Sweetest Little Sin (13 page)

AS Louisa’s carriage swept around a bend in the long graveled drive, the full magnificence of Radleigh’s home burst into view. She had the impression of pearl-white stone fashioned into a fantasy of minarets and arches, with one low-set crescent wing that swept outward like an arm ready to embrace all comers. Halfway down, the drive was flanked by a pair of stone elephants with their trunks raised, as if in welcome.

Louisa grinned in appreciation of the phantasmagoria before her, the copper onion-shaped dome that bloomed from the classical structure of the main house.

She stepped down from the carriage and supervised the footmen unloading her baggage. Did she imagine it, or did a faint whiff of spice lend the air an exotic tang?

The soft blue chamber allotted to her was on the small side, unremarkably furnished in the current English mode. But the view from the wide bay windows more than compensated for the unexpectedly mundane interior.

Acres of manicured green lawn were dotted with fountains and trees and grottoes like any other gentleman’s estate. But the follies were Hindu temples and shrines, the formal gardens delicate and twisted and spare, like an Oriental painting. Farther from the house, however, the woods were wholly English. The juxtaposition intrigued her.

Her mother had unwittingly done her a favor, prevaricating about Louisa’s love for the East. She’d have no need to explain her wish to explore the grounds while she looked for the temple Harriet had described.

Louisa removed her hat and gloves and washed her hands and face.

“If you please, my lady, would you like me to press something for you to wear this evening?”

Louisa started. Heavens, but she’d forgotten the girl was in the room. “Yes, the celestial blue tonight, I think. What is your name?”

The girl dimpled. “It’s Merry, ma’am. I’ll see to it right away. Will you require anything else, my lady?”

“No, thank you. But will you come back later and help me dress for dinner, please? My maid took ill on the road and I’ve no one to do for me, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, my lady.” The girl curtseyed. “You will find the rest of the guests in the drawing room, ma’am.”

As Merry curtseyed and withdrew, it was on the tip of Louisa’s tongue to ask the way to the drawing room, but she stopped herself. What better opportunity to reconnoiter a little?

She tidied her hair, took one last look at the view to get her bearings, then went in search of the drawing room.

Or, at least, in search of information.

BY the time Louisa joined the other guests, she had a fairly good sketch of the second floor in her head. Despite its exotic embellishments, the house was laid out in a format common to houses of classical design. She was reasonably certain she could also predict the series of rooms she’d find on the first floor.

Of course, the focus of any search must be Radleigh’s book room and perhaps his private apartments, as well.

She stopped, stock-still, in the cavernous hall. Was she mad? What had she been thinking, to plan a search for this sensitive document? She had no skills, no training, and not the least clue what the list of agents even looked like. She needed to get that message to Faulkner, abort the mission, break her uncomfortable betrothal, and leave.

She scanned the faces of Radleigh’s other guests, looking for an acquaintance, or at the very least a slightly welcoming expression. No. No one she knew.

“Ah, there you are, my dear,” Radleigh’s pleasant tenor sounded behind her.

She turned on a gasp, her poise slipping like an ill-fitting mask. Recovering, she smiled back at him and curtseyed.

Radleigh bowed. “How do you do?” He took out his snuffbox and tapped it with a fingernail. “Mrs. Burton is not with you, I take it?”

“Mrs. Burton is indisposed and asked me to send her regrets,” said Louisa.

He raised a pinch to his nose and sniffed, then blinked his muddy hazel eyes a few times. “How unfortunate. I do trust she will recover sufficiently to join us. Later in the week, perhaps.”

“Yes, it is to be hoped she will.” No one hoped that quite as much as Louisa. She feared, however, that she had seen the last of Harriet Burton.

Returning his snuffbox to his pocket, Radleigh took Louisa’s arm and introduced her to his guests. She was relieved to see he didn’t claim her as his fiancée, though his proprietary air left them in little doubt that such an announcement was imminent.

“And here, Louisa, I’ve saved the best for last,” said Radleigh, leading her to a sofa on which two ladies sat.

The younger female was plump, curvaceous, and dimpled, with brown hair and green eyes and healthy roses in her round cheeks. The other lady bore all the hallmarks of a poor relation—shabby dark clothes, dark hair scraped back from her brow in a no-nonsense knot, and a certain gauntness about her neck and shoulders that made Louisa wonder if they kept the poor woman on half rations.

Louisa smiled impartially on them both. She glanced up at Radleigh and found herself arrested by the tender expression on his face. Clearly, he adored this girl.

“Lady Louisa Brooke, may I present my sister, Miss Radleigh?”

The young lady curtseyed, large eyes round with excitement and curiosity. Louisa suppressed a grimace. Lying to Radleigh was one thing. She didn’t relish misleading an innocent girl.

“How do you do?” she murmured. “I’m so pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Radleigh.” Louisa spared an inquiring glance at the companion, but the poor woman went unnoticed.

“Oh, you must call me Beth, for we’re to be sisters, aren’t we?” The girl made an impatient shooing gesture at her companion. “Do go away, Honoria, so that Lady Louisa may sit beside me.”

Unruffled, the diminutive companion turned to gather up her embroidery. When she turned back, Louisa held out her hand. “How do you do, Miss . . . ?” She sent Beth an inquiring look.

Far from abashed, Beth said carelessly, “Oh, that is Honoria Beauchamp, my companion. A dreary soul! Don’t mind her.” She offered Radleigh a saucy smile. “I never do.”

The companion bowed her head and murmured a greeting, apparently eager to get away. Louisa allowed her to pass, but she blushed for Beth’s rudeness. The glance she slid at Radleigh showed he’d no more notion of how bad such behavior appeared than Beth herself.

Seeing no alternative, Louisa sat in the space Miss Beauchamp had vacated. Radleigh made his excuses and drifted in search of other guests.

Louisa barely repressed a sigh of relief.

“I’ve wanted to meet you ever since I heard of my brother’s betrothal,” gushed Beth. “It must have been so romantic!”

“Oh, er, um. Yes. Yes, I suppose it was. We are keeping it secret for the moment, however. Just in the family, you know.”

“Oh, you may rely on me. I’m
very
discreet.”

Beth clasped her hands together and gave a little bounce. “Lady Louisa, I am
tremendously
glad you’re here, for you will enter into my feelings
completely
.”

The girl had an emphatic way of speaking that set Louisa’s teeth on edge. But she smiled. “Are you in love, Miss Radleigh?”

She doubted Beth knew the meaning of the word.

Beth nodded, her eyes shining with puppylike devotion. “How did you guess?”

The sour spinster inside Louisa recoiled at the thought of listening to romantic outpourings. But her better self knew what was expected of her, and nobly, she rose to the occasion. “Tell me all.”

“I have known him a bare week, yet it seems like an eternity.”

Oh dear.
This tale would not end well, she knew it in her bones. An ache for another young, passionately deluded girl echoed in her chest.

“I expect he’s very handsome,” said Louisa.

“Yes. How did you guess? I have never seen such a man before.”

Inwardly, Louisa shook herself, wrenched her mind away from that path. Instead, she looked about her, lending only half an ear to Beth’s ravings about her lover. This would be the perfect time to assess Radleigh’s guests.

It was a relatively small party, unless there were more guests yet to arrive. Foreign diplomats, a banker, minor European royalty. Did they all know why they’d been gathered here? It seemed a strange way to conduct the covert sale of a piece of intelligence.

But perhaps the eccentricity of it appealed to Radleigh. Perhaps he liked having them all here, dancing to his tune.

The half ear that was listening to Beth registered a word here and there. Only met . . . know someone in a week . . . feel as if I
do
know him . . .

Yes, it sounded all too familiar.

Suddenly, conversation halted. Beside her, Beth gasped, tensed, then seemed to quiver.

With a tingle at her nape, a sense almost of inevitability, Louisa turned her head.

There, in the doorway, stood Jardine.

For once, he appeared perfectly groomed, his unruly black locks trimmed and tamed to a recognizable style, his shirt points precise, the tailoring of his black coat so exquisite it was certain to make Radleigh swoon with envy.

Beth’s hand squeezed her wrist so hard, Louisa winced. “There he is!”

Beth shot out of her chair and pelted across the drawing room. For one bewildered, crazed moment, Louisa thought the girl would leap into Jardine’s arms.

Jardine’s gaze locked with Louisa’s over Beth’s head. An instant of searing heat passed between them in that look, and then his gaze passed over her and he was smiling—
smiling
—down at Beth.

She couldn’t remember seeing him smile in quite that way for a very long time. Perhaps not since their courtship.

Pain squeezed her heart. Had Jardine thrown her over for
this
?

Why else would he have given her such a final farewell?

Cold washed over Louisa, wave after shocking wave. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Jardine wanted to marry someone else. That was why he’d given her those marching orders, told her she couldn’t prove their marriage had taken place.

He sauntered toward her with Beth clinging to his arm. She simpered up at him as if he were her only reason to live.

Had she, Louisa, ever looked at him like that? Not lately. Perhaps not since the wedding that had never actually taken place.

She pinched the meat of her palm, sank her teeth into the inside of her lip, willed herself to preserve her composure.

When they stood before her, she wanted more than anything to bow her head and rush from the room. But she forced herself to meet his devilish eyes with a glaze of indifference in her own.

“Lady Louisa, may I present the Marquis of Jardine?”

Louisa inclined her head, as regal as Kate at her haughtiest. She raised her brows a little, the question in them clear—to him, at least:
How well do we know one another today?

For an instant, Jardine’s eyes glittered with a passing emotion she couldn’t interpret.

He bowed. “We’ve met. How do you do, my lady?”

Beth looked from him to her and back again. “You know one another? Oh, now you have spoiled my surprise. I made sure to be the first to give you the news, my lord. Lady Louisa has consented to marry my brother. We shall be sisters! Isn’t that altogether delightful?”

Wretched girl!
Discreet, indeed! At this rate, the whole of England would know of Louisa’s sham betrothal.

“I wouldn’t know,” murmured Jardine. “I never had a sister.”

“Nor have I, but I’m persuaded it must be a very fine thing, indeed,” said Beth, tucking her hand into the crook of Jardine’s arm.

Louisa’s gaze fixed on that comfortable intimacy. She couldn’t seem to drag her eyes away.

With an effort, she cleared her throat. “Will you not sit down?”

Her stomach churned with the need to escape Jardine and his new inamorata’s presence, but she couldn’t let him see how greatly he hurt her.

With his usual elegance, Jardine disposed his long limbs in the chair she’d indicated while Beth plumped herself down beside Louisa.

“Tell me, Lord Jardine—” Was that her voice, all husky and strained? Louisa cleared her throat again and strove to modulate her tone. “Do you make an extended stay or are you merely a dinner guest?”

“Miss Radleigh has invited me spend the summer,” said Jardine with a feline smile. “I shan’t trespass on her excellent hospitality for quite that long, however. I have duties that will take me back to my estate in Wiltshire before the month is out.”

“How pleasant,” said Louisa, nearly choking on the words. Was she to endure Jardine’s presence for the rest of her stay?

She caught herself. She
was
putting an end to this charade of an engagement and leaving as soon as may be. She’d made up her mind about that.