The Marriage Trap (9 page)

This time, her smile was genuine. “If you knew me better, Jack, you'd know that I always play my cards right.”

A reluctant smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. He shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. “Except that you missed a better prospect. Lord Denison, who was with me in the café, is heir to a marquess.”

“Perhaps you'd be good enough to introduce us? I mean, the marquess, of course. Not his heir.”

He raised a brow and studied her for a moment. “I was right about you,” he said slowly, reflectively. “You do have a sense of humor.”

This had gone on long enough. It was time to make that dignified exit. When she got up, so did he. She managed a low, throaty chuckle. “Don't worry, Jack. You're safe and so is your friend. You see, I'm not the marrying kind of woman. I like my freedom too much. You need not worry about Cardvale. I'll make things right with him.”

He was silent, watching her as she adjusted her stole. As she turned away, he said, “What will you say?”

“Oh, that you offered to marry me and I turned you down. Then I shall elope with my rich protector and live happily ever after. Good-bye, Jack. I wish you well.”

She was at the door when he called, “Aurora!” commanding her to stop.

“What is it?”

Relaxed, his dark eyes bright with amusement, he said, “If it's a protector you want, look no farther. I think we would suit very well.”

The thrust slipped under her guard and found a mark he had never intended. Pride kept her head high and her temper at bay. She managed a creditable laugh. “Aurora wouldn't suit you, Jack. She's an intelligent, cultured woman. All you know is dueling and horses. You're practically illiterate. You'd be out of your depth.”

On that crushing snub, she left the room and managed to refrain from slamming the door behind her.

Her most pressing concern was Robbie. As she packed her belongings, she tried to keep the chills at bay by concentrating on how they would manage. One thing was certain. She could no longer stay in Paris. She could not face all the titters and sideways glances of people who believed she was a fallen woman, and word of her escapade was bound to get out.

That left the problem of how she would earn her living.

Aurora could never be the permanent solution to their problems. For her own peace of mind, she could not continue to resurrect Aurora every time she got into difficulties. She would have to find another position and impress upon Robbie that he must return to university to prepare himself for a profession. Once Robbie was settled, she'd feel easier in her mind.

The chill that gripped her began to thaw. Robbie was her reason for living, or, at the very least, he gave meaning to her existence. He was easy to love but hard to discipline. That's what happened when boys had no father to guide them.

She had to be strong for Robbie's sake.

It did not take her long to pack. After that, there were the inevitable interviews, first with her employers, then with Lord Cardvale. She was polite, reserved, and adamant. She would not marry Lord Raleigh. She would not remain in Paris, not even for another day. Her one wish, she told them, was to return to England where she had friends who would help her until she got settled.

Only the gentlemen tried to change her mind. Cardvale was kindness itself. There was a cottage in Hampstead she could have, he said, until she found other employment. She wasn't even tempted, knowing what Dorothea would make of that. The ladies said very little, but their eyes betrayed them. They thought that she was a fallen woman and had got just what she deserved. When she asked about Harriet, she was told that Harriet had come down with a cold and was confined to her room. That was the unkindest cut of all.

Her last interview was with a soft-spoken gendarme who questioned her about her alibi. Cardvale was there to smooth things over. It helped when he implied that Lord Raleigh was a relative. After that, she was free to go.

A calèche was hired to take her to Calais. There was no one to chaperon her except the coachmen, but, as she pointed out, a chaperon had no need of a chaperon. She then retired to her room to await the arrival of her hired coach.

Here she allowed the facade she'd kept up, of a woman in control of her life, to slip a little. She felt utterly alone and friendless. The friends she'd alluded to in England did not exist. No one was to blame. It was what came of moving around from one employer to the next, never being settled in one place for long. And one did not make friends of one's employers, although some of them were kinder than others. Thousands of women were in the same position as she—governesses, chaperons, ladies' companions. It was depressing. It was frightening. If they could not find work, they had few choices. The specter of the workhouse was always there in the background.

Cardvale handed her into the coach and before she could stop him, he'd slipped a fat leather purse into her muff. She knew it would be full of guineas. Then he gave the coachmen the order to move off.

They had not gone far when she ordered them to stop. She had an errand to run, she told them, and gave them directions to Meurice's hotel. She was going to pick up her brother, possibly Milton, as well, pay off the moneylender, and get them all safely home to England.

There was another shock waiting for her at the hotel. Robbie had been stabbed in the shoulder in some brawl he'd become involved in during the New Year's revels. That was his story, anyway, and all her questions were answered with wide-eyed innocence, which made her wonder what he was keeping from her. She did not have the heart to scold him, not after her own reckless adventure with Jack.

Milton arrived soon after, and when he began to apologize for leaving her unescorted the night before, she waved him to silence. Then she related her own reasons, giving only the sketchiest details, for why she had to leave Paris.

They were as eager to leave as she, but she was worried about Robbie. Though the wound was healing, and he had seen a doctor, he did not look well enough to travel. Her misgivings were overruled. They'd both had enough of Paris, Milton said, and were eager to get back to Oxford and their studies.

Getting Robbie back to Oxford was the one argument that could persuade her.

While she helped Robbie pack, Milton went off with Aurora's winnings to pay off the moneylender. Half an hour later, they were on the road, but it was a somber party inside the calèche. All were absorbed in their own thoughts.

The news of Ellie's disgrace did not take long to circulate among the English visitors. No one believed that Lord Raleigh had offered for her, a mere lady's companion. They were avid to know all the intimate details, but with Ellie having left Paris and Jack as hardmouthed as a slab of Aberdeen granite, they were left to speculate. Imaginations ran wild, aided and abetted by the darkling looks and oblique hints of Ladies Sedgewick and Cardvale.

As far as Jack was concerned, Paris had lost its luster. He was disgusted to find himself more sought after than ever, while Ellie's character was torn to shreds. He saw then that he had misjudged her. If she'd really wanted to ensnare him, she would have persevered, cried rape, appealed to Lord Cardvale to protect her good name. She had done none of those things. In a matter of hours, she had packed her bags and was on her way home to England. Everyone was shocked at the suddenness of her departure, and none more than he.

During the week that followed, thoughts of Ellie occupied his mind. He knew what people were saying and that pens would be busy carrying tales about the scandal across the English Channel. Nothing he said would make a difference. People liked to think the worst.

He might have been more uneasy had he not known that she had sufficient funds to support herself until the scandal had blown over. But where had the money come from? That question continued to tease his mind, as did the mystery of why she had played the part of Aurora.

He'd dismissed the notion that there was a rich protector waiting in the wings. If that were the case, she would hardly have returned to the hotel to take up her old life. There was nothing there for her but a life of drudgery.

What amazed him was that he had not seen the resemblance between Aurora and Miss Hill until he'd been summoned to the hotel to support her alibi. And he should have seen it. They had the same sculpted features, the same molded mouth, and eyes that spoke volumes without a word being spoken. The difference was, Aurora's unspoken messages were oddly erotic. Miss Hill's were as sweet as vinegar.

Maybe she had cause. He'd got off unscathed, while she paid the toll for her reckless, though quite innocent, escapade. He wished he could make amends, but feared that anything he tried to say or do would only make matters worse.

Having made up his mind to do nothing, he surprised himself by proposing to do the opposite.

On the day before they were to leave Paris, while walking in the Bois de Boulogne, Jack confided his thoughts to Ash. “So when we reach London,” he said, “I thought I might call on her just to make sure that she is all right. You need not look at me like that. I'd do as much for my gardener or my butler if I felt I had a hand in their downfall.”

Surprise etched Ash's voice. “Now what brought this on?”

Jack kicked a pebble and sent it rattling along the path. “As I said, I feel responsible.”

“Leave that to Cardvale. As her nearest relative, he should be looking out for her interests.”

“But that's the point. As far as I can see, he isn't the least bit interested, except to mouth a few platitudes to ease his conscience.”

And that's what rubbed him. There ought to be someone who felt responsible for the girl. Had he been the girl's nearest male relative, he would have challenged Jack Rigg to a duel.

Ash was shaking his head. “Leave well enough alone. That's my advice. Besides, didn't you tell me that Aurora's bag was stuffed with banknotes? Sounds to me as though she knows how to take care of herself.”

“You're not saying anything that I haven't said to myself. I hope you're right. But what if you're wrong? For my own peace of mind, I have to find out.”

“In that case, I won't try to dissuade you. But how will you find her? Not through the Cardvales or the Sedgewicks?”

“No. They might read more into my object than I intend.”

“Then who else is there?”

Jack was remembering the embassy ball and how the ambassador pressed him to ask Miss Hill to dance. “Sir Charles Stuart seems to know the family quite well. If anyone knows her whereabouts, it's Sir Charles.”

Ash squinted speculatively at his friend. “Does this mean that you won't be taking Brand up on his offer for a little shooting and hunting at his hunting lodge?”

Brand Hamilton was the third member of their fraternity. At one time they'd been inseparable, but the war had changed that, the war and Brand's unswerving determination to make himself a force to be reckoned with in the newspaper world. He rarely took time off from building his little empire, but he always managed to escape for a week or two's shooting at his hunting lodge in Leicestershire to be with his friends.

“No. This should only take a few days. I'll still make it to Brand's place.”

“Mmm. So you say, and I'm sure you mean it, but these things have a way of unraveling. Watch your step, that's all I'm saying. Don't get caught in the marriage trap!”

“As if I would.”

He wasn't certain that he would be welcomed at the embassy, and was pleasantly surprised when he was kept waiting for only ten minutes before an attaché showed him into Sir Charles's private office. His welcome was not warm, but not as frigid as he might have expected, considering that the ambassador was Miss Hill's friend, or a friend of her family.

There were no pleasantries. After waving Jack to the chair on the opposite side of his commodious desk, the ambassador said, “I was hoping to have a word with you before you left Paris. And before you ask, yes, I know what happened between you and Ellie. Cardvale told me.” He lounged back in his chair, fingers steepled, and made a
tsk
ing sound as he shook his head. “Jack, Jack, I thought better of you.”

“Indeed.” Jack controlled his annoyance at Sir Charles's presumption, but his mouth flattened. “I do not think Cardvale can have told you the whole story.”

“What—that little Ellie decked herself out as a woman of the world and embarked on a little adventure?” Sir Charles chuckled. “You should know as well as anyone that there's a strong streak of recklessness in that girl. This is not the first time she has led you astray, and I had that from my aunt who had it from your grandmother.”

There was a silence. Every sound in the room faded as Jack tried to make sense of what the ambassador had told him. Finally, sinking back in his chair, he said, “You must be confusing me with someone else. I assure you, I never met Miss Hill before you introduced us at the embassy ball.”

“You mean . . .” Sir Charles shook his head. “I was sure you recognized her.”

“No. Who is she?”

“Her father was your tutor for a time—Dr. Austen Brans-Hill? Ellie is his daughter.”

“Miss Hill is Ellie Brans-Hill?” He was shocked.

“So, you do remember her.”

What Jack remembered was a family that was so unusual, so “fey,” as his grandmother put it, that they might have come from another world. The father could never remember to tie his shoelaces, but he was renowned for his scholarship. He spent hours in his study, poring over those obscure Greek particles, signifying nothing, and could wax enthusiastic for hours to anyone who showed the slightest interest.

He always made it a rule to beat a hasty retreat whenever the vicar got started on his favorite subject.

The mother was no less an original in her own right. He remembered an ethereal lady whom nothing could fluster, floating about her herb gardens in pale muslins and stout leather boots. She was too innocent for her own good, and was frequently taken advantage of. He never knew who would be sitting next to him at dinner—a beggar, a serving girl who had been turned off for licentious behavior, a family that had been turned out of their cottage because they could not pay the rent. The list was endless.

Then there was Ellie. A halfling, a brat, a precocious child-woman who alternately shamed him because her knowledge of the classics was far superior to his—and didn't she love to lord it over him—and who also strained his patience to the limits by attempting to seduce him. Not that she knew what she was doing. To her, it was a game.

The incident Sir Charles referred to was a case in point. He'd received the warmest letters, anonymously, from, he deduced, the miller's widowed daughter. Becky was everything a randy seventeen-year-old youth, eager to shed his virginity, could hope to encounter. But when he'd finally met his mystery lady in the gardener's shed behind the vegetable plots, it was Ellie who was waiting for him. He would have blistered her backside if she had not set her dog on him.

How on earth had his grandmother got to hear about that?

Ellie Brans-Hill was Ellie Hill. Ellie Hill and Aurora. Now he could see it.

And she was still up to her old tricks.

He looked at the ambassador. “Why did she change her name?”

“I suppose because she thought a hyphenated name was too grand for a lady's companion.”

“‘A lady's companion'! Ellie Brans-Hill! I'm amazed. The little girl I knew was too headstrong, too independent to fit that mold.”

What didn't surprise him was that Ellie had been forced to earn a living. Her parents were good, decent people, but too openhanded with anyone in need, when they should have been conserving the little they had for Ellie's future.

“Dr. Brans-Hill,” he said, “should have done better by Ellie.”

Sir Charles was in the act of pouring out two sherries from a decanter he'd produced from the bottom drawer of his desk. “Austen didn't leave Ellie penniless if that's what you think. There was a small annuity for her, and a little laid by for Robbie's education.” He handed Jack the glass of sherry. “That's where the money went—to the son. There were scholarships from the church, of course, but that wasn't enough to cover all Robbie's expenses. So Ellie took care of the rest.”

“‘Robbie'?” Jack thought for a moment, then nodded. “I'd forgotten about him. He was only an infant when I stayed at the vicarage. Where is he now?”

“That's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

The ambassador settled himself more comfortably in his chair and took a moment to gather his thoughts. It seemed to Jack that the atmosphere was warmer. He sipped his sherry as he waited for Sir Charles to begin.

Sir Charles said, “Only this morning I was informed, as a courtesy by French authorities, that an English subject, Robert Brans-Hill, is suspected of murdering an actress at the Théatre Français in the Palais Royal.”

Jack felt the shock of the ambassador's words all through his body. When the shock subsided, he said emphatically, “No one will ever convince me that a son of Dr. Brans-Hill could deliberately murder anyone.”

Sir Charles smiled. “I agree with you. Now drink your sherry while I tell you how things stand.

It was a familiar story—a young man, no more than a youth, really, diverging from the straight-and-narrow path laid out for him first by his parents and then by his sister, and freed of restraint, indulging in all the dissolute pleasures that Paris had to offer.

“The young scapegrace,” Sir Charles said with feeling, “should have been poring over his books in Oxford, not gallivanting in Europe. What is known now is that almost a month ago Robbie arrived in Paris and, within hours of his arrival, attended a performance at the Théatre Français, where he fell under the spell of one of its leading lights, Louise Daudet.”