Emily let out a great, whooping horse laugh.
“My
mother? You must be joking, Tommy. When I asked my mother where babies came from, she told me the fishmonger finds them in the bellies of the day’s catch. To this day, she still maintains it.”
Thomas winced. “Well, surely one of your teachers, then, back at school—”
“Oh, which one, Tommy?” Caroline wanted to know. “Miss Crimpson, who was so afraid the coal man might rape her, she wouldn’t open the door without one of us standing behind it, with the firepoker at the ready? Or Miss Avalon, who declared the waltz a dance created by Satan that would bring about the ruination of society as we know it?”
“Might one of the maids—?”
“Tried it,” Caroline said. “They all curtsy prettily and say it’s something I really ought to ‘discuss with the Lady Bartlett, beggin’ your pardon, Lady Caroline.’”
“I don’t suppose you could simply ask your fiancé—”
“Hurst?”
Caroline’s voice rose incredulously. “You want me to ask
Hurst
how to make love to a man? Are you mad?”
“Well, what’s so wrong with it?” Thomas wanted to know.
“Because then he’ll think I’m what you said . . . a dud!”
“Why would he think that?”
“Because I don’t know what I’m doing,” Caroline said, thoroughly exasperated with him by now. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to avoid, don’t you see?”
“Really, Tommy,” Emily said. “Don’t be ridiculous. She can’t possibly ask Hurst. She would hardly be asking
you
if she hadn’t exhausted all other possibilities. And it isn’t like she’s asking so much.”
“Right,” Caroline said. “All I want is to make Hurst fall in love with me.”
Thomas looked confused. “But he is in love with you, Caro. He asked you to marry him, didn’t he?”
“Yes, of course he did,” Caroline said, impatiently. “And I know he’s fond of me. But don’t you see, Tommy? That isn’t
enough.”
Thomas was beginning to look alarmed. “It isn’t?”
“No, of course it isn’t. Men are
fond
of their
dogs.
I want the man I marry to be completely and helplessly in love with me. So, you see, I just need to know how to avoid being—well, a dud, like you said. Which means I’ve got to learn how to make love. What men like. That sort of thing. So why don’t you just tell me? It would save me a lot of time and trouble, Tommy, it really would. It’s so
tiresome
being a virgin. You have no idea.”
Thomas leaped to his feet suddenly. “You know,” he said. “I believe I’ve forgotten an appointment—”
Caroline furrowed her brow. “Tommy, whatever is the matter with you? Is your wound bothering you?”
“Really, Tommy,” Emily said. “You look positively green about the gills.”
“It’s just,” Thomas said, reaching up to run a hand nervously through his sand-colored, overlong hair as he strode away, “that I’ve got this appointment—”
Emily made a sudden gulping noise. “My God, Caro!” she cried, not taking her eyes off the young earl.
“What?” Caroline looked around, alarmed. “Is there a bee?”
“No.” Emily’s green eyes were dancing. “I think I know why his lordship is so hesitant to discuss this particular topic.”
“Emmy.” Thomas froze, and turned back toward them. There was a warning tone in his voice.
“His lordship doesn’t want to discuss it,” Emily said, in a loud stage whisper, “because he’s never
done
it.”
“That isn’t true,” Thomas said, coming back toward them very rapidly indeed. “Now, Emmy, that just isn’t—”
“Thomas!” Caroline’s eyes went as wide. “Is that true? You’ve never done it?”
“I didn’t say that,” Thomas blurted. “I—”
“You’re saving yourself, then,” Caroline interrupted, sweetly, “for your one true love? How positively adorable!”
Thomas said an extremely bad word.
“I suppose your brother figures,” Emily said, “if he’s got to take the trousers without having tried them, he oughtn’t try on any others first, since that might spoil him, you know, for the final fit.”
Caroline was unable to reply. She was laughing too hard.
“It’s not true,” Thomas said, with extreme indignation. “Caro, it isn’t true. I’ve made love with
scores
of women. I just don’t choose to discuss the details of my many conquests with my sister.”
“Oh,” Emily said, between guffaws. “Certainly not!”
Thomas, realizing the two girls were completely beside themselves, turned around and strode back into the house, his spine very straight, his head held unnaturally high.
After a while, Caroline stopped laughing, and she said, wiping tears from her eyes, “Oh, Emmy. We oughtn’t to have poked such fun at him. He was so sick, after all.”
“Pshaw,” Emily said. “He’s been healthy as a horse for months now. You and your mother really do have to give up babying him.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Caroline said. “He came so close to dying. . . .”
“Yes, yes,” Emily said, disgustedly. “I’ve heard about it quite enough, thank you. He was never going to tell you anything, anyway. Even if he had actually had something to divulge, he wouldn’t. They don’t, you know, as a rule.”
Caroline looked confused. “Who won’t? What are you talking about?”
“Men. They won’t tell us anything. Us women, that is. That’s how they maintain their power. The only time they tell us anything is when they want something from us. At least, that’s how it works between my mother and father.”
Suddenly, Caroline didn’t feel in the least like laughing anymore. In fact, she felt a little the way she had the night before, at Dame Ashforth’s party, right before Braden Granville had made her put her head between her knees. She wondered if perhaps she was fainting again.
“Do you think that’s true, Em?” she asked, breathlessly.
Emily had found another blade of grass, and was now attempting to form a whistle from it, by holding it between both thumbs and blowing on it energetically. “Do I think what’s true?”
“What you just said. That a man won’t tell a woman anything, unless he wants something from her.”
“Certainly.” Emily threw the blade of grass away, and leaned over to select another. “Why do you think the queen’s always in such a foul mood these days? Mr. Gladstone doesn’t keep her informed about what’s going on in the Cabinet. And he’s the
prime minister.
But I’m sure he’s thinking, ‘Well, why should I tell her anything, when there’s nothing she can do for me in return?’”
Caroline, however, barely heard her. A different voice entirely was sounding in her head.
And when I get the name of the fellow,
Braden Granville had said,
I’ll be only too happy to prove it, in a court of law, if necessary.
Braden Granville, she realized, wanted something. Wanted something badly enough, Caroline thought, to do just about anything for it.
An insidious plot was hatching inside her head. It wasn’t something, she was quite certain, she ever would have thought of if she hadn’t been pushed to the brink of desperation by the sight of the love of her life in the arms of another. Or rather, the legs of another. But since she was, after all, so bitterly unhappy, it only seemed natural that these ideas—the sort that never would have occurred to her under normal circumstances—came popping up into her head, the way goldfish came popping up to the surface of the lily pond at Winchilsea Abbey, now and again.
It was a despicable thing, what she planned to do. But really, had she been given any sort of choice? No. Her mother, her brother, her own fiancé had left her with no other alternative.
Besides, her mother had told her to fight for the man she loved, and to use her womanly wiles. Wasn’t that precisely what she was doing now?
Well? Wasn’t it?
A man’s voice, quite different from Braden Granville’s, startled her from her dark, devious thoughts.
“Lady Caroline,” the butler said, gravely.
Caroline started, and squinted up at the tall man, who looked extremely forbidding in the bright sunlight.
“Oh, hullo, Bennington,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
“Indeed, my lady. Her ladyship, your mother the Lady Bartlett, begs me to remind you that earls’ daughters do not, generally, sit upon the grass, and she has sent me to ask you if you require a chair.”
Caroline looked past the butler’s shoulder, and saw her mother, quite clearly, gesturing frantically to her from an upper-story window.
Oh, dear, Caroline thought. If she thinks
this
is bad. . . .
7
B
raden Granville took careful aim at the target. Located some fifty feet away, it was nothing more than a six-foot board, covered with the paper outline of a man, leaned up against the back wall of the cellar. Braden had already drilled two holes into the paper figure’s head to represent eyes, and another for a nose. He was finishing off the mouth—a series of small holes in the shape of a crescent moon, the corners of which he’d made turn whimsically upward—when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and saw Weasel standing there, fanning black smoke away from his face, and saying something.
Braden removed the cotton wool from his ears.
“—won’t take no for an answer,” the secretary was saying. “I told her you were busy doin’ valuable research on your new pistol, but she said she’d wait.”
Braden nodded to the young boy who’d been assisting him all afternoon. The boy hurried down the length of the cellar to fetch the paper target.
“I’m sorry, Weasel,” Braden said. “I only caught that last bit there. What were you saying? One of the neighbors, again? Offer her a gun, would you, as a token of our esteem? Wait, on second thought, better not. I don’t need housewives taking shots at me in the street because I’ve woken their precious infants—”
“This ain’t no housewife,” Weasel said. “And deep as we had this cellar dug, the only folk you’re wakin’ is the dead. No, this is a lady.”
“A lady?” Braden took the target the boy brought to him, and held it up for his secretary to see. “There, Weasel. Look at that. Are you still accusing me of being out of sorts? I drilled six of his teeth out.”
“Right,” Weasel said, drily. “Next time a man stands perfectly still with his mouth wide open, you’ll be able to hit his back molars, all right. This lady ain’t from next door. Name of Caroline Linford.”
Braden lowered the target and stared at his old friend. “Caroline Linford?
Lady
Caroline Linford? What in the devil does Lady Caroline Linford want with me?”
“Didn’t say.” Weasel took the target from his employer’s suddenly limp fingers. “Doesn’t look like the sort that usually comes a’callin’ on you, Dead, which is why I came down to check with you. This one’s got her maid with’er.”
“Her
what?”
The cellar was thick, it was true, with smoke, but Braden could not believe that was what was making it so difficult for him to process this information.
“Her maid. Sittin’ there right beside her, all prim and properlike.” Weasel shook his head. “You know I’ve never been one to give advice—least not in the romantic arena—but this one just don’t seem right, Dead. I’d send her packing, right quick. She’s bound to have a nervous papa with one of your pistols in his pocket. . . .”
Braden Granville had already begun to take the stairs two at a time. “No nervous papa,” he tossed back, over his shoulder. “A fiancé, though. The Marquis of Winchilsea.”
Coming up the stairs behind his employer, Weasel raised his eyebrows. “Winchilsea? You could take
him
easily enough.”
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Mr. Ambrose.” Braden stepped into his study and went to a mirror to adjust his cravat, then found that the creases were filled with gunpowder.
“Damn,”
he said, tearing the cloth away, and reaching into a drawer for a new one. “There’s nothing going on between the Lady Caroline and myself. Not that way. But the girl did see something the other night at old Ashforth’s place—”
“The night Jackie got away from you?”
“Right. I asked her if she’d seen Jacquelyn go by, and she said she had, and that Jackie hadn’t been alone—”
“So you reckon she’s here to . . . to
what?”
Weasel shook his head. “I don’t get it.”
“I don’t either,” Braden admitted. “She’s probably here to thank me for my kind attentions to her that night. She got a little light-headed, and I—” Weasel cackled knowingly, but Braden silenced him with a look. “—I stopped to
help
her,” he continued, sternly. “It’s because of her I lost the pair of them—Jackie and her swain.”
“And you didn’t try to get any information out of her?” Weasel looked appalled.
“She was
ill,”
Braden said.
“Well, she don’t look ill now,” Weasel said, with a wink. “I think this is your chance, Dead.”
“My chance?”
Weasel groaned with frustration. “To find out what the bloke looked like! The one with Jackie!”
Braden smiled. “I might ask a casual question or two,” he said. “If the subject happens to come up. But you know I would never take advantage of a lady. . . .”
Weasel groaned again, and, grinning, Braden made quick work of his second cravat, then eyed his handiwork critically. It would do. He swept his fingers through his dark, slightly overlong hair, and pulled on the ends of his waistcoat. “There. How do I look?”
Weasel frowned. “You need another shave.”
Braden Granville made an impatient face. “I’m not out to ravish her, Weasel. I’m gathering evidence. Valuable evidence. I want to look comforting, the kind of man a young girl could confide in. So. Do I pass?”
Weasel looked dubious. “I don’t think I’m the one you ought to be askin’. Maybe we should get the maid in here—”
“Just—” Braden took a deep breath, uttered a silent prayer for patience, and then exhaled.
“—send her in.”
Weasel nodded, and left the room. A minute later, he returned, this time in the company of the young woman Braden recognized from Dame Ashforth’s dinner party a few nights before. Only something wasn’t right. Because no sooner had Weasel escorted the Lady Caroline into the room than the two of them threw themselves at the door, apparently in an attempt to keep out a third party, who was trying to come in after them.
“Violet, really,” Lady Caroline was saying, as she thrust her weight against the door, “it’s quite all right. Mr. Granville and I are just going to have a little chat, and then I’ll be right out. I promise nothing forward at all will occur while I’m in here—”
“Your mother, the Lady Bartlett,” a strident voice behind the door declared, “is going to hear of this, my lady. Don’t you think for a minute that I’m going to be party to anything smacking of deceit!”
“There’s no deceit here, Violet,” Lady Caroline insisted. “I swear it. I am merely trying to have a word in private with Mr. Granville—”
“Ha!” said the voice from behind the door. “I know all about
him!
Don’t think I don’t!”
Lady Caroline, apparently despairing of ever winning this particular battle, turned her head, and saw Braden beside his desk.
“Well, don’t just stand there,” she said, as she leaned all her weight against the door. “Come and help us.”
Braden, thoroughly confused, nevertheless did as the girl bid, and joined his secretary pushing against the door.
“I say,” he observed, after a moment or two. “ Whoever is on the other side of this door is uncommonly strong. Who the devil is it?”
“My maid,” Lady Caroline said, as she struggled to keep her footing on the slippery parquet. “And I must say, that wasn’t exactly what I meant by helping.”
Braden and Weasel exchanged glances. “I tried to keep’er out,” Weasel said, “like the lady asked, but she’s a big’un.”
“Lady Caroline,” the maid shouted, from beyond the partially closed door. “No good will come of this! Mark my words!”
“Oh,” Caroline groaned. For some reason, she glared accusingly at Braden, as if it were all
his
fault. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought that you were supposed to be skilled in this sort of thing, Mr. Granville. Haven’t you any ideas?”
Braden said, politely, “You’ll have to help me here, Lady Caroline. I have no idea what particular ‘sort of thing’ it is we’re talking about.”
“Chaperons,” she burst out. “Violet is my chaperon. We’ve got to find a way to get rid of her. I must see you
alone.”
“Oh.” Abruptly, Braden stopped pushing, and straightened. “That’s simple. Why didn’t you say so before?”
Taking hold of Caroline’s shoulders, he moved her neatly out of the way, then signaled for Weasel to step aside. The secretary did so, and suddenly, the door gave way, and Braden found himself standing before a large, determined-looking woman, wearing a flowered bonnet that was strangely frivolous when contrasted with the extremely indignant expression on her face.
“Ah,” Braden said. “Miss Violet. It’s you. Yes. I’m so sorry, we thought you were someone else. How are you today? And might I compliment you on that lovely hat?”
“Mr. Granville,” Violet began, stridently. “You’ll not put me off that easily. I know all about you, sir. You’re not to have a moment alone with my lady. No, sir. Not while I’ve got—”
“Violet,” Braden said, in a low voice, wrapping an arm around the woman’s formidable shoulders. “Your mistrust wounds me. Truly, it does. I don’t blame you, of course. You can’t help, I suppose, but believe what you’ve heard. But don’t mistake what a jealous few are whispering with the truth. I am not the vile monster they’d have you think. Why, Violet, I’m just like you.”
Violet blinked up at him with large, suspicious brown eyes. “I beg your pardon, sir,” she said, indignantly. “But I don’t think so.”
“No, really,” Braden went on. “Do you think I always lived amongst such grandeur? Why, hardly, Violet. My childhood was spent in the Dials, Violet. Have you heard of the Dials, Violet? I’m sure you haven’t. What would a lovely young women like yourself know about the foulest section of London? Well, suffice it to say that I played amidst the dust heaps there as a boy. Until one day, fortune plucked me from them. With hard work and perseverance, I made myself the man you see before you. Is it any wonder, Violet, that there are those, envious of my success, who might speak ill of me?”
Violet’s gaze began to look a little less determined— just a little. Seeing this, Braden pressed his advantage.
“It’s unconscionable,” he went on. “I know. But when people like us—you and I, Violet—pull ourselves up out of the dust heaps of this world, why, there’s nothing—nothing at all—that can stop us. And that, Violet, is very frightening to those in power. They feel that their position in life is being threatened. So of course they say horrible things about us. I’ve been called all sorts of things, you know. I’ve even heard some people accuse me of being—” He took a deep breath. “—a Lothario. But it isn’t true, Violet. I’m just a man. Just flesh and bone. Like you, Violet. Just like you.”
Lady Caroline, who’d been watching him with a very skeptical expression on her face, rolled her eyes at this. But her maid was not nearly so hard-hearted. She reached out and seized Braden’s right hand in both her own.
“I had heard, sir,” Violet said, earnestly. “I had heard things—horrible things—about you. But I see now why they lied. Jealous, all of’em. And all I can say is . . . God bless you!”
Braden bowed his head modestly. “Thank you, Violet. Weasel—I mean, Mr. Ambrose—please show Miss Violet to the kitchens, and see that she is provided with tea and cake.”
“It would be my honor, sir,” Weasel said, the corners of his mouth twitching. And he led the woman—still gazing at Braden in a besotted manner over her shoulder—away.
Braden, smiling, closed the door behind them, then turned to say, “Now, Lady Caroline. What can I do for you today?”
Only his voice dried up in his throat. Because Lady Caroline was staring up at him with a furious expression on her face.
“What,” she demanded, “did you do to my maid?”
He looked down at her curiously. She was not, as he’d correctly observed the night of Dame Ashforth’s dinner party, a beauty. Her hair was neither dark nor fair, her figure neither voluptuous nor slim.
And yet Jacquelyn had been wrong to dismiss the Linford girl as plain. She wasn’t plain at all. There were some women who had looks like Lady Caroline’s, looks that, while they might strike the viewer as plain at first glance, grew oddly more appealing as time passed. These kinds of looks, Braden knew, were dangerous— more dangerous even than a beauty like Lady Jacquelyn’s—since, because they were ever changing, a man could fall into the trap of wanting to be continuously about, in order to observe the subtle shifts as they took place. . . .
Not that such a thing had ever happened to him. Nor would it.
Still, Lady Caroline had something that even a jaded admirer of feminine beauty like himself had to admit was irresistible. And that was a pair of very large eyes, that, though brown, struck him as enormously expressive. Even now, they were fairly brimming with emotion. And they were staring up at him most reproachfully.
“Tell me,” she said, accusingly. “Tell me what you did to her.”
“Clearly,” Braden said, moving toward his desk, mostly to get out of range of those enormous, liquid eyes, “I didn’t do anything to her. I spoke to her as one rational human being to another, that’s all.”
The girl followed him, not just with her eyes, but with her whole person. She stood before his desk and glared at him some more.
“That’s
not
all,” she declared. “You . . . you
mesmerized
her!”
“I most certainly did nothing of the sort.” Braden shook his head. “I appealed to her better judgment, and won.”
“I think,” the girl said, her eyes narrowed with suspicion, “that you bewitched her.”
Braden sat down. It was rude, he knew, but the girl seemed fractious, and he hoped that, if she didn’t have to keep craning her neck to look up at him, it might prove calming. He also hoped that the desktop might serve as a sort of shield against her agitation, which he could see was extreme.
“Lady Caroline,” he said, severely. “This is the year eighteen hundred and seventy. Do I really need to remind you that there is no such thing as witchcraft? Besides, you were the one who brought her. If you didn’t want her to come in, why’d you bring her in the first place?”