As he sought out his uncle near the reservoir, he pictured Celia confronting the man who she now assumed was her father. She would do it, he was sure. Discreetly, perhaps, but that would not be welcomed any more than the boldest approach.
And if the man was not her father, but someone with other reasons to pay Alessandra down through the years, then what?
Edward hailed him and he trotted over.
“You are unhorsed, Uncle. I did not see you.”
“The physician said I must take long turns every day. Tie your mount and join me. This is tedious and too time consuming.”
Jonathan did as bid, and fell into step. “Are you ill?”
“Just aging. It takes its toll in dozens of ways until you are dead of it.” Edward kept a sound pace, swinging a handsome walking stick to the rhythm of his stride. “I have not heard from you in some time. I thought I should find out what is happening.”
“Is someone impatient?”
“You are merely unaccountably slow. Is there a reason?”
A very good reason. He had avoided telling Edward about those crests, in part to protect Celia and in part to have time to learn what he could about a few patrons from five years ago.
“If I told you that I had learned it all, and had a list of her patrons, what would you do?”
Edward stopped walking. He studied Jonathan’s face, with his own expression serious and sober.
“Do you have such a list?”
“I do not. However, I wonder what you will do with what I learn. I have discovered that this mission did not come to me the normal way. The Home Office did not send you to me this time. I am curious who did.”
Edward walked on, faster now. His eyes burned beneath his hat brim. “Who told you that? I’ll not have some fool interfering—”
“I was told by someone who usually receives accurate information.”
“You told him, whoever it was, that you were doing this? Have you gone mad?”
“I revealed nothing. My activities have not escaped notice all these years. I am not completely invisible to others besides you in the government. I can see that my question has agitated you, however, so let us forget I asked.”
“Damnation, I should say so.”
They walked on and Edward eventually controlled his temper. “I wanted to ask you about the daughter,” he said.
“Celia.”
“Yes. Is it possible that she found something that you did not?”
“It is always possible, I suppose. Not likely. Even if she did, how could she know anything from it?”
Edward chewed that over, frowning.
“Why do you ask?” Jonathan prompted.
“Rather suddenly, Alessandra’s long-past history has become a topic of some interest among ladies of a certain age, my wife tells me. One would think a history of the gossip surrounding her is being compiled. Summerhays’s mother quizzed a few old friends, who in turn queried others—Well, it is peculiar.”
“It was probably only her recent death that caused it. Perhaps two ladies had an argument over a few points in their memories, and sought to be proven correct.”
“I don’t like it, however it happened.” Edward speared him with a hooded gaze. “You know her? The daughter?”
“Celia. Yes, I know her. I have spoken with her as part of my investigation.”
“You need to find out if she has learned something. Be very firm with her. Offer her some money if you must. That sort will respond to either pay or threats with little trouble.”
Two ladies approached, holding a close tête-à-tête. Jonathan let them pass while his annoyance with Edward simmered.
“What do you mean, that sort?” he asked, once they again had privacy.
Edward stifled a groan of impatience. “I am in no mood to mollify your delicate sensibilities about such women, Jon. I am not speaking of your mother. It is not the same. Even if it were, it does not matter what I meant. This is serious, and you must think about your duty first and do what is necessary to find out what is needed from her.” He tried a smile of appeasement. “You know how it must be.”
“I know how it must be when the mission is for England. We are a long way from the days when a vulnerable coast excused so much, Uncle. I don’t even know who has given me this damnable mission. There are limits to what things I will do in executing it, and insulting or threatening or hurting Celia Pennifold is beyond them.”
Edward’s face flushed. He directed a beady stare right at Jonathan. “You doth protest too much, dear boy. What is this woman to you, that you are so defensive? Has she seduced you? She has, hasn’t she?”
“She has not.”
“Then you seduced her. Do not deny it; I can see it in you. Perhaps others cannot, but you are not such an enigma to me.” He tapped his walking stick impatiently, in a quick staccato of vexation. “Are you mad? A liaison with such a woman is—”
“You do not know her, so stop referring to her that way. Such a woman. That sort of person. Damnation, it is enough to make me—”
“I do not need to know her. I do not care if she prays night and day. Her mother precedes her, she was groomed for the same life, and no man in society has forgotten. If you have any hope of the acknowledgment you seek, you will end this affair at once and hope no one is the wiser. That is all your cousin would need, to have one more excuse to deny you—”
“Hell, he is going to deny anyway, so don’t throw that old lure into the water. I don’t give a damn what Thornridge will think.”
“Don’t you, indeed? I see she has turned your head completely. Well, her mother could do it, and no doubt she can too.” He drew himself straight and sniffed. “For my purposes, I can see that she has compromised you too much.”
“What do you mean?”
“I no longer trust you with this mission. You are released. I will find another who will not allow a pretty face to divert him. My instincts say she knows something, and I intend to find out what it is.”
Edward marched on, his stick spearing the ground and his back straight. The military strictness of his bearing did not bode well for Celia. Evidently this was not such a small matter, the way Edward had claimed that day in the carriage.
Jonathan caught up with him. “Hear me now, Uncle. Do not miss one word of what I say, or doubt my resolve. It is not war time, and the acts of those years have no justification if committed now. Not by you, and not by your master on this, whoever he is. If you send another man, and he does anything to harm or impugn or even insult Celia Pennifold, I will make sure that he pays for it. She is under my protection, in all that means.”
Edward stared at him, astonished. “You would not dare.”
“I would dare. And when I am finished with him, Uncle, I will then deal with you.”
He left Edward gaping at him, and strode back to his horse. A half hour later he called on Lady Sebastian Summerhays, to see if she knew where Celia had gone.
Chapter Twenty
The manor house intimidated her. Tall, gray, and sprawling, with a drive it took her cabriolet twenty minutes to traverse, it spoke of power and exclusion.
Celia gave the reins to a groom and accepted his hand down. Her carriage rolled away and she faced the monstrous edifice. Her heart beat too fast and a terror of excitement paralyzed her. She forced the panic down and approached the door.
A servant bore her card away. She waited in a nice little chamber near the reception hall for a long while. Long enough that she counted the tiles on the floor, and noticed that the plantings at this end of the drive, visible out the small window, could use better care.
Eventually the servant returned, to convey regrets that the Marquess of Enderby was not at home today.
“Do you anticipate his return soon?”
“We have no anticipations at all.”
“I am willing to wait. It is not a social call.”
“Waiting is not advised.”
In other words, Enderby was at home, but ha
d chosen not to receive her. Normally that would not be surprising. However, she was sure he knew who she was to him. He knew that he turned away his own daughter.
She sat down on a chair. “Please tell the marquess that I have come a long way. I am not inclined to leave until I have met with him on a matter of utmost importance to us both.”
The servant appeared disconcerted. He was not accustomed to people who did not obey the rules. After some fluster, he wandered off.
He returned a quarter hour later, accompanied by another man. She knew what that meant. “Did he tell you to throw me out the door?”
One had the decency to flush. “We are here to escort you out.”
It was the same thing. She half decided to make them do it bodily. However, since there was no audience, and no one to think badly of the marquess for it, it did not seem worth the drama.
Good to their word and their orders, they escorted her to the door, over its threshold, through its portico, and down the steps. One of them signaled to the waiting groom to get her carriage.
She gazed up that gray façade. Was he watching up there? Looking down on his bastard daughter who dared to want one conversation with him? There should be a law that required he receive her. No man should be able to father a child and not even look that child in the eye once in his life.
He expected her to leave now, knowing her place, accepting his repudiation. She would be damned first.
“Tell the groom to keep the carriage. I will not be needing it yet.”
She went to the steps, marched up three of them, then sat on the top one. She glanced to the threatening skies, and tucked her cloak around her more snugly.
“Tell the marquess that I will not move until he grants me a short audience. Five minutes is all I require of him, nothing more, now or later. If he sees me this once, I will no longer darken his door until the day I die. Until he does, however, I will not move from here.”
By the time dusk gathered, Celia was concluding that she did not like her father much. Whatever girlish hope she had brought on this journey had been chilled out of her by the cold that permeated her rump from the stone on which she sat.
As if heaven itself sought to punish her for hubris, it began raining then. She opened her parasol so the water dripping off the portico would not drench her.
The grooms took shelter. She sat there alone, discouraged. What had Jonathan told her that night about the time his mother had done this? They had sat in front of that door for days, he said. Celia had not really expected her father to make her do that too.
Up ahead on the drive, the gathering shadows moved. She squinted to see if it was an animal. That would be some distraction at least.
Instead a horse paced into view. A tall white one with a man astride. He drew nearer, and she realized who it was. She wanted to cry, from relief and the cold and the slicing shards of a broken heart not yet mended.
Jonathan brought his horse right to the portico and gazed down at her. He did not appear to mind the damp at all, or even notice the drizzle rolling down his hat and greatcoat. He appeared magnificent, she had to admit. Cold and wet and other elements of nature were small matters to such as he.
“How long have you been here, Celia? All day?”
“I arrived just after noon.”
He dismounted. “Thank God. I feared you had started this yesterday.”
“I took a room at an inn last night, so I could start fresh today. How did you find me? Did you just guess which one was my father?”
“I went to Lady Sebastian, who said you had gone to visit Mrs. Joyes. When I arrived at The Rarest Blooms, I was told that you came here.”
“If Daphne told you, I must have worried her.”
“She appeared relieved to learn I would follow you.” He propped one booted foot on the step beside her and leaned closely toward her. “He is not going to see you, Celia. Not tonight and not tomorrow and not the day after. Come with me now.”
She shook her head. “If I go now, it will never happen. He will have to relent if I stay, just as Thornridge did with your mother. Tomorrow, if he has any decency at all, he will—” Her voice broke. She clenched her teeth for composure.
Night was falling fast now. Jonathan handed her his handkerchief, then shed his greatcoat. “Stand up.”
She wobbled to her feet on cramping legs. “You cut your hair. I like it.”
“Since you do, perhaps I will too.” Gray wool floated out in a wide arc, then came to rest on her shoulders, over her cloak. He bundled and wrapped her in the coat’s swaths, then fished in a leather bag on his saddle. He returned to the step with a piece of paper and a pencil and sat beside her.
Turning to use the step as a desk, he scribbled away. He folded the paper and walked to the door.
A servant opened it.
“Please give this to the marquess. Tell him it is from an agent for the Home Office.”
He came back and sat beside her again.
“What did you write?” she asked.
“I told him that you have evidence he made regular payments to Alessandra Northrope all during the war, and if they were not for the purpose you think, then I must assume they were for another purpose and would be obligated to report that to my superiors.”
“Perhaps he never heard the rumors about my mother. Then your note will make no sense.”
“I am assuming a marquess hears everything of note.”
Despite her tears, she laughed. “Jonathan, you threatened him. That was very bad of you.”
“Very bad.” He reached for the parasol, opened it, and held it so she was protected. “Do not pretend you did not know I had it in me.”
She took his other hand in hers. “Thank you for trying to help me.”
“It may take a while, but it should get that door open.”
It took a good while, so long that she doubted it would work at all. They sat there, silent in their companionship, their row the last time they were together miles away and a matter for another time. She found amazing comfort in his presence, and regained some of her own strength from the intimacy blanketing them both.
Eventually the door did open again. Jonathan stood and helped her up.
“Miss Pennifold, the marquess will see you,” the servant said.
She turned to Jonathan. “Do I look hideous?”
He slid his greatcoat off her shoulders. “You could never look hideous, Celia. You are always beautiful.”
She fussed with her damp skirts. “He is going to be angry, isn’t he? Because I forced this. Because of what you wrote.”
“He will be very angry. Do not take what he says to heart too much.”
“I will try not to. I will—” She licked her lips. “I am suddenly terrified.”
“You will be fine. I will wait for you here.” He smiled reassuringly, and walked her to the door.
Then suddenly she was inside again, alone.
The servant brought her deep into the house, to a small chamber near its back stairs. She dripped on marble and wooden floors the entire way.
He left her there, in a small sitting room with very ordinary appointments. She had expected better of a marquess, and of this house.
A large cupboard against one wall had one door slightly ajar. She peered in. Steely reflections glimmered back. She understood the furnishings then. This was not a chamber used by a peer’s family. This was the butler’s pantry, where the silver was stored and counted.
That hurt her, more than she thought anything so small could anymore on this miserable adventure. She also wanted to laugh, however. He hardly needed to remind her of her place this way. She was here only because she had sat on a stone step for five hours, after all.
He let her wait again. No refreshments came. No hot liquid to warm her. No servant arrived to build up the fire.
The goal, she guessed, was to emphasize he had been forced into this meeting and that she did not deserve it. She should probably be frightened, or insulted or sa
d. Instead she had to work hard to contain a building excitement.
Once he was here, once they were face-to-face, none of this would matter. Surely a parent could not be cruel to his own child when they met. Once he saw her, in the privacy of a chamber where no other eyes could see, he would be glad she had come.
Despite her efforts to control it, her anticipation reached a high pitch by the time the door moved. She held her breath as a man walked in. He faced her squarely from a spot just inside the chamber.
He was not what she had pictured all those years when she wondered about her father. He proved to be shorter than in those fantasies, and a bit portly now. His hair was almost white but she guessed it had been golden like hers years ago.
She noticed his eyes most of all in that first glimpse, however. They held the anger she expected, and a good deal of impatience and disdain. She did not care, because they appeared very familiar to her. They were the same eyes she saw in a looking glass.
Her heart filled with joy, and another emotion so anguished that her composure wobbled. She longed to reach for him, if only to have the physical connection of touching the sleeve of his coat. Perhaps he would reach for her too, the way she always hoped, and they would embrace, and his anger would disappear as a father’s emotion drowned it in better sentiment.
He took out a pocket watch and scowled at it. “You have five minutes, Miss Pennifold. What is it you want?”
“Nothing. Just to meet you.”
“You must think me a fool if you expect me to believe that. I know who you are. I know your name well.” His expression twitched, unpleasantly. “She gave her word that she would never tell you about me. It was part of the arrangement. How dare you come to this house.”
“She never told me. She was good to her word. I discovered things in her papers that led me to you.”
“She wrote it down?” The idea appalled him. “I was assured she had not. I was told she left nothing to point to me.”
“Nor did she, the way you fear. I saw the payments in the account book. It was hidden, and the man you sent to search her house for it would never have found it.”
Sinful in Satin Page 22