Читать книгу A Scandalous Proposal - Кейси Майклс, Kasey Michaels - Страница 14

CHAPTER FIVE

DARBY TRAVERS FINISHED his examination of the two notes, an exercise that hadn’t taken more than a minute at the outside, and placed them back on his friend’s desk. “You aren’t really applying to me for my one-eyed opinion, are you? My sole contribution, I imagine, is only to look aghast and exclaim, ‘Good God, man, the handwriting is one and the same!’”

“As is the phrasing, yes, thank you,” Coop said, still leaning against that same desk, a glass of wine dangling from his fingertips. “The bastard seems to have begun a cottage industry of blackmailing. I wonder how many others there are out there at the moment, suffering the same dilemma.”

“If he’s going after straying husbands and wives, my best guest would number in the hundreds. But then there’s you, which makes a case for the man’s diversity of ambition, and his, shall we say, growth in said ambition. Taking the time to both pen and publish two entire chapbooks for a mere ten thousand pounds? You may be his prize victim, the pinnacle of his nefarious career, if that flatters you at all, and I begin to think you’re also a bird he will pluck more than once if you let him. I wonder how long he’s been working at his trade.”

“You’re thinking of gifting him with a few pointers?” Coop picked up the note to the countess. “Five hundred pounds. I believe the countess has already considered selling some of her jewelry to pay him. The man isn’t stupid, demanding more than she could possibly manage to produce.”

“Not as much investment involved penning sappy, soppy letters to unhappy young matrons. I imagine he considers the amount a fair return on his efforts. No more than fifty pounds to blackmail our own Prinny, and even then he’d probably only receive our royal debtor’s scribbled vowels in return.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

“Not at all. I’m merely looking at the thing from our blackmailer’s point of view, and must applaud his thinking. Five pounds from a shoemaker who passes off inferior leathers by means of clever dyes. Ten pounds six from the seamstress who delivers gowns and picks up various little rewards from milady’s shelves and tucks them up in her sewing basket while inside the residence. That sort of thing could take considerable effort for small reward, but one has to begin somewhere, doesn’t one? Gain polish, slowly grow your profits and then move on to larger targets?”

“You speak of this as if you’re contemplating joining the man’s ranks.”

Darby grinned. “I join nobody, although I wonder why I never considered such a venture.”

“I hesitate to guess, but perhaps because you’re bloody rich as Croesus?”

“True enough. But the fact remains that there are few people who know more secrets than I do. Happily for the world, I am also a gentleman. Although I will say that if there’s any truth to the fellow’s veiled hint about your particular secret reaching all the way to the highest levels of the Crown, then either he’s more daring than even I would be, or he has access to some prodigiously important people. We’re looking to the ton for our blackmailer, Coop. You’ve figured that much on your own, I’m sure.”

Coop downed the remaining contents of his glass. “I have. I flirted momentarily with the idea that a well-placed secretary or servant could be privy to many secrets, but it would take an entire small army of coconspirators to engineer something on this grand a scale. If there is a grand scale, and the more I think, the more I believe this is not one ambitious man, acting alone.”

“There’s an entire other world moving about in Mayfair, one many of us are sadly unaware of, I agree. So many consider them invisible, not to mention deaf and dumb. Ladies’ maids, valets, tweenies quietly repairing the fire, footmen with large ears listening in foyers. But it would take someone to cultivate them, enlist them. The scope of such an enterprise, all the bits and pieces that make up the whole? I believe I’m feeling the headache coming on.”

“Granted, it makes sense to believe there is an organized gang wreaking havoc all across Mayfair. Or we’re wrong, and our blackmailer is just one person and his carefully selected targets.”

“Oh, but what are the odds of that? Only one blackmailer and these few carefully selected targets of yours, and two of them they just happen to bump into each other on Bond Street—literally—and end up sharing their common predicaments?”

“I didn’t share anything.”

“No, but you’ll have to at some point. For one, Miss Foster is far too clever to believe you’ll be hunting down this scoundrel with all speed and fervor strictly because you’re a hero. She took my measure within a heartbeat, much as it pains me to admit it, and found me both foolish and unnecessary.”

“Don’t go into a sulk. The countess doesn’t want you involved. I doubt she wants me involved, for that matter. She’s closeted herself in her chambers, refusing to come out again, even to shepherd her sister through the Little Season.”

“The minx won’t take that one lying down.”

“I agree, but happily, that’s not our problem.”

“What’s not your problem, darlings?” The questioning voice was loud, almost booming, thanks to the fact that the woman who owned it was slightly deaf and hiked her own volume as if everyone else would have trouble hearing her. On top of that often embarrassing trait—most discomfiting when she believed she was whispering—was the fact that she rarely stopped talking. “And for pity’s sake, Cooper, don’t slouch there against the desk like some lazy oaf. I raised you better than that. Stand up, stand up. There, that’s better. Straighten your shoulders. Good posture is the sign of a gentleman, and a boon to regulation of the bowels. Look at Darby. See how straight he stands? He listened to his mother.”

“Sadly, Mrs. Townsend, my mother flew off to her heavenly reward when I was not more than a mere infant in my cot. But I will say my nurse had a wicked hand with the birch rod if I ever slumped like a lazy oaf.”

Cooper turned to look at his mother, tall of stature, strong of bosom and with a fierce, hawk-nosed face that would suit well as the figurehead nailed to a man-of-war. Add her natural curiosity and rather singular way of looking at most anything to the mix, and it was more than time they moved from the Pulteney, with its generous parlor but very little privacy.

“Perhaps I spared the rod to your detriment, Cooper. Curse my soft heart, but you were always so cute,” she said as she grabbed Cooper’s cheeks between her fingers and squeezed. “Look at that face, Darby. Just look, take it all in! How could anyone ever take umbrage with that face? So wonderfully kind. So infinitely understanding.”

“Minerva, please,” Cooper said, pulling away before she permanently dented his cheeks. He hadn’t been allowed to call her Mother since his sixteenth birthday, which was the first time the woman realized she now had a son who apparently needed to shave. She didn’t particularly want to be a mother, and felt they’d rub along much better as friends.

He looked past her now, to where her maid was standing just inside the entry hall, struggling to maintain her hold on a half dozen bandboxes. “And not infinitely, Minerva. May I be so ungentlemanly as to inquire as to how much your latest assault on Bond Street has set me back?”

Rose coughed. She and Cooper had established a series of signals to warn him that whatever his mother said next, he was certainly not going to be doing handsprings of joy once he heard it.

“I am aware of your miserly hold on the purse strings. But I have your reputation to uphold, even as you ignore the responsibilities incumbent on the proud matriarch of the new Townsend dynasty. You wouldn’t dare send me out into Society in rags, now would you? Rags, Cooper.”

Coop looked toward Rose, the maid-cum-companion, and a distant relation who had known him from his cradle. This time she rolled her eyes as she adjusted the bandbox straps on her forearms. Worse than a cough? My, this was turning into his lucky day, wasn’t it? “Forgive me my unnatural tendency to avoid bankruptcy. I’m convinced you will do me proud each time you set sail into Society.”

“My point entirely. Foresails flapping, flags waving, creating quite the wake as I pass by. It’s only fitting, and Lord knows I’m built for it. I’m horribly shy, by nature, but I see this as a time when I must bite back on my natural reticence and hold up my end, as it were.”

Rose’s choked cough was ignored by the lady, other than for her to raise one strong brow and dare Cooper to add any comment to what she’d just said.

“All I do, I do for you. One cannot put anything so crass as a price on a son’s love and a mother’s obligations, dear. Even in my short time here in London, I’ve heard so many good things about a particular seamstress. Why, even Vivien gives her some bit of custom. Don’t look confused, Cooper. Vivien Sinclair, Gabriel’s aunt, and the Duchess of Cranbrook. I hadn’t seen her in dogs’ years, as she and her Basil were always flitting all over the world, but we ran into each other in the park yesterday, and it was as if we’d never parted. Good friends are like that, you know. All I had to say to her was ‘Vauxhall Gardens,’ and the pair of us went off into giggles like schoolgirls. There was this importune young scoundrel, you understand, and a proposed stroll along the Dark Gallery...”

“How pleased I am you and Gabe’s aunt have rediscovered each other,” Cooper said, simply to stop his mother before she launched into a litany of assuredly embarrassing reminiscences. “And the seamstress?”

“Such a sad, sorry generation you boys are, sticklers for propriety. I know Vauxhall has fallen out of favor for the ton, but in my time it was glorious. You should be delighted your mother had herself some fun, kicking up her heels and such during her grasstime. Don’t growl, Cooper, it isn’t polite. The seamstress, yes. I’ve just come from there, as a matter of fact. Mrs. Yothers—lovely woman. She gifted me with one of the gowns, and an enchanting purple turban. Itches some, but it’ll do.”

“Why would she do that? Not give you an itchy turban—give you anything?”

“Ah, Cooper, you still don’t understand how the world revolves, do you, for all your fine education. The lady and I had a lovely coze—chatty woman, so I wouldn’t dare pass on any secrets to her or they’d be all over Mayfair before the cat could lick its ear, but I was sure to keep my ears open!”

“You and I must have a lovely coze of our own someday, Mrs. Townsend,” Darby interposed, his grin very much at his friend’s expense.

“I highly doubt that, scamp. You know enough about Society for any three people as it is, and I am of course sworn to secrecy in any event. Now, back to Mrs. Yothers, if you will cease interrupting. Terrible habit. In exchange for the gowns and such, I’ve only to mention to two or three ladies—casually, simply in passing, and you know I am the epitome of discretion—that Mrs. Yothers is the only seamstress worth her salt in this entire city.”

“A thousand pardons, Minerva,” Cooper felt impelled to ask. “Did you actually say ‘epitome of discretion’?”

“I can be, if I want. I simply don’t always want. Now, to continue. We have, as you might say, struck a bargain, much the same as the arrangements I have with Mrs. Bell the milliner, the shoemaker Mr. Wood—pricey, that man! There are others. Oh, and I’ve established an account for you with Mr. Weston, who vows that you’d be poorly served by Stolz, who hires only ham-fisted tailors. I wasn’t able to manage any sort of arrangement there, but he’s still the best, or so I’m told. You have a fitting at eleven tomorrow. Now thank me.”

Coop had long ago learned that, when it came to his mother, there existed no hole deep enough to throw himself into and pull the dirt back on top of him, so he simply said, “Thank you.”

“Good, and as I’ve finished saying what I had to say, poor Rose can stop coughing like a consumptive, yes? Now, what’s not your problem, darlings? From the tone of your voices as I entered, I believe you may be thinking something you’re not saying. Come on, spit it out, and you know I can see through a lie, Cooper. You’ve much too much conscience to carry it off, which is why, Darby, you won’t speak unless requested.”

Darby raised his hand, waggling his fingers. “May I please be excused?” he asked cheekily.

“You most certainly may not,” Mrs. Townsend told him sternly, and the viscount looked to Coop for help. Which he didn’t get, damn it, for if Darby couldn’t be considered reinforcements, at least Minerva Townsend might marginally mind her tongue while he was present. No, that wouldn’t happen, but as long as Coop was stuck here, he didn’t see any reason to allow his friend to escape unscathed.

“Really, Mrs. Townsend, it’s nothing to concern you,” Darby said, but there was little hope in his voice.

“It didn’t sound like nothing. Whatever the problem, I have no doubt you’re responsible for it. You, and those two other scamps, dragging my poor Cooper into your constant mischiefs. Now, I’m going to sit down—Rose, for pity’s sake, are you still standing there? Go on, shoo, and put your feet up. You look totally fagged. And with me twenty years your senior and still not in the least deflated.”

Make that thirty, and the number might be reasonably close. Oh, yes, Cooper McGinley Townsend knew an Original when he saw one. He’d grown up with one. Give Miss Foster another forty years of practice, and she’d be more than capable of taking up his mother’s banner, to become the Terror of Society.

“Minerva, we were just speaking in general terms. Weren’t we, Darby? Nothing to set your nose to twitching.”

Mrs. Townsend adjusted her spectacles on her splendid, hawk-like beak. She didn’t need them, or so she swore, and only employed them as a prop to give her gravitas. Coop had to admit that whenever she looked at him overtop the gold frames (not to mention the hawk-like proboscis), gravitas commenced to spew out all over the place as would hot lava on the unsuspecting villagers below in the valley.

She turned her stare on the viscount once more.

“I surrender,” Darby said after a few seconds, smiling apologetically at his friend. “In my defense, she had a one-eye advantage on me. Tell her, Coop, or I’ll be forced to squawk like one of Gabe’s blasted parrots.”

“Why not? Apparently I’m already standing in a hole of my own making that resembles nothing more than a grave.”

“Cooper! You’ve never been so dramatic. A hole as deep as a grave? Where do you hear such nonsense? Are you reading poems again? I have warned you against them, again and again. They’re all frippery and unrequited love and sad tales of woe no sane person would swallow whole. A thick volume on farming, that’s what you need. You’ve got an estate to run now, you know. Learn to grow a proper turnip, that’s what I say. Can’t go wrong with turnips.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mrs. Townsend. Turnips, that’s the ticket. Commit that to memory, my friend.” Darby retreated to the drinks table, probably to pour a bracing glass of wine.

Coop was hard-pressed not to join him, but he’d ignore the glass and gulp straight from the decanter. His father had known how to handle Minerva. He’d learned to ignore her because, as impossible as it seemed, everyone save her husband and son found her vastly interesting and amusing.

Still, actually handing Minerva information she’d do God only knew what with? Coop didn’t see how any good could come from that.

The blackmail threat, the chase through the alleyways, Miss Foster. Now this? He looked at the mantel clock and inwardly winced. It was only a few minutes past three? And he still had to run the figurative gauntlet of meeting with Miss Foster a third time. Was there anything else to go wrong for him today?

“And another thing,” Minerva said, finally settling herself in a chair so that the gentlemen could sit, as well. “This Minerva business. That was all well and good before, but I realize the heavy mantle of responsibility now thrust upon me, thanks to your heroics, and believe it only commonsensible for me to once more take up the mantle of...” She sighed. “Mother. Or perhaps Mama?”

“You hate when I call you Mother. You have to be joking.”

“I most certainly am not. Henceforth, at least in public—not that I consider this scamp’s presence as anywhere near public—you will address me as Mother.”

“The gifts heaped on your shoulders just keep mounting, Coop, you lucky dog. Either that, or this figurative hole you spoke of is growing deeper.”

“Shut up, Darby. All right, Mother, since you insist. Now why don’t you retire to your chamber, where I’m certain Rose has laid out some sort of refreshment.”

“Perhaps even turnip pie,” Darby said quietly. Too quietly for Minerva to hear, but close enough for Coop to not only hear but be forced to manfully repress a laugh.

Minerva looked from one to the other. “He said something, didn’t he? Something amusing. What did he say?”

“Nothing Min—Mother. Darby’s mouth moves, but he rarely says anything of importance.”

Minerva smoothed the front of her gown, clearly settling herself in for the duration. “Well, at least we agree on something. Now, shall we travel back to the problem that isn’t your problem, because it definitely seemed very much your problem when I arrived? Come on, lads, one of you open your mouth and say something important, because I’m not leaving here until you do.”

“Race you to the door,” Darby whispered, careful not to move his lips. “Unless you can come up with a convincing fib? Because you’re wrong about the countess’s retirement to her bedchamber, Coop—you need Miss Foster out and about in Society.”

And that, Cooper was to tell himself later, was how Darby helped him dig that lifelong figurative hole even deeper, until he thought he could see a Chinaman’s straw hat.