The Deception of the Emerald Ring pc-3

by Лорен Уиллиг

Letty waited for the sting, but Lord Pinchingdale's countenance revealed nothing more damning than pleasant interest. Letty wondered if this meant their truce had begun. Weren't they supposed to shake hands, or sign terms, or some such thing?

  "Did you see anything interesting inside?" she asked awkwardly, doubting she would ever get the knack of holding an ordinary conversation with a double meaning. He and Jane did it so easily. As for Lord Vaughn, he had elevated the practice to a positive art. But the double-weighted words felt uncomfortable and clumsy on Letty's tongue. "Anything of note, I mean?"

  She suspected she had leaned too heavily on the words "of note," and she was sure of it when Lord Pinchingdale's expression became, if anything, blander than ever.

  Without looking away from his leisurely contemplation of the skull and crossbones carved above the door, Lord Pinchingdale said reflectively, "The Eucharistic emblems over the reredos are quite fine. And some of the carvings on the pulpit were extremely…interesting."

  Just when Letty was quite sure that she had imagined the peculiar emphasis on the last word, Lord Pinchingdale looked down at her with a slow, sideways glance that ran through her more potently than brandy.

  Letty's formerly depressed spirits did a crazy zigzag into joy, like a tipsy angel winging back to heaven. Whatever Jane had said to him…oh, Letty didn't even care. No matter what persuasion it had taken, this sudden amity offered a reprieve from her nightmare vision of perennial exile. Letty could have jumped up and down and hugged him. But she didn't. She might not be fluent in double meanings, but she did understand that much about discretion.

  Besides, she still hadn't quite forgiven him for that nasty remark in the carriage.

  "The pulpit," Lord Pinchingdale added casually, as if in answer to an unasked question, "is located directly above the crypt."

  "Ah," Letty said breathlessly, the pieces falling into place. If the pulpit was above the crypt, it was above Lord Edward's coffin. And if a group of patriotic rebels wanted to use their fallen leader as a posting point, they would find the pulpit far easier to access than the torturous route through the trapdoor into the crypt. "I do so love an interesting pulpit!"

  That hadn't come out quite the way she had intended.

  Clearly, Lord Pinchingdale didn't think so, either. He fixed her with a long, considering look that made Letty want to fiddle with her hair, preferably in a way that would cover most of her face.

  "You really haven't any talent for dissembling, have you?" he said, at last.

  "No," admitted Letty dispiritedly, absently drawing the string on her reticule open and closed. It pained her to admit incompetence at anything, especially with their truce so new and raw. "I never really had any need for it. Before."

  "Letty." Her name sounded absurdly intimate coming from Lord Pinchingdale's lips. But, of course, what else was he to call her? He couldn't call her Miss Alsworthy anymore, and she had already shown that she was incapable of remembering to respond to her alias.

  "Letty," he repeated insistently, "what happened that night?"

  He didn't have to explain which night he was referring to.

  Dry-mouthed, Letty asked, "What happened to our truce? No recriminations, letting bygones be?"

  "I'm not trying to attack you." Lord Pinchingdale leaned a hand against the wall above Letty's head, his gray eyes intent on her face in a way that did funny things to Letty's ability to breathe properly. He was so close that tendrils of her hair caught on the dark fabric of his sleeve, so close that Letty could see the tired circles under his eyes, and the shadows left on his cheeks by the fine lines of his cheekbones. He needed feeding up, and a few good nights of sleep. "I just need to know. What happened?"

  He seemed sincere—but he had seemed sincere before. And, after witnessing his performance with Jane, Letty didn't place much trust in seeming. The stone of the wall biting into her back, Letty eyed him warily.

  "Why now?" she asked. "Why not before?"

  "Because—"

  "Hallooo!" a voice hailed them.

  With the utmost reluctance, Geoff let his hand fall from the wall behind Letty's head. He knew that voice. All too well.

  Moving very slowly, in the hopes of warding off the inevitable, he turned in the direction of the voice. There, on Werburgh Street, a tall figure in bright regimentals was swinging down from one of the low-slung carts that served those who preferred not to waste their coin on a hackney. The bright blue tunic and scarlet facings of the Horse Guards uniform made an almost comical contrast with the weathered wood of the noddy, just one step removed from a farm cart.

  At least, it might have been comical if it had been anyone else. Miles. Wickham. Bonaparte, even. Anyone but this.

  "I see I've come just in time," Jasper Pinchingdale said heartily.

  Geoff had learned long ago that the easiest way to be rid of Jasper was to give him money. The more money one gave him, the faster he went.

  Geoff reached into his waistcoat. "How much do you need this time, Jasper?"

  Jasper shouldered past him, making directly for Letty.

  "You wrong me, cousin. I'm not here for lack of funds, but for the charming company of a beautiful lady."

  Just in case anyone might be in any doubt as to that beautiful lady's identity, he bowed deeply toward Letty, ending with a little flourish just by her feet. Letty automatically stepped back, closer to Geoff. She looked, Geoff noted, no more pleased to see him than Geoff did.

  "I had hoped to persuade you to reconsider our drive," Jasper murmured in an intimate tone that sent Geoff's right eyebrow straight up to his hairline, and made Letty long to fling something, preferably at Jasper.

  "I never agreed to go driving with you," Letty said sharply. Turning to Geoff, she added forcefully, "I didn't."

  Neither man paid the slightest bit of attention to her.

  "In that?" Lord Pinchingdale inquired, gesturing to the ram-shackle conveyance Jasper had left waiting on Werburgh Street. Letty had seen several of them in the streets since her arrival, two-wheeled carts drawn by a single horse. The driver smiled and nodded, drawing placidly on a villainous-looking pipe.

  Jasper's brows drew together until they met over his nose. The cousins didn't look much alike—Jasper was fairer and broader, Geoffrey darker and taller—but Letty perceived a faint family resemblance in the similarity of their scowls.

  "We can't all of us afford a high-perch phaeton, cousin," clipped Jasper.

  "I don't own a high-perch phaeton." Lord Pinchingdale's eyebrow had climbed so high that Letty was afraid he might do himself permanent damage.

  "You could if you chose to."

  Lord Pinchingdale looked distinctly unimpressed with Jasper's tale of pecuniary woe.

  "So could you, if you hadn't gambled away your inheritance. That was a nice little estate in Wiltshire you came into, Jasper. Would you like to explain what became of it?"

  Jasper favored his cousin with such a look of undiluted hatred that Letty took an instinctive step back, closer to Lord Pinchingdale.

  Turning to Letty, Jasper bared his teeth in an unconvincing attempt at a smile. "Pay no mind to him, fair lady. He is simply trying to blacken me in your sight."

  "Generally," said Lord Pinchingdale, "you do that all by yourself."

  Jasper continued to smile determinedly at her, as though his cousin had not spoken, but Letty had never seen anything quite so cold as his eyes. "If not a drive, perhaps an outing? The countryside is very beautiful this time of year."

  "Flowers make me sneeze," Letty lied shamelessly. "Someone sent me a bouquet once and I had to take to my bed for a week."

  "Indoor pursuits, then," Jasper persevered.

  "Not under your roof," replied Lord Pinchingdale pleasantly.

  "What of the theater?" Jasper continued doggedly. "Dublin is known for its theater."

  "A new opera opened at the Crow Street Theatre this week," put in Lord Vaughn helpfully, strolling up to their little group with Jane on his arm and Miss Gwen stalk
ing behind. He waved a languid hand. "Ramah-something-or-other."

  "What a charming idea!" exclaimed Jane, who seemed to have forgotten that she disliked the theater. "We shall make a party of it! This next week is so frightfully busy but I believe we have Friday free, haven't we, Auntie Ernie?"

  "Perhaps Mrs. Alsdale would prefer to attend sooner." Jasper made one last attempt.

  "I wouldn't think of going without Miss Fairley," said Letty firmly.

  "Oh, aren't you too sweet!" exclaimed Jane. "I just knew we were going to be the best of friends the moment I saw you, didn't I, Lord Pinchingdale?" Without waiting for him to respond, she tilted her head to one side, in deep thought. "If Lord Pinchingdale escorts me, and Captain Pinchingdale escorts Mrs. Alsdale…then, Lord Vaughn, you shall escort darling Auntie Ernie!"

  Jasper was the only one who looked pleased with the arrangements.

  He sent a look of smirking triumph at Lord Pinchingdale, like a child awarded sole use of a disputed toy. Lord Pinchingdale didn't return the compliment; he smiled and bowed to Jane as though he had no other desire in the world but to make a part of her party at the theater—but his attention was on Lord Vaughn as he did so. Letty wondered where Lord Vaughn fit into the equation. Friend, foe, innocent bystander? The latter seemed the least likely, if the tenor of his conversation with Jane in the crypt was anything to go by. On the other hand, he had contrived to sound just as obscurely portentous with Letty last night at Mrs. Lanergan's, turning simple sentences into a maze of hidden meanings. He might be exactly as he seemed: a bored gentleman with a habit of attaching more significance to his words than they deserved. But why was Jane so eager to attach him to their party?

  There was Vaughn, and then there was Jasper. Letty would have been willing to stake her dowry (what was left of it, at any rate) that the antipathy between the two cousins was genuine. But…he had asked Jasper to be his groomsman. And, last night, she would have been equally eager to wager that Lord Pinchingdale had amorous designs of the worst sort on Miss Gilly Fairley. Could the animosity between the two cousins be as much of a blind as Jane's silver-gilt curls?

  Trying to sort out who was pretending what—and to whom—was beginning to give Letty a headache.

  Lord Vaughn looked equally pained, but for different reasons. Faced with the prospect of an evening with Miss Gwen, Lord Vaughn chose flight over valor.

  "Although it plunges me into the deepest agonies of regret to refuse such an honor as the company of Mrs. Grimstone, I promised young Augustus I would make one of his party next Friday."

  Miss Gwen emitted a noise that sounded suspiciously like, "Coward."

  Unmoved, Vaughn eyed her dispassionately through the lens of his quizzing glass. "My dear Mrs. Grimstone, sometimes cowardice is merely another word for common sense."

  Miss Gwen considered for a moment. "Pithy," she said at last. "I'll give you that."

  "I am, as ever, humbly grateful for any gift at your disposal," replied Lord Vaughn, with an elegant mockery of a bow.

  "Ha!" said Miss Gwen. "You were never humble in your life."

  "We were all young once."

  "And probably the worse for it, too." Confident in having achieved the last word, Miss Gwen smirked at the company at large.

  Jane quickly intervened, moving to mollify Lord Vaughn with a speed that confirmed all of Letty's suspicions—or, at least, some of them. "My Lord Vaughn, you simply must come, or I shan't ever forgive you."

  "How could I refuse anything to such a fair flower?"

  As Jane turned to smile at him, a chance shaft of sunlight struck the gold locket at Jane's throat, lighting it like a beacon.

  Letty sneezed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "I don't think that's ours," said Jay, turning back around.

  "Huh?" My eyes were still fixed somewhere just over his shoulder.

  "The food," said Jay. "It's the wrong order."

  He didn't seem to realize that the universe had just flipped onto its head and started jumping about like a Romanian gymnast in the last leg of the Olympics.

  I mustered a weak smile. "Oops," I said. "Sorry."

  In an alternative universe, I continued to look and sound like a perfectly normal human being. One leg was crossed over the other, my right hand was loosely clasped around the stem of my wineglass, and my hair fell in a becoming arc just beneath my jaw. Inside, I was a blubbering mess.

  I smiled at Jay and made some sort of inane comment about the food. I have no idea what it was, but it must have been perfectly acceptable, because he didn't stare at me as though I'd sprouted three heads or bolt for the door. Meanwhile, my internal monologue was stuck on a repeating loop of My God, my God, my God, enlivened with a chorus of What do I do, what do I do, what do I do, in stereo sound.

  Over Jay's shoulder, Colin didn't seem to have noticed me yet. He and his friends had trooped in a noisy herd over to the bar, Ungh and friends seeking water hole after a long day of mammoth hunting.

  At least he wasn't there with a woman.

  Oh, no, you don't, I told myself. That didn't change the basic fact that he was back in London and hadn't called. He hadn't even tried to call. At least, as far as I knew. I didn't have an answering machine back in the flat…but that was because no one ever called me on my landline, anyway, except my parents, and occasionally Alex. Everyone else used the mobile. And the mobile registered missed calls.

  Which effectively ruled out the charming picture of Colin nobly hitting redial while the phone rang and rang in an empty flat.

  "How long are you in London for?" I asked Jay, in the hopes that if I got him talking again, he might not notice that I found the area just over his left shoulder much more interesting than I found him.

  "Just for tonight." Jay flipped open his phone with the air of a habitual cell phone checker. I wondered if it was programmed into him never to be able to discuss time without first looking at his phone. "I fly back to New York tomorrow."

  "Oh, are you going home for Thanksgiving?"

  The three guys were clustered at the bar in that weird way men have, as though in a football huddle or a Canada goose flight formation, two at the actual bar, the one in the middle slightly behind. The other two were, in a word, unremarkable. The one in back had a shock of red hair and a healthily browned complexion. The other was shorter, darker, and more heavily built, with closely cut curly hair. Just guys. Or, as they would undoubtedly call themselves, blokes.

  Colin hadn't seen me yet—at least, I didn't think he had. I concentrated on arranging my smile at its most becoming angle, just in case he should glance over.

  "You're not going back?"

  What was he talking about? Oh, Thanksgiving. I forced myself to focus for just as long as it took to reply. "I can't really justify it. I'll be heading home for Christmas in just another month, anyway."

  The bartender plonked three large pints on the trendy counter, pale gold and dripping with foam. My eyes strayed to the half-finished glass in front of Jay. Why was it that when Jay ordered beer it seemed pretentious, but when Colin did, it just seemed normal?

  Maybe it was because Colin wasn't wearing a jacket without a tie. Or maybe it was because I was a little bit biased.

  Just a little bit.

  On the other hand, Jay returned calls, and Colin didn't. Returning calls was a big plus.

  "—homesick?" Jay was finishing.

  I'd missed most of it, but it wasn't hard to guess. I could probably tune out for half the conversation, and come back in half an hour later knowing exactly what had been said.

  That, I reminded myself, wasn't fair either. No one said anything particularly interesting on a first date. There was practically a rule against it.

  "Not really," I responded to his unheard question, as though I hadn't been on the verge of sobbing into the Marks & Spencer sandwich case a few days before. "An old friend of mine always does a huge Thanksgiving dinner for expats and assorted hangers-on, so I'll get my turkey and stuffing fix f
or the year."

  "It's not the same as going home," said Jay, in a smug way that annoyed me enough to drag my attention away from Colin.

  "No, really, you think?"

  At least, that was what I wanted to say.

  Since that might get back to Grandma, I just shrugged, and said, "You take what you can get. And I've known Pammy and her family since I was five, so it's almost as good as going home. Lots of reminiscing about old times, that sort of thing."

  "Pammy is…?"

  "The friend who's doing Thanksgiving dinner. We went to Chapin together."

  "Right." Jay processed that information as solemnly as though it were a bullet point on a spreadsheet. Did spreadsheets have bullet points? I didn't know. More important, I didn't want to know. I had a feeling Jay would try to tell me if I gave him the chance. Complete with PowerPoint presentation and graphs.

  "Does your family make a big deal out of Thanksgiving?" I asked, assuming an expression of great earnestness. My motives were purely ignoble. The more open-ended the question, the longer Jay would keep talking. And the less likely he would be to notice that my attention was largely elsewhere.

  His mouth began moving. I nodded and smiled, all the while tracking Colin's movements like high-tech army radar with an enemy warship in range.

  I knew exactly how I was going to play it. I wasn't going to smile. I wasn't going to jump up and down and wave like a maniac. I winced at the memory of standing in a ruined cloister in Sussex, with my eyes closed, my head tipped back, and my lips puckered up.

  I'd already indicated more than enough interest.

  For once, I was going to play it cool. If he came up to me, I knew he was interested; if he stayed on the other side of the room, he wasn't. It was a test of the Emergency Boy Interest System.

  There was just a slight hitch to the plan. Colin's back was to me, which meant that, unless he suddenly grew eyes in the back of his head (which would be a distinct turnoff in the dating department), he had no idea I was there.

  Details, details.

  And, lo, the great dating gods did cast the glow of their countenances down upon me. At the bar, Colin suddenly twitched and plunked his glass back down on the counter. No, it wasn't a sudden epileptic fit or an attack by a killer snake only he could see. It was his mobile, buzzing away in his left pocket. He dove sideways, like John Travolta on the downswing of "Staying Alive," and yanked the phone out of his pocket, swiveling away from his companions as he did so, that marginal move by which cell phone users maintain the illusion of privacy with the minimum actual movement.