One Touch of Scandal (5 page)

“Eat,” he murmured.

“Why?”

“You have lost all your color again,” he said.

As if mesmerized, Grace found herself doing as he bid,
biting off half and chewing it slowly. It was as if her taste buds had been jolted to sudden awareness. The morsel was tart as a slice of raw lemon, yet sweet and buttery. A crumb almost fell, and unthinkingly, Grace caught it with her tongue on a low sound of appreciation.

Ruthveyn's eyes narrowed approvingly. “Our chef's special recipe,” he murmured. “Monsieur Belkadi raked all of Paris for him—then had his sister completely retrain the poor devil. Wait until you taste his saffron couscous.”

“Couscous?” Grace took the second half with her fingers and finished it off. “Truly? Oh, I shall be his slave.”

“I shall let him know,” said Ruthveyn. “Now a sandwich.”

“I…I am not hungry.”

“You are,” he commanded. “You are starving. You need the clarity of mind that food will bring.”

It seemed a strange thing to say. But Grace ate a bite of the tiny sandwich he presented, almost without considering how odd it was to be fed by a man she'd just met—or any man at all, come to that.

The sandwich held a thin slice of cucumber atop a pink pâté, which tasted of salmon and lemon and dill all at once, then finished with the taste of purest cream. “My heavens,” she said after swallowing. “I wonder any of you can waddle up the steps.”

Ruthveyn said no more but simply handed her the plate, then refilled her tea, slowly stirring in a dollop of milk just as she liked it. She finished off every bite, working her way round in a meticulous, clockwise fashion until, to her shock, the plate was empty.

“Excellent,” he said again, setting the plate away.

He returned to the opposite sofa, leaving her feeling oddly bereft and a little cold. He occupied himself for a moment freshening his own tea, which, Grace noticed, he
drank with nothing in it. For no reason in particular, she made a mental note of that fact.

After a time, Ruthveyn set his cup away, then resumed his almost feline posture on the sofa. “Your color has returned again,” he said calmly. “So let us return to the pressing business at hand, mademoiselle, and to my questions.”

Grace was beyond quibbling with him. “Very well,” she said on a sigh. “What do you wish to know?”

Some nameless emotion sketched across his face, so swift and so vague she might have imagined it.

“I wish to know,” he said quietly, “if you loved Ethan Holding.”

Grace looked at him in surprise. “Do you indeed?” she asked. “Does it matter?”

He lifted one shoulder a fraction. “Perhaps I am merely curious,” he answered. “But one might argue that a crime of passion looks far less likely when there is…well, little passion.”

She gave a withering smile. “How cruelly practical you are, Lord Ruthveyn,” she said. “No, I did not love him. Not in the way you mean. But I had a deep respect for him. And while some might have believed him hard, I knew him to be a fair man and a good father.”

“I see,” said Ruthveyn. “And who is the Crane in Crane and Holding? Surely not the sister?”

“Oh, heavens no!” Grace tried to relax against the sofa. “Ethan's mother believed women had no head for business. It is his stepcousin, Josiah Crane.”

“A cousin?” said Ruthveyn. “That seems an odd arrangement.”

“The business was begun by the Crane family,” Grace explained. “Ethan's mother was a widow who had inherited Holding Shipyards, a failing business. She married one of the Crane heirs when Ethan was small, and he ac
cepted Ethan as a son. When his mother died some years after Mr. Crane, Ethan inherited the controlling interest.”

“Now that is what I call a marriage of convenience,” said Ruthveyn. “And the noncontrolling interest?”

“Mr. Crane left 40 percent to his nephew, Josiah Crane, in his will.”

Ruthveyn's mouth lifted at one corner. “I wonder how Josiah Crane felt about that?”

“Bittersweet but grateful, I daresay,” said Grace. “Josiah's father was the elder of the Crane brothers, but he proved to be a wastrel and had to sell his share of the family business to his younger brother. For a time, Josiah was just a junior clerk, working for his uncle. But there, that was a long time ago. It is old history now.”

Ruthveyn set his head to one side and looked at her assessingly for a moment. “Yet what is time, Mademoiselle Gauthier, save an invention of man?” he finally said, his voice pensive. “Time can span into infinity. On the other hand, sometimes it is no more than a platitude—
Time heals all wounds!
—is that not what the English say? But envy—oh, trust me, mademoiselle. Envy can be eternal.”

Grace managed to smile. “You are a far more esoteric thinker, Lord Ruthveyn, than I could ever hope to be,” she answered. “And I must hope, for my own sake, that time does indeed heal all wounds.”

“Sometimes, Mademoiselle Gauthier, it does not,” he said quietly. Then Ruthveyn seemed to stir from some sort of reverie. “And so Josiah Crane's father sold his birthright, did he?” he murmured. “He was dashed lucky to get it back again.”

“Forty percent,” Grace reminded him. “Not the original fifty.”

“Ah, so the control Mrs. Holding wielded during her widowhood was significant.”

“I gather she wielded nothing more significant than a darning needle,” Grace replied. “Ethan's mother believed a lady's place was in the home. From what Fenella says, trustees managed everything until Ethan and Josiah were experienced enough to go it alone.”

“Fascinating,” Ruthveyn murmured. “How did Ethan Holding get on with his minority partner?”

“Quite well,” said Grace. “They argued at times, as strong men will. But on the whole, they were close.”

“Who handled the money?”

“Josiah Crane,” Grace answered. “He had the head for numbers. He and Fenella. I think it must be a Crane family trait. Ethan is—
was
—the public face of Crane and Holding. People liked him. They trusted him.”

“Certainly Her Majesty's government trusted him.”

“Yes,” said Grace simply. “There had been talk, even, of a knighthood.”

“Indeed?” murmured Ruthveyn. “So you might have become Lady Holding?”

Grace laughed a little bitterly. “As if that would matter to me,” she said. “There are titles aplenty in my late mother's family, and none of them the better off for it. One cannot eat a title or live in it. A title cannot keep one warm at night. A title is just for show—your pardon, my lord.”

“No pardon needed,” said Ruthveyn.

Grace felt embarrassment warm her face. “I daresay you were born to the purple,” she murmured, “and that the marquessate has been in your family since Domesday.”

“No, just a minor title, I'm afraid,” he replied. “My forbearers, however, managed to acquire quite an assemblage of titles and honors, by hook or by crook, or by service to the Crown—ah, but I become redundant, do I not?”

“And the marquessate?”

He lifted one wide shoulder. “My doing, I suppose.”

“Ah,” said Grace. “More service to the Crown?”

Something dark sketched across Ruthveyn's face. “Is that not the usual way?” he countered. “Yes. For service to Her Majesty.”

Just then, a clock somewhere in the depths of the house tolled the hour. Grace's eyes widened in horror. “Oh!” she said. “That cannot be the time!”

Ruthveyn extracted a gold pocket watch from his waistcoat. “I fear it is,” he said. “Have you another errand?”

“I don't know,” said Grace pensively. “I wanted to ask Rance…well, if he thought I needed a barrister. But the thought horrifies me.”

Ruthveyn tucked the timepiece away. “You have been accused of no crime as yet,” he said calmly. “Go about your business. Behave as any innocent person would. Lazonby retained the best counsel in London—a member here, as it happens. Until I can reach Lazonby, you may rely upon his counsel to protect your interests.”

To protect your interests…

But what were her interests? What was left to her? The quiet, inconsequential existence she had managed to carve for herself since her father's death had been drained of all hope as surely as had Ethan's. And now the outside world and all its ugliness was pressing down upon her again.

“I rather doubt, sir, that I can afford the best counsel in London,” she said quietly.

“You will leave that in my hands for now,” he said. It was a statement, not an offer.

She felt Lord Ruthveyn's gaze still and steady upon her, and a sudden chill crept down her spine. Grace wanted to flee from this dark, imposing man and his piercing eyes—yet in the same breath, she sensed the swirl of his darkness all around her, almost cloaking her in its protec
tion. He was offering her his help. Moreover, he was not a man to be lied to, or trifled with. She knew it instinctively.

And he was all she had. She swallowed hard, and lifted her eyes to his. “I accept your kind offer, sir,” she said. “What is his name?”

“Sir Greville St. Giles,” said Ruthveyn. “He keeps chambers in the Inner Temple, but you may send word to me here should it prove necessary. If the police dare to arrest you—and I think they will not—you will tell them St. Giles represents you. Following that, you will say
not one word further.
Not under any circumstance. I shall have you released before the day is out, I do assure you.”

Grace believed him. He looked like a man who might go to the ends of the earth—and perhaps even into the black pit of hell beyond—merely to prove a point.

“Thank you,” she said again. Then she came swiftly to her feet. “And now I really must go. I have intruded upon your kindness too long.”

Ruthveyn rose, for she'd left him with little choice. But at the door, he hesitated, blocking it with the broad width of his shoulders. “I do have one last question, if I may?”

She looked up at him. “Yes?”

Ruthveyn looked down his hawkish nose at her. “Mademoiselle Gauthier, did you by any chance
kill
Ethan Holding?”

Grace's mouth fell open. “No!” she finally managed. “I—why—how can you even think me capable of it!”

“We are all of us capable of it,
mademoiselle,
” he said coolly. “Such is the nature of man. But I accept your answer. So…if not you, who?”

She looked at him with unvarnished frustration. “Why, some sort of…of thief, of course! The house was filled with artwork and silver. No one wished Ethan dead.”

“On that point I beg to differ,” said Lord Ruthveyn. “I
know nothing of him, and already I can think of several people who might have done so. Who found the body?”

Grace's eyes widened. “I did.”

Ruthveyn drew back a fraction. “In the middle of the night?”

Again, Grace was struck by how dangerous the man looked. How near he stood. For a moment, it was as if all the air had been sucked from the room, and she could feel the heat of his gaze running down her face to her throat and beyond.

“It wasn't the middle of the night,” she managed. “It was half past twelve.”

“Explain.”

“Josiah Crane had lent me a book of poetry at dinner,” she replied, “and I had declared my intent to stay up and finish it. Ethan slipped a note under my door, asking that if I was still awake, would I kindly come to his study.”

“Indeed?” Ruthveyn's voice was a low rumble. “Did he often do that sort of thing?”

“No, never,” said Grace, her brows drawing together. “And it
was
a little oddly worded.”

“In what way?”

Her frown deepened. “He called me
Miss Gauthier
,” she said. “And he seemed to think he owed me an apology for something.”

“What did he usually call you?”

“Grace, when we were alone,” she said. “After our betrothal, I mean. And when he wrote during his travels—yes, usually Grace, unless he enclosed the letter with someone else's.”

“And what, pray, had Holding done to owe you an apology?”

Grace lifted her shoulders weakly. “That's just it,” she said. “I cannot think. He was a little cross at dinner, for
he was tired. He'd just returned from a fortnight at the Liverpool yards. He and Josiah talked mostly of business, and I…I, well, I did not attend, honestly.”

Ruthveyn seemed to consider this. “Did you often dine with the family?”

Grace looked away. “For dinner, yes. I think Ethan was overly impressed that I was the granddaughter of an earl,” she confessed. “And pleased his sister had befriended me.”

“He hoped your polish might rub off?”

Grace gave a withering laugh. “Silly, isn't it, when I'd spent much of my life in military outposts? But merchant families oftentimes feel inferior to anyone with a drop of blue in their blood. And Ethan was a little”—here she smiled wistfully—“well, he used to say he would always have the air of tar and timber about him. But I think he had hoped Fenella might marry well. She had a huge marriage portion, but their social circle was not large.”

“And Josiah Crane?” said Ruthveyn. “Did he dine there often?”

“Once or twice a week.” She paused a moment. “When they were young, I think Ethan expected Josiah and Fenella would make a match of it, but…well, nothing happened.”

Ruthveyn pondered it. “Very well,” he said at last. “So you went at once to Holding's study when the note appeared under your door?”

Grace bit her lip, and shook her head. “No, fool that I am,” she whispered. “Instead, I pinned up my hair and drew on my wrapper—I was worried about propriety, of all things!—and it was a fatal ten minutes. Oh, God! I wish now I'd not waited an instant!”