A Lady’s Secret (28 page)

Then a petite lady joined them. “What’s happening?” she asked, with a bright-eyed look at Petra. She wore a hat as wide as Mistress Waddle’s, but a great deal more stylish.

“I’m taking a conundrum to the master of them. Any idea where he is?”

“I think I saw him going to the pineapple house.”

Lord Arcenbryght switched directions. The lady fell in beside Petra. “I’m Lady Bryght.”

“Lady Bright?” Petra queried, dazed.

“No one can be bothered with Arcenbryght. An ancient English prince. They often had unpronounceable names. So he’s Lord Bryght, and as I’m his wife I’m Lady Bryght. May I know your name?”

“I don’t know.” It escaped because of weariness and confusion, but it wasn’t surprising that both her hosts looked skeptical.

“I’m not mad. Truly.”

“Perhaps we should find Diana,” Lady Bryght said.

“Rothgar she wants, so Rothgar she gets.”

“Perhaps you should check her for a knife, then.”

“She’d probably cry rape. You could feel her all over.”

“I’m not dangerous!” Petra protested.

Lord Bryght turned to her and said something rapidly in French. After a heartbeat’s thought, Petra pretended not to understand. He smiled slightly but coldly, not fooled at all.

“A conundrum within a maze. Bey should be delighted, and I
am
armed.”

Not entirely careless, then, on this public occasion.

A long glasshouse came into view. The wooden parts were made in a lacy design that was quite beautiful, and the glass panes shone like diamonds in the sunlight, but Petra’s attention was fixed on it as the place where perhaps she might finally have the encounter she’d come so far to make. She studied all the males near the hothouse, but saw none that were likely.

Lord Bryght said, “Bey. An unexpected guest.”

P
etra turned so quickly she cricked her neck and found herself meeting eyes with another tall, dark gentleman, but this one was different. His features were harsher. He was older. Perhaps, just perhaps, something did twang deep inside her, but if so, it could have been fear, or a reaction to the sudden attention in the Marquess of Rothgar’s dark eyes.

Why was he looking at her like that?

He took a graceful farewell of his companions and came toward them. Like his brother, he was dressed plainly, dark hair simply tied back. Like his brother, no one would mistake him for an ordinary man. He said nothing, so Lord Bryght explained.

“I found this lady being harassed by the officious Mistress Digby, and she said she wished to speak to you. I haven’t searched her for weapons.”

“We haven’t searched anyone here for weapons. It would be unfair to single out one, and I do believe no one’s tried to assassinate me for at least a year.” He bowed slightly. “Ma’am?”

Petra was unable to speak. Though everything else was casual, his gaze was not, and she’d never imagined this moment taking place with so many people nearby.

“Perhaps you would care to visit the house?” he said, gesturing. “I have a number of items that might interest you.”

She was frozen again, wildly imagining dungeons, or her disappearing entirely. Who would ever know?

“Bey…” said Lady Bryght anxiously.

The marquess smiled a little. “Am I being terrifying? I mean you no harm at all, my dear, but if you would prefer, Lady Bryght can accompany us.
Forse dovremmo andare in un luogo un po’ più appartato per discuterne.”

At the Italian, Petra’s breath caught. He had simply said that they should discuss matters in private, but it showed that he knew or at least suspected who she was. She couldn’t read his emotions, but she didn’t see rage or fear and this was the encounter she’d come so far to achieve, so when he held out his arm, she put her hand on it and allowed him to lead her away.

Robin dressed grandly because Teresa Cornelys valued such things, and his chairmen would carry him right into the richly decorated entrance hall, so there’d be no chance of being seen in finery at this time of day. He climbed out, looking around. He’d been to Carlisle House on a number of occasions for her assemblies, but the place seemed strange now, empty and echoing like a theater set.

Teresa Cornelys swept downstairs to greet him, dressed like a duchess and with an equally grand manner, but her eyes were sharp as a hawk’s. If Petra had found refuge here Robin would be grateful, but he’d also remove her as soon as possible. He followed the woman to a reception room and declined refreshments. He sat and asked his question.

“Petra d’Averio, my lord?” she said, painted brows rising with what looked like honest astonishment. Her Italian accent was stronger than Petra’s, but achingly reminiscent. “I haven’t seen her since she was a child.”

“You do know her, though?”

She shrugged with a typical spreading of the hands that also reminded him of Petra. “Does one know the daughter of a patroness? I saw her playing with her dolls. A pretty child. Very dark.” Slyly, she added, “Neither
il conte
nor her mother were so dark.”

Robin was momentarily stunned. The woman had casually confirmed Petra’s story. She was the contessina Petra d’Averio, and he was awed by her courage and resilience when tossed out into the harsh world.

“You knew her mother well, I understand,” he said.

Another shrug. “She wished to improve her voice and was kind enough to hire me, but yes, a warmth developed. We were close in age.”

“Then I’m sorry to have to tell you that she recently died, ma’am.”

“Ah.” Her face pinched, but she said, “It was all long ago, and I haven’t seen her for over a decade.”

“Did you correspond?”

“Occasionally. I’m a busy woman, my lord. Things linger undone.”

And that might be the root of her business problems. Despite the popularity of her entertainments and the high prices she charged, she teetered constantly on the edge of bankruptcy.

“I gather the contessina was not, in fact, her husband’s child,” Robin said.

Her painted face became even more masklike. “Who would say that?”

“You implied it, ma’am, and her brother has confirmed it, now that his mother is dead.”

She made a moue of disgust, but no other comment.

“Did the contessa tell you who Petra’s father was?”

“Why does that concern you, Lord Huntersdown?”

“For my own good reasons.”

He could almost see her calculating profit and loss. “Amalia never mentioned his name, only that he was young and English. And, of course, perfection in every way. She fell foolishly in love, my lord, a sad affliction of the young. She was fortunate that it did not end in disaster.”

There seemed to be some fondness there, so Robin decided to tell her a bit of the truth. “It may still harm Petra. Now the contessina’s mother is dead and her brother has shamed her, she has fled to England. I hoped she had contacted you.”

“Me?” No doubting the astonishment. “Of course, I would welcome my old friend’s daughter if she came to me, but…but this is extraordinary.”

Robin lost any lingering hope that the woman was concealing Petra. He rose, hating having to still use the stick to take the weight off his leg. “If she should come here, ma’am, I would be grateful for word of it.”

She rose, too, studying him. “Pardon me, my Lord Huntersdown, but what are your attentions to little Petra?”

He replied coolly. “I encountered her in France and was able to do her a small service. I was concerned by her lack of firm plans and hoped to hear good news of her.”

“She promised to become a beautiful young woman,” she remarked.

“And has fulfilled that promise, but I wish her no ill, ma’am.”

“Young gentlemen like you, my lord, think no ill of ruining women.”

“Mistress Cornelys, you would not want to make me your enemy.”

Her cheeks reddened beneath the rouge, but she said, “Would you marry her?”

“That is none of your business.”

“As I seem to be in place of her mother, I must disagree.”

Perhaps this woman had good intentions after all. “I rejoice that you will stand her friend, ma’am. If she comes to you, will you send me word?”

Every inch the grand lady, she said, “That, my lord, shall be up to her.”

Robin’s jaw tensed with frustration, but he said, “I would be generous to anyone who relieved my anxiety.”

He noted the flash of greed in her eyes before she masked it and accompanied him to his chair. As one of his men opened the door, she said, “I have seen advertisements for a man called Varzi.”

Robin halted. “Yes?”

“He came here. He, too, seemed to think Petra might seek refuge with me.”

“You gave him the same answer?”

“It is the truth, my lord.”

Robin settled in his sedan and was carried outside. He’d achieved nothing except confirmations. Petra’s story was true and Varzi was in London, seeking her. He had to capture the man, but the advertisement was doing no good. He returned home and went to his study to make new plans.

He’d left Petra’s splotchily written letter on his desk and picked it up to read it through for perhaps the tenth time. This time he noticed that the rough wax seal held traces of a fingerprint and wasted time studying it. Contessina Petra d’Averio. Still the misbegotten daughter of a careless Englishman. Still penniless and highly unlikely to be a discreet, pragmatic wife, but he was sliding down a slope without hope of reverse.

His mother was going to rage, but at least Petra was aristocratically born and raised. He was certain she’d acquit herself perfectly in drawing room and ballroom, and execute the tricky court curtsy with ease.

Was he actually imagining her presented at court?

Of course, for as his wife, his countess, she must be.

Smiling wryly at his own folly, he kissed the broken wax, then tucked the letter under his waistcoat, close to his heart. For the first time in an age, part of his way was clear. He would stop Varzi but also find Petra and convince her to give him a second chance.

Thorn arrived with no news, however. No one appeared to the watching Carlisle House, and no one had left with a message. He’d left one man observing the place just in case.

Robin reported what Mistress Cornelys had said.

“She spoke the truth?” Thorn said.

“That’s my assessment.”

“So your Petra’s extraordinary story is true.”

“And I need to find her, but in God’s name, at this point, where do I start?”

“Why not insert another advertisement?”

“Much good the last one has done me.”

Robin grabbed the map that sat open on his desk, marked with the Gainer farm and possible sightings. No amount of study revealed anything new, and Petra could be anywhere by now.

The marquess didn’t speak, so neither did Petra. Like his brother, he moved without haste, exchanging words with his guests, pleasant to all. He did not, however, introduce Petra, which won her some strange looks. But how could he? She realized now that she’d not given Lord Bryght a name, and Lord Rothgar hadn’t asked.

They entered the house from a patio that led into a glasshouse, which led into a room whose walls were decorated with paintings of plant-twined trellises, as if to make a transition from the outside to within. Then they were in a wood-paneled corridor inside a great house that seemed very weighty and eerily quiet. Petra couldn’t help but shiver.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said as he took her down the corridor and into a gilded marble hall with a huge, empty fireplace and a sweeping staircase. A solitary footman stood impassively by the closed front door. “But I do have something to show you.”

He led her down another corridor into a small room lined with cupboards and drawers, and with a table and chairs in the center.

“This is where we keep our surplus ornaments,” he said, pulling open one shallow drawer, then another.

“Ah.” He removed something and turned to offer it to her.

Petra took the small, oval miniature of a young man against sketchy Italian ruins. The picture had not been executed by a great artist, but it caught the luminous beauty some youths possess before they truly become men. He was dark-eyed, and his dark hair hung loose around his collar.

He looked astonishingly like her.

“Sit,” he said, moving a chair for her.

Petra did so. Otherwise she might have crumpled to the floor. “So it’s true.”

“You doubted it? I’m sorry if that little performance shocked you. I have a lamentable taste for theatrics. Do you need something? Tea, wine?”

Petra breathed deeply a few times. “Perhaps I do. I don’t think I’ve eaten enough recently.”

He left and she studied the picture, seeing the young man who’d enraptured her mother. Beautiful but so very young, but then her mother had been only twenty, though married for five years.

He returned and moved a chair to face hers. As he sat, he said, “Don’t feel you have to talk. We have time.”

“You have guests. Many guests.”

“And family to fill the breach. Bryght and Portia, Brand and Rosa, even my sister Hilda and her brood.” She must have looked glazed, for he added, “Don’t feel you need to remember anything. I’m filling a silence for fear you’ll disappear, like a genie from an Arabian tale.”

She studied him. “I don’t think you fear anything.”

“Fear is not shameful, only cowardice.”

Petra looked down at her grubby hands on her cheap and dusty skirt, then looked up again. “Did you know?”

“That you existed? No. Foolish of me not to wonder, but I was very young. I suppose I assumed that Amalia would tell me, but why should she? Her husband accepted you?”

“Yes,” Petra said, not ready to get into the complexities.

“Your name?” he asked.

She laughed with embarrassment at not having supplied it. “Petra Maria d’Averio.”

He nodded, but there was a knock at the door. He went to open it and take a tray. Preferring that a servant not see her? But the footman already had. The Dark Marquess was taking this very calmly, but she couldn’t read him at all. He still might want to make the embarrassment disappear.

He placed the tray on the table and poured. “Highhandedly, I ordered coffee, for few Italians like tea. Was I wrong?”

“No,” she said, shivering slightly as the rich aroma reached her. How long had it been?

Montreuil. She squashed down that thought. Her father must never learn about Montreuil, and especially not about what had happened on the
Courlis
. If she had any hope here she needed her virtue.

“Cream, sugar?” he asked.

“Both, please.” Warily she added, “Generously.”

He smiled and complied, then put the cup and saucer into her hands. She sipped and sighed, then drank some more, savoring. She knew, however, that he was waiting for her story.

“I…I don’t know where to begin, my lord.”

“There’s no hurry.” He placed a small plate by her, offering meat between slices of bread. “They’re called sandwiches, after the Earl of Sandwich, who invented them because he wouldn’t leave the gaming table to eat. Useful at a time like this.” When she took one, he smiled. “How delightfully novel, to feed a hungry child of my own.”

“You have no other?” But then she blushed and hastily took a bite. He’d only married last year and one did not refer to bastards, even if one was one.

“None.”

The sandwich was tasty and she was hungry, but she put it aside. “I must tell you that I could be bringing danger here, my lord.”

His brows rose, but he didn’t seem alarmed. “Danger from whom?”

She didn’t want to tell him, because it all led back to her folly, but she’d have no more people harmed over her. “A man called Varzi, who works for the conte di Purieri. Ludovico—il conte—wants me, and has sent Varzi to drag me back.”

He snapped his fingers. “That for Varzi, but it’s good that you told me. What has he done so far? Has he hurt you?”

He spoke without heat, but Petra felt as if she’d suddenly been surrounded by high walls and an army. She could almost weep for relief, but for fear, too. These were cold walls and a ruthless army. Her father must never learn about Robin, or he might turn his army on him—on the man he’d see as having violated his daughter.