Everything I Ever Wanted (42 page)

"Marlhaven."

Not to London, then. India had hoped it would be London. That would be where South would look first. "Your mother is expecting us?"

"I have not written her of our intention to visit, but never fear that she will turn us away. Mother will be happy for the company."

India knew it was a partial truth. The countess would be glad of her son's visit. She would merely suffer India's presence. Heart thudding softly against her breast, she stoppered the flask and made to return it to Margrave.

He pressed it back. "Keep it," he said. "You will have want of more before the night is gone."

It occurred to India that she had no idea how far they had traveled from Ambermede or how close they might be to Marlhaven. "Will we arrive at your home tonight?" she asked, setting the flask beside her.

"Hardly. It will take us all of tonight and the next before we get there."

That meant there would be stops, India realized. Time enough, if she were careful, to leave a message with an innkeeper or guest that would eventually find its way to Southerton.

Margrave sat back again, at his ease in the close confines of the carriage. He took off his polished beaver hat and placed it on the seat beside him. He ran one gloved hand through his gold-and-ginger hair, lifting the curls away from his scalp so they settled lightly around the crown of his head. "I know what you are thinking, Dini," he said in bored accents. "Shall I tell you?"

"If it pleases you."

"It does. You are always so certain I cannot read your mind, and yet I do so time and again. Now, for instance, you are supposing that our journey will present you with some opportunity to get a message to the viscount. It is not clear what you want him to know. Mayhap only that you are safe. Or that you will be going to Marlhaven. I imagine you thought it would be London." Margrave's slim shoulders lifted in an indifferent shrug. "It matters not at all, because Southerton will never receive any communication from you. Do you understand, India? Your Lord Southerton is dead. His friend Westphal, also. Two points of the compass have been eliminated."

"You are lying."

"Am I? There is very little conviction in your voice." Margrave casually crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Shall you miss him? I am speaking of Southerton, of course. Westphal cannot be well known to you, since he only recently arrived."

"You saw him come to the cottage?"

"Answer my question first; then I shall answer yours. There must be that agreement between us."

"Shall I miss him?" she asked, repeating Margrave's question. "Only in the way one misses a toothache."

Margrave's bark of laughter held genuine amusement. "That is too bad of you. I do not believe you, naturally, but it was a good attempt to make me think otherwise. I'm afraid I have known you too long to be so easily gulled. There are nuances to your voice that do not escape me. Perhaps it was unfair for me to put such a question to you when you can be doing nothing less than reeling from the pain of it."

India would have welcomed the drugging comfort of laudanum. If Margrave presented her with a bottle now, she would thank him for it and drain it dry. She was not certain that she believed his assertion that South was dead, but neither could she detect the lie in his tone or manner. The Earl of Margrave might have made a success of the stage if the circumstances of his birth had been different and India had not found refuge there first.

Carefully modulating her voice so that it revealed more indifference than interest, India reminded Margrave of his promise to answer the question she posed. "What of Westphal's arrival? You were there, I collect."

"Yes. For some time, actually. Do you know, India, that when you left London I had not the least notion where you had gone? You had a megrim that evening. I got the cab for you; do you remember?"

"Yes."

Margrave nodded. "And then you disappeared. I did not realize it, of course, until I went to your home. The servants were surprised to see Mrs. Garrety arriving before their mistress. It was the first indication I had that there had been some trouble. Did you go willingly, Dini? I have wondered about that." When she did not answer, he chuckled softly. "No, you will not answer, will you? I have not yet fully explained myself to you."

Margrave placed one foot on the opposite seat so that it rested near India's knee. "I suspected Southerton. He was the natural choice to have spirited you away. I can say that it was most confusing when he returned to town so quickly and you remained gone. Oh, and what a merry chase he and his friends led me those nine days. After the old duke's funeral, they would congregate for the odd moment and then scatter. I thought it had something to do with you, you see, but that was not the case at all. It was Northam's wife they were trying to find, though I did not understand that until quite late. I followed him all the way to Battenburn in expectation of finding you, and all along he was only trying to help his friend."

India was glad of the darkness that covered her bittersweet smile. She remembered South's long absence from Ambermede with a certain poignancy. Every day that she teased Darrow with a bowl of broth while heartier fare was bubbling below stairs, was followed by a night spent alone in her room, her thoughts occupied by South's inevitable return and his intentions toward her. It would have eased her mind had she known then the reason for his delay. That he was helping his friend would have comforted her. She wondered if South knew how she had exhausted herself before his return, or how few defenses she had had at her fingertips when she saw him again.

You will ease yourself with me , she had said. And I with you .

"You are very still of a sudden," Margrave said.

India did not have to see his dark predator eyes to know they were now narrowed on her. She had never accustomed herself to his stare. There was nothing natural about his assessment, only things unnatural. "I am merely listening," she said quietly. "Pray continue."

Margrave cocked an eyebrow. It sounded almost as if she were ordering him. That was a trifle unsettling."Very well," he said. "When I came to know the real purpose of South's activities, I merely bided my time. He would return to you, I thought. Or return for you. Northam found his wife at Stonewickam."

"Yes. I know. It is North's grandfather's home." India wondered how Margrave had learned of it. She had imagined the Compass Club as being a circle of friends who would act with discretion. Margrave could not have heard it from any of them. He had to have briefly made his way into one of their homes. "Have you been posing as a tradesman again, Margrave? Did you perhaps win the confidence of a servant?"

He lightly applauded her. "You know me well in your own right, Dini. One does what one must." Margrave threaded his fingers together in a loose fist. "When it was clear that Lady Northam was found, I knew that wherever Southerton went next, it would lead to you."

"Then you have been near Ambermede for some time."

"Yes. I stayed in the village. I met a very nice woman there. A widow, I think she said she was."

India's stomach clenched uncomfortably. Her mouth flattened, and she pressed the fingertips of one hand against her temple. The steady rocking of the carriage no longer had the power to soothe. She lifted her head from where it rested against the leather squabs, and tried to concentrate on what she was hearing. "You made the acquaintance of Mrs. Simon?"

"Aaah, yes. That was her name. Very helpful, she was. There was also Southerton's man, of course, but he was a closed one. I think he was most anxious to leave the village and return to the cottage. Mrs. Simon, though, was of a mind to give the viscount and his ladybird time alone." Margrave nudged India's knee with the toe of his boot. "Were you South's ladybird? Or was the widow given to foolish romantic notions?"

India did not believe for a moment that Mrs. Simon had called her Southerton's ladybird. Margrave's intention was to goad her. He had left it until too late. She was too weary and sick at heart to be provoked into rashness now. "I was with Lord Southerton much against my will," she said."The widow's notions are her own."

Margrave was thoughtful. "I doubt that it was against your will, Dini. According to the widow, you nursed South's manservant in his absence. It seems to me it would have presented an opportunity to leave, yet you did not."

India shrugged. "You will believe what you will, Margrave. It is not for me to contradict you."

"Did you become his mistress?" Margrave asked. Before she could say anything, he cautioned her,"Have a care how you answer. There are ways for me to learn the truth."

India's head began to pound in earnest, and she blanched at the thought of Margrave touching her so intimately. "You want to know if he lay with me. The answer is yes. He did."

"Lay with you? Surely, an odd turn of phrase. Did he not imagine himself in love with you, India? Or you with him? Is that not what occurred between you?"

She said nothing.

"Now you disappoint," Margrave said. "I think when we arrive at Marlhaven I will paint you with him. It will be a good exercise for me. I have never tried to capture tender feeling in my work. And perhaps we will add another rose to your vine. This is the fourth time you have tried to leave me. The roses should number four now, as should the tears."

South sat alone in his study, an unopened bottle of wine on the table beside him and an unopened book in his lap. He had taste for neither. Another day of combing London had not gone well, and there was still no news of India Parr from any quarter. His mother had called him home and demanded to know if what her dear friend Celia Worth Hampton had said was true, namely, that he had taken up with the opera dancer and was going to make her his wife.

South had corrected his mother on the only point he could. "India Parr is not an opera dancer," he had said. That distinction seemed to have provided little in the way of calming effect. His mother had reached for her smelling salts and called for a glass of sherry to be brought to her and it was not yet eleven.

That afternoon North denied that he had said anything to his mother about India Parr, though he had learned some of what had passed at Ambermede from West. Elizabeth had walked into the room then, all grace and good cheer, and South had immediately come to understand how things were passed from friend to friend, then to wife, and finally to mother-in-law. The Dowager Countess of Northam had made straightaway to his own mother to apprise her of every detail. South could only be thankful that she did not know many.

From Eastlyn there was no sympathy. The marquess was still entangled in a false engagement and a promise of marriage he believed had never been properly made. He was becoming used to the gossip surrounding his activities and was not at all sorry to have South on the verge of the same.

The disappearance of India was another matter entirely and no cause for levity. To a man, his friends had proposed to help in the search. South declined all offers. He had no place left to tell them to look.

He had been to the theatre, to her home, even to Margrave's London residence. He had gone to the boarding house were Margrave had rented a room for Mrs. Garrety. There was a new tenant there. Upon giving up his identity as India's dresser, Margrave had ceased to pay rent on the room.

South had been to visit Mr. Kendall's family, to question them again about the woman for whom he may have developed a tendre. Neither his sisters nor his mother remembered anything they had not told him before, and South knew his visit accomplished nothing but upset.

It was the same when he renewed his acquaintance with the Rutherfords. They wanted no part of his questions. Any evidence that existed linking Margrave to Mr. Rutherford's murder continued to elude South. More important, India was nowhere near his grasp.

He paid a visit on Lady Macquey-Howell and made discreet inquiries. Of her financial arrangements with the Spanish consul, South said nothing. He would not compromise that investigation by alarming her. He did, however, discover that the countess had taken a new lover. South reasoned it would go a long way to keeping her out of Margrave's jealous and jaded eye.

There had also been no information forthcoming when he visited Margrave's estates at Merrimont and Marlhaven. At Merrimont he could only speak to the housekeeper, and while she was clearly uncomfortable with his questions and protective of the earl and his mother, South never suspected that her answers were less than honest. She remembered Miss Diana Hawthorne quite fondly and had no notion that the young girl who had been fostered at Merrimont was now a much admired actress on the London stage. South did not take it upon himself to apprise her of that fact.

At Marlhaven the reception was considerably cooler and more tempered. The dowager countess graciously deigned to receive South, but her civility was tested in the interview that followed. Although she found his questions disagreeable in the extreme, she made no effort to have him ejected from her home. South did not know that he would have been so solicitous if their positions had been reversed. Once again, he left without intelligence that would help him find India.

South had pinned some hope on Doobin, and there the situation became complicated. The boy was no longer with Mr. Kent's theatre company, and no one South spoke to seemed to know where he'd gone. Though the reason for his dismissal was theft, South suspected Margrave's fine hand at work. It took South two days of searching the garbage-strewn alleyways of Holborn to locate the boy, then the better part of an hour to convince him to return home with him. Doobin was not so trusting as he had been, certain that Southerton was to blame for India's disappearance. Since he was not far off the mark, South had had to do considerable explaining to bring the thing about. Bribery had figured largely in the outcome.