Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (15 page)

It was very tempting to offer to admire her appearance in the hope she would shed more clothing. Instead, he pointed out, “If you do not wish to play any tricks in order to gain attention, it might have been a poor strategy to pretend to be a widow named Mrs. Flowers.”

Folding her arms on the table, she groaned and rested her chin upon them. “If I tell you again that you are right, will you promise that this is the last time you will bring up the matter?”

“No.”

She chuckled. “Fair enough. I wouldn't make such a promise either. I will simply admit that I thought Mrs. Flowers would free me, but she has restricted me to the silly bits of life that I grow tired of. Yet she's better liked than I ever was. Discouraging, to say the least.”

“I wonder,” Joss said slowly, even as the beat of his heart sped up, “if it has occurred to you that I am listening to you right now, Augusta, and that you are not playing any tricks to get me to do so.”

In an instant, she was sitting up straight again. Seizing the fork as though she'd be rewarded for the amount of damage that she caused, she dug its tines into the holes she had created.

Gratified by this reaction, Joss pressed on. “Also, at the moment I am thinking less of your dockyard than of the fact that if the proprietor sees you carving up his furniture with his cutlery, we shall be thrown out on our ears.”

She drove the fork so deeply into the wood that it swayed, upright, before toppling with a clatter.

“Impressive strength.” His heart was pounding now: too eager to lie, too wary for the truth. In the end, those amber-gold eyes were too much to resist. “I wonder, too, if it has occurred to you that the things you say are
not
you
—your admirable dockyard, for one, or the fact of your femininity—are indeed you. You should not be the magnificent Augusta Meredith if you were a scrubby little creature. Or a man.”

“I can never tell if you are mocking me or not.”

“Usually it is best to assume I am mocking someone, but I do not seem to be able to mock you. And if I cannot deny my Indian blood, you cannot deny the fact of…
you.
Certainly being raised by loving parents at the edge of the polite world, growing up beautiful and wealthy, has shaped you more than I was shaped by the chance inheritance of foreign blood from an ancestress I cannot even remember.”

Blithe words, blithely spoken. They were not entirely true, of course; his blood was half his mother's, and he had known her well indeed. Poor woman, there was no one who had loved Kitty Sutcliffe Everett
just
as
she
was
, as Augusta had put the matter, except for her young son, Josiah. And a child was helpless to act in any significant way.

“Maybe you are right,” Augusta said at last. Again raising her tankard, she eyed its empty depths with some disappointment until Joss shoved his own ale in her direction. “Oh. Thank you.” Her deep draught seemed to wash free some hesitation. “I didn't have imagination enough to choose a sensible name for my widowed alter ego, and I certainly don't have enough to imagine myself as poor as my parents grew up. And…I think they would have wanted it that way. They wanted me to belong. They wanted better for me.” She paused. “Mainly because they thought it would make me happy to step up in the world. I suppose that's what they really wanted: for me to be happy.”

Yes. Probably so. And what a dream that would be, wouldn't it? If only happiness really
could
be bought. So long he had hoped one hundred pounds might be sufficient for this—but as Augusta had trenchantly pointed out, this would merely permit him to continue his old life in a new place.

“As long as we are asking one another difficult questions,” he said, “what do you think might ensure your happiness?”

Stretching her arms before her, she looked at the short puffs of her sleeves. “I lack the imagination for that too. I've no inkling what would ensure my happiness, as you put it, for the rest of my life. Nor even for a year.”

“What about for a day? Or even an hour?”

“An hour? I don't know. But a minute, maybe.” She traced the pits she'd dug in the table, then stretched out her hand to him. “Just for a minute, will you hold my hand?”

“A man would have to be a monster to refuse such a request.” His fingers laced with hers, warming them. She was right: she really was dreadfully cold. “Must I refrain from making improper comments?”

A smile touched her lips. “No. You may say whatever you like. It's only fair for you to be happy too.”

Ha. It would take more than a bit of hand holding to accomplish the feat.

Though for a minute, this was pleasant. Sitting at a table in the White Hart, with people eating and drinking and coming and going in a swirl of color and conversation. With the earthy scent of the coal fire, the savory remains of their dinners, a hint of sweet flowers at Augusta's throat, no more than a tantalizing trace. Joss had grown used to life at the edges of rooms, and he liked this comfortable space. With his hand in Augusta's, his blunt fingers around her slim ones…he liked it even more.

And he wanted it to last for far longer than a minute.

“You asked me what I wished for,” he said. “I wish for things that would make you gasp to learn of them, things that would make you blush should I speak them in your ear. Things that would make you look on me with pity, or maybe with surprise. Passionate things and everyday things and, most of all, quite simple things.”

Sometime while he spoke, her lashes had become wet. With his free hand, he pulled forth his handkerchief and skated the cotton square over her cheekbones. “Like the right to dry your tears. Or to hold your hand when it's cold.”

“My hands are always cold,” she said.

“Then I always want to hold them.”

He had thought it might be difficult to admit these things, but actually it was quite easy.

No, what was difficult was watching the expression on her face change. Second by second, it hardened; he could almost watch her donning her armor—hard and polished and bright on the surface. He had no idea what lay behind it. “That is impossible,” she said.

The silence that followed was practically alive: a thrashing, vermillion thing full of words barely swallowed.

“Of course it's impossible.” He managed to sound calm, logical. “For one thing, we should have the devil of a time changing our clothing. It was only a wish. It has nothing to do with what's real.”

Her amber eyes went liquid again. “No. It does not. But I can't—I can't.” Now she looked stricken, which was even worse than her armor.

Only now did she pull her hand free, and he stood, stumbling as her chair shoved back. Joss had no choice but to stand, too. He pulled a few coins from his coat pocket, leaving them on the table.

“Thank you for joining me for dinner.” The smile across his features fit smoothly—a perfect mockery of joy. “It was a most enlightening meal. Do let me walk you back to Queen Square, Mrs. Flowers.”

***

Though all the streets leading back to Queen Square were familiar, for the first time since arriving in Bath, Augusta felt she was venturing somewhere new.

The city's Assembly Rooms, beautiful though they were, held the same nervous young women and hopeful mothers as any London ballroom. The Queen Square garden had her walking in pointless circles through its well-tended order.

Then Joss's rooms startled her, made her feel raw and different. Next, the White Hart—so busy, so bustling, that there was room for everyone within its walls.

Never had she heard anything more seductive than when Joss said he always wanted to hold her hand.

Never could she remember being more afraid. She could not lose control again, and there was no one so likely to strip it from her as Joss Everett. And she would let him; she wanted to surrender so badly.

She must be very careful.

They walked in silence, and the sound of Joss's footsteps was almost lost in the afternoon bustle of the streets. Bath chairs being tugged through mud, children selling newspapers and buns and whatever fruits the wintry landscape could be coaxed to produce. A few men tipped their hats in greeting to Mrs. Flowers; Augusta smiled dimly, not sure whether she had spoken to them once or ten times.

She did not say anything herself, and she didn't expect Joss to do so either. Theirs was a distracted trudge, seemingly locked in silence until the moment they would part at Emily's door. The welcome moment, or the dreaded moment?

Only
the
question
matters
, Lord Chatfield would say.

Thus musing, she was surprised when Joss spoke up as they walked. “You said you thought you fit with no one anymore. But there is someone in your life who cares for you just as you are. A true friend.”

She stumbled sideways on the pavement, away from him. Swiftly, he caught her arm and set her aright. “Do not worry; I did not presume to refer to myself. I am speaking of Lady Tallant. She's a true friend to you, and she wants you to be happy. You are not alone.”

He was right—yet she felt lonelier than ever with him at her side. A distance drizzled between them, cold as mist falling.

A half step ahead of her, he made the final turn into Queen Square. She looked up at him; his profile was chiseled so sharply that he would have made a beautiful coin. He did not even glance at the manicured garden where they had recently passed a few cheerful minutes.

Feeling out of step, left behind, confused, she hurried after him. The long wool cloak caught around her ankles, flapping sodden and heavy. He seemed so sure-footed as he walked ahead.

At the steps to Emily's house, he bowed a farewell to her. “Be well, Mrs. Flowers.”

One of her hands reached from the folds of the cloak and caught his coat sleeve before he could turn. “Why did you kiss me when we were in the mews?”

His smile was harsh and wry. “Because it was unthinkable not to.”

“And now?” Breathless, her words were almost a gasp.

His gaze skated away, as though the sight of her pained him. “I am not a fool. It would be unthinkable to kiss you again.”

Yes. This was good sense, and so there was nothing to say but: “I see. Thank you for the dinner, and—and for accompanying me home.” Releasing his sleeve, she hurried up the steps. She had beat a quick tattoo with the door knocker before she recalled that no one in the house knew she had left.

When the door opened, she slipped inside before the butler could ask any questions. She permitted only one glance behind her before the door closed again.

And this was what she had seen: Joss Everett, his shoulders square and hands folded behind his back, watching her with a face of desolation. He looked like a man hungry for something who had just realized he would never be fed.

Her hands went icy again—which made her realize that, as she walked at his side, they had been warmed.

No, it would be unthinkable to kiss him again. And yet somehow, it was all she could think about.

This troubling issue still on her mind, Augusta rushed up the stairs to the drawing room. With more force than grace, she flung open the door.

“Emily, Joss Everett said he wants to hold my hand all the time. All the time!”

As soon as she looked about, she realized her mistake: it is a truth universally acknowledged that when one bursts into a room shouting an item of a personal nature, the room will be populated with more people than one expects.

Fortunately, only one person was present beside Emily. Seated side by side on the long velvet settee were the countess and a slightly older woman with scraped-back black hair and apple-round cheeks. Dressed in deep blue serge of a beautiful cut, this unknown person held a stack of pattern books on her lap.

The lamps had been lit against the dim of late afternoon. One sat on a side table, casting its bright circle onto the pages of the topmost book. Emily reached over to turn a page, revealing a drawing of a woman in evening dress. “I like this gown too, Madame. Only perhaps you could make it up with a red gauze rather than a pink.”

Then she looked up at Augusta with a most aggravatingly calm smile. “Augusta, may I present Madame Rougier, a delightful designer of gowns? Madame, this is my dear friend Miss—ah, Mrs. Flowers. She is playing a game we enjoy, in which we each state facts that are mildly interesting but also completely obvious. You have stated that Mr. Everett wants to hold your hand all the time. Let me see… Gravity holds people onto the earth. Day is brighter than night. My husband's favorite beverage is chocolate. Do you wish another turn, Mrs. Flowers?”

“You are incorrigible.” Augusta's attempted frown flipped into a grin as she and the dressmaker nodded their greetings.

“Another point for you,” Emily said. “Well, my wandering, wayward friend, do you care for tea? Madame and I have nearly finished our discussion, and we were about to ring for a tray. Or maybe you would prefer a cold dinner?”

“No need; I already dined.”

Emily lifted her brows. Without further comment, she closed the volume and turned to the older woman. “Madame, I find that I have grown ambivalent about the best color for the trim. Let us continue our discussion at another time.”

Clearly curious, the dressmaker made a valiant effort to remain. In a low, accented voice, she said, “Your young friend would perhaps like to examine the patterns before I take leave, no? She too is in need of the new gown?”

Augusta looked down at her clothing and realized she was still swaddled in the voluminous cloak. Untying its strings, she dropped it on the hearthrug. The apple-cheeked woman let out a squeak of distress. “No! You must always hang the wool cloak!”

Emily coughed delicately. “Madame, please call again tomorrow and we shall choose all the trim. For the moment, it seems my dear friend is in some sort of distress, so you see that I must aid her. Perhaps you'll take a bit of refreshment in the kitchen before you leave?”

The Frenchwoman looked crestfallen, but she dropped a perfect curtsy. “But of course, my lady.
Comme
vous
voulez.
”

“A footman will return your pattern books later,” Emily said. “Thank you so much for calling on me.”

When the door had closed behind the older woman, Augusta and Emily turned to each other. “What was that about?” they both said at once.

Augusta was less polite—or more jittery. She blurted out first, “You're having new gowns made?”

Emily shrugged. “What else is there to do? I must spend my time somehow.”

“But your health—”

“One can only drink so much sulfur water. And by ‘so much,' I mean ‘I never want to do it again.' A bath is pleasant, but it takes only an hour. And most of the callers come for Mrs. Flowers. If she is not at home, they simply trickle away.”

In a froth of canary-bright silk, with a gold chain about her neck and rings on her slim fingers, Emily looked the picture of luxury. Yet never had she made Augusta feel vulgar or
less
than
. Even now, her mobile mouth was curved in a smile. “This is your doing, dear friend. You inspired me to summon someone to create a new gown for me. You threw my
Lady's Magazine
on the floor, and when I saw it, I thought,
Yes that would do to fill a day or two
. So I sent for the dressmaker everyone wants at the moment.
Madame
is far too busy, yet I kept her here for nearly two hours. Now she shall be even busier, and she shall waste more of my time as she fusses about with interminable fittings and mixes up the orders and runs short of trim with one sleeve left to ornament.”

“She will waste your money too.”

“Ah, Jemmy told me not to worry about that,” Emily said, referring to her good-natured husband. “It's the waste of time that really interests me.”

“Having gowns made seems a very…London sort of thing to do,” Augusta replied cautiously. This was intended as a coded message:
Are
you
feeling
better? Would you like to go home?

Emily understood every social code. “If one cannot be in London itself, one must recapture bits of it.”
Not
yet. But I'm trying to make a good show in the meantime.

Augusta dropped her into the seat abandoned by Madame Rougier. “How and why must one recapture bits of London?”

“Because days must be filled, though they seem so long. In Bath, at least, I can toss away time arranging a new household. To decide how best to keep the housekeeper from fighting with the cook, and keep the lady's maid from flirting with the footmen. There is no Jemmy to be far too indulgent with the servants or the children or…me.”

The countess's eyes were the clear blue green of the ocean; as she blinked, they shone with tears. Yet her voice held steady as she added, “I am grateful that you're here with me. As two guests, really. If I hadn't the entertainment of sorting out Miss Meredith and Mrs. Flowers, I should fall into a decline.”

“Thank heavens for my deceitful tendencies, then, for red gauze would never do if you fell into a decline. You should have to have your new gowns tossed out.”

She tried to match Emily's light tone, though she understood what her friend did not say and perhaps did not even realize. The countess's distractions, careless though they might seem, ended in helping others. Her blithe cheer made a pleasant household for servants and guests or a pleasant encounter in the Pump Room with their new acquaintances. So easily, she could have tumbled into a deep pit of grief and dwelled on her loss. Instead, she distracted herself through the daylight hours. One never knew when a happy moment would flutter by on vivid wings, hoping to be captured.

The night was more difficult, of course. Augusta knew how endless a night could seem, how a loss could make the world seem dark. But grief paled over time. What was black went gray instead.

And then there were those precious bright moments, so sunlit-sharp that Augusta shied from them even as she craved them. Like a kiss so sweet she could not bear its taste, so hot she felt burned by the thought of it. A dinner invitation, a clasp of hands, a good-bye that had not quite felt like a good-bye.

“I am glad,” she said at last to Emily, “that you summoned a dressmaker. You shall look lovely in her creations.”

“Another point for you,” Emily said. “Is it my turn to say something obvious, then? What about, “You have something to tell me'?”

As Augusta laughed, the countess added, “Do you really think you can rampage through my drawing room, shouting about holding hands with an unwed gentleman, and not expect me to be the
least
bit curious?” She shifted a small tasseled cushion and settled against it. “Tell me all about it.”

So Augusta did—about her weariness with Mrs. Flowers, and the walk to Joss's house. She did not mention his
dishabille
, though her cheeks went red. Maybe even…warm.

“And then he invited me to dine with him,” she added, “and we went to the White Hart. And I gave away my gloves to the barmaid. And he told me that one of his grandparents was Indian.” She realized she was blurting and drew in a deep breath. “None of those facts are related. I think. And I
don't
think he wanted to tell me about his grandmother's birth.”

“Why ever not?”

“Maybe just because it's something personal.” Her brows knit. “I pointed out that the prime minister is part Indian, and then he became huffy and said that the prime minister could wear a dress and bonnet if he wished.”

“I will do you both the kindness of assuming you have left out large parts of that conversation,” Emily said. “You are quite right about the prime minister's birth. Perhaps your Mr. Everett thinks the same rules do not apply to him as to Lord Liverpool, but I rather think having Indian birth shows that his family is adventurous and well traveled.
And
that they love and marry whomever they wish.”

Augusta blinked at Emily. “Maybe. Yes.”

“And surely he wouldn't have told you if he didn't want you to know. Which he does, because he said he wanted to hold your hand all the time, or something to that effect,” Emily concluded. “Good heavens. While I frittered away the afternoon, you were busy indeed.”

They fell silent then, a pondering sort of quiet. Augusta's mind whirled like a spinning wheel, strands of thought knitting frantically together, then twisting into a new form.

He hadn't seemed to want her to know. But was it that fact in particular, or was it a reluctance to tell her anything personal? He didn't reveal much about his cousin Sutcliffe either.

And if he didn't want to tell her anything about himself—why was that? She had meant to listen at dinner, not to talk, yet somehow she had been the one revealing too much again.

She knew quite well that she and Joss didn't belong at the same table. He was the grandson of a baron and baroness; Augusta's grandparents had been grooms and scullery maids before they worked their way into upper service. Her father had worked at the Portsmouth docks as a youth. One day, he had developed a lotion to soothe the chapped, rope-burned hands of sailors. When it caught on at a few pennies a pot, his young wife had convinced him to add floral oils and present it to local apothecaries as a cream for young ladies.

Thus had begun Meredith Beauty more than thirty years ago: a large idea ladled into small jars in a small flat in a large building. Her parents had told her once they could see the dockyard's Victory Gate from their window, flanked by golden spheres. Queen Anne had once passed beneath its lacy iron span. In one direction, it was a gateway to the Channel, in the other, to a different sort of life.

So she had heard. She had never been to Portsmouth. And in the end, her parents had never returned from their final journey there.

Dimly, she noticed Emily drop the cushion tassel she had been twisting. “Now
why
would he permit you to know all about his family background? That, my dear, is an interesting question.”

It was a mark of how far into her mind Joss had insinuated himself that when Emily said
my
dear,
the words
fake
widow
seemed to be missing from the phrase's tail. For a moment, she had to blink her way back from a journey to the coast, from a dinner at the White Hart. “I think,” she said slowly, reasoning it out, “he felt he owed me a secret. Since he has been keeping mine.”

“That makes
perfect
sense.” Emily clapped her hands together. “And that also explains the bit about how he wants to hold your hand until the end of time, or whatever it was you said he said.”

“It does?”

In one fluid movement, Emily pulled free the small cushion from behind her back and smacked Augusta with it. “
No
. Of
course
it does not explain that. No, he was either drunk or sincere. How much ale did he have at dinner?”

“Only one tankard.” Augusta rubbed at her upper arm. “Ouch, Emily. Have a care with the cushions. And my arm.”

Ignoring this admonition, the countess folded herself onto the settee. “Only. One. Tankard.” She spoke the words with crisp enjoyment, as though taking bites of a cucumber sandwich. “That is very, very interesting.”

“To me, it is—confusing.” Augusta wasn't sure that was the right word, but it was as right as any she could think of. “Other than that moment, he seems to want to keep me at a distance.” Just as she did to him. “And he does not like Mrs. Flowers.”

“The heretic!”

“But I'm not sure I like Mrs. Flowers either.”

Emily frowned. “Is this one of those moments where I am meant to disagree and convince you otherwise? Or would you prefer I concentrate on abusing Mr. Everett?”

“No. Neither.” She reached for the cushion that had smacked her arm. Silk cloth embroidered with silk thread. Costly. “I think I was rather horrid to him.”

She thought so, but she wasn't sure. What would seem horrid to a man who gave no compliments, who had no tolerance for foolishness—unless it came from his employer. And oh, that damnable smile that made her want to kiss him and flee him at once. He was as astringent and bracing as over-brewed tea. “He doesn't know me as well as he thinks he does.”

“And whose fault is that?” Sometimes Augusta forgot that Emily was the mother of two young sons. Not so at the moment, when the countess's gimlet stare speared her.

Rubbing at the sleek cushion, Augusta let the silk run soft under her fingertips. Smooth as the old wood of the White Hart's tables. She had stabbed that table; why not leave her mark here too? She found a seam and worked her nails into it until a stitch split.

“It's my fault,” she said at last. “But I don't want him to know me.
I
don't know me.”
Pop.
Another stitch gave way. “Not since my parents died.”