Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (16 page)

The gimlet stare turned to sympathy. “Ah. So this Mrs. Flowers you are saddled with—she's meant to help you find Augusta again?”

“She was meant to free me from everything dark. But she keeps me from everything real.”

“She's like a meringue,” Emily decided. “When you, my dear, are like a lovely plum pudding. All colors and sharp flavors, and full of intoxicating spirits.”

This dragged a smile to Augusta's face, and Emily added, “I rather think Mr. Everett likes the plum-pudding Augusta, not the meringue woman. Don't you?”

“Your analogy is imperfect, for I am never sweet around him,” she admitted. “I feel too…unsettled.”

“Bath is a good place to be unsettled. I hope it is a good place to become settled too.”

Shadows below Emily's eyes betrayed her fatigue. “You haven't been eating your beef, have you?” Augusta pressed. “You are not yourself yet.”

“If I eat any more beef, I shall turn into a cow and trample you,” said Emily with some crispness. After a moment, she relented. “I am not myself, no. I feel like only part of myself.”

Augusta pressed her friend's fingers. Emily's hand was even colder than hers. Perhaps few outside of Lady Tallant's family knew what had happened. After the birth of an heir and a spare within a few years of their marriage, she and the earl had not been graced with further offspring. Until a few months ago, when Emily had at last fallen pregnant again.

Friendly with the countess since the previous season, Augusta had begun the habit of calling on her several times each week. Along with tea and biscuits, callers to Tallant House imbibed Emily's friendship, so hearty and pure was it. Joss had been right: in Emily's drawing room, Augusta had felt like herself again for the first time since that week in 1815 when her parents had died and Colin had dropped her like a shameful secret.

One January day, as Emily poured out tea for Augusta, something had gone wrong with the baby.

Augusta had called for the earl, had supported her friend's shoulders and prayed over her rounded belly. A physician had arrived too, but nothing worked. A few dreadful hours later, that was that.

“Looks like you'd have had a girl, my lady,” the physician commented. “Nothing to get that upset about. Not with two fine healthy boys in the family.”

White-faced under his tan, Lord Tallant marched the man out of the house. Augusta watched as Emily, fragile in a large bed, turned her face away.

A few weeks later, once Emily was strong enough to travel, they left for Bath. And this was why they had arrived together: for both of them, life had changed terribly in one day. There was no need to pretend it was not terrible.

Yet Emily found shining moments—ordering a household, planning a wardrobe. Arranging her friends' romantic lives. She created peace and distraction for herself through control.

Something Augusta's life had lacked for quite some time.

I
really
must
find
a
lover.

Her plan had nothing to do with sex or love; everything to do with mastery. There was no banishing grief without it, or the shame of being unwanted.

As Joss tugged away her control, with what could she replace it? Their conversation had become intimate, and she could not help but think of their bodies becoming so. Already she had felt his kiss, had seen his cravat undone, had followed the line of his throat down to the dusting of dark hair on his chest. A hint of his masculine strength, unadorned by fashion and frippery.

The idea of an anonymous lover had lost its forbidden charm. No, what she needed was control.

And if she could not control herself around Joss…then maybe she should try to control Joss around herself. It would not be easy, but surely it would not be impossible. Not if he would give her such plain truths on only one tankard of ale.

Not even one, really. She had drunk some of his. She should have drunk far more.

Augusta pressed at her temple, where a tight hairpin had set up a dreadful ache. “Shall I ring for tea, Emily? Or something a bit stronger?”

Ocean-blue eyes met hers, far too knowing. “We could both use something stronger, could we not? Quite a bit stronger.”

Once he had seen Augusta hide herself away in Lady Tallant's house, Joss walked the few steps to Sutcliffe's house. The crowd on the Queen Street pavement unrolled like a dropped bolt of cloth, colorful and sleek as it bounced out of Joss's path. He cut through it, plain and sharp as a pair of scissors.

No one caught his eye. Good.

Joss had never before had the experience of telling a woman he wanted so much from her, only to have his words armor-plated and booted back at him. But he couldn't fault her. They didn't belong at the same dinner table; she was an heiress, and he nothing but a glorified servant.

A footman answered Joss's knock, wig askew and livery streaked with dust. “Mr. Everett!” The footman bowed. “Thank God you're here, sir. He's gone up in the attics, sir, and he won't come down.”

Perhaps
glorified
servant
had stated his role in too grandiose a form. There was nothing particularly glorified about hunting for Sutcliffe like a child playing Sardines.

Joss summoned the proper expression of indulgent patience. “In the attics, you say. All right. And where is the butler?” It was not typical, even in the bizarre netherworld of Sutcliffe's presence, for a disheveled footman to answer the door in the butler's place.

“Stuck under a wardrobe in the attics, but the other footmen will soon have him free. His lordship had us crawling under ever so much cast-off furniture.”

Joss accepted this without further comment. “Has his lordship eaten anything today?”

The footman struggled with his wig, trying to set its crushed mass straight. “I can't say, sir. I know he threw a teapot out into the street, but he didn't mean to. He was trying to toss it up into a chimney pot.”

How
the
devil
did
he
think
he
was
going
to
do
that?
would, of course, have been a logical question.
Why?
would be another.

There was no sense in attempting sense, though. “It sounds as though he is in good spirits, then. I hope it did not strike anyone as it fell,” was all Joss said.

“No, sir.”

“Very good. Have the housekeeper keep an accounting of anything else his lordship damages.”

“Yes, sir.” The footman bowed. “Thank you, sir.”

“Take a few minutes to recover yourself,” Joss said. “Then come find me if you need more hands to free the butler. Until then, I shall endeavor to find the baron.”

“Thank you, sir.” The footman looked almost pathetically grateful. “We shall soon have him free, I think. Thank you. I—I wish you luck with the baron, sir.”

As the footman fled, Joss began the long climb up to the attics. Sutcliffe would probably lose his butler for this. He paid his servants good wages, but there was really no wage good enough to compensate for being wedged beneath a piece of furniture.

“Sutcliffe?” he called as he climbed.

“Everett? In here! Do come see; it is
so
amusing!”

As Joss stood on an upper landing, he tipped his head to locate the source of the voice. It came not from upstairs in the attics, but from below. The second floor. Pounding down the stairs again, he marched through the corridor, flinging open the doors to several bedchambers before he found the correct one.

Pale, rich fabrics and a soft carpet stretched before him. Several candles had been lit, along with a good fire. The baron, resplendent in a coat of—good God, of periwinkle satin and blond lace—had wadded up the room's velvet draperies and crouched in a window seat, peering through a brass spyglass about the length of his arm.

“Everett, look. I can see all the way to the windows across the square. If they would open the drapes, I could see in!”

“You,” Joss said calmly, “have caused a great deal of worry. What's all this business about trapping servants in the attics?”

“What?” Sutcliffe lowered the spyglass, blinking dimly at Joss. “Nonsense. I haven't been in the attics for fifteen minutes at least. Why are the servants still up there?”

Joss ignored the question and posed one of his own. “Was there a particular reason you were throwing a teapot? I am merely curious.”

The baron brightened, dragging a hand through his fair hair. “As a matter of fact, there was! With a bit of practice, I'm sure I could heave something from an attic window into a chimney pot. Just the sort of unlikely thing I could wager on, you see? I'm sure I could get someone to bet twenty pounds I couldn't do it. No, fifty! Even amid such a bunch of dull sticks as these Bath-ites.”

“Bathonians,” Joss murmured. “And you would lose the wager, as your thrown items were falling into the street.”

“I'll try again later. I ran out of things to throw.” Unconcerned, Sutcliffe returned his gaze to the window. “I saw you through my spyglass. You were walking with that woman, Miss Meredith. She was wearing a very ugly cloak, but I recognized her red hair. Bits of it were sticking out from under the hood of her cloak.”

“Miss…who?” Joss's heart gave a startled thud. He had been sure Sutcliffe wouldn't recall meeting Augusta, but the baron's hummingbird of a mind sometimes veered aright.

“Oh, wait—you said she got married. No. You said she was a widow. Right?” The baron shook his rumpled head. “She doesn't
look
like a widow.”

“What ought a widow to look like?” Joss tiptoed carefully over the words.

“Oh, all swathed in black and crying.” He hoisted the spyglass again, leaning so far forward that its lens clicked against the window glass. “She did rather look like she wanted to cry.
Did
she cry?”

She had, just a little, at the White Hart. “No,” Joss said in a decisive voice. “You must have been mistaken.”

With a sigh of disgust, Sutcliffe set down the spyglass on the window seat. “I can't see
anything
with this. I need a real telescope.” He pulled forth his pouch, shaking out the familiar dry blades and popping them into his mouth. As he chewed, inspiration seemed to seize him, for he hopped to his feet and strode across the room. “Everett, help me push this wardrobe to the window so I can climb atop it.”

“What will that achieve?”

Sutcliffe gave Joss a pitying look. “Because I will be up
higher
. Now, boost my foot.”

“As the wardrobe is not yet by the window, no purpose would be served in your climbing atop it.” As Sutcliffe's shiny boots scrabbled for purchase on the side of the tall wooden wardrobe, Joss poked cautiously at the subject of Augusta. “I didn't think you had recognized Mrs. Flowers.”

“Yes, I did. I mean, I thought I—
oof
—did.” The baron stumbled back, having failed to find a way atop the wardrobe on his own. “She was pretty. I mean, she is pretty. But she was pretty when I first met her. I needed a while to remember where that was. I must have danced with her last season. She dressed like a strumpet.”

“I didn't think that sort of thing usually bothered you.”

Sutcliffe considered. “You know, it really doesn't. Do you think she'd like a shilling?”

“If by shilling you mean ‘twelve pence,' then she probably would. If by shilling you mean ‘attention from some nude part of your body,' then no.”

Sutcliffe laughed as he returned to the window seat, plumping onto it. “Damnation, Everett. I wouldn't call that anything less than a guinea.”

“I apologize for underestimating you,” Joss said drily. “As a matter of fact, though, I am not here to help you spy on the neighbors or discuss your acquaintance with the lady next door.”

“There must be a window that looks into their house!” The baron picked up the spyglass with such eagerness that it spun in his fingers.

“There is not. The houses are in a row.”

“I could drill a hole through the wall.”

“Why do you want to see in the other houses so badly? Are you trying to observe normal human behavior?”

“What? No. Don't be ridiculous.”
Toss.
The spyglass traced a neat circle in the air, then was caught again. “I just want to see someone undressing. A woman, I mean.”

Joss pressed at his temples, wondering why he had not drunk more ale when he had the chance. “For God's sake, then, summon your wife to Bath.”

“Why?”

Joss could not say
So
you
can
pull
off
her
clothes
and
cease
your
spying
on
the
neighbors
in reference to a gently bred woman, especially one as put-upon as Lady Sutcliffe. “I thought you might be missing her,” he said instead.

The spyglass pointed at Joss. “I need a drink. What do you say?”

“God, yes,” Joss said, even though he knew what would arrive on a tray: nothing but a pot of boiling water in which Sutcliffe would steep his
somalata.
“By the bye, the reason I called is to share good news. I met with a man who believes he can locate your blackmailer.”

“Oh. Good. Thank you much, Everett. Knew you'd take care of it.” He collapsed and reopened the spyglass, lace cuffs bright in the candlelit room, then rang for a servant.

The following minutes proved Joss perfectly correct: Sutcliffe ordered water and a tea service for one.
What
do
you
say
had, as Joss suspected, meant
I
require
confirmation
of
my
idea
rather than
Please
join
me
in
enjoying
a
beverage.

As soon as the footman had vanished on this errand, Joss spoke up again. “Is anyone using this bedchamber?”

Sutcliffe frowned. “Of course. I am. It's my spying room.”

The so-called “spying room” was larger than Joss's Trim Street lodging. Besides the soft carpet underfoot and the velvet drapes that Sutcliffe had wadded up, there was a large bed with a mahogany frame, the great wardrobe that had proved impossible to climb, and a vanity with a glass. Uncracked, of course. The room smelled slightly musty, as though the linens hadn't been aired for a while, but it certainly did not smell of damp. And it did not appear to leak at the ceiling.

“Your spying room,” Joss repeated. “And what of the other bedchambers on this floor?”

“What about them?”

“Are they occupied? Is there a reason I cannot lodge in one of them?”

Sutcliffe stared at him. “Why would you want to do that?”

Teeth gritted, Joss replied, “Because it would be convenient for us both. Because it would save me money. And damnation, Sutcliffe, because I am your cousin.”

“Second cousin, I think. Ah, here's the tray!” Attention entirely diverted by the arrival of the teapot, the baron sat at the vanity and dumped bits of his beloved grass into every dish. Joss took his cousin's place at the window seat. Thus seated, the weight on his mind seemed just as heavy, but at least his feet were no longer tired.

In the past, he would have dropped the question, attributing Sutcliffe's selfishness to the same cause that made it impossible to fault him for long: ruled by whims like a child, he simply didn't
mean
anything by the problems he caused. But if not, that raised a new question. “Do you actually need me in your employment?”

The baron sipped at his favorite beverage, an expression of great relief passing over his thin features. “Of course I do. You answer my letters. Who would answer my letters if you didn't?”

From his seat at the window, Joss turned his head to look through the glass. The view was so different here from his attic window in Trim Street—wide pavement, Bath chairs pulled to and fro, and the neatly ordered garden beyond a still neater wall. “Many men would be capable of such a task. Including you.”

Sutcliffe laughed. “Everett, you do enjoy your jokes. Look here, do you want some of my tea?”

Joss recognized this as an expansive offer. “No, though I thank you.” He cleared his throat. “To return to the reason for our presence in Bath: are you interested in the cost of finding your blackmailer? I cannot promise that will put a stop to the demands for money, though of course once the person is known, further action can be decided on.”

“What do you mean, the cost? You said you would take care of the matter.”

Joss turned to look at the baron, who blinked at him with great puzzlement over the rim of his china cup. Joss could blame him no more than he could blame the baron's young son
Toddy
. He simply did not understand consequences.

This was the fault of the whole family. Sutcliffe had been inclined to asthma as a boy, and the health of the precious only son and heir to the Sutcliffe barony had to be safeguarded. Kitty Everett had inherited her Indian mother's fondness for plants and, at the boy's father's request, had prepared a tincture of
somalata
that cured the worst and most frightening of the boy's symptoms.

Sutcliffe had long since outgrown his asthma, but never his fondness for the drug's stimulating effects. Joss had tried in small ways to break his cousin's increasing reliance on it, but Sutcliffe could no more entertain the idea of abandoning this addiction than the others that ruled him.

Thus the fate of poor Jessie the maid. Though Sutcliffe might not mean harm, he caused it all the same.

Respectable
employment
for
a
reasonable
employer
. This was his dream, or so he had told Augusta. She had faulted him for restricting his life to a small circle—but right now, such a wish seemed as distant a prospect as India itself.