The Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla

by Lauren Willig

  “How charming.” Sally sat down on the edge of the bed. “What do we do?”

  “I,” said Miss Gwen, prodding at Sally with the blunt end of her teaspoon, “am going to finish my chapter. As for you, you can go do whatever you like. Go to the village and buy new ribbons. Annoy your hostess. Take your stoat for a walk.”

  Lady Florence preferred to be carried. But that was beside the point. Sally slid off the side of the bed. “I meant something useful.”

  And, more importantly, something that would keep her well out of Lucien’s way.

  “You aren’t here to be useful. You are here to provide the experts with an entrée. Which you have done very nicely,” said Miss Gwen, in the tones of one making a great concession. She waved a hand at Sally. “Now run along and entertain yourself—there’s a good girl.”

  “Entertain myself,” Sally repeated flatly. She wasn’t here to entertain herself. She was here to uncover a spy and cover herself with glory. Or something along those lines. “We only have three days. Shouldn’t I be—oh, I don’t know—questioning the servants? Looking for secret papers?”

  “No,” said Miss Gwen.

  “But—” Sally felt increasingly frantic. Surely, there had to be something she could do, something useful.

  “No.” Miss Gwen snapped open her pince-nez and propped them back onto the bridge of her nose. “If you truly want to be useful—”

  “Yes?”

  “You can tell the maid to send up a fresh pot of chocolate.” Miss Gwen regarded her cup with displeasure. “This is undrinkable.”

  “That didn’t stop you from drinking it,” said Sally, but only once the door was closed behind her.

  Miss Gwen wasn’t quite as deadly with a teaspoon as she was with a parasol, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t bruise.

  Sally stomped her way down to the inconveniently located dining room. If this were her house—but it wasn’t, and she didn’t have any business redesigning it. She didn’t have any business doing anything, apparently. She might as well just collect her stoat and go home. Never mind the fact that if it weren’t for her, Lucien would have gone off onto that balcony by himself and been found with the girl’s body and no one would have the least notion that the Black Tulip had risen from the dead, but, really, why let that weigh with anyone? She was just a pretty face—that was all. Buy herself new ribbons, indeed!

  Although, to be fair, there had been some rather pretty primrose silk ribbons in that shop in the village that would go perfectly with her jonquil morning dress . . .

  Sally spent an engrossing moment in sartorial calculations before remembering that she was meant to be above such shallow pursuits.

  And the ribbons hadn’t been that pretty.

  Dabney, who appeared to have a habit of omniscience as well as several useful tips on the care and feeding of stoats, opened the dining room door for her.

  Sally nodded graciously to the butler as she passed through the doorway. “Thank you, Dab—”

  She caught sight of Lucien at the sideboard, spearing a kipper, and her tongue froze.

  “—ney,” she finished numbly.

  Dabney closed the door behind her before she could bolt back towards the hall. She wasn’t entirely sure it was unintentional. For a split second, she contemplated escape. She needed a shawl—no, she had a shawl. A warmer shawl! Extra hairpins?

  It was too late. Lucien had seen her. At least, Sally noticed with a certain grim satisfaction, there were dark circles under his eyes that matched the ones beneath hers.

  Although that might be because he had spent the night on a cot while his cousin snored on his bed.

  Lucien opened his mouth to say something. It might just have been “Good morning,” but Sally wasn’t taking any chances. It was best to set the tone early, before he could accuse her of attempting to ravish him.

  “What have you done about your cousin?” Sally demanded, before he could say anything.

  If he was at all affronted by her lack of a greeting, Lucien didn’t show it. “I left a basin by the side of the bed and a pitcher of water on the bedside table,” he said mildly. “Beyond that . . .”

  It was entirely unfair that he should be so pleasant when Sally had spent the night trying very hard not to remember their kiss, which meant that she had remembered it every time she had tried not to remember it. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Lucien lifted his plate, regarded a kipper with disfavor, and set it down again. “I’d forgotten how grisly these English breakfasts could be.” As Sally began to fidget with impatience, he added, in a conciliatory tone, “I intend to speak to my uncle about him.”

  Sally looked at him sharply. “Not to Sir Matthew Egerton?”

  Lucien busied himself in choosing a sausage, a matter which apparently required his full concentration. “Sir Matthew Egerton believes I’m all four horsemen of the apocalypse rolled into one. It would be a wasted interview.”

  Sally boiled with frustration. “You mean you don’t want to expose your cousin to the full force of the law.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Lucien carefully transferred a sausage onto his plate, but the extreme precision of his movements told Sally she had hit home. “If my uncle chooses to do so, he can go to Sir Matthew.”

  It would have been better if he hadn’t sounded so entirely reasonable. When, in fact, nothing could have made less sense.

  “In other words,” said Sally succinctly, “you’re not going to do anything at all.”

  A flush rose in the duke’s cheeks. “I told you. I’m going to—”

  “I know. Talk to your uncle. Your uncle isn’t the one being charged with murder.”

  Lucien moved abruptly away from the sideboard. “No one has charged me with anything.”

  “Yet.” Sally followed him, spoiling for a fight. “What happens when Sir Matthew Egerton shows up with his Bow Street Runners and a warrant for your arrest? Will you say anything then? Or will you just say ‘thank you very much’ as they clasp the manacles around your wrists?”

  Lucien set his plate down with a clink. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” It was sunny outside, but the dining room was in gloom because Lady Henry didn’t like the curtains opened. It all made Sally want to stamp her feet with frustration. “You’re the duke. Act like one.”

  Lucien straightened, looking Sally full in the face. “What,” he asked, with ominous calm, “is that supposed to mean?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Lucien gave Sally his most ducal glare, but Sally wasn’t the least bit daunted.

  She set her hands on her hips. “All of this. You act like a guest in your own house. You sleep in a cot in your own room.”

  “Was I meant to leave Hal on the floor?” Lucien’s words dripped with sarcasm.

  “Yes! On the floor, on the cot, on the settee—”

  The landscape conjured up by her words brought with it a host of illicit imaginings that did nothing to improve Lucien’s mood.

  Sally waved her hands in the air. “It doesn’t matter where he slept. The point is that all this is yours. It’s your responsibility. And you behave as though you’re just passing through.”

  “I have had other matters on my mind,” said Lucien, with dangerous civility. “I had my reasons for staying away.”

  “Yes,” said Sally, throwing caution to the winds. “And it’s all quite dreadful, but you’ve been so busy brooding over the past—”

  Lucien looked at her with smoldering eyes. “I do not brood!”

  “What do you call that, then?” Sally’s voice rose with every word. “As I was saying, you’re so busy brooding over the past that you’ve entirely neglected the present! What did you plan to do when you solved your parents’ murders? Slink back off into the shadows? Do you know what I think?”

  “No,” said Luci
en in clipped tones. “But I am reasonably sure you intend to tell me.”

  Sally glared at him, her blue eyes as bright and merciless as a cloudless summer sky. “I think that the real reason you stayed away so long had nothing to do with your parents at all. It was because you were afraid that if you came back, you might actually have to take responsibility for all this, and that—this—scares you silly.”

  The sheer injustice of it took Lucien’s breath away. Scared? What in the devil was she talking about? What did she know about it? Just because there were hundreds of tenants—thousands of acres—a million decisions he knew nothing about—that had nothing at all to do with any of his actions. Nothing.

  And what did Miss Sally Fitzhugh know about it? She hadn’t had her family ripped away from her, first, in their deaths, and then again, in the massacre of their reputations. No. She was the center of a loving family circle who protected and cosseted and teased her.

  With a flash of disgust, Lucien realized that he was jealous. Sickeningly, indefensibly jealous of the warm circle of affection that surrounded Sally, the affection she bestowed so generously on those around her. He wanted a drawing room that smelled of cinnamon and a child with her pudgy hands smeared with raspberry jam. He wanted, as he had so long ago, to be part of a family, a real family.

  What was the point of it? Bile rose at the back of Lucien’s throat. He didn’t have that sort of family. He had a sister who despised him, a cousin willing to stand back and see him hang, an aunt who wanted him dead, and parents who might not have been at all what he believed them to be.

  It was, he decided, all Sally’s fault for filling him with these foolish wishes, for making him see Hullingden as the home it could be. Lucien dragged one of the drapes defiantly open, yanking the rope into place on its gilded hook. “It might be better for everyone if you took a little less responsibility.”

  Sally blinked in the sudden onslaught of light. “I don’t—”

  “You do,” said Lucien shortly. “Whatever it is, you do. You’re like—you’re like a puppy.”

  “A puppy?” Sally regarded him incredulously, looking entirely unlike a canine of any species and very much like an irate young lady of considerable good looks.

  “Yes.” Perhaps it wasn’t the best simile, but he certainly wasn’t backing down now. “Constantly bounding around and getting underfoot and snarling up the carpets. Do you ever stop to think before you go charging in?”

  “I—,” began Sally.

  Lucien wasn’t prepared to stop. “You’re a one-woman cavalry charge! It doesn’t matter if it’s a windmill at the other end. You’ll tilt at it anyway, because: You. Don’t. Stop. To. Look. Everyone else’s troubles are just so much fodder for your entertainment. Never mind the toes you might tread on in the process.”

  Sally bristled. “If I’m asked for help—”

  “Are you?” Lucien retorted. “Are you? Or do you offer it regardless of whether it’s wanted or not? When was the last time you left well enough alone?”

  There were two bright spots of color in Sally’s cheeks. “That,” she said, “is entirely unfair.”

  “Is it?” said Lucien sharply. “How did you end up on that bloody balcony with me?”

  “I was trying to save you from fortune hunters.” Sally bit down hard on her lower lip. “And you should be grateful that I did! What would have happened if I hadn’t been out there with you? If I hadn’t, you—”

  “Would have dealt with it myself, with a great deal less fuss and bother.” The thought that she saw him as that weak, that ineffectual, filled Lucien with gall. “Did you ever stop to think, just once, that perhaps the world might not be in need of your expert advice?”

  Sally flinched at the acid in those last two words. She breathed in deeply through her nose. “You seemed to like my advice well enough before.”

  “I was being polite!” All the frustration of the past night found an outlet in Lucien’s voice. “Do you think I enjoy being embroiled in this—this farce?”

  The words cracked off the walls.

  Sally’s face went as pale as porcelain. As abruptly as it had risen, Lucien’s anger bubbled away. He ought to feel smug that he had made a dent in that boundless self-confidence of hers. Instead, he felt as though he’d taken a bat to a priceless porcelain ornament just to hear it crack.

  There was no triumph in it, only the shards of something precious that used to be whole, but wasn’t anymore.

  “Well, then,” said Sally. “Well, then.”

  With a pang, Lucien recognized it as what she said when she didn’t know what to say, because, being Sally, she couldn’t bear to say nothing at all.

  He was worse than a cad. He was an idiot.

  He took a step towards her. “Sally—”

  Sally moved hastily out of his path, her skirt swishing around her legs, speaking rapidly all the while. “You needn’t worry. I shan’t embroil you any longer. Would you like me to release you from your obligations? There. It’s done.”

  Being beaten around the head with a bat was too good for him. “Don’t be hasty.”

  “But I am. Isn’t that what you told me? That I don’t think?” Sally’s eyes were suspiciously bright. “Besides, it’s hardly hasty when we always knew this had to end anyway.”

  Lucien felt as though he was sinking in a swamp of his own devising. “I didn’t mean—”

  “We have our betrothal ball tomorrow night. It will be the perfect time to announce our disengagement. It will be our un-betrothal ball.” One hand on the doorknob, she paused only long enough to look regally over her shoulder. “Who knows? Perhaps we’ll start a fashion.”

  And with that, she sailed out the door, nearly colliding with Dabney, who managed to scrabble out of the way just in time to escape a doorknob to the nose.

  “Sally!” said Lucien, starting after her, only to be thwarted by Dabney, who planted himself smack in the center of his path.

  For a slender man, Dabney could take up a great deal of space when he chose.

  Behind him, Sally was disappearing through the arch that led into the Great Hall. Lucien could hear the furious slap of her slippers against the marble floor. Her lilac scent still lingered in the air, an olfactory reproach.

  He’d been an idiot and he needed to make it right, but for the fact that there was a butler in his path.

  “Not now, Dabney,” Lucien ground out.

  The fact that Dabney had clearly been listening at the keyhole did nothing to improve Lucien’s mood.

  Dabney neatly blocked him, all without appearing to move. “Lord Henry wishes to see you, your grace.”

  The last flounce of Sally’s jonquil yellow skirt swished through the arch, like sunshine disappearing behind a cloud.

  What in the devil was it that Dabney was saying? Oh, yes. Uncle Henry. Lucien bounced from one foot to the other, trying to get a glimpse of Sally over Dabney’s shoulder. “Tell Lord Henry that I will be with him presently.”

  Despite an entirely bland countenance, Dabney still managed to convey an air of extreme reproach. This, after all, was the man who had fished Lucien out of the frog pond when he was a five-year-old. “I had the impression it was quite urgent, your grace.”

  The very fact that Dabney was calling him “your grace” rather than “Master Lucien” was a clear indication that Lucien was out of favor.

  Brilliant. He’d alienated not only his betrothed, but his servants as well. It might have something to do with the fact that Dabney was a font of information on the care and feeding of stoats, a fact of which Lucien, despite a childhood at Hullingden, had been ignorant. It had taken Sally all of fifteen minutes to ferret it out, and to win Dabney’s undying devotion by soliciting his advice on all matters stoat.

  According to Patrice, who heard such things in the servants’ hall, Sally had also, in that brief space, managed to r
ecommend a poultice for the gamekeeper’s daughter’s sore leg, and warmed the cockles of Cook’s heart by asking for her recipe for raspberry jam.

  Sally, thought Lucien grimly, would make a brilliant Duchess of Belliston. Not the “go to London and sparkle at parties” sort of duchess, but the “organize the county gentry and bring all the tenants soup” sort of duchess. The sort of duchess his mother had never tried to be. The sort of duchess that his Aunt Winifred so desperately wanted to be, but wasn’t, even aside from the small fact of her not being the duchess.

  Sally would be a brilliant duchess. But he wasn’t that duke.

  That was the devil of it. Sally was right. Completely, undeniably right. Lucien didn’t know the first thing about being the Duke of Belliston. In addition to Hullingden, there were three other, lesser estates, at least one of which had been deeded to Clarissa upon his parents’ deaths. Lucien was sketchy as to the details of what fell within the entail and what didn’t; he had never bothered to find out.

  First he had been too young, and then—it had been easier to be indignant and alienated than to come home and face his responsibilities.

  The realization struck Lucien like a cannonade. All of those years, wandering the world, feeling sorry for himself, being cosseted by Tante Berthe. He ought to have been here, learning how to care for his tenants, doing his duty by Clarissa. There he was, envying Sally the warmth of her relations with her family, her easy camaraderie with her friends, as though one were either blessed with such things or one weren’t. Maybe it wasn’t a matter of blessing. Maybe it was a matter of working at it.

  He was the one who had run away all those years ago; he was the one who had made himself a stranger to his lands, a stranger to his family. No one had done that to him; he had made those choices for himself. And he didn’t know how to fix that any more than he knew what to say to Sally to make that light behind her eyes come back, that boundless self-confidence that was so much a part of her, that made her sparkle like a royal firework display.