The Deception of the Emerald Ring (18 page)

"I don't know. I don't think so."

It was infuriating not to be able to give a more definite answer, but what, after all, did he know of her? Nothing. Other than that she had a damnable habit of turning up where she wasn't wanted.

Jane nodded, content in that answer. "If she does, we'll deal with it then."

"I'll think of something to tell her," said Geoff grimly. He could think of several things. Most of them involved putting her right back on the next ship bound for England.

Jane's keen eyes narrowed on Letty's deceptively guileless profile. "You don't trust her with the truth?"

Geoff's answer was succinct and heartfelt. "No."

"Hmm," said Jane.

Geoff didn't notice. His attention was arrested by something else entirely. Or, rather, someone else entirely. A newcomer had joined the little party around his wife, bowing in a way better fitted to Versailles than Cuffe Street.

"This was just what tonight needed," muttered Geoff.

"She seems to be occupied for the moment," commented Jane.

Geoff looked abruptly down at her, only belatedly remembering to leer. "I forgot. You haven't been in London for some time, have you?"

"We," sniffed Miss Gwen, "have been rather occupied elsewhere." Her tone managed to imply that everyone else's time had been lamentably misspent.

"Last month," Geoff explained tersely, one eye still on the little group around his wife, "Miles asked me to look into the background of one Lord Vaughn, who had recently returned to London after ten years on the Continent. Miles thought he might be the Black Tulip."

"Which he wasn't," interjected Miss Gwen, with a superior look that conveyed exactly what she thought of Miles's deductive abilities.

"Which he wasn't," confirmed Geoff. "However, his behavior was still deuced odd. According to Miles, in the course of events, Vaughn admitted to an earlier association with the marquise. An association," he quickly added, before the gleam in Miss Gwen's eye could translate into speech, "of a romantic nature."

"And?" Miss Gwen flicked at the tassels on Geoff's boots with the point of her parasol.

"Miles and Henrietta entrusted the marquise into the custody of Lord Vaughn." Geoff met Jane's eyes, still and watchful behind the fringe of her fan. "Within the hour, she had escaped."

"With Lord Vaughn's connivance?" inquired Jane.

"That remains unclear." Geoff's lips twisted into a wry smile. "He, of course, claims not."

"Is there a point to this recitation?" demanded Miss Gwen. "Or are you merely trying to enliven a dull hour?"

"That," said Geoff grimly, indicating the man bending solicitously over his unpredictable little wife, "is Lord Vaughn."

"Lord Vaughn!"

Mrs. Lanergan flapped the fringes of her shawl in the direction of a man who stood a few yards away. Unmoved by Mrs. Lanergan's cry, he carried on his aloof perusal of the assemblage, contriving to project disdain without uttering a single word.

With a complete want of propriety that put even Letty's mother to shame, Mrs. Lanergan caroled, "Lord Vau-aughn!"

Looking distinctly pained, the man slowly pivoted on one silver-buckled shoe, and trained his quizzing glass in the direction of the unseemly hullabaloo. A study in shadow, the strict adherence to dark evening garb that looked distinguished on Brummell bestowed upon Lord Vaughn an otherworldly air, like an enchanter newly descended from his tower. Subtle silver threads lent luster to the otherwise drab fabric of his frock coat and edged the lace at throat and cuffs, mirroring the shading of silver along the sides of his dark hair. The only color to enliven his ensemble was a single ruby, set precisely into the center of his elaborately tied cravat, that smoldered like the fire at the heart of a dragon's cave.

"Ah," he drawled, allowing the quizzing glass to dangle from fine-boned fingers. "Our estimable hostess."

Lord Vaughn made a courtly leg, his silver rings flashing in the light as his hands gracefully inscribed the air in an obeisance that smacked of mockery.

Mrs. Lanergan preened. "Why, Lord Vaughn, how gallant you are!"

"How could I be otherwise to the one who has gathered together such an entertaining company?" Lord Vaughn trailed his quizzing glass in a lazy circle that began with the shrill girl at the pianoforte, passed over two inebriated soldiers arguing about whose horse was faster, and landed upon the floral tribute perched haphazardly on top of Emily's black curls.

Letty would have winced for her hostess, but she was preoccupied with worries of her own. Concentrating on being inconspicuous, she sidled away from the betraying glare of the candles. Hopefully, Letty thought, Lord Vaughn wouldn't equate Mrs. Alsdale, widow, with Miss Laetitia Alsworthy, reluctant debutante.

She didn't think he would recognize her—most men were in too much of a rush to get to Mary's side to take much notice of her little sister—but something about Lord Vaughn's quizzing glass made Letty distinctly uneasy. His attentions had been fixed on Lady Henrietta Selwick, but that hadn't prevented him from dancing some five or six times with Letty's sister, nor had it prevented Mary from doing her best to inveigle Lord Vaughn into a declaration more solid than dancing. An earl trumped a viscount, especially when the earl was rumored to have some of the finest family jewels in England, and a country estate larger than Chatsworth.

Either Mrs. Lanergan knew about the country estate as well, or the yacht had been enough to convince her. With a match-making gleam in her eye, she laced her plump arm through Emily's. "My lord, this is Miss Emily Gilchrist, newly come from school in England."

"How very edifying."

"And this," said Mrs. Lanergan, chivying Letty forward like a sheepdog with a particularly recalcitrant ewe, "is Mrs. Alsdale."

Lord Vaughn's heavy-lidded eyes conducted a knowing sweep of Letty's face, until she was quite sure he could have recited the location of every one of her freckles with unerring accuracy.

"Mrs. Alsdale, is it?" he inquired delicately, with an emphasis on the last syllable that made Letty want to climb inside the Chinese cabinet and stay there.

Letty knew she should have quietly slipped off while Mrs. Lanergan was introducing Emily. But where? It wouldn't do for her cad of a husband to see her wandering alone through the party. The thought was enough to make Letty toss her ginger hair and smile archly up at Lord Vaughn.

"Indeed, my lord."

"Quite amazing, isn't it, how many familiar faces one may encounter in a Dublin drawing room."

"Really?" inquired Letty brightly, wondering if it would look suspicious if she suddenly ducked behind Emily. Emily, unfortunately, had already drifted away in search of greener gentlemen. Letty was on her own. "I haven't found it so."

"I could have sworn that we two have met before, and not so very long ago. In London."

"Have we?" Letty modeled her simper on Miss Fairley. "I'm afraid I don't recall."

"Ah, but I do." Lord Vaughn's polished smile allowed for no denials. He flicked his wrist in the direction of Letty's mourning dress. "You were not so somber then."

"My circumstances have changed."

"So it would seem. Married and widowed in three weeks? How very expeditious of you, Mrs. Alsdale."

"It was all quite sudden," replied Letty helplessly.

"There are many ladies in society who would be glad to learn that trick of you."

"Tell them to use hemlock," suggested Letty. "It's faster than arsenic."

Lord Vaughn's eyebrows lifted. "Remind me never to offer you the protection of my name."

"Never fear, my lord, you are too corporeal for my taste." Better for Lord Vaughn to think her husband imaginary, rather than merely misplaced.

He accepted the misdirection with an appreciative inclination of his silvered head. "You are, I believe, a very resourceful young lady."

"One does what one has to."

A whisper of a smile played about Lord Vaughn's thin lips. "Just as I said."

"There is nothing heroic about necessity," demurred Letty.

"There is," riposted Lord Vaughn, wagging his quizzing glass at her, "in retrospect."

"That doesn't help one much at the time, though, does it?"

"You, my dear Miss pardon me, Mrs. Alsdale, are too much the pragmatist. You have the resourcefulness, but you lack the heroic mentality."

"I don't see anything heroic in gilding base actions with the passage of time."

"Base is it?" said Lord Vaughn. "What of Odysseus? Trick-ster, liar, philanderer hero."

The list of attributes all too forcefully brought to mind a more modern man, who could not be conveniently closed away within the pages of a book, his sins lightly debated as an antidote to a dull party. It was impossible to distinguish his voice among the general chatter, but Letty could feel his presence behind her like a large burr in her back. A particularly prickly one.

"A hero conceived by a man," retorted Letty.

"My dear girl," drawled Lord Vaughn. "I find that highly unlikely."

"You don't think Homer was Oh." Letty's cheeks rivaled Homer's wine-dark sea.

Having achieved his desired effect, Lord Vaughn quirked an inquisitive eyebrow. "You, I take it, would prefer the prudent Penelope?"

Letty pictured Penelope steadily stitching away as Odysseus cavorted with Circe, a Circe with silver-gilt curls and a come-hither way with a fan. Odysseus was a rotter who wasn't worth the waiting. At that rate, Penelope should have turned out the suitors, taken over the kingdom, and ruled Ithaca alone.

"That doesn't leave me much to choose from, does it?" said Letty with a grimace. "Either the philanderer or the woman foolish enough to wait for him."

"I suppose you don't approve of Patient Griselda either."

Letty had always thought Patient Griselda the worst sort of ninny. "Patience," she said in her best governess voice, "is only a virtue when there is something worth waiting for."

Lord Pinchingdale most decidedly wasn't, any more than Odysseus had been, with his sirens in every port. What was she to do now? She could go back to London, to the spiteful conjectures of the ton. She could slink back to Hertfordshire, to her narrow childhood bed and quiet orchard. Neither option was terribly appealing.

Maybe that was why Penelope and Patient Griselda had persevered, not out of love, but from lack of alternatives.

Lord Vaughn spoke, uncannily echoing Letty's thoughts. "I have found that very few things are worth waiting for, Mrs. Alsdale." His face had settled into cynical lines, and Letty noticed, for the first time, the deep hollows beneath his cheekbones, and the lines on either side of his mouth. "That is why the prudent man takes and the fool merely anticipates."

"But then you simply have something not worth having a little earlier," said Letty, wondering where she had lost the skein of thought. "How is that any better?"

"Isn't the having better than not having? Asceticism is decidedly out of fashion these days." Vaughn's languid gesture took in the overly ornate room and equally overdressed guests.

His hand stilled with uncharacteristic abruptness just in front of a sallow youth, who was shambling over to them, scuffing his boots along the rug as he walked. In contrast to Lord Vaughn's elegant attire, the newcomer was positively unkempt, his mop of brown hair not so much fashionably windblown as simply unbrushed. Rather than attempt the intricate creases fashion demanded for the cravat, he had tied the cloth worker-style around his neck, tucking the edges under his limp shirt points.

No matter how unpleasant the newcomer, Letty couldn't help but be relieved to have been rescued from the tęte-ŕ-tęte with Lord Vaughn. Her head ached with the effort of keeping away from the sharp side of his tongue.

"Ah, Mrs. Alsdale, I have a new pleasure in store for you." The way Vaughn drawled the word "pleasure" made it clear that it was anything but such a thing, and Letty felt a twinge of sympathy for the disheveled young man, who flushed and scowled at the design of vines on the carpet.

Lord Vaughn, reflected Letty, did seem to have that effect upon people.

Vaughn left only enough time for the sting to be felt, before continuing smoothly, "May I present to you my cousin, Augustus Ormond. But we like to call him Octavian. He is," commented Vaughn, with a sly, sidelong look at his cousin, "too early for empire."

"It is very hard being the youngest," said Letty warmly, trying to catch the boy's eye. Shamed out of all countenance, he continued to stare resolutely at the floor, his lips puffed out in an unattractive pout.

"I'm afraid your sympathies are wasted in that quarter, Mrs. Alsdale. Augustus may be young in looks, but he is old in sin."

"Looks are seldom any indication of character," responded Letty, her mind on her husband's ascetic features, the features of a poet or a philosopher, not a base philanderer who couldn't wait even a week after his wedding to pursue his amours.

Vaughn trained his quizzing glass on her abstracted face. "Do you truly think so, Mrs. Alsdale? I beg to differ. Unless, of course," he added, a slight smile playing about his lips, "a deliberate deception is employed."

"A deception upon others, or ourselves?" asked Letty bitterly.

"An intriguing point. The dandy, who seeks to convince himself that he is better than he is. The beauty, who is none. The widow " Letty stiffened beneath her false mourning as Lord Vaughn's voice dwelled meditatively on the word. Lord Vaughn smiled pleasantly, inclining his head in the direction of Letty's dark dress. "But far be it from me to impugn another's honest grief."

Hamlet had used the word "honest" with Ophelia in just such a double-edged way. Right before he drove her mad. How apt, thought Letty irritably.

"You aren't going to advise me to get myself to a nunnery, are you?"

Vaughn acknowledged the point with a mild arch of the eyebrows. "How can I, when I am but indifferent honest myself?"

"And mad north by northwest, too, no doubt," muttered Letty.

"Tut-tut, Mrs. Alsdale. It's against the rules to borrow from a different speech."

"I wasn't aware there were rules," said Letty in frustration.