precincts of Madame Renard’s, who was understood to be the most exclusive mantua maker in town, they were quite caught up in discussing the finer points of the current fashions and barely noticed their surroundings. After a chance remark let fall by Claire revealed to one of Madame’s pinch-nosed assistants that this trio of dowdy, black-clad provincials were in fact the sisters of the Earl of Wickham, newly come to town for the season, Madame herself came out to wait on them, practically rubbing her hands in greedy glee.
After that, the afternoon disintegrated into such a whirl of fabrics and patterns that even Gabby was in danger of losing her head. Madame quite understood when Gabby told her that Lady Claire was the primary focus of the undertaking. A tiny, birdlike woman with an immense pile of improbably black hair and shrewd black eyes, Madame at once perceived in Claire a beauty whose successful adornment could only enhance her own reputation. The other sisters provided less scope for her talent, she admitted to her assistant in a private moment, but the older one, for all that she was a bit long in years to be still unwed, at least possessed a certain air that was, in its own way, nearly as rare and valuable as beauty. Quality, was what it was, Madame said, settling at last on a word to define what she meant. Lady Gabriella possessed quality. As for the younger sister, who was, lamentably, plump as a pudding, it was to be hoped that time would work its magic on her figure. In any event, Madame could only feel that she had done her noble clients a service by pointing out that Lady Gabriella, in her role as elder sister and prospective chaperone, would doubtless need a great many new outfits, too. Lady Elizabeth was not to be left out either; although she was too young to grace any ton parties, it would be perfectly permissable for her to be present on at-home days, and to visit among the younger set, whose acquaintance she would undoubtedly soon make. Thus her wardrobe, though simple as befitted a schoolroom miss, needed to be quite extensive, too.
By the time the orgy of shopping was completed, the ladies, on Madame’s recommendation, retired to Guenther’s for ices. Exhausted but happy, each was conscious of the supremely feminine pleasure of being clad in new and fashionable gowns, Madame having been moved by the size of the order given her and the illustrious nature of her clients to part with garments that had
already been made up for other ladies, but not yet delivered. The discarded mourning gowns, which madame had offered to consign to the fire, had instead been earmarked for charity. More gowns were promised for the following day, with complete wardrobes to follow within the week.
“And if we do not see a marked increase in custom once the lovely one has taken her place among the ton, then I have no business calling myself a modiste,” Madame told her assistant with satisfaction as the ladies left her premises. And her assistant agreed that it surely would be so.
Not more than three quarters of an hour later, the Banning sisters finished their ices and agreed to suspend the rest of their shopping, for such necessary but minor items as ribbons and fans, for another day.
“Well,” said Beth in a fair-minded fashion as they stepped up into the carriage to be driven home again, “I must say that wasn’t so bad. Shopping in London is a whole different experience than shopping in York.”
“Yes, for we had money to spend, which we have never had before, and the fashions are so breathtaking,” Claire replied, settling into her seat. She looked rather anxiously at Gabby, who sat across from her. “Do you suppose Marcus will cut up stiff when he receives the reckoning? I am afraid that we have been sadly extravagant. I had no notion that we would need so many gowns, had you?”
“And gloves, and bonnets, and shawls, to say nothing of those cunning half boots with the little buttons on the side,” Beth chimed in. Her enthusiasm for shopping had increased markedly as she had been shown how well she could look in new clothes.
“Certainly there was no need to bespeak new gowns for me, Miss Gabby,” Twindle said. Like Claire, Twindle looked slightly worried about the small fortune that had been spent. “As I told you, I already possess a sufficient number of gowns for my purposes, and His Lordship—quite properly—may not wish to pay for me to swan about looking grand as a duchess.”
“Stuff!” Beth snorted indignantly. “Everything you chose was either gray or puce, and of such staid design . . . I should like to see any duchess who would get herself up like that.”
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