The Heiress (3 page)

“Don’t be silly,” Woodrow said easily, releasing Lisa. “I shall look after your sister for you. Go, have your dance.”

“Oh but—” Lisa glanced to Suzette with dismay, but the blond had already taken her arm and was leading her toward the dance floor.

Sighing, Suzette waved her on. There was no sense in the two of them being manhandled and dragged about. Besides, she suspected she’d have more luck escaping Woodrow if she wasn’t busy worrying about Lisa getting away as well. Still, she watched the couple a little enviously as they moved off. The man was incredibly handsome. Unfortunately, his expensive clothes suggested wealth, which meant he probably wasn’t the kind of man she needed were she to save the family from their father’s folly; but Lisa was free to marry whom she chose and for no other reason than love . . . and that was what she truly envied, Suzette acknowledged unhappily. It really didn’t seem fair that she had to sacrifice herself for the family, but then life rarely was fair, she supposed.

Woodrow urged her forward again and Suzette gave up staring after her sister and turned her attention to her predicament.

“It really isn’t proper for a young lady to allow herself to be led outside by a strange man,” she pointed out grimly as he ushered her through a set of French doors and out onto a torchlit terrace. “We haven’t even been properly introduced.”

D
aniel glanced down at the woman he held so firmly in hand. The sister to the woman George had married while pretending to be Richard. Truly that news had come as a shock to both him and Richard when they’d heard it from their host. Landon had approached them as they’d still been searching the ball attendees for the apparently not present George. The man had greeted them claiming to be surprised that Richard was attending because his wife had claimed he was too ill to come.

Wife?

That had been a problem neither of them had even imagined and it had sent Richard straight to the woman Landon had pointed out once the man had quit their company to see to his other guests. One of the women around Lady Radnor had addressed the wife as “Christiana,” when he and Richard had reached the petite blonde and she in turn had most helpfully named her sisters on their arrival. Lisa was the young blonde one he had released in the ballroom. The little virago who had made such rude comments about Dicky’s apparent resurrection, and who now remained in his care, was Suzette.

Daniel’s gaze was most thorough as he inspected her. Suzette. The name slid through his thoughts again. A pretty name for a pretty woman. He suspected she might even be beautiful did she not look so vexed. Oddly enough, though, he rather liked the vexed look on her. Most debutantes would have been hiding their anger behind madly fluttering fans and forced smiles. This one had no problem showing her true feelings. It made a refreshing change.

“I did introduce myself,” he pointed out mildly as he urged her across the terrace to the steps leading down into the gardens. Daniel had at first only intended on taking the sisters out to the terrace to give Richard some privacy to deal with Christiana and find out what he could about George. However, he now decided he might be able to aid Richard by finding out himself what he could. Certainly, there did seem to be a lot going on that was pertinent to the situation. All three women had seemed equally shocked to see who they thought was Dicky there at the ball, and it had been said more than once that he’d been thought to be dead. If George was dead, then all of Richard’s plans could be in jeopardy.

“That wasn’t a proper introduction and you know it,” she snapped, tugging at her arm again.

“Very true,” he agreed easily, holding firm and urging her deeper into the gardens, following a barely discernible path through the trees. “However, I suspect you aren’t a proper lady so we should do well enough.”

Suzette suddenly came to an abrupt halt and this time even his firm grip couldn’t keep her moving, at least not gracefully. If he didn’t stop he’d be dragging her along behind him like an old robe.

Pausing, Daniel raised an eyebrow in question.

“Would you care to repeat that?” she asked coldly.

Daniel hesitated and then pointed out mildly, “I simply meant that I suspect you can be a little less than proper at times. Surely a proper young lady wouldn’t say what you did back there to Richard?”

Her eyes became daggers, her mouth turning down with dislike. “Dicky deserved it. The man is a bounder. He’s a horrible husband and treats Christiana dreadfully.” She poked him in the chest with one finger of her free hand and added, “And
you
should be ashamed to be his friend.”

Daniel resisted the urge to grab the finger poking him so sharply and said grimly, “I assure you I
have
never and
will
never be friends with your sister’s husband.” He allowed a moment for that to sink in and then added for good measure, “In fact, I think he’s a despicable creature who should be taken out in a field and shot.”

“Really?” Suzette asked doubtfully.

“Really,” Daniel assured her, thinking George would have a lot to answer for, when all was said and done. He’d obviously married Suzette’s sister, Christiana, in Richard’s name, which meant it wasn’t a legal marriage at all and the poor woman had been living in sin for however long the marriage had supposedly gone on. Once the truth came out, Christiana, Suzette and their younger sister would be cast into scandal so deep none of them would be free of it.

Neither would Richard of course, he acknowledged. And then there was this business of George possibly being dead. If that was the case, it would make it much harder for Richard to reclaim his name and title. They had been counting on George’s confessing to prove Richard’s identity. Without that . . . well, Christiana could claim Richard was really George, that he hadn’t died in the fire as believed and was just trying to claim everything now that his brother was dead, and many would believe it. Hell, she’d probably believe it. She and everyone else would wonder why he hadn’t come forward before “the Earl’s” death with these claims, and would doubt every word he said. It was turning out to be one hell of a mess, Daniel thought.

“Then why are you helping Dicky like this?” Suzette asked with open disbelief, drawing his attention back to her.

“I am not doing this to help Geo—Dicky . . .” Daniel corrected himself and then rather than finish his explanation, he paused to consider the situation anew. Everyone so far had just assumed Richard was Dicky, which was obviously what George had insisted everyone call him. Richard would have never stood for the nickname. In fact, George was the only person who had called him that and had done it precisely because Richard hated it. But the point was, everyone was just accepting Richard was himself, and if George really was dead, surely the simplest way to handle the entire matter was for him to just step back into his life and continue as if he had never left it. Of course, that was, only if George was really dead. And it did mean Richard would have to uphold the marriage to Christiana, but—

“Then why are you doing it?” Suzette asked impatiently, apparently tired of waiting for him to finish the explanation.

Daniel pushed his thoughts aside for the moment and said, “I did this to prevent anyone else overhearing what I did back there. It all sounded just a bit too delightfully scandalous,” he said dryly, and then asked carefully, “Did you and your sisters really think Dicky dead and pack him in ice?”

Suzette sighed with disgust at the question. “Yes. Though, obviously it was a bit premature since the man is alive and well after all.” She shook her head and added with bewilderment, “Though I’m sure he was dead.”

“Perhaps he was just unconscious,” Daniel suggested.

“He wasn’t breathing,” she argued dryly, and then frowned and said, “At least he didn’t seem to be. And I could have sworn his body had begun to cool as we packed him in ice, but perhaps my hands were just cold from handling the ice.”

Daniel cleared his throat and asked delicately, “Well, what exactly preceded his apparent dying? Did he appear unwell?”

Suzette scowled, her expression turning thoughtful as she set her mind back, and then she said slowly, “He certainly didn’t seem ill when he was trying to shoo us away from his door like a pair of matchstick girls. He seemed hale and hearty and pompous as a rooster.”

“Shoo you away like a pair of matchstick girls?” Daniel asked curiously.

“Hmm.” Suzette scowled. “We went to see Christiana about—well, some family business. But the butler left us waiting at the door while he fetched Dicky and then Dicky wasn’t even going to let us see her.” She looked amazed as she said that and then added, “Fortunately, Christiana appeared and intervened and managed to convince him to let us in.” Her mouth tightened at the memory and she added, “But then the bounder insisted we wait in the parlor while he and Christiana breakfasted first. I gather that was to punish us for showing up uninvited,” she added dryly. “And he was pompous as hell about it.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows at the curse. Ladies did not generally curse like sailors. At least not the ladies he knew. Suzette was turning out to be a somewhat extraordinary lady, however.

She sighed unhappily, and then continued. “When he finally did let Christiana come to us, he accompanied her at first. Of course, we didn’t want to talk about what Father had done again in front of him.”

“What your father had done?” Daniel asked gently.

Her expression closed and she ignored the question and went on, “But I managed to bore him to tears with gossip until he went away, and then we told Christiana all.”

“All of what?” Daniel asked at once, growing increasingly curious.

Whatever it was appeared to distress her and this time she didn’t ignore his question, but gave him a dry look and said, “You do not need to know. No one must know but my prospective husband.”

“You are engaged?” he asked sharply. For some reason the idea bothered him.

“No,” Suzette said looking as if she thought the very idea ridiculous. “But I have to be and we had gone to Christiana so that she could see that Lisa and I could attend the balls and such and find a prospective husband.”

“I see,” Daniel said with disappointment. The woman was obviously in trouble and needed a quick marriage to hide that trouble, one that would probably come to fruition in less than nine months was his guess. The thought tarnished some of her beauty in his eyes.

“Anyway, Christiana agreed of course. After all, she had to marry Dicky because of Father’s last faux pas, so she understood completely.”

That was good, Daniel supposed, but he was now thoroughly confused again, not seeing how a father’s faux pas could leave the girl in the kind of trouble where she needed a fast marriage. At least not the nine months kind. Perhaps he’d misjudged her there, he thought.

“So Christiana went to speak to Dicky about taking us out and about, but when she found him in the office, the idiot was dead.”

Daniel bit his lip at her vexed tone. There was absolutely no grief in her voice at all, just irritation with the inconvenience of it all. But then George had never been one to inspire the finer feelings in those he encountered. Clearing his throat, he asked, “Did he fall and strike his head, or—”

“No. He was simply sitting in his chair dead,” she said with exasperation, and then added with disgust, “He was obviously a victim of his own excess. We suspected his heart gave out. Certainly the glass and decanter of whiskey next to him suggested he didn’t take the best care of himself. I ask you, who drinks hard liquor first thing in the morning?”

Daniel shook his head, finding it difficult to speak. She was just so annoyed as she spoke of the man’s death, as if he’d deliberately done it to mess up her plans. After a moment, he asked, “Are you sure he is dead?”

Suzette gave him another one of those adorable “Don’t be ridiculous” looks. “Well, obviously he isn’t. He is here now,” she pointed out, and then shook her head and added almost under her breath, “Though I could have sworn . . . The man didn’t even stir when he fell off the chair and slammed his head on the floor. Nor when I dropped him and his head crashed to the hardwood floor again, or when we rolled him in the carpet and dragged him upstairs, or when we dropped him in the hall and he rolled out of the carpet, or—”

“Er,” Daniel interrupted, and then coughed into his hand to hide a laugh, before asking, “Why exactly were you carting him about in a carpet?”

“Well, don’t be dense,” she said with exasperation. “We couldn’t let anyone know he was dead, could we?”

“Couldn’t you?” he asked uncertainly.

Suzette clucked with irritation. “Of course not. We would have had to go into mourning then. How would I find a husband if we were forced to abstain from polite society to observe mourning?”

“Ah. I see,” Daniel said and he did see. Things were becoming much clearer. From her description of the abuse the man had taken without protest, George was most definitely probably dead.

“Of course, Christiana wanted to call in the authorities and report his death. But I reminded her that we only have the two weeks for me to find a husband and claim my dower.”

“Hmm,” Daniel said dryly, disappointment claiming him again as he realized that Suzette was just another woman in search of a husband with heavy pockets.

“So, she agreed to put Dicky in his bed, pack him in ice, tell the servants he was ill and keep his death a secret for two nights so that I could find a husband.” Suzette’s mouth twisted and she muttered, “All that trouble and the man wasn’t even dead. I just know he shall ruin everything now. He’ll keep us from attending any more balls to find a husband. If he had any sense of honor at all, the man would have stayed dead.”

“Unfortunately, it appears he was merely unconscious,” Daniel murmured. He was becoming quite certain George was dead. This might greatly simplify matters, or at least it would if Richard was willing to uphold the marriage to Christiana . . . and really, Daniel was beginning to think that would be the most honorable thing to do here. While he didn’t think much of their looking to marry a man with money to solve their problems, it did seem a shame to cast the scandal of George’s actions on these three women when none of it was their fault at all.