The Tudor Signet (27 page)

“Not to be repeated beyond these four walls,” he warned. “It all started with a quasi-patriotic smuggler who mistrusted a letter he was paid to take to France. The Admiralty sent me to investigate.”

“I knew you were not just a fribble, in spite of the waistcoats,” cried Mariette, and the corners of her mouth quirked as she glanced at his Tudor rose midriff.

Rather exotic for morning wear even for him, but he’d had it made to please her and he was glad he’d worn it today.

Mariette was quite ready to take it as a compliment. Through all the pain and lassitude of her injury, one memory had sustained her: Malcolm’s voice announcing his willingness to let a supposed traitor go free for her sake. For her sake he had risked disgrace or worse. What could it mean but that he loved her?

She listened, fascinated and admiring, as he explained about the use and misuse of the sphinx seal. Taking a small object from his pocket, he tossed it to Ralph.

“Here, you ought to have my copy. The other was found on Wareham and will be used in evidence against him. Believe it or not, it never dawned on me that what I could do, so could someone else. If I had not been so sure you were the traitor, we’d not have been taken by surprise and Miss Bertrand would not have been shot.”

He sounded so downcast, Mariette hurried to say remorsefully, “I should have mentioned you were not the first person to win the ring from Ralph. I was too proud. You see, when I redeemed it from Lord Wareham, he treated me like a worm. A squashed worm. It’s all very well laughing, but I did not like to think about it, still less to talk of it.”

“Most understandable,” said the captain, his lips twitching.

“What I don’t understand,” Ralph put in, “is why the devil you thought I knew any naval secrets.”

“Blame Wareham for that, too,” said Malcolm. “Obviously he used your seal originally with an eye to deflecting suspicion from himself should aught go amiss. He told us he learned from a certain highly placed naval officer, by way of Madame Duhamel, that Aldrich was hunting for spies.”

Mariette interrupted. “I heard him say he did not realize you were after him. How clever not to give yourself away!”

Malcolm grinned and bowed ironically. “Thank you, ma’am. Unaware of my position, Wareham’s first hope of escape was to persuade my sister to marry him, thus obviating the need for money which led him into treason in the first place. However, he then discovered his letters had actually been intercepted. He had to have a scapegoat. He introduced you to Madame’s gaming house, did he not, Riddlesworth?”

“Yes.” Ralph gave Mariette a guilty look. “I didn’t tell you because I knew you disliked him.”

“Loathed him!”

Malcolm smiled at her. “Most discerning of you. The club provided a damning link with the high officer--whose embroilment, incidentally, brought about my involuntary departure to London—as well as a link with Madame, his m...er, hm.”

“His mistr...? Oh!” Mariette thought of Lilian’s lessons and blushed.

“Precisely. She arranged for your cousin to win at cards at first, to encourage him, and then to lose, to be given credit and then to be denied credit. At last he was offered one last chance to recoup.”

“If I lost again,” said Ralph sombrely, “I was going to take the king’s shilling.”

“Enlist in the army?” Recalling her fear of a far worse fate, Mariette decided it was best not mentioned. “You dropped the letter in the stables. That’s how I found the house.”

“I could wish you had not, since you’d not have been injured,” Malcolm said unsteadily, his gaze fixed on hers, “but on the other hand I’d now be dead. If I haven’t yet attempted to express my gratitude it’s because—”

“Oh, fustian,” she exclaimed, thoroughly embarrassed. “Do go on with the story.”

“As you wish, for now.” His look made Mariette glow all over. “Madame was growing nervous, and ready to flee to France. Also, by that time Des had cut Wareham out with Lilian, humiliating him. Before leaving the country, he wanted revenge. If he had simply relied upon the letter in Madame’s desk to lure Des to the house, he might have succeeded, though we did guess at a trap and surround the place with sailors. His downfall was that he gilded the lily.”

“He what?” said Ralph blankly.

“He lured you to the house, too, as bait, as a decoy. Miss Bertrand followed, and the rest is history.”

Ralph was still bursting with questions.

“Your turn, Des,” said Lord Malcolm laconically. As the captain took over from him, he leaned towards Mariette, murmured “Excuse me for a few minutes, I want a word with your uncle,” and slipped out of the room.

Mariette’s heart sang. Surely, surely, she did not mistake his meaning!

As expected, Malcolm found Mr. Barwith in the front hall, tapping away at a piece of sandstone which now bore a respectable resemblance to a badger. He was considerably sprucer, too, though he still bore a faint patina of red dust.

At the sound of Malcolm’s footsteps, he looked round and beamed. “Ah, the young man who suggested my purchasing spectacles, is it not? My dear sir, you can have no notion of the difference they have made. I was even able to read to Mariette while she was confined to her bed.”

“I am prodigious glad to hear it, sir. It is about Miss Bertrand I wish to speak to you.”

“Is it, now!” His eyes twinkled behind the new spectacles. “Perhaps we ought to go into the library. All those books I have not been able to read these twenty years, now restored to me.” With a happy sigh he led the way.

Impressed by the library, Malcolm began to understand the importance of books in his beloved’s lonely life. Her books and her gallops on the moor—he’d deprive her of neither, he vowed, whatever they cost in money or in social acceptance.

“I want to marry your niece, sir,” he said bluntly. “As a fifth son I am not wealthy, but my father will increase my allowance on my marriage and I shall be able to support her in comfort.” He might even persuade his father to buy Wareham’s forfeited estate for him, he thought. Mariette would want to live near her uncle and cousin. At least she’d never have to hang on Riddlesworth’s sleeve.

“My brother left her something,” said Mr. Barwith to his surprise, “and her mother smuggled some jewellery out of France.”

“Any little bit she can call her own will be welcome.”

The elderly gentleman pursed his lips thoughtfully. “It’s not exactly a little bit,” he said. “To tell the truth, I cannot remember the lawyer’s precise figures. Twenty-five or thirty thousand in the funds, I believe, and jewellery amounting to sixty or eighty thousand pounds, though that will have changed, the way prices have risen. It is in a bank vault somewhere in London. No doubt the lawyer will know.”

“No doubt,” Malcolm agreed faintly. “Does Mariette know of this?”

“Not from me. I don’t spend half my income and I’m happy to give her whatever she asks for. You see, when she came to the manor the lawyer suggested she was too young to understand and the figures would only confuse her. I daresay she is old enough now to be told?”

“Quite old enough.” Malcolm laughed. “And I supposed I should be rescuing her from the life of a poor relation!”

 “I don’t consider Mariette a poor relation!” said Mr.Barwith, offended.

“I know you don’t, sir. I was thinking of when Riddlesworth inherits Bell-Tor Manor.”

“Ralph inherit the manor? I am not quite a doddering dotard, young man. My nephew would bring the estate to wrack and ruin in no time.”

“But he is your nearest relative, is he not?”

“Bell-Tor is not entailed. My will bequeaths an adequate income to Ralph and the estate to Mariette, who will care for it and its people.” He looked away, blinking, and said shyly, “I hope you will spend some time here when you are married?”

“My dear sir, we shall make our home here if you wish. Mariette would not choose to be parted from you.”

“I fear despite his income you will always have Ralph sponging on you.”

“Every family has a few sponging relations.” His situation suddenly sank in. Offering for a penniless bride, he was offered a fortune, and an estate into the bargain. He burst into irrepressible laughter.

In the passage outside the library, Mariette heard Malcolm’s laughter and wondered at it. He sounded less amused than almost hysterical. Her heart sank. What was wrong? She nerved herself to open the door and go in, Ragamuffin at her heels.

Uncle George gazed with benign tolerance upon Lord Malcolm, who sprang to his feet and came to meet her.

“What is so funny?” she asked.

“It’s not really funny,” he said soberly, looking down at her with an odd expression. “I requested your uncle’s permission to ask you to be my wife, hoping to save you from poverty. Now I find you are a great heiress.”

“Am I?” she said, baffled, and added wistfully, “Does that mean you don’t wish to marry me after all?”

The teasing light she loved came into his eyes. “Aldrich was persuaded to overlook Lilian’s fortune, was he not? I daresay you might persuade me to do likewise.”

“Might I?” Heart singing again, she fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously. “How?”

“How about a kiss to begin with?”

Flinging her uninjured arm about his neck, she obliged. His lips were warm and firm, his body hard against hers as he held her close. His kiss became insistent, demanding. Mariette clung to him as a wave of shuddering warmth flooded from her mouth to her toes and back to the centre of her being. The pain of her wound went away, the world was lost; the only reality was his touch, his—a

“Woof?”

“Ahem!”

Reluctantly she pulled away from him. With one gentle hand he smoothed back a disarranged lock of her hair. His other arm stayed about her waist as they turned to face her uncle.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Malcolm said, a trifle breathless though not nearly so breathless as Mariette felt. “Your niece is most persuasive. Miss Bertrand,”—he gazed down at her, his eyes warm and smiling but not teasing at all now— “I love you very, very dearly. Will you do me the honour of accepting my hand in marriage?”

“Oh yes, my dear lord! I have loved you forever and thought you’d never ask. Only,” she had to say it, “I cannot help hoping I shan’t be shot again.”

With a rueful laugh he swept her up in his arms and sat down with her on his lap. “I shall quit the spy business instantly,” he promised. “I know as long as I’m involved I shall not be able to keep my adventurous darling out of it. I don’t want to keep you out of any part of my life, Mariette. I’m not sure I shall ever bring myself to let you out of my arms, now I have you safe.”

Such an avowal deserved another kiss—and won one. When breathing became essential, Malcolm said severely, “I trust you don’t mean to continue to address me as my lord?”

“No, Malcolm.” A thought struck her. “I shall be Lady Mariette! Or Lady Eden?”

“Lady Malcolm.”

“Truly?” She giggled. “How odd. I trust you don’t mean to address me as Lady Malcolm?”

“I rather fancy I shall call you beloved. Or perhaps sweetheart, or dearest love, or possibly even snugglepuss.”

“I shall like that,” said Mariette dreamily and kissed him again.

“Ahem!”

She had forgotten Uncle George. Tactful or abstracted, he had been most forbearing while they cuddled and whispered sweet nothings. Ragamuffin had apparently given up in disgust. He sprawled on the hearthrug, asleep.

“I have been thinking,” announced Uncle George, “about what to give you for a wedding gift. You will have the funds to buy all you need so I shall make you a statue. Not sandstone; good, enduring granite. But what animal would you prefer?”

“A sphinx,” Mariette said promptly, “since it was a sphinx which brought us together.”

Malcolm looked appalled. “A small sphinx,” he pleaded, “but all the same, if you don’t object, sir, we shan’t postpone the wedding until it’s finished!”

Copyright © 1995 by Carola Dunn

Originally published by Zebra (0821751727)

Electronically published in 2007 by Belgrave House/Regency Reads

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

No portion of this book may be reprinted in whole or in part, by printing, faxing, E-mail, copying electronically or by any other means without permission of the publisher. For more information, contact Belgrave House, 190 Belgrave Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94117-4228

     http://www.RegencyReads.com

     Electronic sales: [email protected]

This is a work of fiction. All names in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to any person living or dead is coincidental.