Mrs. Tandy came to look over his shoulder.
Claire swallowed, sitting upright, her skin prickling with fear. “What is it, Jasper?”
For an instant, the steward seemed unable to speak. He lifted up a trembling hand, offering Claire the package. But he seemed hesitant to come forward.
“Forgive me, madam. I—I would have spared you… b-but I fear it is important.”
Claire bounded to her feet, her heart tripping as she approached the steward. Without a word, she took the jewel box from his hand and lifted the lid.
She swooned at the sight of its contents.
God’s bloody bones!
Even before the carriage came to a halt, it seemed half of London swarmed them. In all Ian’s life, he had never had so many lackeys nipping at his heels.
Ryo did not alight from the vehicle. The older man sat watching while servants greeted Ian, then ushered him within, spit-shining his boots and brushing off his coattails while they babbled on about missed appointments with faceless names.
One servant, apparently about to swipe Ian’s boot with his sleeve, paused and peered up at him curiously. They were Ian’s best pair of boots, but they were worn and dusty from too many days on too many roads. No amount of spit-shining would bring back their original luster. He hadn’t had the luxury of time to trade shoes with Merrick. He’d left Merrick wearing his own pants and boots and had absconded with his jacket and nearly everything else.
Ian gave Ryo a single, backward glance as he was dragged away, wondering how much the driver knew. Something about the look in the old Asian’s eyes gave him pause.
Inside, the house was like nothing Ian had ever encountered—a far cry from Glen Abbey’s ancient, neglected appearance. From the street, the Berkeley Square residence had appeared much the same as any other London manor. However, one step within revealed a decor that bordered on the ostentatious. Mediterranean in flavor, it gave the impression of embarrassing wealth.
Whereas Glen Abbey’s windows wore faded, brittle draperies, here the gold-velvet coverings were rich and fresh. Not a speck of dust marred the portraits or furnishings, which were all constructed mainly of gold-painted wood. He wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn it was real gold paint.
The foyer itself was enormous, with a massive, domed ceiling bearing angelic images that brought to mind a painting Ian had once seen of the Vatican’s Cappella Sistina.
An enormous claw-foot table graced one side of the entry. Upon it sat a golden chalice he imagined must be a replica of the Holy Grail. It was ornately carved with twisting grapevines embedded with jewels in place of grapes. If they were, in fact, real, each separate gem would feed a township for a year. Alongside the chalice sat a mother-of-pearl lined dish that was overflowing with calling cards. Above the table hung a massive, gold-framed portrait with the image of a man who looked uncannily like Ian, though much older, with graying sideburns and crow’s feet about the eyes.
The sight of it gave Ian a momentary startle.
Blinking, he paused before it, oblivious to the chattering of the servants surrounding him. It was like gazing at his own face, but eroded by time. The man’s head was bare, but though his hairstyle was thoroughly modern, he wore a baroque-style, gilded blue coat that appeared to belong in some bygone era.
“Your Royal Highness?”
Ian looked down at the older man who stood at his side and tried to clear the fog from his brain.
“Highness?” the man prodded, his voice tinged with concern. “Are you quite all right?”
Ian blinked.
Not quite.
But he didn’t confess it. The less he said, the less he must worry about concealing his accent. Therefore, he nodded, biting his tongue. There were so many questions he wished to ask. All in due time.
Ian gazed returning to the portrait, he wondered who the man was. His sire? Grandsire?
There could be little doubt they shared the same blood.
“I never get over the resemblance myself,” commented the servant by his side, obviously resigned to Ian’s moment of sentimentality. “But I must say, His Majesty resembles him so much more.”
Ian nodded, clenching his jaw. It was becoming more and more apparent that his entire life had been a sham.
Your Highness? His Majesty? What the blue blazes?
The title had been embossed upon Merrick’s carte de visite, but Ian hadn’t truly believed it. It seemed incredibly absurd to think he had spent his entire life scraping for copper while his flesh and blood dined on pheasant and fine wines.
What was more… the portrait hanging before him called his mother a liar. The blue eyes of its subject seemed to be smirking at him, taunting him with long-kept secrets, secrets he was more determined than ever to uncover.
And God save everyone who’d had a hand in deceiving him—his mother included—because there was going to be hell to pay for this.
“Highness,” the man prodded again, “I really don’t mean to hurry you, but His Majesty wishes an audience in one hour, precisely. Perhaps we should refresh ourselves?”
Ian cocked a brow and looked down at the servant, amused by the man’s choice of words. “We should refresh ourselves?” he asked.
Did the man plan to crawl into his bath along with him?
The man fidgeted under Ian’s scrutiny. “Yes, Highness.”
“Very well, then… we wouldn’t wish to keep His Majesty waiting,” Ian relented, taking pity on the man.
He started once more down the hall, then realized he didn’t know where to go. “Lead the way,” he directed the servant, walking slowly so the man could overtake him.
But the man also slowed his gait to keep at his heels. Damn, what was he now—a wretched dog?
By now, their multitude of followers had fallen away, dispersed to the four corners of the gargantuan house, leaving only two sets of footfalls to echo along the hall.
Ian stopped, giving the man an impatient wave and said again, more firmly, “Lead the way.” He hadn’t a bloody clue where to go in this museum.
The servant nodded, scurrying ahead of him. All the way down the hall, he continued to look back uncomfortably over his shoulder. As they made their way through a maze of corridors and stairwells, all dotted with closed doors, Ian examined the portraits he passed along the way—all similar faces with similar expressions. None seemed the least contented with their lot in life. In fact, he passed one in particular who looked as though he must have been painted with a turd hanging in front of his nose.
Up ahead, halting before an open door, the servant turned, clasping his hands behind him in a military fashion. “Here we are, Your Highness! I shall have your bath drawn at once,” he promised, without looking again at Ian. “Welcome home!”
Welcome home.
To a place he’d never once set eyes upon. What a damned hum. “Thank you—” Ian hesitated, uncertain what name to call the servant.
“Harold,” the man supplied, still without looking at him.
“Sorry,” Ian said automatically. Where he was raised, men respected other men—including one’s servants—by learning their names. The simple fact that this man seemed to expect him not to know his name was unthinkable.
“Not to worry, sir,” Harold replied, meeting Ian’s gaze, only briefly. “I hardly expected you to recall; it has been three years, after all, and you’ve hundreds in your employ.”
Hundreds.
Glen Abbey had only a handful of employees.
It was impossible not to compare.
Though he hadn’t a clue why, his thoughts returned to the girl from Grosvenor Square. Did her employers treat her well? Did her mistress know her name? Ian wished she’d shared it. Now, forevermore, she was destined to remain a nameless face in a memory bound never to fade.
Regret would have lowered his mood, if, in fact, it could have lowered anymore. “Right,” Ian said, and gave the man a rueful smile that went unnoticed.
He stepped into the r
oom assigned to him and the door closed behind him, allowing him the first moments of privacy he’d had in a week.
Like the remainder of the house, this room was gargantuan, but the style was indefinable—not Mediterranean, precisely, not Arabic, nor Oriental, but some odd mixture of every culture. The iron-and-wooden bed was like something out of an Arabian tale, with fine, pale blue fabric draped from a wrought iron-wheel suspended from the ceiling. The muted midnight-blue satin spread stretched over the bed was unmarred by even a single crease.
Oversized blue-and black-satin pillows gilded with Far Eastern symbols were littered across an uncarpeted, dark-wood floor, lending the room a sense of calculated chaos.
The draperies, too, were pale blue and sheer, flowing into the room like a billowing moonlit mist.
On the far side of the room sat a dark-wood table that was far too low for chairs. Gathered at its center were half-a-dozen fat candles of various heights and widths—a luxury in itself. And then, surrounding the short, stocky table were even more pillows in shades of blue and black; but these were plain, without the gilded symbols.
Two sets of double doors led from the room; one set at his back, another to his left. He made his way across the room and opened one set, revealing a closet in which every nook and cranny was filled with hanging black, blue and white garments. It wholly embarrassed the single, freestanding wardrobe that occupied Ian’s room in Glen Abbey.
In fact, this was not a bedroom at all, he decided. It was an apartment. And when he thought of all the bellies that could have been satisfied for the cost of a single item within it, it made his belly churn.
Unbidden, the memory of Rusty Broun’s little Ana accosted him. The child would have been three years old the very week after her death. Her face, gaunt with hunger, would bedevil him for the rest of his days. It was for her, as much as for anyone else, that he had come seeking answers—for Rusty’s sweet Ana, and for all of Glen Abbey’s wee innocents who depended on Glen Abbey Manor for support.
He turned his back on the luxurious fabrics hanging in Merrick’s closet and went to the bed, settling down on it as he glanced about the room.
How could any man surround himself with so much rubbish when babies were literally starving to death?
Ian experienced an unholy stab of guilt merely standing in the midst of it all.
Collapsing backward on the bed, he wondered how Merrick could lie here amidst the cool satin sheets and not feel…
Devil hang him, it did feel good, he thought, as he dragged himself backward and stretched out on the massive piece of furniture. Hell and damnation, his feet didn’t even reach the edge, and he was taller than most men.
He shook his head in disgust over his own lapse in character, but guilt fell at the heels of exhaustion. God save his rotten soul, but it couldn’t hurt to wallow in a wee bit o’ comfort… just for a while. He was fagged to death.
Sprawled over the silky bed, he closed his eyes, and thought not of little Ana, nor of Glen Abbey, nor even of his mockery of a life, but of a green-eyed beauty with disheveled hair and a wit as sharp as his grandfather’s claymore… and lips that looked to be as soft as the satin now caressing his cheek.
What he wouldn’t give to have a taste of that mouth.
He drifted to sleep imagining his mystery woman in the most wicked of positions, her mouth coaxing him to climax.
So what the blazes if she wouldn’t even give him her name? His thoughts were his own and she couldn’t slap him in his dreams.
Chapter 5
No longer was the preservation of honor a luxury to be considered. The contents of the box—a severed finger and a threatening note—necessitated that even the lowliest of solutions must be weighed.
Until now, Claire had not resorted to begging, but today she would add that particularly distasteful endeavor to her growing list of embarrassments. And, to that end, her greatest opportunity lay with Lord Huntington, Alexandra’s father. He was known to be a frugal man, but he was kind at heart. If anyone might feel compelled to help her, it would be him. He had, after all, known her for most of her life.
She didn’t know what she would do if he said no; she didn’t know anyone else well enough to solicit money from them. It was her brother Ben who was everybody’s friend. Claire had always been content to remain in his shadow. She’d never been particularly fond of—nor very good at—idle conversation. And though she had many, many acquaintances, her circle of true friends was really quite small. In fact, it numbered the grand sum of one.
Hoping her best friend wouldn’t wake this morning while she was visiting with her father, Claire awaited Lord Huntington in his office, gnawing anxiously at her thumbnail as she inspected the heads of exotic animals hanging about the room. Lions bared their teeth at her. Small, doglike creatures seemed to be cackling down at her. Great, deer-like beasts, taller than Claire, turned their noses up at her disapprovingly. In all the years she’d known Lexie, she’d never once entered her father’s office. Lord Huntington was most often abroad, managing his business affairs from behind the telescope of a hunting rifle. When in residence, however, he’d always had a kind word for Claire and for Ben.
Ben, in fact, had turned to Lord Huntington for financial advice after their father’s death, and Lord Huntington had, in the beginning, taken Ben under his wing. Claire only knew this because she’d overheard a discussion between the two concerning debts and assets one evening when they’d joined Lexie and her father for dinner.
“Sorry to keep you,” Lord Huntington said as he entered his office.
Claire bounded to her feet, sucking in a breath to calm her ravaged nerves. “My lord!” she exclaimed. “Please, oh, please, no need to apologize.”
“Sit down, my dear,” Lord Huntington directed her as he approached his desk. He flicked a hand when she didn’t sit at once.
Claire plummeted into the chair, though her stomach seemed disinclined to follow. “I do realize you’re busy, my lord,” she offered, wanting him to understand how truly grateful she was even for a moment of his time. “You know I would never intrude unless the matter were urgent.”
Lord Huntington took a seat behind the enormous cherry-wood desk that dominated his office. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the surface. Despite his advanced age, he was a rather handsome man, and his smile reminded her a bit of her father’s. He clasped his hands together and set his chin on two steepled fingers, waiting for Claire to speak.
Claire suddenly couldn’t find her voice to speak. She opened her mouth, but words were far too difficult.
Lord Huntington lowered his fingers and dropped his chin to rest on his joined hands, his look concerned now. “What is it you need, dear girl?”
Claire was grateful for his directness.
Averting her eyes for only an instant, she said a silent prayer that her father would forgive her for this moment of utter disgrace. Then, she met Lord Huntington’s gaze, secure in the knowledge that her father would never accept his only son’s demise over the salvation of his family estate or his name. “I—It’s Ben,” she stammered. “My lord, please don’t speak a word of this to anyone—not even Lexie—but Ben… he’s… gone missing.”
Lord Huntington sat straight in his chair, dropping his hands to the desk. “What do you mean, gone missing?”
Tears pricked at Claire’s eyes. “Well, someone has kidnapped him and is holding him for ransom.” She swallowed. “I am expected to raise twenty thousand pounds—nineteen more—so they tell me.” Her eyes misted. “Or, they claim they will ‘snuff him out once and for all.’”
Huntington slapped his desk. “What?”
Claire nodded. “I’m afraid it is true, my lord,” she assured. “In fact, last night, they sent a particularly gruesome… gift as a testament to their sincerity.”
Choking back more tears, Claire disclosed everything—her father’s debts (of which Huntington was already aware), Ben’s gambling (of which he was not), Ben’s disappearance and
the box that had been delivered to Jasper last evening.
Lord Huntington pursed his lips, and she wondered if he didn’t believe her. “I have heard of this sort of thing before,” he said finally. “But, my dear, there is no need to panic as yet. They will not harm your brother so long as they know you are willing to deal with them. I have a friend with the Met,” he began.
“No!” Claire exclaimed, aghast. “They said no bobbies!”
Huntington cocked his head.
“Please, my lord! They are watching. A strange man followed me from the—” She stopped, not quite able to share the indignity of having to sell her most-treasured family heirlooms. “Someone is following me. Were it not for the incompetence of this lunatic driver last evening and his arrogant…” The image of the man’s employer came into her head and momentarily dazed her—specifically, the memory of that smile—startling white teeth and those crooked, mocking lips. Claire blinked, forgetting for the briefest instant what it was she was saying. She fingered the scrape on her chin.
“Were it not for this driver?” Lord Huntington prompted.
“Well, yes… I might not have arrived safely home,” she finished a little breathlessly, embarrassed by her moment of absentmindedness.
Lord Huntington didn’t bother to question her about the particulars of the accident, nor did he comment on her scratched chin. She must have concealed it well enough, she reasoned. She dropped her hand into her lap.
There was an interminable stretch of silence.
“So, then, what is it you need from me?” he asked, finally.
Gone was the fatherly aura. His visage was suddenly more like that of the pawnbroker’s, and very much like that of a man considering his own affairs.
In truth, Claire had hoped he would offer something without being asked.
“I thought… perhaps… you might lend us…” She winced. “The money…”
Huntington lifted a brow. “Borrow?”
“Yes, my lord. I am quite certain Ben will relinquish Highbury Hall to you upon his safe return. You might consider it an investment.”
The Impostors: Complete Collection Page 23