Deception (26 page)

“I say.” Gifford looked confused. He started across the room with the obvious intention of grabbing the dog’s collar.

Minotaur barked in delight, apparently having concluded that the stranger wanted to play a game.

Olympia heard the front door open and close. She whirled around and saw Jared step into the hall. She went to the parlor entrance and confronted him with her hands on her hips.

“There you are, sir. It’s about time you got here.”

“Something wrong?” Jared asked politely.

Olympia waved a hand to encompass the noisy, chaotic
scene behind her. “I wish you would do something about all these people in my parlor.”

Jared walked forward and surveyed the room with calm interest.

“Minotaur,” he said quietly.

Minotaur stopped trying to dodge Gifford’s grasp and dashed across the room. He skidded to a halt in front of Jared, sat back on his haunches, and looked up for approval.

Jared rested his hand on the top of Minotaur’s head and the dog grinned.

“Go,” Jared ordered quietly. “Upstairs, Minotaur.”

Minotaur rose obediently and trotted quickly out of the parlor.

Jared glanced at Mrs. Bird. “Never mind the tea, Mrs. Bird.”

“But they ain’t had any yet,” Mrs. Bird protested.

Jared looked at Gifford with chilling politeness. “I’m quite certain that our guests do not have time for tea. You and your companions were just about to leave, were you not, Mr. Seaton?”

Gifford gave Jared a look of smoldering dislike as he brushed dog hair off the sleeve of his coat. “Yes, as a matter of fact, we were. I’m certain we’ve all had enough of this bedlam.”

“Good day, Lady Chillhurst,” Demetria said.

She and Constance walked quickly toward the door. Gifford stalked after them.

Jared stepped aside to allow everyone out of the parlor.

Olympia saw Demetria slant a mocking glance at Jared as she went through the door.

“You were always a rather strange sort, Chillhurst, but this household is quite remarkable, even for a member of your odd family. What on earth are you about, my lord?”

“My domestic arrangements need not concern you, madam,” Jared said. “Do not return to this house without an invitation.”

“Bastard,” Gifford muttered on his way out the door. “I only hope your poor wife knows what she’s gotten herself into by marrying you.”

“Hush, Gifford,” Demetria said. “Come along. We have other calls to make this afternoon.”

“I doubt they will be as amusing as this one,” Constance murmured.

The visitors made their way out onto the front steps. Jared closed the door behind them without bothering to see them into their waiting carriage. He turned to Olympia.

“You will not receive any of those three again,” he said. “Is that clear?”

It was the last straw as far as Olympia was concerned. She stalked toward the stairs. “Do not give me orders, Chillhurst. Lest you forget, I am still the one in charge of this household and you are a member of my staff. You will kindly remember your place and behave accordingly.”

Jared ignored her outburst. “Olympia, I wish to speak with you.”

“Not now, sir. This has been a most unpleasant day. I am going to my bedchamber to rest before dinner.” Halfway up the stairs, she paused and glared back at him. “By the by, sir, did you truly sink so low as to press my nephews and Mrs. Bird to speak to me on the subject of marriage?”

Jared walked to the foot of the stairs and gripped the newel post. “Yes, Olympia, I did.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, sir.”

“I am quite desperate, Olympia.” Jared smiled a strange, wistful smile. “I will do anything, say anything,
sink to any depths, resort to any tactic in order to make you my wife.”

He meant it
, Olympia thought. In spite of her foul mood and aching head, a thrill of excitement went through her. The last of her resistance melted like wax in a fire.

“There is no need for any more such maneuvers, sir,” she said, still annoyed with him and vividly aware of the risk she was taking. “I have decided to marry you.”

Jared’s hand tightened fiercely around the carved top of the newel post. “You have?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Olympia. I shall endeavor to see that you do not regret your decision.”

“I very probably shall regret it,” she said waspishly, “but I cannot see any help for it. Please leave me alone for a while.”

“Olympia, wait one moment.” Jared searched her face. “May I ask why you changed your mind since I last saw you, my dear?”

“No.” Olympia continued on up the steps.

“Olympia, please, I must know the answer. My curiosity will eat me alive. Did the boys convince you to change your mind?”

“No.”

“Mrs. Bird, perhaps? I know she is very concerned about your reputation, even if you are not.”

“Mrs. Bird had nothing to do with my decision.” Olympia was nearly to the top of the stairs.

“Then why have you agreed to marry me?” Jared called.

Olympia paused on the landing and looked down at him with cool hauteur. “I changed my mind, sir, because I have come to realize that you excel at the task of superintending a household.”

“What of it?” Jared asked warily.

“Why, it’s quite simple, sir. I dare not lose you. Good staff is so very hard to get, you know.”

Jared gazed at her in amazement. “Olympia, surely you are not marrying me simply because I can provide you with an orderly household.”

“Personally, I think that is an excellent reason for marriage. Oh, there is one more thing, sir.”

Jared’s gaze narrowed. “Yes?”

“Do you happen to know what the word
Siryn
might refer to?”

He blinked. “A siren is a mythical creature who lured unwary sailors to their doom.”

“Not that sort of siren,” she said impatiently. “I mean Siryn spelled with a
y.”

“Siryn was the name of the ship that Captain Jack sailed while he pursued his career as a buccaneer in the West Indies,” Jared said. “Why do you ask?”

She gripped the railing. “Are you certain?”

Jared shrugged. “That is what my father claims.”

“The drawings on the endpapers,” Olympia whispered.

Jared frowned. “What about it?”

“The drawings on the endpapers of the diary are pictures of old-fashioned vessels sailing on storm-tossed seas,
surging
seas, if you will recall. One ship bears the figure of a woman on the prow. A siren, perhaps.”

“I am told Captain Jack’s ship had such a prow figure.”

Olympia forgot about her headache. She picked up her skirts and flew back down the stairs.

“Olympia, wait. Where are you going?” Jared demanded as she rushed past him.

“I’ll be in my study.” She turned in the doorway. “I am going to be very busy for a while, Mr. Chillhurst. See to it that I am not disturbed.”

Jared’s brows rose. “Of course, Miss Wingfield. As a member of your household staff, it is my pleasure to carry out your instructions.”

Olympia slammed the study door in his face. She went over to her desk and opened Claire Lightbourne’s diary.

She stood gazing down at the design which decorated the endpapers at the front of the diary for a long time and then, very slowly, she picked up a penknife.

Five minutes later she tugged back the picture of the
Siryn
sailing the surging sea and discovered the map that had been tucked beneath it.

It was a map of an island. An uncharted island in the West Indies. But it was not a complete map, Olympia saw. It had been torn in half.

The other half was missing.

There was a sentence written on the bottom of the map fragment.

Olympia quickly turned to the back of the diary and looked at the picture of the ship that sailed a tumultuous sea. Sure enough, the figure on the prow was that of a serpent.

Eagerly Olympia pried up the back endpaper.

There was no sign of the other half of the map.

Jared placed his appointment journal to the left of his breakfast plate. Appointment journals were very reassuring things, he thought. They gave a man a sense of control over his own destiny. It was no doubt a thoroughgoing illusion, but a man who was prey to excessive passions treasured certain illusions.

“Lessons shall be conducted from eight until ten this morning, as usual,” Jared said. “Today we shall be studying geography and mathematics.”

“Will you tell us another story about Captain Jack in the geography lesson, sir?” Hugh asked around a mouthful of eggs.

Jared glanced at Hugh. “There is no need to talk while you are eating.”

“Beg pardon, sir.” Hugh swallowed the eggs in one gulp and grinned. “There. I’m finished. What about a Captain Jack tale?”

“Yes, Mr. Chillhurst, I mean, my lord,” Robert said. “Will there be another story about Captain Jack?”

“I want to hear about how Captain Jack developed a special clock to help find longitude at sea,” Ethan said eagerly.

“We already heard that tale,” Robert said.

“I want to hear it again.”

Jared covertly studied Olympia who was absently munching toast spread with gooseberry jam. The look in her eyes made him uneasy. She had had that same remote, preoccupied expression since she had come downstairs to breakfast.

There had been no well-planned accidental collisions in the hall outside his room today, no yearning glances, no stolen kisses, and no blushes.
An inauspicious way in which to begin such an important day
, he thought.

“I believe there is a rather educational tale involving longitude calculations on one of Captain Jack’s voyages to Boston,” Jared said. He consulted his appointment journal again. “After the lessons have been completed, I shall escort your aunt to the library of the Society for Travel and Exploration.”

Olympia perked up a bit at that. “Excellent, there are one or two more things I wish to check in the society’s map collection.”

One would never guess that this was her wedding day
, Jared thought grimly. Evidently she was far more excited about the prospect of going to the library to prowl through old maps than she was about the notion of marrying him.

“While you are working in the society’s library,” Jared said, “I shall keep an appointment with Felix Hartwell. We have business matters to discuss. Robert, Ethan, and Hugh shall fly their kite in the park. When I am through, it will be time for the midday meal.”

Ethan kicked his heels against the bottom rung of his chair. “What are we going to do this afternoon, sir?”

“Kindly refrain from kicking the chair,” Jared said absently.

“Yes, sir.”

Jared gazed at the next item on the schedule and felt every muscle in his lower body grow rigid with anticipation and apprehension.
What would he do if Olympia had changed her mind?

She must not change her mind.

Not now when he was so close to possessing his own personal siren.

Not now when the only woman he had ever wanted with such passionate intensity was almost within his grasp.
Not now
.

“After we have eaten,” he said, exerting every ounce of his self-control to keep his voice even, “your aunt and I will see to the formalities of our marriage. The arrangements have all been made. The matter should not take very long. When we return—”

Silver crashed against china at the opposite end of the table.

“Oh, dear,” Olympia murmured.

Jared glanced up in time to see a pot of gooseberry jam fly off the edge of the table. The spoon that had been sticking out of the pot went over with it.

Ethan smothered a giggle. Olympia jumped to her feet and bent down to dab ineffectually at the carpet with her napkin.

“Leave it,” Jared said. “Mrs. Bird will see to it.”

Olympia sent him an uncertain look, lowered her eyes, and quickly sat down again.

So she was not nearly as disinterested in the matter of her marriage as she had appeared. Something inside him relaxed slightly. He propped his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers, and concentrated again on his appointment journal.

“Dinner will be served earlier than usual tonight,” he continued, “as we shall be going to Vauxhall Gardens afterward to view the fireworks this evening.”

Predictably enough, a cheer went up from Ethan, Hugh, and Robert.

“I say, that is an excellent plan, sir.” Robert’s face was alight with anticipation.

“We have never seen fireworks,” Ethan confided gleefully.

“Will there be a band playing music?” Hugh asked.

“I expect so,” Jared said.

“And may we have ices?”

“Very likely.” Jared watched Olympia’s face to see how she was taking the prospect of celebrating their wedding at Vauxhall Gardens. It occurred to him rather belatedly that some women might be heartily offended.

But Olympia’s eyes were suddenly glowing. “A wonderful notion. I should love to see the fireworks.”

Jared breathed a silent sigh of relief. Who said he did not have a romantic bone in his body, he thought.

“May we go for a stroll on the Dark Walk at Vauxhall?” Robert asked with a suspicious innocence.

Jared scowled briefly. “What do you know of the Dark Walk?”

“One of the boys that we met in the park yesterday told us all about it,” Ethan explained. “He said it was quite dangerous to go down the Dark Walk.”

“That’s right, sir,” Robert said. “We were told that sometimes people who go along the Dark Walk at
Vauxhall are never seen again.” He shuddered. “Do you think that is true, sir?”

“No, I do not,” Jared said.

“Another boy that we met said he knew of a certain maid who had worked in his house for years who had disappeared on the Dark Walk,” Robert informed him. “She was never seen again.”

“Ran off with a footman most likely.” Jared closed his appointment journal.

“I should very much like to go for a stroll on the Dark Walk,” Robert said persistently.

Hugh made a face at him across the table. “You only want to go on the Dark Walk because that boy in the park dared you to do it. But it wouldn’t count if all of us went for a stroll on it together. Lord Chillhurst would be there to scare off the villains.”