Barbara Metzger (15 page)

Sydney was content that she and Winnie were to travel in Lord Mayne’s more elegant coach, until he followed them into the carriage. She supposed he was going to spoil everything now with his thundercloud expression, just to prove he could do that too. She stared out the window, not talking.

Winifred was used to her sister’s sitting mumchance in company and knew it was her responsibility to fill the silence with polite conversation. She tried. “Did I thank you for the dance, my lord?”

“Twice.”

“Ah, did I ask you to send my sympathy to Lord Mainwaring?”

“At least that many times.”

“And to thank your mother for her interest?”

“Yes.”

“Then could you stop the carriage, my lord,” she asked in that same sweet tone. “I think I am going to be sick.”

* * * *

“Whatever made you cockleheads think you could cook, much less measure?” Lord Mayne was shouting. Sydney sat at the kitchen table, miserably huddled over her third cup of black coffee. Forrest was waiting with the fourth, and she didn’t even like coffee. Winifred was suffering in the hands of their abigail, but Sydney was not going to be permitted such an easy death.

“You are the most blithering idiot it’s ever been my misfortune to meet.” His lordship was in full spate. “It wasn’t enough for you to threaten your whole family with scandal by going into trade, not you! You had to try to poison the whole ton! And at Almacks of all places!”

Sydney did not blame Trixie for that particular lunacy; she knew the girl was jingle-brained and should have watched her. It was all her fault. She just sat, feeling more blue-deviled.

Wally tried to exonerate them. “We didn’t set out to poison anyone. It must have been a bad batch.”

“And I suppose you didn’t sample every one?” He could tell by the guilty looks and mottled complexions that they had. He poured the twins more coffee. “Damn if you two haven’t taken too many punches to the head! And you, miss, should have been left out at birth for the wolves.”

“I was,” she sniffed through gathering tears. “The wolves threw me back.” Then she was crying in earnest. “Do you think ... that is, will they send me to jail?”

Forrest cursed and handed her his handkerchief. “Coventry maybe, brat, not jail. Who exactly knows that you were responsible?”

“Everyone in the house except Grandfather and—”

Willy shook his head. “The general enjoyed the bonbons so well, I told him we made ‘em. He won’t talk.”

“—And Annemarie.”

Wally shook
his
head. “She kept smelling the chocolate, so I showed her the molds. But she’s sweet on me. She won’t peach on us.”

Forrest was tearing his hands through his hair. “Who else?”

“Trixie, but she can’t say anything. She’s the one who brought them to Almacks. And even if she tells her mama, Aunt Harriet cannot tell, for she handed them around to all her friends.”

“Anyone else?”

Sydney started to weep again. Through the folds of the viscount’s handkerchief she whimpered, “An old friend from home ... and your brother was here this morning, helping.”

There was a moment of silence. Sydney began to think she might live through the night. Then she had to grab for the coffee cup as his fist came down on the table, rattling the china. “Well, I told you to keep him away,” Sydney cried into the cloth.

“To protect your sister’s reputation, fiend seize it, not his! You didn’t warn me you’d involve him in your hen-witted schemes, or try to kill him with your concoctions! I should have shipped him to the front lines. He’d be safer.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “and you can be sure that I won’t mention his name if they bring me in front of the assizes. And I promise not to tell them that you lent me the money to start the business.”

“Hell and damnation!” Then he took a look at Sydney, so woebegone, so wretched, her hazel eyes swimming in tears, and his anger melted. “Don’t worry, Mischief, I’ll try to fix it.”

She brightened immediately. “Oh, can you? I’ll be in your debt forever. How silly, I’m already in your debt. But what shall you do?”

The viscount sighed and got up to leave. “Forget about the damned money, Mischief, and go to bed.”

She followed him to the door. “But maybe I can help.”

“That’s the last thing I need,” he teased, just to see her dimples. Then he wiped a tear away from her cheek with his finger. “I’ll see you in the morning. Wear that pretty yellow dress.”

Embarrassed, she twitched at the folds of her white lace gown. “I know it’s not becoming on me, but Aunt Harriet said I had to wear white.”

“And you always follow Aunt Harriet’s rules?”

She chuckled and answered, “Only when I am playing her game.”

There was nothing Forrest could do that night, beyond shooting his own brother, that is. And he was too restless for bed, disturbed more than he ever wanted to be by Sydney’s unhappiness. Her eyes should never be dimmed with woe; they should have stars in them, as they had when she looked up at him during the waltz. Her mouth was never meant for drooping sorrow; those full lips were meant for laughing, or kissing. And her body—

He went to visit his current mistress. Forrest did not own the little house in Kensington, but he was presently paying the rent, so he let himself in despite the near darkness of the place. Lighting a candle, he found his way to Ava’s bedchamber. There she lay, fast asleep, propped up on a mound of frothy pillows. Her filmy negligee was open invitingly, but her mouth was open too, trailing a thread of drool and issuing raspy snores. An open box of bonbons, each wrapped in silver paper, rested by her side.

The viscount shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood anyway. He wrote a check and left it on the dresser. She would find it in the morning and know he wasn’t coming back. Forrest left, feeling relieved, and not just because she hadn’t fallen asleep while he was making love to her.

Chapter 15

Double Trouble

Morning came too early. Sydney groaned and went back to bed. Minutes later, it seemed, Annemarie was shaking her awake. Certain the authorities must have come for her, Sydney hid under the bedclothes. “No, I won’t go!”

“But, mademoiselle, the handsome
vicomte
waits downstairs.”

“That’s even worse.” Sydney burrowed deeper.

* * * *

Forrest had been up before daybreak, buying all the unsold boxes of comfits in the stores. He made sure the shopkeepers believed the supply was for a personage of the highest rank. This unidentified gentleman with the large sweet tooth was also hiring the confection’s creator, so there would be no more of the candies forthcoming. And no diplomatic way of complaining about their ingredients.

He drove the carriageload of boxes to the naval hospital, where a doctor friend of his gladly accepted the donation. A heavy hand with rum and laudanum would not come amiss there.

Then Forrest went to the park, greeted several friends, and listened to gossip of foxed females at the bastion of propriety, Almacks. He even added a rumor of his own, wondering if some young blades had poured Blue Ruin into the punch bowl. If the Lattimores’ names were mentioned at all, it was with a partial compliment, such as “Lovely girls, aren’t they?” Such hesitancy he correctly interpreted as an inquiry to his own interest in the sisters. He carefully showed very little. “Quite charming if you like sweet schoolroom misses. Connection of my mother’s, don’t you know?”

He repeated his taradiddles in the clubs, convincing everyone that his relationship was the most casual, so the Lattimores were fair game. Of course the girls were not to be trifled with, it was understood, without incurring the Duchess of Mayne’s disfavor, which indubitably meant facing the viscount.

Satisfied with the morning’s work and wondering if he had ever told so many lies before, his lordship went to Park Lane. Sydney was anything but a sweet schoolgirl, and he almost regretted bringing her to the attention of the more observant members of the ton. But how could anyone have swallowed that Banbury tale? he wondered.

Forrest thought of Mischief as a freckled moppet in red-gold pigtails doing her sums on a slate, and chuckled. She was most likely figuring percentage points from the cradle! She didn’t even have a schoolgirl’s shape, but he had lost enough sleep thinking of her rounded figure in his arms. Ah, well, he told himself, her feet were firmly planted in the marriage market now, and it was better that way. He could go home to Sussex with a clear conscience as soon as he delivered his messages.

* * * *

“The young ladies are still abed,” Willy—or Wally told him.

“Get her” was all Forrest said. He didn’t have to specify which sister he wished to see, nor that he dashed well would go fetch her himself if he had to.

Forrest chatted with the general about the war news while he waited. This was more satisfying than such conversations tended to be with his own father, who threw newspapers around whenever anyone disagreed with him. The general merely pounded his armchair a few times.

Then Sydney arrived, dressed in a peach-colored round gown that highlighted the warm tones of her skin. He wasn’t surprised that she didn’t wear the yellow gown, in defiance of his wishes, nor that she sat on the stool near her grandfather’s feet, as if for protection. He wasn’t even surprised at how heavy-eyed and tousled she looked, only at his body’s reaction to seeing her like a woman who had just been made love to. A schoolgirl, hah!

Griffith came and wheeled the general away, over Sydney’s protests. Forrest smiled and jingled some coins in his pocket. Griff liked him too.

“I’m sorry I cannot stay and visit with you, my lord, but I have to see Mrs. Minch about the day’s menus.”

“I’m sure whatever she selects will be fine, as long as you don’t have a hand in the cooking. Don’t you want to hear how your adventure turned out?”

“I already know; I haven’t been arrested yet.” She waved her hand around at the flowers on the buhl table, on the mantel, in the hall. “Some of them are even for me, according to Annemarie, so we’re not even to be ostracized. And no, I do not want another lecture. Please.”

“Poor poppet, does your head still ache? I’ll keep you only a moment, so you’ll  know what stories are being told. The servants’ grapevine has a lot of headaches like yours but nothing worse among the ladies, who are swearing off sweets. The Almacks hostesses are investigating the punch bowls for signs of tampering. The shopkeepers consider the candies a national treasure, and the Lattimore sisters are a great success. Oh, and the Churchladies’ Confectioners are out of business.”

“We are? A success, I mean. I know we’re out of business. I would never use that recipe again, you can be sure. I can close the books as soon as I collect on the last deliveries.”

The viscount idly swung the tassels on his Hessians. “The books are closed. I packed up all the inventory, vats, molds, and supplies, and I bought all remaining stock at the stores. As I said, you are out of business.”

Sydney was too drained to grow irate. Anger never seemed to get her anywhere with him anyway. “But that was my business. You had no right.”

“No? I seem to recall a certain gift that I wished to give you. You kept insisting it was a loan, remember? In effect I bought the Churchladies’ business from you in exchange for the debt. Now we are even.”

Sydney’s brows were furrowed as she thought about that. Either her brain was still drugged or his reasoning was as suspect as his character. “That doesn’t make sense. I started the business with your money. Then you ended the business and saved my neck, with your money. The way I see it, I not only owe you my gratitude, I owe you twice as much money!”

“Dash it, Sydney, you can’t still believe I make my living by collecting a pound of flesh!”

“Well, no,” she conceded, “but you were there, and you did give me the gold.”

“And I should have told you right away. All right. My brother was cheated and I went to retrieve his vouchers from the dastards. The thousand pounds I gave you was the payment for his misbegotten debt.”

Sydney jumped up. “Then I owe the real moneylenders the money?” she squeaked. “And they are charging me interest while you sit here and blather on about punch bowls and patronesses?”

He stood too, and brushed a wayward curl off her forehead. “I don’t blather, Mischief, and no, you don’t have to worry about the Ottos. They are out of business, also. Out of the country, if they know what’s good for them. So will you forget about the money once and for all?”

Sydney wished she could. Oh, how she would like to be unbeholden, especially to this man who kept her in such a flutter. But, “I cannot,” she said. “I borrowed it in good faith, and swore to repay it on my honor. If I do not, then I shall have no honor. But don’t worry,” she told him in a brighter tone, “the Season is not yet over.”

“And you have a plan. Now, where have I heard that before? But, sweetheart, a few more such schemes and you will owe me your soul.” She was still looking soft and dreamy, so he couldn’t help adding, “Just how much is your virtue worth?”

Her mouth opened to give him the setdown he deserved—so he kissed her.

Sydney was lost, and never more at home. Her toes curled in her slippers, and her hands reached up to touch his face, to feel his skin. Every church bell that ever rang in every steeple was chiming in her heart—or were those fire alarms clanging in her fuddled mind? What was she doing, enjoying herself in this shameful manner? Winifred still needed to make a good marriage, and Lord Scoville would be horrified. Heavens, Sydney thought,
she
would be horrified! She bit down hard where the tip of his tongue happened to be playing on her lips. He jumped back, cursing, and waited for the slap.

It never came. Sydney felt as much to fault because she hadn’t pushed him away before, though she sensed he would have released her at the first hint of reluctance. She had stayed, sharing the kiss and thrilling to his nearness. She was disappointed in herself, and in him.

“You may not be a moneylender, but you are not a gentleman. I was right, wasn’t I? You’re still a rake.”