Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (21 page)

There was something unfeeling, though, about Chatfield's clockwork determination to see a scheme to fruition. What if Lady Sutcliffe should not wish to be observed as she met her husband? Any public outburst would end in someone's humiliation.

But Joss would be at the baroness's side, Augusta recalled; though he planned to leave Sutcliffe's service, he would not shirk his duty to his employer. His family. “You have my congratulations,” she said to the marquess. “We have just spoken with Mr. Everett and have learned that he will soon take up employment with you.”

Chatfield leaned forward to meet her eye around Emily's form. “Have you indeed learned that? How interesting.”

“In what way?” Emily leaned forward too, not wanting to be overlooked.

“I offered him a position. He turned it down.”

Emily shot a quick sidelong glance at Augusta. “Ah, indeed? We must have misunderstood.”

Had they? What had Joss said to them?
Lord
Chatfield
has
offered
me
employment
. He had not said he accepted it, though. Oh, the canny man.

It seemed Joss was done with her; he had unburdened himself last night and did not wish to pick up the weight of her company again. Better that she had not said yes, better that she knew nothing of where he went next.

So he said. But she disagreed.

She turned her head, looking down the row of chairs at Emily's serene elegance, at Chatfield's bated eagerness. They represented England's elite; they were wealthy and influential. Yet even so, they had suffered. A scion of the nobility could lose a leg; a countess could lose a child.

An heiress could lose her parents, then a false suitor too.

No one had a perfect life. Everyone lied sometimes, even if only when they said
I'm quite well, thank you
. Augusta had been selfish, so selfish, to act as though her pain was worse. As though she had no hope of recovery. To convince herself that, because she had not been loved once, she could not be loved, and so words of love ought never to be trusted again.

You
are
worthy,
Joss had told her.
Just
as
you
are.

And this was the other direction in which life could slope. A man could be knit together in trickery and scandal, yet become steadfast and honorable.

And wickedly, beautifully honest.

“You asked,” she murmured to Emily through a tight closed throat, “who I want to be. I know who I do
not
want to be. I do not want to be afraid anymore.”

She hated being afraid. Of pursuing not out of want, but out of the fear of what chased her. Seeking a lover to evict Colin Hawford. But that would never happen unless she let someone into her heart more deeply than Colin had ever delved. Deeply enough to touch the bedrock of love on which she'd built her life: her family, lost but always remembered.

“Not wanting to be afraid is a good start,” Emily replied, equally low. “Being Augusta, whether afraid or not, would be an excellent next step.”

As though the entire Pump Room had overheard Emily's advice, a piping voice rang out. “Lady Tallant—what a pleasure. Ah, and Augusta Meredith. I thought I recognized you!”

Toward the chairs walked Little Bo Peep: a golden-curled, doll-like woman garbed in icy, elaborate pastel silks.

This was not, of course, a figure from a nursery rhyme. It was Lady Sutcliffe, a very real figure who had, apparently, a better recall for names than her husband. “My lady,” Augusta said weakly. “I am now known as—”

“As the greatest tease in London?” The baroness trilled, a brittle smile on her lips. “Ah, my dear girl, not so anymore. For you see, Lord Sutcliffe has surpassed you. He has been to Town and teased all his creditors by appearing in new waistcoats.”

Lord Chatfield murmured, “Conflagration.”

Never before had Augusta heard the phrase “my dear” uttered by someone who seemed to mean it less. Despite the beauty of her clothing and her elaborate butter-gold coiffure, her features wore a pinched, hunted look. The laugh that issued from her lips was like dropped glass, shattering and sharp.

As though they were spectators before a stage, new players joined the scene. Joss reappeared, dragging Lord Sutcliffe by an elbow. “But I forgot my spyglass!” bleated the baron. “I can't be without it.” His eyes went wide. “My pouch! Where's my pouch?” He slapped at his violet brocade coat. An expression of relief crossed his face as he apparently found what he sought.

“My lord.” Lady Sutcliffe gave her husband the tiniest of curtsies.

“Lady Sutcliffe?” Sutcliffe stared at her until Joss nudged him. “Oh. Ah—greetings to you, my darling wife. I say, can a man get a pot of ordinary hot water in this room, or do they have only that terrible stuff that smells of dirty feet?”

The baroness's small frame went so stiff that it practically vibrated with tension. “Is this all I am to expect by way of greeting? You summoned me to Bath. I thought you must have something of import to communicate.”

“What?” Sutcliffe blinked.

She stamped her foot. “Sutcliffe,
do
pay attention.”

“What?” he said again, then seemed to notice his surroundings. “Yes, quite right—something of import. Look, Everett, there's that widow I saw you with last night!”

The surrounding people seemed not to know whether to gasp or not. Augusta tried to smile, but a sick, slapped feeling raced over her skin. At her side, Emily went carefully still.

Joss leaned toward Sutcliffe and whispered something in his ear. “No.” The baron shook his head. “I'm not mistaken. Look, she's right there. Don't you recognize her? The redhead. Miss Meredith. Oh, no, I forgot—she's not called that anymore.”

Lady Sutcliffe tilted her head. “Yes, she is. What sort of rot are you talking, Sutcliffe? She was in the gossip columns in London not a month ago for being a madcap flirt.”

It was as though everyone in Bath who had met Mrs. Flowers overheard this exchange, their heads turning like chickens sighting a farmer bringing corn. Suddenly everyone in the Pump Room was drifting in the direction of the Sutcliffes, of the three figures in chairs before them.

And then the clamor started.

Emily said something polite and soothing, Joss tried again to silence the baron, and Lady Sutcliffe insisted more loudly that she knew of what she was talking and that her husband had got things wrong again. “I'm not talking rot!” Sutcliffe shouted, and then he called for his spyglass—what spyglass?—and over all, the master of ceremonies could be heard to call, “What's all this, then?” A servant hawked mineral waters, a crush of people pressed closer, and the words
flirt—widow—lied—true?—impossible
mixed into a cacophony, layer upon layer of sound beating at Augusta's ears until she felt she must crumple.

Everyone lied sometimes. But not everyone lied as much as Augusta had, and now she was found out. She had just said she didn't want to be afraid anymore—but wanting wasn't the same as having, and the weight of crashing public opinion pressed the breath from her lungs.

“I must go,” she said to Emily. “I think I am ill.”

Coward.
Yes, she was. But so many eyes blinked, so many people knew her for a fraud, a nothing, a fake. And in the midst of them all was Joss, watching her come undone.

It was for the best they had nothing more to do with one another. He had said so.

She staggered to her feet, the curious crowd pressing back, all a-whisper as though she were some spectacle in a carnival. “I must go,” she said again.

As she took a step, her foot hit the tray of mineral water glasses, sending them crashing and spilling. She slid in the puddle, then stumbled over her long skirts and lost her balance. If she hadn't been clutching the papers from Joss so tightly, she might have arrested her fall before she struck her head on the floor and all went dark.

Augusta blinked into hazy darkness broken by blobs of light. When she squinted, the lights resolved themselves into the flames of a fire and a lamp. Glancing around the room, she recognized the dark trellised wallpaper as belonging to her Queen Square bedchamber.

She lay in the bed with the coverlet pulled up to her chin; she was perspiring; her head ached. Trailing light fingers over the painful spot, she located a knot on her forehead that felt as large as a duck egg.

“What in God's name happened to me?” she murmured, tossing back the covers.

“You slipped on spilled mineral water.”

Augusta started at the sound of Emily's voice. She sat up and saw the countess reclining on the bedchamber's short settee near the fireplace, a book in her hands.

“What time is it?”

“Five o'clock in the morning on the fifth day of April. You've been unconscious for weeks.”

“Impossible.” Augusta glared at Emily. “Ouch. Glaring at you pulls at my bruise.”

Emily laughed, then shut her book. “All right, only teasing. Your fall looked rather horrible, but you weren't unconscious long. It's just after noon.”

Augusta thought back. “The Sutcliffes were shouting. No—everyone was shouting.”
Flirt—widow—liar.
“All of Bath was shouting.”

“Close to it,” Emily said blandly. “Here, have some water.” The countess poured out a glassful from a pitcher, then tugged back the drapes to let daylight into the chamber. “I have never been convinced of the health benefits of Bath's mineral waters, and today they nearly broke open your head. The positive side is that now you are an invalid and you may be as demanding as you like.”

“Oh? Are you going to cater to my every whim?” Sips of water—
not
mineral water—were pleasant on her parched throat before she set the glass aside again.

“Perhaps not I. But I'm sure I can find someone who will.” Emily sat on the bed. “I could hardly tug the papers from your hand even after you hit your head.”

“Where are they now?”

“I tucked them in my book.” Emily waved a hand in the direction of the settee. “Were they worth breaking your head over?”

“As they effected my removal from a shouting mob, I should say so. How did I get back here?”

“With the combined efforts of Mr. Everett, a few footmen, and a Bath chair. Lord and Lady Sutcliffe were beginning to brew a grand row, though they managed to bottle it and follow our progress to Queen Square.” Rising, Emily retrieved the volume from the settee, then returned to press it into Augusta's hands. “Mr. Everett has rejoined them, and I cannot imagine how he intends to make peace between them. But that will not be his concern for much longer.”

“No, I suppose it won't.” Augusta traced the tooling on the small book's binding. “You were attempting to read William Blake again?”

“Attempting it, yes. I was able to read all of ‘Infant Joy' today without even throwing the book into the fire.”

“‘What shall I call thee?'” Augusta said. “‘Sweet joy befall thee.'” The poem that had sent Emily into tears not so long ago. The evening of the assembly, when Augusta had encountered Joss Everett and he had peeled away the first of her secrets.

It seemed ages ago.

“‘What shall I call thee' reminds me of something I meant to tell you.” Emily sank onto the edge of the bed again. “Augusta, I admit that I was angry with you earlier. Not because you expected me to let you pose as Mrs. Flowers—though you
are
fortunate that I'm up for such a lark.”

“A lark that is certainly done with now,” Augusta said drily. “It is for the best, though I expect the aftermath will be dreadful for a while. I thank you for giving me room to recover my wits, and I only hope the scandal does not affect you much. But what angered you, Emily?”

Emily looked at the cover of the small book in Augusta's hands. “Because you persist in thinking of yourself as weak and wounded, and you have thrown away much good as a result. You've had much to grieve, there is no question. Were you a man, you might have coped by destroying your health and fortune with drink and gambling and whores. All things considered, dear Augusta, I think you must give yourself credit for being quite strong. Quite strong indeed.”

This was so unexpected, so unlikely, that Augusta had to laugh.

“Ah, you are trying to ignore what I'm saying. But I'm serious. You must choose for yourself in the present, not to chase away the past. Because making decisions to chase away the past…”

“It stays,” Augusta sighed. “It stays and stays, every time I try again to forget it.”

“That is why I read ‘Infant Joy' again,” Emily agreed. “Only think of this: you have a chance at love, Augusta, yet you keep yourself hidden away from it.”

“And you,” Augusta could not help but reply. “What of you?”

“
Touché, ma chère.
You are quite right; I have been hiding too. But I wrote to Lord Tallant this morning, asking him and our sons to join me in Bath for a few days. And then, I think, we will all return to London together.”

“You are ready for that?”

“Yes, I believe so. I'm not done grieving. But I'm done grieving alone.”

Emily was good, so good, at capturing shining moments.

Oh, this was not such a moment, not with Augusta's head aching, a scandal prowling the streets of Bath, and a poem that would forever remind Emily of the daughter she had lost. Yet as the women sat together, quiet and still, Augusta thought there was something solid in the moment. It was, as she'd said of the White Hart,
true.

She was ready for truth.

Emily patted Augusta's arm, then stood. “And now, the former Mrs. Flowers, I shall leave you and your precious papers. Do you think you could see another caller in a little while? Say, a handsome bachelor caller?”

Augusta dropped the book.

“Very good. I'll have him summoned.” Emily smiled, then left Augusta alone.

The folded papers had slid from the book when she dropped it, falling in a sheaf to the coverlet. Joss's handwriting, careful and elegant. He had left her with this, intending it to be a final gift, a good-bye.

But the closely written pages gave her an idea instead. And when he called later, she would have much to tell him.

***

“Into the drawing room,” Joss said when he and the baron and baroness entered Sutcliffe's rented house. “Both of you. Upstairs. No, Sutcliffe, you will not need your spyglass.”

The past two hours had contained a series of unrealities. Giving papers to Augusta—papers written from his family and his heart—as he intended never to see her again. Watching Lady Sutcliffe's foray into the Pump Room in full battle regalia of watered silk. The public fight that threatened to spill forth when she saw her husband—and the secrets that had been spilled instead.

When Augusta slid and fell—
God,
watching her slam to the floor had made his heart hurt—Joss had helped Lady Tallant see to her safety and transport back to Queen Square. And then he marched the Sutcliffes from the gawking crowd in the Pump Room.

As he had passed by the seated Lord Chatfield, the marquess caught his arm. “Conflagration” was what it sounded like the man said; Joss shook his head in confusion. More loudly, the marquess said, “Once you've seen to the present needs, let me know how you shall pay me. My offer of employment stands.”

Joss hardly knew what he had said by way of reply, so desperate was he to follow the Bath chair that carried away Augusta's still figure.

He was certain, though: he could not carry out this sort of work for the marquess. He could not bear to earn his bread by searching for clues to people's undoing. Watching the undoing of one family—this family—was too much already.

Once Lord and Lady Sutcliffe had drifted into the drawing room, tension vibrating as though a spring ran between them, Joss arranged each spouse in a slipper chair before the drawing-room fireplace. Then he faced them both, and, drawing a deep breath, prepared for painful truths. “Lady Sutcliffe, your husband has been receiving blackmail letters. You have been sending them, have you not?”

The diminutive baroness sat up straight, her feet hardly brushing the floor. “Yes. I have.”

Sutcliffe sprang to his feet. “Impossible! A maid delivered one only yesterday, and she was much too tall to be you. I know, because I gave her a shilling.”

Given the time, place, and subject of the conversation, this was not a wise confession. The baroness's pale skin went the color of chalk. “Shillings for maids,” she spat. “How generous, especially considering all your money is really mine. But it doesn't stop with coins, does it? No, then you begin your magic tricks. Flirtations. Seduction. Or was it rape?”

Gingerly, Sutcliffe perched again at the edge of his chair. “I've never forced a woman.”

“It should never even come
close
to that.” Red blotches appeared on the baroness's face and neck, but her voice remained under careful control. “You cannot imagine the humiliation of knowing that you stray. Knowing that you would rather gamble and shop than spend time with your children or your tenants. Yet as humiliated as I am—as
angry
as I am—I am not the one most wronged.”

Joss was beginning to feel superfluous, until Lady Sutcliffe turned to him. “How did you know it was me?”

A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “I gave the maid a shilling.”

The baroness made a disgusted sound. “I did not think she would be so easily bought.”

“She was not. Lord Chatfield had also paid her for her secrets, as it turns out, and a great deal. Information is worth far more to him than mere coin.” Following his departure from Sutcliffe's house the night before, Joss had knocked at the kitchen entrance of the house next door. After a short survey of the servants, he had picked out the maid who had drawn his cousin's notice. And the story flowed out from there: Lady Sutcliffe had hired a maid in Emily's service to post a few letters. Once her messages were delivered to the maid, Jill, they were recopied in Jill's hand—unfamiliar to the baron—then sent on to Lord Sutcliffe. Thus came the letters from London, then posted from Bath, then carried by hand.

“It was a clever plan,” Joss added. “But—why?”

Lady Sutcliffe set her jaw. “Because I have nothing that he cares for but money, and so the threat of impoverishment is the only hold I have over his behavior. I thought to shock him into respectability, but instead, he has dragged you down with him.”

Joss bristled. “Any action I took in the service of Lord Sutcliffe was intended—”

He cut himself off before adding
for
the
ultimate
good
of
your
family
. Because it wasn't true, was it? He had meant well; he had urged Sutcliffe to confess, to mend his ways. But when had Sutcliffe ever done something just because someone told him he ought? Joss should have known that, but it was easier to make a small effort, to keep his head down and plow forward.

He ought to have done what he knew was right, even though it was not easy.

“I'm so sorry, my lady,” he said to the baroness. “You are right. You deserved to know the truth. I ought to have told you.”

Her small frame sagged against the back of the chair. “My children shall have a half sibling that they can never know.”

Awkwardly, hesitantly, Sutcliffe reached out a hand and patted that of his wife. “Now, Celia, it's not as bad as all that. We could take the children to visit Jenny and the baby—”

“Jessie,” said Joss and Lady Sutcliffe at once.

“And no, Sutcliffe, we could not,” she added. “It would be cruel for you to force me to face the physical evidence of your adultery. At least, Mr. Everett, you were not so far gone in sense as to neglect to make provision for the poor woman.”

“I believe she shall be well,” Joss said. “She will receive an annuity for life.”

“To be paid from my fortune,” sighed the baroness. “All of our money was my money. And so I pay for your wrongdoing again, Sutcliffe. When will it end?”

Joss sidled toward the door. “Let me ring for some tea.”

“Hot water for me,” piped up the baron.

His wife made another disgusted sound.

Joss rang for a servant and ordered the tea tray,
not
a pot of hot water. Then he turned back to the baroness. “When you return to Sutcliffe Hall,” Joss said to her, “I suggest you have the contents of the conservatory destroyed.”

She tilted her china-doll head. “Are you certain? That is all you have left of your grandmother and mother.”

Joss stared. She had kept it for his sake, thinking he drew meaning from rows of grassy
somalata
buried in earth? “You are very kind to consider my wishes,” he said. “But that's not all I have left.”

No, he had a fistful of memories of his mother, calm and tired; he had a book of botanical drawings he could not understand and notes he could not read.

He also had his existence. And he had a dream, finally: a wish for something grander than one hundred pounds and a steady clerical job.

And he knew where he must go next to bring it to life.

He would go alone, but Augusta would linger with him, the echo of her questioning voice in his ears.
It's not really a dream, is it?
It was now, dear fake widow. It was.

And she would become a dream too, especially the sharp sliver of time when she had told him
I
want
you
very
much
indeed
.

It had not been enough. But it was far better than no memory of her at all. And seeing how marriage had treated the heiress who became Lady Sutcliffe—well, such women had good reasons to guard their hearts as carefully as their fortunes. Joss could not fault Augusta for protecting herself; he only wished he had been wise enough to do the same.