Sinful in Satin (28 page)

Marian stood beside the bed, her eyes full of concern. Celia sat up and wiped her face of crusty, dried tears. She saw through the open door that the chamber across the passageway was open too. Soft sounds came from it, as though an animal poked around in there.

“This door was ajar,” Marian explained. “I did not expect to find you here when I brought water to Mr. Albrighton this morning.”

“He is gone, Marian. There will be no need to bring water tomorrow.”

Marian sat down beside her and embraced her shoulders with a motherly arm. “I wish I had something to say to make you feel better. The truth is that men are pigs by nature, and not known for constancy, and this one was no worse or better than others on that, I expect.”

She rested her head on Marian’s shoulder. “Insult men all you want today, my friend. Just do not tell me I was a fool. I feel enough of one already.”

That was not really true. She did not feel too much like a fool this morning. Not the way she had last night while she waited to hear Jonathan’s steps on the back stairs. Now she only felt tired, spent, and numb, and full of a special kind of grief.

She guessed this was true heartbreak, this terrible feeling echoing in her emptiness like a raw hunger, making her want to weep again.

It appeared that she had built more romantic illusions than she had thought around Jonathan. Despite her resolve to the contrary, she had let him touch more than her body. She had not used Mama’s lessons in the most important way. She had not remained in control of their passion and what it meant to her.

She gazed at his belongings. They would be removed soon. She would return from visiting a friend one day, and this chamber would be as empty as she felt right now, and he would be completely gone from her life.

She had known it would be brief with him. Just not this brief. Nor had she expected betrayal to taint what had been. Now she could not even indulge in memories, without wondering what he had been thinking the whole time, and wondering if every single moment had been affected by lies.

The sounds from across the hall got louder. She looked in their direction.

“Bella is cleaning in there,” Marian said. “I told her to move everything to the walls, and give the floor a good scrubbing. Come warmer weather we will air it out and—”

A loud thud interrupted her, followed by Bella’s exclamation.

“Did you hurt yourself, Bella?” Marian called. “I told you not to try and move the furniture without my help.”

“I am not hurt,” Bella said while she emerged from the chamber. “I lifted one end of that big rug, to move it, and this fell out. It was tucked inside the roll a good ways.” She entered the chamber, carrying a flat wooden box.

Celia took it from her. She placed it on the bed and moved the simple latch to open it.

Inside were brushes, pens, and vials of colored pigments. “It is my mother’s paint box. Look, this little mortar and pestle is for grinding the pigment more finely. These tiny bowls must be what she used to mix the paint.”

“I saw one of those in a shop window once,” Bella said. “It even had a little drawer for paper.” She knelt down and peered at the back of the box. “Here, like this.” She caught an edge of the back wood and pulled open a shallow drawer.

It did hold paper, several sheets of different textures, all of them heavier than one might write on. Bella took them out, fascinated. In doing so she revealed what lay beneath them.

Celia lifted out a thin, hardboard journal, such as sold in stationers’ stores. She opened it to see rows and rows of numbers in her mother’s neat hand.

“Fowl, flour, salt,” Marian read over her shoulder. Marian was not truly literate, but every woman knew these words. “It is a household account book, looks like.”

Celia scanned the pages quickly. It was not only an account book of what was bought. It also included income. She raised her eyebrows at some of the figures. Alessandra’s entertainment had not come cheaply to the men she favored.

A pattern caught her eye. A regular expenditure, with her name by it. That must have been the money sent to the country, to keep Celia with the two spinsters who raised her. Each debit came right after a credit, however. A similar amount had come in right before it went out.

Another name was always with those entries too, unlike the other payments Alessandra had received. It was a name that she recognized. It belonged with one of the colored crests. That of the Marquess of Enderby.

She flipped the pages, month by month and year by year, and saw the money coming in and going out. It could not be a coincidence. This must be money from her father, and not in return for favors. He had been paying for a daughter’s support while she was a child.

Her mind raced with her excitement at the discovery. She would have to tell Jonathan when he—

Her joy disappeared as quickly as it had come. Last night’s sorrow settled on her again. There would be no telling Jonathan now. She certainly was not going to show him this journal either, and allow him to pick through this more detailed accounting of her mother’s life.

Bella was admiring all the items in the paint box, lifting each vial of dry pigment and holding it to the light of the window.

“You be putting those back now,” Marian scolded.

“Let her play with them,” Celia said. She closed the cover of the box. “Take it below, Bella. You can use the brushes and pigment if you want. I will take this book, however, and decide what to do with it.”

Jonathan folded the letter and held it to his nose. She had not scented it, yet the lavender water she often wore lingered subtly.

He had to smile at the letter’s directness, and at the way she could not resist pointing out that he had failed to find the evidence he sought when it had been in the house all the time.
You betrayed me and did not even make a good job of it.

The rest of the letter was less amusing. Especially the part about regular payments. Celia might assume those were for her support, but there were other explanations too.

Removing himself from Celia’s presence had given new life to his own little quests, as she put it. He had been analyzing what he had learned about Alessandra the last weeks. He was still of two minds about whether the whispers had been true, but if she had been receiving regular payments from someone, especially from an old lover who no longer had a liaison, it was not a certainty those payments were to support a love child. A man could have been buying Alessandra’s silence about indiscretions, or even be the agent for whom she had worked.

The various possibilities occupied him while he rode to the park. Edward had written to the mail drop, demanding a meeting. The impatient tone of the summons indicated someone somewhere was getting annoyed that Jonathan’s mission was not being fulfilled quickly enough.

As he sought out his uncle near the reservoir, he pictured Celia confronting the man who she now assumed was her father. She would do it, he was sure. Discreetly, perhaps, but that would not be welcomed any more than the boldest approach.

And if the man was not her father, but someone with other reasons to pay Alessandra down through the years, then what?

Edward hailed him and he trotted over.

“You are unhorsed, Uncle. I did not see you.”

“The physician said I must take long turns every day. Tie your mount and join me. This is tedious and too time consuming.”

Jonathan did as bid, and fell into step. “Are you ill?”

“Just aging. It takes its toll in dozens of ways until you are dead of it.” Edward kept a sound pace, swinging a handsome walking stick to the rhythm of his stride. “I have not heard from you in some time. I thought I should find out what is happening.”

“Is someone impatient?”

“You are merely unaccountably slow. Is there a reason?”

A very good reason. He had avoided telling Edward about those crests, in part to protect Celia and in part to have time to learn what he could about a few patrons from five years ago.

“If I told you that I had learned it all, and had a list of her patrons, what would you do?”

Edward stopped walking. He studied Jonathan’s face, with his own expression serious and sober.

“Do you have such a list?”

“I do not. However, I wonder what you will do with what I learn. I have discovered that this mission did not come to me the normal way. The Home Office did not send you to me this time. I am curious who did.”

Edward walked on, faster now. His eyes burned beneath his hat brim. “Who told you that? I’ll not have some fool interfering—”

“I was told by someone who usually receives accurate information.”

“You told him, whoever it was, that you were doing this? Have you gone mad?”

“I revealed nothing. My activities have not escaped notice all these years. I am not completely invisible to others besides you in the government. I can see that my question has agitated you, however, so let us forget I asked.”

“Damnation, I should say so.”

They walked on and Edward eventually controlled his temper. “I wanted to ask you about the daughter,” he said.

“Celia.”

“Yes. Is it possible that she found something that you did not?”

“It is always possible, I suppose. Not likely. Even if she did, how could she know anything from it?”

Edward chewed that over, frowning.

“Why do you ask?” Jonathan prompted.

“Rather suddenly, Alessandra’s long-past history has become a topic of some interest among ladies of a certain age, my wife tells me. One would think a history of the gossip surrounding her is being compiled. Summerhays’s mother quizzed a few old friends, who in turn queried others—Well, it is peculiar.”

“It was probably only her recent death that caused it. Perhaps two ladies had an argument over a few points in their memories, and sought to be proven correct.”

“I don’t like it, however it happened.” Edward speared him with a hooded gaze. “You know her? The daughter?”

“Celia. Yes, I know her. I have spoken with her as part of my investigation.”

“You need to find out if she has learned something. Be very firm with her. Offer her some money if you must. That sort will respond to either pay or threats with little trouble.”

Two ladies approached, holding a close tête-à-tête. Jonathan let them pass while his annoyance with Edward simmered.

“What do you mean,
that sort
?” he asked, once they again had privacy.

Edward stifled a groan of impatience. “I am in no mood to mollify your delicate sensibilities about such women, Jon. I am not speaking of your mother. It is not the same. Even if it were, it does not matter what I meant. This is serious, and you must think about your duty first and do what is necessary to find out what is needed from her.” He tried a smile of appeasement. “You know how it must be.”

“I know how it must be when the mission is for England. We are a long way from the days when a vulnerable coast excused so much, Uncle. I don’t even know who has given me this damnable mission. There are limits to what things I will do in executing it, and insulting or threatening or hurting Celia Pennifold is beyond them.”

Edward’s face flushed. He directed a beady stare right at Jonathan. “You doth protest too much, dear boy. What is this woman to you, that you are so defensive? Has she seduced you? She has, hasn’t she?”

“She has not.”

“Then you seduced her. Do not deny it; I can see it in you. Perhaps others cannot, but you are not such an enigma to
me
.” He tapped his walking stick impatiently, in a quick staccato of vexation. “Are you mad? A liaison with such a woman is—”