What the Duke Doesn't Know (11 page)

He couldn't figure what game Robert was playing. His next oldest brother had a chancy sense of humor. Some of his pranks were hilarious; some were excruciating. Mostly, it depended on which side of the joke you found yourself inhabiting, of course. In this case, it seemed to him that they were instruments for bedeviling the mysterious young lady who was fond of Assyrians. And who knew how she would take it? Or what she would do when she discovered the jape. God only knew what lay in store for them, and how he would manage to shield Kawena from harm.

He was well aware that he'd made a muddle of it so far. Sparks had practically shot from her eyes when he suggested—all right, insisted—that they stay at home. The words hadn't come out right. He'd meant it for the best, for her own good. But it had emerged like an order from the quarterdeck.

He simply didn't know how to be with her now. He wanted to protect her, and to drag her into his arms and kiss her senseless. He wanted to force her to be sensible and to throw all caution to the winds. He wanted to offer her every measure of respect, and he…simply wanted her. Desperately. To top it off, her reactions were unpredictable. How could he save her if he never knew which way she would jump? Her presence, especially so intoxicatingly near, was twisting him into knots.

James noticed that they'd left London's fashionable precincts. “Where the deuce are you taking us?” he asked his brother.

“It's over near Russell Square. A most respectable address, I assure you.”

James didn't care for his tone. Robert sounded amused and self-deprecating and…altogether unlike himself. “Exactly what relation is this we're going to see?” he finally thought to ask.

“Aunt Agatha.”

“What?” James sprang upright and bumped his head, quite hard, on the hackney's ceiling. Bouncing off it, he fell back into his seat. The carriage rocked on its aged springs.

“All right in there?” inquired the driver from his outside perch.

“We're fine,” responded Robert.

James goggled at him. “We're going to call on the dragon who stuck her parasol right through Sebastian's kite when it came too near her? The one who told Mama we were as uncivilized as a pack of wolves?”

“We
did
stage that…unsuccessful footrace in the long gallery,” Robert pointed out. “We almost knocked her down the back stairs.”

James rubbed his skull and muttered, “How could anyone know the servants had waxed
half
the floor?”

Robert laughed at the memory. “She's not as intimidating as you remember.”

“No one could be,” James said.

“Who is this?” asked Kawena.

“Oh, my God,” said James. Aunt Agatha would annihilate them with one scorching look. If she found out anything about their plan, she'd call them benighted fools. And what might she say to Kawena?

“Who?” repeated Kawena.

“She's one of our mother's cousins, though we called her Aunt,” James replied. “Out of respect for her…manner.”

“We couldn't quite call her ‘Cousin Agatha,'” Robert agreed. “She wasn't anything like our other cousins. And she's about the same age as Mama.”

“Not really?” James had trouble putting the two in the same category.

“She's very pleasant when she's not being plagued by a raging pack of boys,” Robert said. “In fact, she's charming.”

The carriage turned and slowed, moving past a large, imposing building.

“The British Museum,” Robert told them.

“How do you know that?” James wondered.

“Aunt Agatha's husband was a well-known scholar,” his brother continued without acknowledging the question. “He chose to live out here to be close to the collections.”

“Collections of what?” James's harried brain managed a connection of sorts. “Assyrians?”

“Objects to do with Assyrians,” Robert replied.

James thought he looked positively furtive. Which was unprecedented. Robert never looked furtive.

“What are Assyrians?” asked Kawena, frowning over the word.

“What in God's name are you up to?” James demanded.

Robert met his eyes, and James tried to interpret his expression. He simply didn't look like himself. Was that uncertainty in his most assured brother's eyes? It couldn't be.

“It's a simple matter, I promise you. I truly think that…the Jennings will like Miss Benson. And she them.”

“Yes, but why would you care about that?” James wondered. As far as he could recall, Robert was not in the habit of arranging cordial introductions to benefit other people. Not that he
wouldn't
, if you pressed him, and reminded him—several times. But he was usually far too occupied with his own amusements.

“It's…kind to connect people who may become friends,” said Robert.

“Kind? What sort of mischief are you making here?”

“Do you think me unkind?”

It seemed a sincere question. Meeting his brother's—slightly worried?—gaze, James found himself speechless.

Robert gave him a wry smile. He put a hand to his immaculate shirtfront and bowed his head. “I swear to you that I am not making mischief. On my word of honor.”

James had to be content with this—or, more correctly, confused by it—since the cab stopped just then before a large redbrick house. It stood in a prosperous-looking square, the center lush with plantings washed gold by the long summer twilight.

Robert paid off the driver and went to knock on the front door. They were admitted at once and conducted upstairs. James eyed the large slab of stone hanging at the head of the staircase. It depicted an animal, a lion he thought, with the head of a man wearing a tall pointy crown over an elaborate curled wig. Or perhaps it was his own hair. But who had hair like that? The image's expression seemed distinctly disapproving. James felt as if its eye followed him as he climbed. What kind of household had Robert brought them to?

There were other unusual ornaments in the drawing room—a wicked-looking spear over the mantel, an array of clay tablets incised with what looked like chicken tracks, mounted on the opposite wall. The sofas and chairs were quite conventional, however. A dozen or so people stood and sat about chatting. Mostly older and dowdily dressed, they reminded James of Alan's colleagues. At least their lack of evening dress would cause no comment here. Indeed, fashion seemed an unlikely topic in this room. Robert had been honest in that, at least.

The woman who stepped forward to greet them was tall and sturdily built, with sharp blue eyes and an aquiline nose, her dark hair gathered into a knot at her neck. It took a moment for James to recognize Aunt Agatha. He hadn't seen her in years. Then something about the tilt of her prominent chin did the trick.

“Aunt Agatha, this is Miss Kawena Benson, a…friend of the family,” said Robert. “And perhaps you remember my brother James?”

Their hostess nodded in response to their bow and curtsy. “The naval officer, isn't it? Miss Benson. How do you do?” She seemed unfazed by the arrival of strangers.

“I thought the evening would interest them,” Robert continued.

This was going too far. “What sort of evening is it?” asked James. “Is there going to be a lecture?” He ignored reproachful glances from both his companions.

Aunt Agatha gave him a sharp look, a little like those she'd bestowed on impertinent boys in his memories. “We are marking my late husband's birthday by gathering to celebrate his legacy,” she answered.

“He was an authority on the Assyrians,” added Robert quickly. “Most particularly on their language, which was called Akkadian.”

James rolled his eyes, waiting for the full brunt of his brother's prank to fall upon them, but nothing happened other than Aunt Agatha saying, “You are welcome to join us.” More bewildered than ever, James allowed Robert to lead them over to a knot of people in the corner. At the edge of the group, not really part of it, stood a tall young woman with black hair and pale skin. She held herself very straight, and her face echoed the beauty of the antique cameo fastening the neck of her pearl-gray gown. James might have put her down as the meek daughter of the household, but then he met her eyes. Their intense blue suggested that a fiery spirit burned behind her serene facade.

Robert gave her a graceful bow. “Miss Jennings, may I present Miss Kawena Benson and my brother, Lord James,” Robert said. He nodded to his companions. “This is Miss Flora Jennings, Aunt Agatha's daughter.”

“Flora?” James connected the name, if not the face, to an errant memory. “Wasn't it you who pushed that beastly Teddy Raines into the lake after he stole my boat and smashed it into my head?”

“I can't abide bullying,” she replied coolly.

“He was a great hulking fellow of nine or ten,” James recalled for the others. “I was six or so, I suppose.” He smiled at Miss Jennings. “You can't have been much older, but you gave him a splendid shove. I seem to remember that he screamed like a stuck pig.”

“As if he could have drowned in water up to his knees,” she replied, a smile lightening her expression. She looked much less reserved when she smiled.

“Miss Benson is from the South Seas,” Robert said, with something of the air of a cat dropping a mouse at Flora Jennings's feet.

The smile faded. “Indeed?”

James wondered what his brother had done to offend this young woman? Or, perhaps offend wasn't right. She seemed extremely wary, however.

“I thought you two would get on, as you're both…”

Flora Jennings raised her dark brows and waited.
Robert usually shows far more finesse than this
, James thought.

“Fascinating,” Robert finished adroitly. “And you were bemoaning the fact that you have so few women friends.”

Miss Jennings stiffened as if he'd insulted her. “Bemoaning! I never did any such thing.”

“You did, when you were talking to your mother at the Maneleto concert.”

The girl's pale cheeks reddened slightly. “Do you make a habit of listening to private conversations?”

“It was an accident. I was just coming to ask if you wanted some lemonade.”

James watched their eyes lock. They seemed to have forgotten there was anyone else present. Belatedly, James finished making the connection. He'd been uncharacteristically slow. This was the young lady Robert was trying to impress, the object of his “contest.” And she was the reason they were here. Not as a prank, but as a…gift? A diversion? Why Robert should have fixed upon a young woman so unlike his usual flirts remained a mystery.

Miss Jennings blinked and turned to Kawena. “What brings you to England from so far away?” she asked, polite rather than warm.

“I'm hunting a thief,” Kawena replied.

The other woman looked startled.

“It might be best not to repeat the story in public,” James suggested. You never knew what connections might stretch out from a room full of strangers.

Kawena gave him a sharp glance.

“I can fill you in later,” Robert offered.

“I have no interest in prying—”

“Flora, my dear,” interrupted an old man in the nearby group. “Who was that fellow who first deciphered the royal names from the cuneiform?”

“Niebuhr,” said Robert.

“Grotefend,” corrected Flora.

“Yes, yes, that's the one,” replied the old man, nodding happily and returning to his conversation.

“For some reason, Lord Robert pretends an interest in my father's work,” Flora told the others.

“I'm not pretending! How many times must I say it?”

“Until you tire of the game, I suppose.”

Robert's hands flexed—closed, open. James actually felt sorry for him. “Shall we get a glass of wine?” he asked him.

Robert drew in a breath, recovered some of his customary aplomb, and nodded. “May we bring something for you ladies?”

“No, thank you,” said Miss Jennings. Kawena shook her head.

The two young women watched the brothers walk away, their expressions remarkably similar.

“Did Lord Robert ask you to speak to me?” said Flora Jennings without turning.

“I met him for the first time today,” replied Kawena. “Hardly an hour ago, in fact. Speak to you about what?”

“His imaginary interest in…” She made a weary gesture at the room. “All of it.”

“Is there some reason that you don't believe he is sincere?” Kawena had been struck by the interplay between Lord James's brother and this coolly attractive woman. Perhaps her disputes with Lord James were not so unusual? Maybe the English enjoyed sniping at each other? Made an art of it? Did that explain things about her father and mother?

“Men like him are never sincere.”

“Like him?”

Miss Jennings finally turned to look at her. Her eyes were a fiery blue. It was a powerful gaze. “Pinks of the
ton
. Their lives are devoted to amusement and frivolity. And the latest fads and fashions, of course.”

“I don't understand the expression. Why do they call them pink?”

The other woman blinked. “I…I don't know.”

“They wear pink clothing perhaps?”

Miss Jennings choked out a laugh. “No. That is, I have never seen… It's just a bit of slang. I have no idea where it originated.”

Kawena nodded. She was more interested in the subtleties of relationship than in oddities of language. “People sometimes change, I suppose? Perhaps he is no longer so…pink?”

“He'd like me to think so,” Miss Jennings muttered darkly.

“Why would he?”

“That's the question, isn't it?”

It seemed to Kawena that there was an obvious answer. “If he likes you…?”

“Likes!”

“Why shouldn't he?”

“We have nothing in common. I do not frequent the exalted circles into which he was born. I have no interest in flirtation, and I certainly will not be seduced.”