Beyond A Wicked Kiss (49 page)

Ria's mouth flattened, disapproving of the tenor of his humor. "It is still a man's life, and not to be spoken of with so little regard."

"The man's name was Neville, Ria. George Andrew Neville." West did not flinch as Ria leapt to her feet. He had been expecting just this reaction. "You are familiar with the name, then."

How could she not be? she wondered. It was engraved on a gold plate beneath another of the portraits that she passed regularly in the academy's hall. Ria knew that West required no confirmation of his statement, but she could not remain silent. "His son sits on the board. His father was a founder. One of his grandsons has already left Hambrick. The other is there now. I suppose you will tell me that both boys are bishops."

"Yes. The colonel verified it for me."

Ria's look was one of helpless confusion. "What is the exact nature of this legacy they have wrought?"

"Wealth. Position. Influence. The ability to compel others to do their bidding is central to the Society. Power, Ria—in any form. It was political power that motivated the bishops that Eastlyn confronted. The founding governors of Miss Weaver's Academy had a slightly different bent." West opened the book and showed Ria an illustration of the young man with his back pressed to the Ionic column and the woman on her knees in front of him. He pointed to the man's face, drawing her eyes there. "Do you know who this is, Ria?"

She studied the features, then shook her head.

"I would not have seen the resemblance myself," he told her, closing the book. "It is Jonathan Beckwith's uncle. Anthony Beckwith. This drawing was done years before his portrait, years before he became a governor. Because of the background that is common to some of the portraits, it suggests that certain privileges are afforded those who will inherit a position on the board."

Ria shivered. "How can you be certain it is Sir Anthony?"

"Someone James Winslow spoke to—an old man now—remembered him."

"Surely not. Not from so long ago."

"Apparently Beckwith was a frequent visitor to Neville's printing shop when the engravings were being done. This gentlemen was an apprentice in that same shop all those years ago. You will admit that the illustrations are not easily dismissed from one's mind."

"I will not admit it," Ria said.

West tempered his smile. "You will like this last information even less. The woman in the other illustration—"

Ria interrupted. "You cannot possibly have a name to put to her face."

"No. Unfortunately, no. But this same gentleman remembered something that Neville and Beckwith said while they were examining the engravings. They said Sheridan did not know the half of it when he wrote
The School for Scandal,
that Miss Weaver would have opened his eyes to what was of import in education." West held up his hand, staying Ria's questions. "I also wondered why he would recall such an exchange of words. He was only a printer's apprentice then. A mere boy. But perhaps his age explains his keen interest, and the reason Neville and Beckwith spoke freely, though rather cryptically, in his presence.

"He had seen a performance of
The School for Scandal
only a few days earlier, so he understood the reference to the play. He thought Miss Weaver must be the name of the woman in the illustration. He linked the two immediately in his mind and has never forgotten. I think we can trust his memory on this, Ria, even though he did not comprehend the significance of what he heard."

West approached her and took her hands in his. "You and I both know Neville and Beckwith were referring to Miss Weaver's Academy."

Ria nodded jerkily.

"Shall I say the rest for you?" he asked gently. "Or would you rather not hear it aloud."

"Say it," she said. "Say it all."

"It is most likely that both the young women in the illustrations were students at the school, chosen for their fine looks and manners to be of service in precisely the way you saw them on the page. It is equally likely that Miss Jenny Taylor is the Society's whoremistress."

Chapter 14

The reception was a squeeze. Ria inched her way through the gathering clogging the ballroom's entrance until she found an unoccupied niche beside a potted fern every bit as tall as she was. The delicate, feathery fronds swayed, sometimes brushing her cheek as currents of air were stirred by the sweeping circles of the dancers. Ria snapped open her sandalwood fan and used it to politely hide her unseemly yawn.

Lack of sleep was taking its toll, she realized, no matter that she was a single nerve stretched taut as a bowstring. She'd had little enough rest on her journey to London and only a few hours since arriving. Elizabeth had insisted she nap before the reception, but after West's revelations, she found it impossible to do so. Lying on the bed in her room, she had merely stared at the overhead canopy and wondered why she did not feel something more than numb.

And Miss Jenny Taylor is the Society's whoremistress.
The words were no faint echo in her head. She could make them out more clearly than anything that was being said around her. While the voices in the ballroom hummed indistinctly, she still heard West's exact intonation in her head.

She wished she might have fainted or even been sick. West had hovered momentarily as if he expected either of these reactions might occur, but the initial shock passed so quickly that Ria came to understand it was not precisely shock that she'd experienced at all, just benumbing resignation. That she did not feel his words as a physical blow made her realize how long she had been harboring similar suspicions. Not that she could have spoken them aloud, she understood now. Some thoughts were so appalling that they resisted even the most private of examinations.

Emily Barret. Amanda Kent. Mary Murdoch. Sylvia Jenner.

Ria turned over the names in her mind as if she were taking attendance. They had all been students at the school during her six-year tenure, and all of them had departed before their graduation. Unlike Jane Petty, none of them left unexpectedly, and no one worried what would become of them. The future of these young women had seemed remarkably brighter when they exited Miss Weaver's than when they entered it.

"You are as colorless as curds and whey," West said.

Startled from her unpleasant reverie by what was certainly an accurate observation, Ria's nerveless fingers lost their grip on the fan. It fell, still open, and dangled awkwardly from her wrist by its silk cord. She fumbled with it for a moment before managing to snap it closed and secure it in her palm.

Seeing that her composure was badly strained, West offered his elbow. "Come, the portico is empty. Not many guests are willing to brace the cooler temperatures to enjoy the fresh air."

Ria placed her arm on his and allowed herself to be drawn outside. While she had only been able to move through the crowd in fits and starts before, on the Duke of Westphal's arm, guests made way for them. At the edge of the wide portico, Ria disengaged from West and braced herself on the marble balustrade. The night was clear and crisp and stars glittered in the deep indigo sky with as much luster as the diamonds in the ballroom.

"Shall I send you back to Oxford Street?" asked West. "I can have my driver take you. You do not have to leave with North and Elizabeth." Her hesitation was telling, he thought, but she finally shook her head, and West doubted he could change her mind. "I cannot stop you from blaming yourself, Ria, only say that you are wrong for doing so. You couldn't have known about the others."

It did not strike Ria as at all odd that West should have divined the tenor of her thoughts. "But I did know," she said softly. "Or at least it seems that I did. I should have told you about them at the outset. I should not have waited until you confronted me with the whole of it."

West turned and sat on the edge of the railing. He laid one hand over Ria's. "What should you have told me? That four students left Miss Weaver's because families came forward to take them in? It must have seemed like reason to celebrate, rather than the opposite. It is only hindsight that allows you to see similarities to Miss Petty's situation."

Ria knew he was right, yet it was no easy thing to absolve herself. "All of them had benefactors on the board of governors. They came to the school at an early age, every one of them from workhouses. They were easily among the prettiest girls. Mary and Emily showed talent on the pianoforte. Amanda Kent was lively and cheerful, very popular with the other girls. Sylvia was the best student, quieter than the others, scrupulously polite and always charitable." Ria glanced sideways at West. "Like Jane, Miss Taylor took a special interest in them. I thought it was because they had no one." Her smile faltered, at once rueful and self-mocking. "I suppose I was not wrong. Not really. What do you imagine has become of them?"

West had no answer to that. In fact, he tried not to imagine. By Ria's account, it had been a little more than a year since Sylvia left the school. Her departure occurred just before Ria had been assigned the position of headmistress. The other three had gone earlier. Months, sometimes years, separated the exits. Emily was fifteen when she went with the childless couple from Nottingham. Amanda and Sylvia had each just passed their sixteenth year when they left the school for homes in London. At fourteen, Mary had been the youngest to go.

"You cannot be certain they were
not
taken into homes and families that welcomed them," West said.

"I'm certain," Ria said dully. "So are you. I would rather you did not try to raise my spirits with false hope."

West conceded that she was right. It seemed to him that it was Ria's turn as headmistress that made the governors reluctant to remove girls from the academy in the usual manner. There would have been some trepidation among them about appointing her to the position, but he suspected those misgivings were quieted by her connection to the duke. Still, they must have worried that she would be more thorough than her predecessor in looking after the girls once they were gone from the school. She was, perhaps, not so likely to be lulled into complacency by an occasional letter penned by one of them. Ria Ashby would take it upon herself to visit the young women who were expressly in her care and make certain they were doing well and fulfilling their promise.

When Jane Petty had sufficiently matured to catch the eye of Sir Alex Cotton, he conceived a different approach. This time there would be no family. Jane's sudden departure would point to an impulsive elopement and result in nothing more than a nine days' wonder. What Sir Alex couldn't have known was that Jane would keep her gentleman admirer a secret from everyone but Amy Nash, and that Amy Nash would take so long to come forward with that information. In the meantime, it simply seemed that Jane had disappeared, raising more alarms than it quieted. Hiring Mr. Lytton to find Jane provided temporary respite, but Sir Alex and the governors were confounded again by the death of the duke. They must have realized the enormity of their mistake in naming Ria headmistress when she went straightaway to London to ask the new Duke of Westphal to involve himself in the school's affairs.

"I do not like leaving you here," said West. "I am not certain you are at all well. You ate very little at the supper."

Ria straightened. They were beyond the circle of candlelight coming from the ballroom, but she could make out his features sufficiently to mark his concern. "You mustn't worry about me. I have promised a set to Eastlyn when Sophie sits with Colonel Blackwood, and I am certain North and South will be obliged to take a turn with me when their wives are similarly occupied. The colonel has promised to entertain me as well, and I have so many questions for him that he is sure to regret the offer."

West did not miss the note of forced well-being in her voice, and he smiled because she meant him to. He did not point out that he had found her hiding in the shadow of a potted fern. "I suppose if you mean to interrogate Blackwood, I cannot be gone overlong, else I will have no secrets left."

Ria nodded, searching his face. "You will be careful, won't you?"

"Yes." He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the mouth. Her lips were dry and cool and passionless. "I will make it right, Ria," he whispered, taking her into his arms. "I promise you I will make it right."

She made no reply, but held him tightly until he gently drew back. Without a word passing between them, they returned to the ballroom, and he slipped away in the crush of guests.

Ria did not want for companions. The marquess approached her first and reminded her of their promised set. Ria accompanied him onto the dance floor and took her place in line. Eastlyn proved himself to be an easy partner, engaging her in just enough conversation to keep her from dwelling on West's activities.