A Scandalous Deception

by Lynn Messina

  “I see your game, Miss Hyde-Clare, and it will not work,” he announced as he took a document from the top of the pile.

  “My game?” she asked, drawing her brows together in perplexity.

  “You’re trying to hoard your mystery,” he explained, “but I will not be fobbed off by displays of false courtesy. Lord Fazeley’s death is a matter of public consumption, not your private possession. I know this because I read about it in the London Daily Gazette this morning.”

  By implying that she could feel a sense of ownership to a dead man, he was being deliberately absurd in an attempt to provoke a response and she resolved not to accommodate him. If the Duke of Kesgrave wanted to spend his day sifting through dreary documents in the research room of the British Museum just to goad her temper, who was she to object?

  As the hour wore on, however, she began to wonder if her understanding of his motives was less than complete, for he quietly perused page after page without complaint. The apparent earnestness of his interest forced her to reconsider her assumption, and in the end she was compelled to admit that he’d remained for a purpose other than to tweak her ego.

  Why, she thought, would a gentleman of wealth, breeding and status who had every avenue of entertainment open to him choose to waste an afternoon reading letters to and from auction house clerks and antiquities dealers? The correspondence did have a few bright spots, such as the mix-up over a knife thought to be from the tomb of an Egyptian king but in fact belonging to the archeologist’s local guide. But the vast majority of the letters were filled with the minor details of amassing a collection as far-reaching and impressive as Sir Walter’s. Every step he’d taken to obtain the Singh dagger was provided in alarming specificity, and Bea wondered if the art of acquisition was his true love, not ownership itself.

  Surely, Kesgrave found the documents as tiresome as she did.

  But no, she thought, peering over the top of a letter at the duke and noting genuine fascination on his handsome face. She shouldn’t have been surprised, for this was, after all, the very same man who had sat across from her in the dining room at Lakeview Hall and listed the name of every ship that had fought in the Battle of the Nile in order of appearance. He relished details and minutiae and ardent displays of arcana and pedantry.

  She could easily picture the dinner party at which he would thoughtfully and painstakingly enlighten his fellow guests on the challenges of acquiring a pair of eighteenth-century daggers from a raga’s former steward. How engrossed everyone at the table would appear! How intrigued! Nobody would grimace or interrupt or suggest that perhaps they turn the discussion to something everyone could participate in, such as Joseph Grimaldi’s performance in High-Mettled Racer. No, they’d sit demurely, smile politely and privately imagine throwing scalloped oysters at his smug head. And they would do it because he was a duke and their fascination was owed him as much as their respect.

  And that, she realized with sudden insight, was why he’d remained behind to study the documents in the reading room. The Duke of Kesgrave held himself in too high esteem to readily accept the blow she’d dealt to his consequence by figuring out who murdered Mr. Otley before him. That event, most likely unprecedented in his existence, had created a deficit in his self-worth, which he was determined to restore by discovering the identity of Fazeley’s killer.

  His intention to redeem himself explained why he had paid a visit to Portman Square that morning, as his claim of wanting to offer condolences on the death of Mr. Davies had sounded highly suspect when he’d issued it. Once again, all one had to do was consider his position in society and the opportunities available to him to recognize the truth. Tweaking the ego of one unimportant spinster had never been his objective. This matter was about vanity, yes, but not hers.

  No wonder he had avoided her so assiduously at Lakeview Hall! From the moment she had announced to him she knew who the murderer was, he had evaded her presence, disappearing on an errand or bracketing himself in Skeffington’s study with his lordship. She’d expected him to arrange a tête-à-tête to discuss the matter either before or after she revealed the identity of the culprit and was both disappointed and confused when he hadn’t. But of course that made sense now, for in outwitting him she had pricked his ego and he felt no obligation to gratify hers.

  And so the calculated condolence call to discover what information he could about Lord Fazeley’s demise from the woman who, according to the London Daily Gazette, had witnessed it.

  Bea did not begrudge him his interest, as she herself could not smother her own, but she did resent his motivation and believed it was an act of cruelty to draw her aunt into the affair. What an excruciating visit that would have been for poor Aunt Vera, torn between delight at having the illustrious Duke of Kesgrave in her humble drawing room nibbling on stale tea cakes from the day before and horror that he knew the depth of her family’s shame, allowing a gently bred young lady to mourn the death of a penniless law clerk from Cheapside.

  It was wrong, of course, to smile at her aunt’s suffering, real or imagined, and yet she couldn’t quite suppress her amusement.

  “You found something?” Kesgrave asked suddenly.

  Shook from her reverie, Bea tilted her head as she furrowed her brow in confusion. “Excuse me?”

  “Have you found something that will point in the direction of the second dagger?” he asked. “You were looking at me and smiling, so I thought you might have something useful to share.”

  As embarrassed as she was to have been caught staring, she refused to give into the discomfiture and kept her light-brown eyes steadily trained on his vibrantly blue ones. “No, not yet,” she said, then added as a distraction, “I was merely thinking how much the level of detail in these letters must appeal to you.”

  He knew he was being teased and yet answered sincerely. “As a collector myself, although nowhere on the scale of Sir Walter, I’m impressed with his ability to retain a dealer’s goodwill while making an insultingly low offer. It’s a skill I lack, as I always jump several steps ahead in a negotiation by starting with a fair offer, which provides me with fewer opportunities to counter. My agents despair of me.”

  The honest admission, like so much about Kesgrave, disconcerted her, and she glanced down at the letter in her hand. “I’m sure Mr. Goddard will be pleased by your admiration of Sir Walter. You must tell him that when he returns.”

  “Admit to the esteemed librarian that I’m unable to gain the upper hand in negotiations with auction house clerks?” he asked with exaggerated horror. “Relaying such trivialities will convince him I’m not a serious patron.”

  “You are a duke,” she pointed out, as if that was all one needed to know to be convinced of anything.

  He dipped his head in acknowledgment. “True.”

  Bea said nothing further as she returned to sorting through the archive: a letter from Mr. Bonham at the auction house, a report on the condition of the daggers, a bill for the cost of shipping the items from India, another letter from Mr. Bonham, a note announcing receipt of the daggers.

  She was just beginning to think the project was hopeless when the duke said, “Lady Abercrombie.”

  “Lady Abercrombie?” she asked.

  “He gave the second dagger to Lady Abercrombie in 1812, when he acquired them. He held on to one and gave her the other,” he explained.

  At once, she pictured the raven-haired beauty who had taken a string of lovers after her husband was killed on the Peninsula during the campaign’s first year. The lady had recently passed the threshold of fifty and, if Bea was remembering it correctly, had a son only a year or two younger than Russell.

  Although a knife struck her as an uncommon courting gift, she reminded herself it was beautifully carved and bedecked with jewels. It was also a rare collector’s item and most likely worth more than the usual diamond bracelet.

  “Did they have an affair? I never heard their names linked, but I’m at best an indifferent gossip. It’s not as
interesting when you don’t know the people.”

  “I believe they had a brief relationship,” Kesgrave said thoughtfully. “Tilly is not one for constancy.”

  “Tilly?” she asked sharply. “Do you know her, your grace?”

  “I do, yes,” he said with a simplicity Bea found oddly unnerving. “Almost everyone does. She is a true social butterfly, amiable and outgoing. In general, she likes everyone and everyone likes her. You will like her too.”

  “Will I?” she said quietly as Kesgrave began to return the papers to a neat stack. She didn’t know which surprised her more: his assumption that she was soon to meet the famous widow or that he was thoughtful enough to straighten up the table before they departed.

  “Obviously, anything is possible, but I think it’s highly implausible Tilly stabbed Fazeley,” he explained as he arranged the documents in size order, with the largest ones on the bottom. “It’s more likely she gave the knife to the person who did.”

  “It becomes less implausible if Lady Abercrombie was to be a chapter in Fazeley’s book,” she pointed out. “As you observed, she is not known for her constancy. Certainly, there is much opportunity to provide fodder.”

  He shook his head. “Tilly? No, she’s too brazen to keep secrets. Everything she does is out in the open.”

  Bea, who felt a curious urge to scream every time Kesgrave said the other woman’s name, found it hard to believe that a lady notorious for taking a string of lovers had no skeletons hiding in her cupboard. She did not mention that, however, because it was clear from the way he spoke of her—warmly, fondly, with affection—that the duke held her in high esteem. Naturally, she could not help but wonder if he did not number among her suitors.

  “Furthermore,” he added when she didn’t respond, “I think Fazeley’s talk of a memoir was all a hum to puff himself up. He did not have enough interest in anything to write a full sentence about it, let alone an entire book. Rather, he enjoyed having a cudgel with which to intimidate other people.”

  “But if those people believe it’s real,” she said, “one of them might have acted out of concern. The memoir’s actual existence is incidental to one’s perception of it.”

  He agreed with her point while taking a moment to reassert his conviction that Tilly had nothing to do with it. “But of course we will put the question to her with no further delay.”

  Hearing him say her name in that doting way yet again, Bea gnashed her teeth together in an effort to stay silent. She could not conceive what bothered her so much about his attitude, for it was no business of hers whose string he had chosen to adorn. Even at the height of her optimism, during those giddy first days of her first season, when she had believed there was something endearing about her freckles and the way her eyes twinkled with amusement, she would never have looked so high as the Duke of Kesgrave. A baronet, perhaps, or the son of a prosperous landowner. Aunt Vera, who worried that even those modest goals were too lofty, thought a second or third son would do better, someone whose prospects were already limited by a misfortune of birth.

  Nobody, not even her late parents, whose judgment had most assuredly been corrupted by love, imagined anything so soaring for Beatrice Hyde-Clare as a duke.

  And now here she was, a rolled-up spinster at the advanced age of six and twenty, her days of optimism long behind her and her spirit resigned to the ineffable reality of life. Not once in her drab existence had she railed at the fate providence had seen fit to assign her and then she heard the blasted Duke of Kesgrave say the name Tilly with tender affection.

  Suddenly and all at once, she felt an urge to object.

  ’Twas pure foolishness, of course, and she was almost inclined to seek refuge in her grief, for what woman deep in the throes of mourning a lost love could be relied upon to be sensible. If only Mr. Davies had managed to avoid that speeding mail coach or had properly chewed that joint of mutton before trying to swallow or learned to swim before jumping into that pond to retrieve his hat, Miss Hyde-Clare would not be in danger of developing a tendre for the unattainable duke.

  She was, of course, far too levelheaded to allow herself the pleasure of attributing a real feeling to an artificial emotion even in jest. But the idea itself, the fact that it existed in even some small way as a possibility, made her smile, for her lively mind appreciated any scheme that had absurdity at its core. Immediately, she felt her gloom lift and with it her perspective. Her developing anything for Kesgrave other than a deeper sense of contempt for his condescension was laughable. It actually caused her to chortle.

  Ah, there it was again—her appreciation for a scheme with absurdity at its core.

  Her frame of mind improved, Bea reached for the ribbon to help secure the orderly stack and turned her attention to the duke’s last statement. What had it been? Something about putting the question to Sir Walter’s former mistress with no further delay.

  And she was reasonably sure he had used the pronoun we.

  Startled, she looked at him and said, “Both of us?”

  “Are you not as curious to know what happened to the dagger as I?”

  “Yes, of course I am,” she responded at once, “but going right now…it’s unexpected and I’m…”

  At a loss, she trailed off.

  “In mourning?” he asked, lips curving into a smile.

  Baffled, she thought. Bewildered. Confused by the invitation and willingness to share his access to the dazzling widow. If they were engaged in a race to see who could be more clever in figuring out the murderer this time around, then why surrender his advantage? For her, the chase for the dagger ended right there, in the research room of the British Museum. She could not call on Lady Abercrombie, identify herself as an interloper and boldly ask about a knife her dead lover had given her. Similarly, she couldn’t dress in her darkest colors, skulk around the lady’s town house until she gained entry into the residence and poke through her things looking for information about the weapon.

  She did not have the courage for either one of those activities.

  With his entrée to every drawing room in the kingdom, he would have won handily this time. Why, then, would he seek her company?

  Truly, it was a puzzle, and perhaps the only way to make sense of it was to reevaluate her earlier assumption. Maybe he did seek an appreciative audience, for a duke who sparkled unobserved did not sparkle at all. She’d assumed he was determined to prove something to himself by identifying Fazeley’s killer, but as she pondered the unlikeliness of his invitation, she considered the possibility that he did indeed feel compelled to prove something to her. After all, she was the one who had gained the upper hand by outwitting him in the Lake District, and as the Duke of Kesgrave, he had privileged access to his own perfection. He did not require corroborating evidence to be in awe of it. But Miss Beatrice Hyde-Clare, with her acute perception and her contempt for his importance, needed persuading.

  It surprised her that a man of Kesgrave’s temperament would care about her opinion at all, for she must appear like an ant to him, something so small as to pass almost unnoticed. It wasn’t merely that her standing in society was so much less than his; it was also the fact that she’d failed to perform appropriately for her own class. The only creature of less importance among the beau monde was the elderly female, a form she would take sooner or later.

  She wondered if that in itself was the problem, for it must be very galling for a duke to find himself down a point against a plain-faced nonentity. In the regular order of things, he should not even have been required to notice her existence, and yet there she was, eternally present, a niggling concern buzzing in his ear, more fly than ant.

  Did she truly believe Kesgrave could be so miserly in his generosity that he would begrudge an aging spinster her small moment of triumph? Bea did not know. What she did know was what she had always known: the yawning disparity of their situations. The duke already had so much. Did he really need this too?

  But perhaps she was being uncharita
ble in her understanding of his motives. She had seen for herself his need to establish order, the way he felt obligated to correct mistakes no matter how minor or irrelevant to the point under discussion. His desire to reassert himself might simply be an extension of that compulsion: She had upset the natural order of the world, and he could not rest until his dominance was restored.

  Ultimately, it didn’t matter what motive impelled his offer to introduce her to Lady Abercrombie. The fact of the matter was she had run into a large impediment to her investigation into the dagger, and the Duke of Kesgrave had provided her with a way around it. She could stand on principle and decline, of course, but that would mean depriving herself of something she enjoyed. And she could not avoid the truth any longer: She thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of trying to identify a villain. It was thrilling to have a purpose to one’s day and invigorating to know one had something useful to add to the world. Usefulness beyond fetching a pair of scissors for her aunt or cousin was an entirely new sensation for Bea, and she was unwilling to give it up so easily.

  “I am in mourning, your grace,” Bea said after a long interval, “and indeed at this very moment I am tucked up in my bedchamber weeping inconsolably into my pillow.”

  “How long do you expect that to last?” he asked as they rose from their chairs. He picked up the stack of documents and carried it to the clerk who sat at the desk in front of the door to the archive.

  “It’s difficult to say because one’s moods can be so changeable, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the tears start to subside a few hours before the Lelands’ ball,” she said, nodding at the young man, who was too in awe of the duke to notice the gesture, much less return it.