Читать книгу Regency Rogues and Rakes: Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares - Loretta Chase - Страница 38

Some persons think the sublimest object in nature is a ship launched on the bosom of the ocean: but give me, for my private satisfaction, the Mail-Coaches that pour down Piccadilly of an evening, tear up the pavement, and devour the way before them to the Land’s-End!

—William Hazlitt, Sketches and essays, 1839

Don’t be an idiot,” Longmore said. “Clara would never—”

“My lords,” Sophy cut in. “This isn’t the best place to discuss the matter. People coming and going. Doors opening and closing.”

“What the devil is there to discuss?” Longmore said. “You can’t possibly take this seriously.”

Her expression was all too serious. “I recommend you do so,” she said. “But a quieter place would be better.”

She walked away, back to the room Longmore had just left. She didn’t wait to see whether they followed. For a moment he watched her hips sway. Then he noticed that his brother was watching the same thing.

“Don’t stand there like a lump,” Longmore said.

“You’re the one who wants to make a great secret of this.”

They followed her into the room. She closed both doors.

“This is a typical Fairfax family tempest in a teapot,” Longmore said. “Clara’s incapable of running away. She can’t dress herself. She barely knows how to feed herself. She has no money. Where could she go?”

“She took Davis,” Valentine said.

“You can’t be serious.”

“What sort of joke do you imagine I’m playing?”

“A lady can’t keep secrets from her personal maid,” Sophy said. “She’d have to tell Davis. Though Davis must have been extremely unhappy about it, she’d never tattle or let Lady Clara go alone.”

True enough. Davis was a bulldog of a maid, ferociously loyal and protective. As well, she had—or so Longmore had always assumed—both feet planted firmly on the ground.

“Clara drove out in her cabriolet near midday,” Valentine said. “She had a lot of parcels she said were old clothes she was taking to one of her charities. Then she was going to visit Great-Aunt Dora in Kensington and spend the night. She’s done that before. No one gave it a second thought. We might not have known the truth until tomorrow, if Great-Aunt Dora hadn’t come to see Mother today. Then we had a to-do, as you can imagine.”

Longmore was amazed he couldn’t hear the screaming from here. Warford House was only a few streets away, overlooking the Green Park.

“Did Lady Clara leave any message?” Sophy said.

Valentine got all stiff. He took off his hat and made an extremely correct bow. “I don’t believe I’ve had the honor,” he said.

Pompous ass.

Longmore said, “Miss Noirot, will you allow me to present my brother, Valentine Fairfax.”

Another excruciatingly polite bow from the nitwit, who said, “Miss Noirot, perhaps you’d be so good as to allow me to speak to my brother in private.”

She curtseyed. It wasn’t remotely correct. Down she went in a great flurry of bows and lace and muslin whispering like scandalized playgoers when a notorious tart appeared in her theater box. And up she came again, graceful as a ballet dancer. Then she looked up at Valentine, all wide blue eyes. “I’m not good at all,” she said. “Ask Lord Longmore.”

“I’m still undecided in that regard,” Longmore said. “I will say it’s no good trying to keep secrets from her.”

Valentine, now gazing raptly into the great blue eyes, didn’t hear a word.

“A message, Valentine,” Longmore prompted. “Did our sister leave a message?”

Valentine shook himself out of his trance and dug out from the recesses of his waistcoat a piece of notepaper. He gave it to his brother.

The message was short enough:

I will not marry that man. I’d rather be disgraced for the rest of my life and live as a beggar.

C.

“Oh, good,” Longmore said. “That’s what we need: drama.”

Yet he remembered the way Clara’s face had crumpled last week, when he’d brought her here. She’d said … What had she said?

Something about their mother harassing her. Something about the marriage. The hasty marriage.

The marriage she wouldn’t have had to face had he done the one simple task even he’d understood was necessary: keep Adderley away from her.

Sophy held out her hand. He gave her the note.

She scanned the few lines quickly. She turned the paper over. On the outside Clara had written “Mama.”

“As soon as Mother realized that Clara hadn’t gone to Aunt Dora’s, she ran upstairs and ransacked Clara’s room,” Valentine said. “The note was tucked into Clara’s jewel box. She’d taken everything else out of it. Not that she’d much of value there. Usually our mother lends her jewelry—and she keeps the good things under lock and key.”

“She could sell her clothes,” Sophy said. “Her maid could do it for her. That’s why she took all the parcels.”

Both men looked at her.

“They’d fetch a fair sum, each of her dresses, especially the ones we made,” she said.

That was when Longmore felt the first stirrings of alarm.

Clara. On the road. With nobody but her maid to look after her.

He felt sick.

“I daresay our mother’s worked that out by now,” Valentine said. “She’d have found the wardrobes and such empty.”

“Has she stopped screaming long enough to work anything out?” Longmore said.

“She didn’t scream at all,” Valentine said. “First she fainted, then she started crying, then she locked herself in Clara’s room. She won’t let anybody in and she won’t speak to anybody.”

“Oh, no. The poor woman.” Sophy put her hand to her mouth and closed her eyes. It was only for an instant. One hint of emotion. Longmore realized at that moment how rare a sight it was: true emotion. He didn’t know how he knew it was true, but he knew it in the same way he knew her, no matter what disguise she wore.

A glimpse of feeling, then it was gone, and she became brisk. “One could wish she’d left larger clues. But she did take her maid. And clothes and trinkets to pawn. So she planned, to a degree. But first things first. We need to discover which direction she’s taken.”

“We?” the brothers said simultaneously.

Lord Valentine Fairfax, whom Sophy had seen many times before, resembled his eldest brother only in size. His coloring was like Lady Clara’s. Yet it was obvious they were brothers. Both men regarded her with the same rapid succession of expressions: surprise, confusion, annoyance.

They were aristocratic men. Their brains were not over-large and definitely not attuned to subtlety.

She donned a look of confusion. “I assumed you’d wish to help me.”

“Help you?” said Lord Longmore.

Lord Valentine remembered his manners. “It’s very—er—kind of you, Miss—er—”

“Noirot, you idiot. I told you. Clevedon’s sister-in-law. And if she—”

“Yes, of course,” said Lord Valentine. “I daresay we can call on Clevedon to assist in organizing a search.”

“Ah, yes?” she said. “Where do you propose to begin looking?”

“Why …” Lord Valentine frowned and looked at his brother.

“Because I’m baffled where you’d start,” she said. “Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me that you’ll need a prodigious large search party, to search every way out of London for a sign of her, and then all possible routes to … well, everywhere.”

They looked at each other, then at her.

“I can’t help wondering, too, how you’d do this without calling attention to the fact that Lady Clara Fairfax has run away from home, with no companion but her maid,” she said. “Perhaps I’m wrong—I’m merely a shopkeeper—but I’d always thought that gently bred girls were not allowed to simply dash off by themselves. I’d supposed that if a girl did such a thing, her family wouldn’t want it known.”

“Well,” said Lord Valentine.

Longmore uttered a vehement oath.

Sophy could have added several equally vehement ones, in two languages. This was so bad, on so many counts. A gently bred girl, traveling unchaperoned and unprotected, except by one maid. She might as well paint a big red target on her back. And front. And if the Great World found out … after what had happened with Adderley …

Nothing could mend her reputation then.

One could only hope the girl had had second thoughts and was even now on her way home.

But Sophy knew better than to rely on hope.

Thanks to a lifetime’s practice, nothing of what she felt inwardly showed outwardly.

“I’ve a large network of acquaintances I can call upon in a situation like this,” she said. “Even better, we have Fenwick. I suspect he’ll be able to call on his own associates as well. Among the two groups, someone will have noticed two women in a vehicle of such-and-such description, going in such-and-such direction.”

She waited for arguments. The two men only stood and listened, both wearing the same intent expression. She supposed they were both thinking hard about what she’d said. One couldn’t expect them to do anything else at the same time.

“All I need from you is a description of the vehicle and its distinguishing features.” She took up the little pocket watch that hung from her belt and opened it. “It’s nearly half past four o’clock. With any luck, we’ll hear something before nightfall.”

“Nightfall!” said Lord Valentine. “My dear girl, she’s already been gone for hours. By nightfall she could be in Dover or Brighton or even on a vessel traveling to the Continent.”

“Miss Noirot is not your dear girl, you pretentious half-wit,” Longmore said.

“She’ll need papers to travel to the Continent,” Sophy said. Unlike the Noirots, Lady Clara wouldn’t know how to go about obtaining forged passports and letters of credit and such, or how to forge her own.

“That merely leaves all of Great Britain,” Lord Valentine said.

“Thank you for stating the obvious,” Longmore said.

“I only meant—”

“Never mind what he means, Miss Noirot,” Longmore said. “He doesn’t know what he means, and being high-strung, like the rest of our lot, he flies into a panic over everything.”

“I think there’s some reason to panic,” she said. “This isn’t good.”

“You said a moment ago that we might be of use,” he said. “What do you want me to do?”

“Or me, of course,” said Lord Valentine.

There was no choice.

Sophy couldn’t do it alone. She’d never traveled outside London. She needed help.

“Lord Longmore, I suggest you go home and tell your valet to pack for a journey of several days,” she said.

“Several days!” Lord Valentine dragged a hand through his hair. “Traveling with only her maid! Clara will be ruined past mending!”

Lady Clara’s ruin was the least of Sophy’s worries at the moment. She could only hope the girl wasn’t assaulted. Raped. Murdered. She was completely vulnerable. She didn’t know a damned thing. Look how easily Adderley had taken advantage of her.

“Please pack for several days,” she said. She kept her voice low and calm, her expression tranquil. She didn’t wring her hands. Lord Valentine needed quieting, and Longmore needed to believe that she knew what she was doing. “The instant I have news, I’ll send to you, and we’ll set out.”

“We,” said Lord Longmore.

“I’m used to you,” she said. “I hardly know Lord Valentine and he hardly knows me.”

Longmore at least understood—to a point—what she was capable of. He knew about her work for the Spectacle. She wouldn’t have to waste time explaining every little thing. They’d worked together well enough at Dowdy’s.

She’d used him then and she’d use him now. An instrument. That’s all he was, she told herself.

She turned to the younger brother. “My lord, I advise you to return to Warford House. What you need to do is help your family memorize a simple excuse for Lady Clara’s not being at home to visitors. A severe cold or some such—the sort of thing that makes people keep a distance.”

He looked at his older brother.

“Have you any better ideas?” Longmore said. “Do I need to point out to you that Miss Noirot has a good deal at stake in this? Clara’s the shop’s favorite customer. Everything they make for her is special for her. If she comes to harm, they’ll have her confounded trousseau on their hands, and they’ll go all to pieces—because no one can wear those clothes as Lady Clara can.” He mimicked Sophy as he said the last bit. “Not to mention they’ve hopes to sell her more, once they devise a scheme for disposing of Adderley.”

“It’s so like you to make jokes at a time like this,” said Lord Valentine.

“I’m not joking—as you’d know if you were the one blackmailed and browbeaten into escorting our sister to buy her curst clothes.”

“It’s no joke,” Sophy said. “My sisters and I want Lord Adderley out of the picture. We want your beautiful sister to marry someone with a massive income. She truly is our best customer, and we truly will go all to pieces if she can’t wear the beautiful bride clothes we’re making for her.”

No joke. Horribly true. Truer than they could guess.

Longmore turned away from his plainly bewildered brother. “Miss Noirot, you said you wanted a description of the cabriolet. I suggest you find a pen and writing paper. I ordered that vehicle specially for her, and I recall every last detail. And if I happen to miss anything, Valentine will let us know. He believes I ought to have bought a carriage for him.”

A short while later, the three Noirot sisters were in Sophy’s bedroom, helping her pack. She’d told them about Lady Clara and her plan—such as it was—for finding her. She’d hoped they’d come up with a better solution. Hers, she felt, was far from satisfactory on numerous counts.

But Marcelline and Leonie, who saw the problems as clearly as she did, hadn’t anything better to offer.

“I don’t see an alternative,” Marcelline said. “It’s not only dangerous to her reputation to advertise this disappearance, but it’s physically dangerous as well. Any number of scoundrels would start looking for her, too. She could be held for ransom—and that’s the best case.” She paused in the act of folding a chemise. “Mon dieu, her poor mother.”

Marcelline had a daughter she’d nearly lost. Twice. She knew what Lady Warford was enduring at this moment.

They all understood why the marchioness had locked herself in her daughter’s room.

Lady Clara was no more than a customer, yet Sophy was sick with worry.

“Speaking of scoundrels,” she said as she rolled up stockings, “I’d like to know what Adderley did to set her off.”

“Does it matter?” Leonie said.

“I wish I’d known before she bolted,” Sophy said. “It might be ammunition.”

“You can find out when you find her,” Leonie said. “And you will find her. You have to.”

“Of course Sophy will find her,” Marcelline said. “But my loves, what the devil am I to tell Clevedon? He’ll be frantic. You know how dear Lady Clara is to him.”

He’d lost a sister at an early age. When the Fairfax family had taken him in, Lady Clara had become a sister to him. They’d always been close. Though they’d had some turbulence a short time ago, Lady Clara had attended his wedding to Marcelline, and she seemed to have accepted them as family … as sisters, almost.

“Give him something to do,” Sophy said. “I told Longmore I’d dispose of Adderley. But I can’t be in two places at once. Ask Clevedon to find out quietly all he can about Adderley. I need as much information as I can get.”

“What can Clevedon find out that isn’t public knowledge, such as Adderley’s gaming habits and the state of his finances?” Leonie said.

“That scene on the terrace was not one reckless act of passion,” Sophy said. “I knew something was wrong. I’m positive it was planned. Adderley should have fought desperately for the woman he loved, but he let Longmore hit him, and he let Lady Clara protect him. Let Clevedon get to the bottom of it. He can find out as much over a casual game of cards as I can eavesdropping at parties and talking to demireps.”

She took up the hat she planned to wear, and sat down to attach a veil to it.

“Maybe I can look more deeply into Adderley’s financial affairs,” Leonie said.

“You and Marcelline will have enough to do, running the shop while I’m away,” Sophy said. “I’m sorry to leave everything to you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leonie said. “You have to find her. That’s the priority.”

“Lady Clara’s part of our family now, whether her mother likes it or not,” Marcelline said. She frowned at the hat Sophy was working on. “Speaking of families, love, we need to have a little talk before you go.”

Though he’d made good time crossing London after Fenwick came to summon him, it was nearly half past eight o’clock when Longmore drove his phaeton to the Gloucester Coffee House in Piccadilly. The sun was setting.

As happened every night at this time, an atmosphere of drama and excitement prevailed. The seven western mail coaches were about to depart, and everybody here was either part of the show or part of the audience.

Longmore knew that the commotion had been worse a few years ago. Then, all thirty-five Royal Mail coaches left London at the same time—eight o’clock—along with a number of stagecoaches. While having the western coaches leave half an hour later had reduced the congestion somewhat, it did not make this an ideal time and location for meeting “Cousin Gladys.” Finding a nondescript female wasn’t easy in a crowd, and at this time of night, there was always a large audience watching the mail coaches’ departure.

Then he noticed more than the usual flurry in one group of onlookers. Men were shoving one another out of the way, tripping over their own feet, and coming perilously close to falling under hooves and coach wheels.

In their midst stood the explanation.

Instead of her usual camouflage, Sophy this evening flaunted the latest in insane styles from Maison Noirot. The color of her dress was a muted lilac. Nothing else about it was muted. A wide collar spread out over her shoulders. Under that was another collar or cape sort of thing that reached to her elbows. Beneath it bulged sleeves the size of ale casks. Yards of black lace dripped from the collars of the dress and along the front. Green stuff meant to look like sprouting leaves sprang up from the crown of her white hat. Green bows and white lace lined the brim’s interior front, framing her face—or what you could see of it, past the alluringly draped black veil.

It was completely ridiculous.

It was oddly fetching.

“By gad,” he said. “By gad.”

She spotted him then, and walked unhurriedly toward his carriage, hips swaying more, he thought, than altogether necessary amongst this rowdy crew. An inn servant followed, carrying her portmanteaux.

“That’s her,” Fenwick said from his place in the back.

“So I see,” Longmore said. Before he could get down to help her, a herd of men surged toward the vehicle. One, who’d managed to shove ahead of the others into prime position, held out a hand to help her up, but Longmore leaned out and offered his. She grasped it, and his big, gloved hand nearly swallowed up her smaller one, encased in soft kid. There was the slightest pause before she sprang up into the carriage seat.

The men stood silent during this process, admiring the rear view. A sigh went up when she settled—with a great deal of tantalizing rustling—into the left section of the divided seat, and more or less disappeared under the hood.

Then two men tried to wrestle her bags from the inn servant, but he quickly heaved them up into the back, where Fenwick stowed them alongside Longmore’s.

Since a riot seemed imminent, and Longmore hadn’t time for one, he gave the horses leave to start. He had no choice but to fall in line behind the mail coaches.

“Not the ideal time to depart London,” he said. “All the western mail coaches take the same route at the same time through Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner. We’ll have to follow them until we reach the Brompton Road. The Portsmouth coach turns off there, as we’ll do.”

“I prefer leaving in the middle of a busy throng,” she said. “With so much going on, one set of travelers attracts less attention.”

“And how did you propose not to attract attention in that rig?” he said, nodding at her attire. “Is this supposed to be a disguise?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m your newest light o’ love.”

He wasn’t sure he’d heard aright. They were traveling on granite stones, following a long and noisy parade of vehicles. Scores of hooves clacked against the stones, chains tinkled, and wheels clattered and hummed.

He looked at her. “You’re my what?”

“I’m a demirep,” she said. “My sisters and I agreed that no one who knows you would think twice if they saw you with a female of dubious morals—and I’m much less likely to be recognized than you. Even the women who shop at Maison Noirot don’t take much notice of our faces.”

She was out of her head. No one with working vision could fail to recognize her deceptively angelic face—the very slight uptilt of her shockingly blue eyes—the pert nose—the invitingly full lips.

“We’re not quite as invisible as servants, but nearly so,” the lunatic went on. “Too, people tend not to recognize a person when she’s outside her usual sphere. I chose this dress especially, because it makes me look very expensive—and it’s more dashing than respectable Englishwomen wear. I’m a merry widow, you see.” She touched the alluring veil. “And no one would find it odd if the woman with you chose to veil her face in public.”

“You’ve appointed yourself my mistress,” he said, swallowing a smile. “That’s sporting of you.”

“It’s no sacrifice,” she said. “Most of my other guises are uncomfortable and not at all pretty. Even my usual clothes aren’t terribly exciting.”

“By whose standards, I wonder,” he said. “I recall a hat with some sort of windmill arrangement at the back and ribbons and flowers and feathers and who knew what else exploding from it.”

“One can be more dashing with hats,” she said. “But one can’t wear this sort of ensemble in London. It frightens the customers. Marcelline’s the only one who gets to wear her most daring creations, usually, because she’s the one who goes to Paris. And don’t forget, married women are allowed more leeway, here as well as there.”

He was well aware of this fact. Men were allowed more leeway with them, too.

She wasn’t a married woman, but she was a slightly French milliner. Practically the same thing.

“Even if I went to Paris, I couldn’t wear quite what she does,” she went on. “Unwed women there make even more of being virginal than they do here, you know. Simple frocks. Hair pulled back tight. I’m not sure what the men find appealing about that—but then …” She trailed off and gave a short laugh. “What do you care? What matters is, this way, no one will get over-curious about you or about me and what we’re doing. The added advantage is, people will be so busy staring at my clothes, they won’t pay close attention to my face.”

A virgin?

She could not be a virgin.

It was completely impossible. With that body and that walk and—and she was a milliner!

“Speaking of virgins,” he said, “let’s talk about my sister.”

According to the note she’d sent with Fenwick, Sophy had good reason to believe Clara was traveling the Portsmouth Road. Now she gave him the details. Some of Fenwick’s associates had spotted the cabriolet at Hyde Park Corner. After that, the vehicle had been noticed on the Knightsbridge Road, heading for Kensington. But according to a post boy, some time later, at an inn in Fulham, a woman who looked like a bulldog had asked for the best route to Richmond Park.

“She made it appear that she was traveling to her great-aunt’s house, then turned about and headed, apparently, southwest,” she said. “Does Richmond Park hold any significance for her?”

“None I know of,” he said. “If I’d had to guess, the only place I’d have thought of would be Bath. As a girl, Clara traveled with our paternal grandmother to Bath sometimes. The were very close. Grandmother Warford died some three years ago, and Clara took it hard. She’d always liked the old ladies, my grandmother’s friends.” He shook his head. “I can’t think of anybody she might take refuge with in Richmond Park.”

“Maybe she doesn’t know where she’s going,” Sophy said. “Something happened and she couldn’t bear whatever it was, and so she ran away. Blindly. She simply ran away.”

They’d reached the Hyde Park turnpike. Unlike the mail coaches, their vehicle had to stop, and he had to pay.

He took advantage of the pause to check on Fenwick. The boy sat in the rear seat, arms folded in the approved posture for tigers, looking up at the rapidly darkening sky.

Longmore looked up, too. Thick clouds swarmed overhead. He wasn’t concerned. The hood was up, and if they faced a heavy rain, he could put up the apron. The back seat hadn’t a hood, but Fenwick would be all right. Olney had packed an umbrella, and Reade—deeply unhappy about being left behind—had been made to donate one of his older cloaks.

Longmore drove on, through the turnpike. They passed the White Horse Inn and the Foot Barracks.

“I don’t understand what’s got into my sister,” he said. “She always used to be so sensible.”

“Sensible but ignorant,” Sophy said.

He heard a wobble in her voice. It was very slight, but he was acutely attuned to her voice, in all its changes. Sometimes, in a crowd, he knew her by her voice alone, even when she adopted one of her provincial accents.

He looked at her. She had her hand to her forehead. The veil was in place, making it impossible to read her expression, yet even he could tell she was upset.

“Now what?” he said sharply.

“She doesn’t know anything,” she said. “Even for a girl of one and twenty, she’s lamentably naïve.” She took in a deep breath and let it out.

He watched the rise and fall of her bosom. It was crass in the circumstances, he supposed, but he was a man, and it was nighttime and she was dressed like a fashionable impure.

They passed the Westbourne conduit and approached the Rural Castle Inn. The mail coaches’ horns sounded. They were sending the Portsmouth coach on its separate way, down the Brompton Road. Where he’d soon follow.

“She has three brothers,” he said. “She’s not that innocent. She knows what men are like. She should have known better than to encourage any of that lot of loose screws.”

“A woman might think she knows about men, but until it happens—until a man touches her, she doesn’t know.”

He remembered this woman’s reaction when he’d breathed down her neck.

Was it possible she didn’t know what he’d assumed she knew?

But that was ridiculous. She was no schoolroom miss. She’d grown up in Paris. She was a milliner. And she walked the way she walked.

He passed Sloane Street and turned into Brompton Road. No parade of mail coaches now. Only the lone one, not very far ahead.

“Maybe that’s it,” she said.

“What is?”

“Maybe she’s had even less experience than other girls her age. It’s—what?” She counted on her gloved fingers. “A month since she told my brother-in-law to go to the devil. Only think what it’s been like for her. Imagine spending most of your life assuming you’ll marry one person, and then realizing he or she isn’t what you want. I’m sure she felt liberated and exhilarated after rejecting the Duke of Clevedon—but afterward … She had to find herself. She had to do what other girls do at seventeen or eighteen, in their first Seasons.”

“Yer worship!” Fenwick’s high-pitched voice broke into a very difficult piece of cogitation. “I say, your highness!”

“Your lordship,” Sophy corrected. “I explained that to you. How hard is it to remember?”

“Yer lordship!” Fenwick said more forcefully.

“You better close up the front the best you can. East wind coming about.”

“What is he, a weathercock?” Longmore said.

That was when the rain started pelting down.

“Better hurry, yer majesty,” the boy said. “Weather’s going to turn ugly in a minute.”