A Scandalous Deception

by Lynn Messina

  Kesgrave’s lips twitched in amusement, but he shook his head. “Having met your aunt, I would advise you to taper your tears sometime today, or she will insist you are too grief-stricken to attend the event.”

  “She has already played that card,” Bea said. “In all actuality, she has probably discovered by now that I’m not in my room, for Flora has been quite devoted in her concern for me, equally lovely and smothering. She will be horrified to learn that I went to the museum today.”

  “And your visit to Lady Abercrombie?” he asked curiously. “How will you account for that?”

  It was a good question, and Bea cursed the demands of propriety, which obligated her to tote a servant behind her every time she stepped outside. If she were alone, there would be no way for her aunt to discover how she’d passed the day. Of course, Bea could always ask Annie not to mention their diversion to Grosvenor Square, but she had no idea how such a request would affect the young maid. Perhaps knowing the information was delicate would make her more inclined to share it.

  Elevating it to an order would no doubt make spreading the tale irresistible.

  Very well, Bea thought. She would let the strangeness of the visit stand for itself. “I won’t try to account for it. It will merely be further proof of a mental deterioration sparked by an unfortunate proximity to Mr. Otley’s bloodied corpse. Perceiving a striking difference in my behavior since our sojourn to the Lake District, Aunt Vera has been alarmed for months.”

  “Has there been a striking difference?” he asked.

  Even as she marveled at the inappropriate frankness of her conversation, she answered him honestly by saying yes. She even added that her aunt’s understanding of the events wasn’t too wide off the mark, as discovering Mr. Otley’s dead body on the floor of the Skeffingtons’ library had indeed shifted something inside her.

  As candidly as she spoke, however, she did not tell him the entire truth. She did not reveal that the change had everything to do with him. She did not explain that it had begun the moment she’d stepped free from the row of bookshelves and saw him standing over the lifeless figure of the spice trader. Any fear she had felt at the persona he affected, the imperious and imposing duke simmering with disdain, was violently supplanted by terror of his person: the lithe, powerful man capable of snuffing the life out of her.

  It was impossible to cower in self-conscious regard when you believed you were about to die.

  It was also impossible, she’d discovered in the minutes and hours and days that followed, to revive the awe you once felt. Having confronted Kesgrave in the dead of night and suffering no ill effects, she could not resist challenging him in the bright light of day—in the drawing room, at the dinner table, in the privacy of his own room, which she had stolen into to demand answers to his inexplicable behavior.

  Yes, something ineffable had altered in that moment when she discovered Mr. Otley’s corpse, and because it had, she did not feel the least bit discomfited at the prospect of being in a carriage with him. What would have been a form of torture during her first six seasons struck her now as a pleasant diversion, and during the ride to Lady Abercrombie’s establishment in Grosvenor Square, she chatted easily and unrestrainedly about her aunt’s concerns for her mental acuity and funeral arrangements for poor Mr. Davies and whether the term “fazed” to describe a stunned silence in response to a cutting set-down would continue to prosper in the absence of the man who embodied it. Indeed, she was far more unsettled by the baffled look Annie had given her when she’d appeared in the entry hall of the museum in the company of the duke and continued to give her during the whole of the drive to Grosvenor Square.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Although Beatrice had met few women who counted a pet lion cub among their possessions, she felt positive she would find them all just as objectionable as Lady Abercrombie.

  “Go on, please, there’s no reason to be afraid,” the widow insisted, her red lips curved into an amiable smile. “He’s a darling, I assure you, and delights in being held. Here, you must.”

  Bea stared at the squirming mass of golden fur no larger than the mouser who slept under the table in the kitchens at Welldale House. It was adorable, to be sure, with its fluffy ears and large paws, and her desire to cuddle the endearing creature was equal to her horror at finding it in a London drawing room. And what a drawing room it was—a fantasia in the Chinese style to rival the pavilion at Brighton: lotus-shaped chandeliers, gilded serpents coiling around the coved ceiling, a bamboo canopy, trompe l’oeil wallpaper with dragons, dolphins, birds and flowers.

  Verily, the room was bursting with so much color and curios she didn’t know where to look.

  No, that wasn’t true, for the woman at the center of the room holding out a lion cub demanded attention. She was indeed as beautiful as reports had indicated—brooding eyes offset by a pert nose, heart-shaped face with fulsome lips, glossy black curls piled on the top of her head and tumbling down in calculated disarray. Her gown was just as eye-catching: elegant, colorful, revealing.

  Sweeping into the room a few minutes earlier, she had apologized for the informality of her ensemble. It was only her impatience to see Kesgrave that had kept her from retreating to her dressing room to prepare properly for her guests.

  She offered the statement with a sheepish smile, as if charmed by her own irrepressible idiosyncrasy, but Bea recognized the claim for the disingenuous nonsense it was. Lady Abercrombie was already a study in perfection, and to pretend she could ascend further by way of formality was to imply the lily could be gilded.

  Obviously, she lived in constant expectation of receiving visitors, a state that was not unusual for a woman of her standing. No doubt her extravagant drawing room saw a steady stream of callers. Bea did not begrudge her that, for she wasn’t so small-minded as to take exception to another woman’s popularity. No, her complaint ran deeper and fixated on the pretense, the determination to make her life’s work invisible so that the perfection for which she’d labored for hours appeared effortless. It distressed Bea to see how hollow she was.

  Why else take a wild creature to your bosom and show it off as a rare and wonderful novelty? The baby cub had done nothing to deserve the cruel treatment other than be born in the wrong place. If it were on the African plain where it belonged, it wouldn’t be unique at all.

  As these thoughts ran through Bea’s head, Lady Abercrombie pressed the lion into her arms and smiled with approval as he licked his new host’s elbow.

  “You see that?” she said. “Henry is a lamb. As gentle as can be. I take him for a walk every morning in the square and he doesn’t even chase the birds.”

  Bea readily acknowledged that the cuddly little cub was placid and sweet and that holding him was an uncommon delight. But how she felt about the animal had never been the point, for its comfort was more important than her fleeting pleasure, and she could not help but wonder what would happen when he gained a few hundred pounds, grew into his paws and learned how to rip flesh from bone with his mighty teeth. Would Lady Abercrombie consign him to a cage in the corner of the room or deliver him as a gift to the Royal Menagerie at the Tower? Both fates seemed desperately sad to her.

  “You named him after your dead husband?” Kesgrave asked, amused.

  Satisfied with how well Bea and her pet were getting along, her ladyship sat in an armchair upholstered in red silk and said, “I name all my pets after my dead husband because I’m so accustomed to saying his name in a tone of fond exasperation and baffled tolerance. Do you think Henry would have minded?”

  The duke graciously said that he didn’t believe her husband would have minded anything she did.

  Bea cringed at the unctuous reply, but their hostess was much gratified by it and reminded him of the time she had poured a glass of muscatel on Henry’s box of prize snuff by accident. Kesgrave laughed with appropriate humor, and encouraged by his response, Lady Abercrombie launched into another story that was ostensibly about her clumsiness but
was really about how charming she was. After relating a few more anecdotes in the same vein, she switched the subject to the Earl of Fazeley’s death, which caused Bea to sit up straighter in her chair in expectation of hearing something interesting. Alas, the widow merely avowed shock at his lordship’s stabbing and pronounced herself astonished that the gentleman appeared actually to have died in the encounter. “Naturally, when I first heard of the attack, I assumed it was a spectacle arranged by the earl to draw more attention to himself. As you know, he adored being the object of speculation.”

  Although Beatrice agreed with this summation of the earl’s character, it was rather strange hearing it come from a woman who was sitting in the middle of an Oriental-style fantasia with her pet lion cub only a few feet away.

  Perhaps, Bea thought, it was merely a case of like recognizing like.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if he’d arranged the whole thing himself,” she said, “and something went dreadfully amiss in the execution.”

  If the duke disagreed with this assessment, he did not say so, but rather chastised Lady Abercrombie for her cynicism in a tone so playful it rather sounded like a compliment. Then he asked about mutual friends he expected to see at the Lelands’ upcoming ball, which was the first of the season.

  Although the conversation was banal and provided Kesgrave with few opportunities to demonstrate his superior understanding, he was wholly engaged in the enterprise and responded eagerly to all her comments.

  Watching the duke interact with the lovely widow was a revelatory experience, for Bea had never before seen such an expert display of ingratiating enthusiasm or determination to entertain.

  Only a little while ago, she’d thought she would never feel intimidated by the Duke of Kesgrave ever again, and yet she felt the fear crawl over her as she observed his performance. This, she realized with growing dread, was who he really was—this creature of the drawing room, this man who deferred on every point and offered compliments both effusive and unnecessary. With no compunction at all, he sat in the middle of that ostentatious grotesquerie and flirted enthusiastically with a woman who seemed to have no more control of her décolletage than she did the poor African animal she shamelessly adopted to make herself appear more interesting.

  Bea could not blame him, of course, for being like all the other men she had met during her seasons—the ones whose approval she’d never earned, the ones whose attention she’d never caught. If the discovery caused a pang, it was only because she’d thought Kesgrave was different, for that was how he’d appeared at Lakeview Hall—as if he was so far above the regular order of the ton he wouldn’t be able to see it even if he bent down to look. But now she realized that it was merely that the company at Lakeview had been so far below it.

  As their tête-à-tête wore on, Bea opened her mouth at least two dozen times to announce that they were there to discuss the Jaipur dagger. In her head, she made the statement with a majestic indifference to their absorption, as if blithely unaware that they had been talking to each other. In reality, however, she was too timid to speak. What she feared most was not that they would glare at her in displeasure at the interruption but that they would not notice her at all. Sitting there with, of all things, a napping lion cub on her lap, she was wholly unseen. It was like every ball she had ever gone to.

  And then suddenly she looked up and they were both staring at her with an air of expectation. What had she missed?

  “I was just telling Tilly about the dagger,” Kesgrave explained.

  Startled by the development, Bea said, “Thank you.”

  It was an inane thing to say, and she regretted it the moment the words were out of her mouth. What did she have to be grateful for?

  The duke must have also thought it was an idiotic comment, for he tilted his head at her and furrowed his brow. “I explained how you wanted to acquire the knife for your uncle as a birthday present, for he has long admired its twin at the British Museum, and that I agreed to assist you as a favor to my father, who was a great friend of your own father.”

  Given that they had not discussed any sort of ruse in the carriage—how could they, with Annie only a few inches away—Bea was taken aback by this information and wondered why he had not informed her of his plan earlier. Did he not think it was relevant?

  Aware that she had let the silence stretch a little bit too long again, she said, “Yes, of course. And that is why I’m so grateful. I would have no hope of acquiring such a prize piece without his grace’s help. I’m afraid I have few resources when it comes to things like antiquities and weaponry.”

  Lady Abercrombie accepted this information with an affable nod, for it was, Bea noted wryly, very easy to believe she was a woman without resources. “And you say you are a Hyde-Clare?”

  “I am a Hyde-Clare,” she said with needlessly pointed emphasis. Of course her ladyship wasn’t trying to imply that she wasn’t actually a member of the family she claimed as her own.

  The other woman nodded thoughtfully for several long moments as she considered the information. “Your father was Richard, then, and your mother was Clara.”

  Of all the things Bea expected to happen during this interview, meeting someone who had known her parents was not on the list. “Yes, that’s correct.”

  Her ladyship sighed. “I remember when they died. Such a tragic accident and a shock, too, for your father was an excellent yachtsman.”

  Bea had never heard anything about her father’s boating skill before, and she leaned forward in her chair, disrupting the sleeping lion, who rubbed its paw against its nose before settling down again. “Was he?”

  “Oh, yes, the finest. He was quite the Corinthian, your father,” she said with breathless admiration.

  “The dagger,” Kesgrave said with a hint of impatience.

  Although Bea longed to remind him of the fifteen minutes he’d just spent talking about the Earl of Fenwich’s weekend party two summers ago, she contented herself with a scowl.

  “I’m still not entirely clear on which dagger you mean,” Lady Abercrombie said.

  Bea found that difficult to believe and wondered what her ladyship was trying to hide with her evasive answer. “How many daggers did Sir Walter give you?”

  Her hostess let out a throaty laugh and said, “A great many,” in a way that made Bea feel out of step and unworldly.

  “Tilly,” Kesgrave said warningly.

  “It’s the truth, Damien. I swear it to you,” she said, her eyes twinkling with mirth. “Every time I turned around, there was Sir Walter with another dagger. They were like flowers to him. Arrive late to the opera? Here’s a jeweled dagger for your troubles. Have a particularly satisfying outing? Take this jeweled dagger as a token of my appreciation.”

  Although Bea did not quite comprehend the undercurrent to the conversation or its cause, she certainly understood the meaning of a satisfying outing. Determined to brazen out the awkwardness she felt, she said, “We are looking for one with a jade handle carved in the shape of a horse.”

  “Ah, you mean Henry,” Lady Abercrombie said.

  “Do you name all the tokens of appreciation from your lovers after your dead husband or just the ones with animal figurines?” Kesgrave asked dryly.

  “Just the ones that are fourteen inches long,” she said, tilting her eyes down in a coy expression.

  With no effort at all, Bea could picture her at the vanity practicing the look in the mirror until she established the ideal angle for maximum coquettishness. It had probably taken her several hours, and Bea again felt disgusted at the artifice. She knew it was unfair to judge her, for the ton demanded pretense. Any woman hoping to succeed had to affect any number of poses and opinions and learn to shrug off slights as if they hadn’t been uttered.

  Needless to say, Bea had never mastered any of these skills. Thanks to her great timidity, she was as unartful as she was inarticulate in company, and the more matrons of society she met—Lady Abercrombie, Lady Skeffington, Mrs. Otley�
��the more grateful she was for her inadequacies.

  If the duke was impressed with the widow’s display, he gave no indication as Bea asked where Henry was now.

  “That is the question, isn’t it?” she asked thoughtfully. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say at the moment, as it would reveal information that isn’t yet public.”

  Bea considered this statement to be rather definitive, but Kesgrave saw it as an opening gambit in a negotiation and immediately began cajoling her ladyship to divulge the name. He talked of their long history and their shared affection and her cruelty in forcing him to break a promise he’d made to his father to help the orphaned child of his dear friend. Although the compact had been a practical invention devised only a few minutes before, he defended it as ardently as if it had predated the agreement between King John and the rebel faction that resulted in the Magna Carta.

  He complimented her complexion and praised her wit and pointed out how skillfully she reduced men like him to mere desperate applicants for her attention.

  This last comment made Lady Abercrombie laugh with genuine amusement, and she said, “You are reduced to nothing.”

  It was, Bea thought, the first display of intelligence she had seen in the woman, for her observation was accurate in both its meanings. With his coaxing attempts coldly calculated, Kesgrave remained firmly in control and had not been reduced to anything. And yet the effort alone, with its cold calculation, made him something smaller.

  Her ladyship, either bored of the game herself or worried that the Duke of Kesgrave would lose interest in it first, admitted that she had given the knife to Lord Duncan.

  “Lord Duncan?” Kesgrave repeated in surprise.

  Perceiving him shocked, Lady Abercrombie preened. “He is a friend of my son’s—George, you know, who is my youngest. He spent the Christmas holidays with us at Derenfield Park, and it only seemed right that I give him a present in gratitude for his delightful company.”