“One thing more. I am not an hourly wage earner. I help you find your sister, guiding you through the social maze if that is what is required, in exchange for financial consideration. Is that understood?”
As well as Sanskrit. “I do not see much difference, except in the words you use.”
“To me there is. I am not a servant, a lackey, a hired man to do his mistress’s bidding.”
Ellianne understood it had to do with manly pride. She was willing to make concessions, especially when his manly hand felt so very nice holding hers, warm and a bit tingly, strong but gentle. What were a few words? “Very well. We are associates. Does that satisfy you?”
It did, but he did not want to let go of her hand. “Equals? My expertise, your expenditures?”
“I did not think you would consider any woman your equal.”
He didn’t. “Partners, then.”
They were speaking of her sister, her money, and her reputation at stake. What kind of partnership was that? Ellianne took her hand back, so she could think better. “Why can we not be friends?”
Stony felt the loss, as if a rare butterfly had flown out of his palm. He looked at his empty hand. “Friends trust each other.”
She placed her hand back in his and this time he did bring it to his lips.
“Friends,” they both said.
And that was the biggest lie of all.
Chapter Thirteen
“So you will attend Gwen’s dinner at the end of the week?” Stony asked before he left. When Ellianne hesitated he reminded her of her own earlier plan. “If even one person comments on your similarity to your sister, that is a start to finding her friends, or anyone who might know her plans.”
“You are right. I will come.” She did not look happy about the necessity, merely resigned.
“That’s a wise choice,” he teased, trying to cheer her up. “Otherwise I would have to charge you the price of Gwen’s handkerchiefs.”
“Lady Wellstone does seem a bit…lachrymose.”
“Especially when her wishes are thwarted. She goes through three or four handkerchiefs on a good day, half of which are mine. I cannot imagine the stack required if her dinner plans are destroyed. We do not entertain as much as she would like.”
“So she mentioned. I offered the services of my chef, if yours is not used to preparing for such increased numbers.”
They had no chef at Wellstone House, just an everyday cook whose skills encompassed beef and breakfast. He nodded his head in thanks. “You will be happy you did, as will the other guests, although Cook does bake a delicious strawberry tart.”
They discussed the guest list for a moment, Stony assuring Ellianne that these were neither the leading lights of high society nor the doyens who guarded the doors against intruders. No one at his table would find fault with her birth or her breeding. And no one, he swore to himself, would make her uncomfortable. The ladies were of kindly disposition, and the gentlemen were all respectably and reliably wed or betrothed, like Charlie. Not one raffish bachelor, roving husband, or randy widower was invited. He’d seen to that. Now he had to hope that Miss Kane did not dress in a sack, quote the cost of the china, or wrap green beans in her napkin to take home for the dog.
Gwen had promised him Miss Kane would not embarrass them, so he had to pray for the best, and help it along, like telling her she really did not need to carry her pistol to his home. “A weapon will absolutely destroy the well-mannered image we are striving for. We need these matrons to invite you to their own dinners and dances, not run away screaming. A pistol at your side will not do much for the new gown Gwen says you will wear, either. A fan or a vinaigrette is a much more fashionable accessory, I believe.”
She finally smiled. “Ah, and here I thought I would set a new style. But speaking of gowns, I have ordered two new ones for Gwen, for her help. I hope you will not take umbrage, but she has been so kind to me, I felt that was the least I could do.”
Stony hated that he could not buy Gwen all the fripperies she longed for, the luxuries that his father had cheated her out of by gambling away her dowry and her annuities. He hated that this heiress could buy Gwen a whole shopful of gowns if she wished, and was being so openhanded after knowing his stepmama for two days. Gwen was his responsibility, her needs his expense. He ought to refuse the gift, to tell Miss Kane that Wellstones did not accept charity. Yet he could not deny her generosity, and he could not spite poor Gwen to save his pride. He tipped his head. “That is extremely gracious of you. My stepmama already adores you. This will seal her approval.”
Ellianne immediately bristled. “I am not purchasing her friendship.”
“Of course not. I never implied you had any but the best of intentions. You must learn not to be so touchy, you know.”
“Must I? What of yourself?”
His jaw clenched. He was not the least bit touchy. “What of myself?”
“That business account, for instance. I wished to enumerate the costs, but you were the one who said gentlemen did not discuss financial arrangements. Then you were offended that your expenses were not met, and went to Timms, not me.”
“I was not offended. Merely concerned that you had, ah, miscalculated.”
“I seldom make a mathematical error. And you were offended. Timmy told me so. Touchy.”
“That is touché, madam. And now I had better be off to find Strickland for you, or else you will accuse me of being negligent of my duties. And that is being conscientious, not churlish.”
Stony kissed her hand one last time before leaving. Touchy? By heaven, who was she to find fault with him? He’d never met a female so quick to raise her hackles. Why, she was like a kitten you’d be stroking, purring along, then she’d turn into a spitting, hissing hellcat. Touchy, hell. He’d like to touch… Well, he would.
He wondered, on his way home, if her skin could be as soft as it looked, if her prim little lips would soften in passion. He wondered if her hair would feel like spun satin, and if her legs were as long as he imagined. Lord, speak of prickly, she would scratch his eyes out if she knew what he was thinking!
Stony doubted she had an inkling. Between her merchant’s morality and her determination to stay unwed, he doubted Miss Kane had the least understanding of lust. If she caught a glimmer of what went on between a man and a woman, she’d only decide such base emotions did not apply to her, not with her bank-ledger brain.
He recalled their conversation. He’d sworn disinterest in her fortune and her body. She hadn’t even blushed. Then she’d claimed she did not want his title or his ring. There was no mention of his body, as if she did not acknowledge his maleness or her possible response to it. Bah. Women like that were why married men kept mistresses. The sooner he found Strickland, and the sister, the better.
*
Ellianne had to change her clothes to go for a dress fitting. One of her new day gowns was ready, so she stripped down to her shift. Then she looked at herself in the mirror, turning to see her profile, then craning her neck over her shoulder to see her backside. What did he mean, he did not want her body? What was wrong with it? Granted, she was tall and thin, and little rounded dumplings of girls were in style, but other men ogled her. Other men tried to snatch kisses, and got their cheeks slapped, or worse. Wellstone was supposed to be a connoisseur of women, and he considered her beneath his notice?
She did not want him panting after her, of course, adjusting his trousers and breathing as heavily as a stag in rut. Of course not. What decent woman wanted to attract such untoward, embarrassing attention? Ellianne had been so disgusted she’d sworn off men entirely. Besides, theirs was a relationship built on mutual need. Not that kind of need, all hot and hurried, but her need for help and his for money. Desire had no place in their dealings with each other, none whatsoever.
Still, perhaps the necklines on her new gowns ought to be lower, after all.
* * *
Stony found Strickland that night. It was not an entirely felicitou
s meeting. Strickland was in his cups, in dishabille, and in need of a bath. He stank like a French tart, and Stony did not mean one of Cook’s strawberry pastries. Nor was Stony surprised, since his paid informants had reported the man to be staying at Madame Mignon’s Maison d’Amour.
Amour did not enter into the red-velvet-draped rooms. Strickland did not want to leave them.
“Don’t see what we have to talk about, Wellstone. I don’t owe you any blunt, do I?”
Stony shook his head. “No.”
The baron looked hopeful, or as hopeful as an unshaven, bloodshot-eyed, middle-aged libertine could look. “You owe me money, then?”
“No.”
“Then I was right. No reason to talk. I’ve better things to do, you know. There’s Bettina and Lizbet and Betsy, for starters.” He pulled one of the girls, Stony had no idea which, onto his lap. The whore giggled and wriggled and jiggled her uncovered breasts. Stony felt ill.
When he noticed that Stony had not gone away, Strickland stopped trying to raise the girl’s skirts while she sat on them. “Still here? Young fellow like you ought to know better. If you need help choosing, Mimi used to be in the ballet corps, but Marie’s tongue can touch her nose.”
Stony was no prude, but this display was revolting. He was ashamed Strickland was a member of the titled class. He tossed the girl a coin and jerked his head to the side, indicating she should leave.
“Here, now, no call for that. You could have waited your turn if you wanted—”
“I merely want to talk, in private.” Stony looked around the dimly lighted room. Most of the other “patrons” had gone off to the smaller chambers, and only a few of the girls were left sitting together at the far end, or were sprawled on sofas, drowsing. This seemed as private as he and Strickland were going to get. He lowered his voice anyway. “About Miss Kane.”
Strickland pulled his wrinkled shirt down over his belly. “Now I know we have nothing to talk about.”
“She wishes to speak to you.”
“Well, I don’t wish to speak to her. Obvious, ain’t it, when a fellow has to leave his own house and move into a French nunnery to avoid the plaguey female?”
“Why would you do that? You had only to answer her questions.”
“Hah! That proves you don’t know the cursed woman, so it can’t be any business of yours. But I’ll warn you anyway, man to man. Dangerous, she is. You go near that witch at your own peril.”
“What, you are afraid of Miss Kane, who is so thin a breeze could carry her away? I swear, her pistol is unloaded.”
“I’m not talking about a gun. Damned female almost unmanned me. Besides, who are you to be calling me lily-livered? You’re the one who refused to meet Earl Patten on the dueling field, aren’t you?”
“That had nothing to do with bravery. It was a matter of principles.”
“So is my not meeting the Kane creature. Deuced fond of my principles, I am, and I like ’em right between my legs.”
“Good grief, man, what the devil did you do to the woman to make her so angry that she…?” Stony couldn’t even say it, and willpower alone kept him from checking his own best belongings.
“Hah! Do to her? I asked the fishwife to marry me, that’s what I did!”
“And that’s how she refused you? I thought ladies were taught to thank a gent for the honor, not cripple him.”
“Well, she did thank me prettily enough the first time. I figured she was just playing coy. You know how they always say no at the beginning. So I tried to show her what a good time we could have together, in case she was worried I was too old.”
Now Stony wished she’d used the pistol, after all. “You are only lucky she had no father or brother to come after you with a horsewhip.” He supposed Strickland would never have taken such liberties if the poor female were better protected. No wonder she was so cautious around men.
Strickland was irate. “Lucky? I haven’t fathered any bastards since then, not that I know of anyway.”
“Lud, man, you had before, and you’re proud of it?”
“Only one, and I paid for his schooling, so don’t go getting righteous on me. But I haven’t been so careful recently. Still, that woman’s got a lot to answer for.”
Stony decided it was best to move on, before he made sure Strickland couldn’t move for days. “What about the sister?”
“Oh ho, so that’s where you come on the scene. I was wondering. You’re wise to avoid the older one, even if her portion is that much larger. Gives me the shudders just to think of her.” He drank from a half-empty bottle by his side, then belched. “Did you know that she can add any string of numbers you can name, and come up with the correct total every time, right in her head? Scary, eh? Of course, she would have been useful when I took out that mortgage on Fairview. Didn’t understand all those numbers, myself. I daresay she was hardly out of nappies, though. Brass ones, they must have put her in, to make her so mean.”
“The younger sister?” Stony prompted when Strickland appeared ready to fall asleep. “Miss Isabelle?”
“What’s that? Oh, she ain’t half as ferocious. Handsome young chap like you ought to have no trouble winning her affections. Except the older sister acts as guardian, guards her like a dragon. I was surprised she let the chit come to town, out of her sight. Either way, the young gal’s affections won’t mean much if you don’t meet the old maid’s expectations. From what I hear, you don’t fit the bill.”
“But you met her here in the city, didn’t you?”
“Never met her at Fairview, that’s a fact. Never been invited back. Of course, I didn’t take any chances with this one. Asked her in a moving carriage, don’t you know, where she couldn’t turn violent.”
This licentious old sot had asked an innocent, sheltered, nineteen-year-old maiden to be his wife? Why, Strickland had to be fifty if he was a day. But it was night now, so Stony swallowed his disgust. “So you asked Miss Isabelle to marry you, too?”
The baron shrugged. “Thought the older one might give us Fairview as a wedding present, don’t you know. What’s a baron without a barony? The entail was broken ages ago, but a man’s got to have his own piece of land, don’t you know.”
Stony did. He’d been working to reclaim and maintain his own estate forever, it seemed. “But Miss Isabelle also turned you down?”
“She might have come around if Lady Augusta hadn’t stuck her spoon in the wall. I was making progress with the chit, you know. Taking her for rides and such. Felt sorry for the brat, cooped up in the house. Lady A wouldn’t let her out with anyone else, so she’d have come around. I was sure of it. So was her aunt.”
Stony asked the question that had been bothering him for days now, one of the many things that made no sense. “What did Lady Augusta see in you? That is, why ever would she favor your suit for one of her nieces?”
Strickland had another swig from the bottle. “My first wife’s godmother, don’t you know. She felt guilty for not doing more when Alice took sick. Hell, the old skint should have done more when we were losing Fairview. Wouldn’t give us a shilling then, said I’d just gamble it away too. I haven’t gambled since,” he said, puffing out his flabby chest with pride.
It was strange, Stony thought. Timms gave up gambling and took up religion. This old rip took up wenching. One had hopes of heaven; the other had better pray he didn’t have the pox.
“Anyway, Lady A said she’d help me get my estate back. In return, I was to restore the Cit niece to respectability.”
Strickland was respectable? Stony looked around the smoke-filled room, with its sleeping doxies and wine-stained rugs and groans coming from side chambers. Since when? “So what happened to the girl when the aunt died?”
Strickland scratched under his arm. “Went home, I suppose. No use to me. The older one’d never give me the time of day, much less her sister’s hand. And I wouldn’t ask, not again. Fellow has to learn from the past, eh?”
“You haven’t seen her since? M
iss Isabelle, that is?”
“Is that what the bitch is saying, that I seduced her sister? No such thing. I meant to do it right and tight. The gal was going to be my wife, don’t you know. I had to do it up proper, make her fit for Almack’s, make Lady Augusta happy. No hope for that now.” Strickland was staring at the nearly empty bottle in his hand. “Too late for it all. Gone, all of it’s gone.”
Lady Augusta, hopes for reclaiming his estate, or the cheap wine? Stony couldn’t tell which loss the baron was bemoaning, but he knew he had to get out of here before Strickland turned even more maudlin. “Well, at least you can go home now. Miss Kane won’t be bothering you anymore. I’ll talk to her, explain about her sister.”
Strickland shook his head. “Might as well stay here another day or so. Nothing waiting for me at home.”
A bath was. But Stony was too late in leaving. Bloody hell, the baron was blubbering.
“Nobody there, nobody anywhere. No wife, no sons, no estate.”
And no handkerchief, either. Stony swore and handed his over, along with a few words of commiseration. Then he had to go explain to Miss Kane.
*
“You what?”
“He did not harm your sister, I am certain.”
“But I do not see how you could trust anything that despicable man said. I told you what he did.”
“And he told me what you did.” Stony shifted in his seat. Ellianne blushed. “But he learned,” Stony persisted. “And he tried to do things right with your sister. He felt sorry for her, under your aunt’s thumb.”
“Isabelle was never governed by Aunt Augusta. She could have come home at any time and she knew it. Despite the curtailment of her activities, she stayed on in London the last few months to be company for our aunt, who was ailing. I cannot believe you simply accepted Strickland’s story. What kind of detective are you, anyway?”
“An inexperienced one, as you well know. But remember that your sister packed to leave Sloane Street. She was not carried away. Why would she run off with Strickland when he had your aunt’s approval?”
A Perfect Gentleman Page 13