A Difficult Disguise (22 page)

Ringing for Lethbridge, he sat himself down in his favorite chair and waited for that man to bring him the newspaper Fletcher had, upon rising, found to have already been delivered, at the young lady’s request, to Rosalie’s chamber.

For someone who had been bedding down in an empty horse stall for several weeks, he had thought at the time, it appeared that his reluctant fiancée had encountered precious little difficulty in putting herself back into the role of lady of the household, demands for service and all.

A steaming cup of coffee at his right hand, Fletcher sat back and opened the newspaper, hoping to find something within its pages to capture his interest, diverting his mind from the intense hustle and bustle he knew to be going on upstairs, behind Aunt Belleville’s door.

He read of Prinny’s latest round of entertainments for the visiting dignitaries, who were still taking up precious space in the city, then shook his head at a small, well-hidden account of the plight of returning veterans of the war, who admitted to being a trifle overset as to the unconscionable amount of time it seemed to be taking for them to collect their back pay from a treasury sadly depleted first by the war and now by the Prince Regent’s excesses.

Fletcher had just finished skimming an anonymous, obliquely risqué account of “Lady J—y and the handsome Hussar, Lord W—r at Almack’s” in one of the columns when, upon turning the page, he found himself confronted with a dessert-plate-sized hole smack in the center of his newspaper.

“What in blue blazes?” he complained aloud, noticing that the paper had been torn, rather than cut, and that the tear seemed to have been made by design rather than as the result of an accident. “Rosalie,” he concluded in a heartbeat.

Rosalie Darley had done this. She had desecrated his precious newspaper, his only reliable contact with the world outside the Lake District. Wasn’t it bad enough that the news contained in the week-old paper had already grown whiskers by the time he received it?

Wasn’t it sufficient that he also had to cool his heels above an hour to read the bloody thing once it finally found its way to Lakeview? Did she then have to add insult to injury by chewing a whacking great hunk out of it before handing it over to him, the master of the house?

“Lethbridge,” he roared, bringing that man into the room at a run. “Look at this!” Fletcher put his fist and forearm through the hole in his precious newspaper and waggled his fingers at the butler. “What’s the meaning of this sacrilege? Good God, man, is nothing sacred anymore?

The butler, who had been standing just outside the door in anticipation of just such a summons, well aware of a gentleman’s proprietary airs toward his newspaper, straightened his spine, lifted his chin, and swiftly dumped the blame where it belonged.

“It was Miss Darley, sir,” he said, somehow maintaining his air of dignity while selling Rosalie out in order to preserve his own skin. “One of the items on the page must have caught her eye, sir. I—I had hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Wouldn’t notice? Wouldn’t notice! Oh, foul, foul! How could I not notice?” Fletcher exploded, his forearm still stuck through the aforementioned whacking great hole as he rose to angrily pace the carpet. He stopped in his tracks, setting his jaw, his gray eyes shooting darts that still lacked a target.

“I want it back,” he grumbled, just like a pouting nursery tot who has just lost his new kite to a strong spring breeze. “Lethbridge, go upstairs right now, and tell Miss Darley, no, demand that Miss Darley return my paper to me.”

Lethbridge sighed, already aware that it would be a futile mission. “I’ve tried, sir. She won’t do it,” he imparted sadly. “The missing part contains only an advertisement, she said, and would be of no possible interest to you.”

“She said that, did she?” Fletcher felt himself to be by nature a peaceful man, a patient man, an undemanding man. He had borne up heroically when he had come to realize that, willing or not, he was honor-bound to marry Rosalie Darley.

But wait. Didn’t he love her? Yes, of course he loved her. But that had nothing to do with the thing, dammit! He still had behaved beautifully. Why, he had even been willing to forgive Rosalie her ill-advised deception, her outrageous behavior, and her total lack of faith in him.

In point of fact, for that matter, he had, except for a certain regrettable lapse having to do with his hastily aborted trial by water yesterday afternoon with a bathtub full of bubbles, been a gentleman to his backbone.

So, why was he being treated this way? Why, indeed? Fletcher’s eyelids puckered until his eyes were barely visible. His lips drew into a bow. His hands moved slowly, deliberately, as he shed himself of the newspaper, folded it, and deposited it carefully on a nearby table.

“Lethbridge?” he questioned tightly, his voice low and menacing.

“Sir?” the butler squeaked, for he had not seen such a pinched, determined look since before Fletcher’s father had been laid to rest in the family mausoleum, may the good Lord rest his at times autocratic soul.

“Miss Darley, Lethbridge. She remains closeted with my aunt?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then one might safely assume that one might be able to enter Miss Darley’s chamber unseen and liberate the scrap of paper now in question?”

Lethbridge nodded warily, then brightened. “It would certainly seem so, sir. Shall I go upstairs, sir, and—”

“You, Lethbridge?” Fletcher smiled devilishly, his eyebrows raised as he blinked three times in the butler’s direction, reminding Lethbridge of nothing more than a cat that has just espied a nest of plump, juicy mice. “Oh, no, my friend. I wouldn’t ask it of you, really. Please, allow me.”

Fletcher sped up the broad staircase in the twinkling of a bedpost, stealthily opening the door to Rosalie’s assigned bedchamber before abandoning stealth to engage in a determined search of the room, convinced he had every right to do anything he needed to do to retrieve his conduit to the world, his most basic link to society, his paper and ink badge of authority: his newspaper!

As Rosalie’s possessions were few and her occupation of the bedchamber not of any great length of time, it wasn’t long before Fletcher had located the scrap of newspaper in the top drawer of the mahogany ladies’ desk that stood in front of the large window that looked out over the gardens.

He glanced at the printed page, seeing that it contained random lines concerning two different news topics, and turned it over, expecting to discover a recipe for cucumber cream or some such nonsense, only to discover that Rosalie had indeed ripped out an advertisement.

And what an advertisement!

“Lost Happiness Regained,” he read aloud, his brow puckering. “Any female involved in distress from an expectation of inevitable dishonor may obtain Consolation and Security, and meet with the motherly attention so necessary on those occasions for the restoration of that Security of Mind attendant on cultivated life, by communicating with Mrs. Rimston.”

He read the advertisement twice, unbelieving the thunderbolts of rage that tore through his body as he realized the terrible message lurking behind the delicately structured phrases.

Fletcher collapsed into the straight-backed chair beside the desk, a broken, beaten man.

First Arabella, now Rosalie. Arabella had gotten with child thanks to her love for a French prisoner of war. His sister had chosen to destroy herself rather than shame her brother by gifting him with a bastard niece or nephew. Rosalie, it would seem, had chosen another path, one that would rid her of the child. How, he wondered dumbly, considering how innocent she appeared to be, had Rosalie gotten with child in the first place?

Fletcher shook his head. “No,” he berated himself cynically, “you already know how she came to be in this condition. You just don’t know who.” A name came, unbidden, into his head: Sawyer. He and Mrs. Beale, according to William’s letter, seem to go hand in hand. Perhaps he assaulted Rosalie, and that’s why she ran away. It’s no great wonder she never realized that playing out her deception here at Lakeview had served to thoroughly compromise her so that we would have to marry: she had already been compromised up to her neck. Poor halfling!

And poor Fletcher. Had he been doomed to forever have such wretched luck with women? For, selfish as it might seem, a moment’s thought told him that he felt very sorry for himself. He loved Rosalie, he was convinced of that fact, yet the very notion of acting as doting father to another man’s offspring devastated him, bringing him almost as low as did the maddening thought that his darling Rosalie had suffered the indignity of another man’s attentions.

Fletcher felt physically ill and was moment by moment becoming angrier with himself. Rosalie needed him, really needed him, now more than ever. Besides, he owed it to William. He raised his head, casting off any remaining doubts, knowing what he had to do. He would go to her, tell her what he knew, and marry her at once. Not out of pity. Not out of duty. No. He would marry her because he loved her.

Rising to drag himself down the hallway to his aunt’s room, Fletcher noticed that a letter lay in the open drawer. Rosalie had written a letter to someone? Who would she write to—if not the infamous Mrs. Rimston?

Feeling that there could be no real crime in reading the letter, and hopeful of discovering something more about Rosalie’s dilemma than he already knew, he picked up the single page and, steeling his heart against the onslaught of pain that was sure to come, began to read.

A minute later he was once more seated in the desk chair—sprawled, actually—laughing so hard tears ran down his cheeks.

Fletcher had already installed himself in the dining room when the bell was rung for the usual informal buffet-style luncheon—for Lakeview was, at heart, a working farm—awaiting the promised appearance of his aunt and fiancée.

Beck entered the room first, which did not surprise Fletcher, for Beck had never been one to be the last to slip his legs beneath a table. “Fletch,” he said, acknowledging his employer with a curt nod. “I’ve been wondering when you’d surface. Do you think you could join me for an inspection ride about the estate this afternoon? Unless you have in mind another upsetment of the ladies, of course, in which case I fully understand if you decide to cry off the task you have already successfully avoided since our return to Lakeview.”

Fletcher eyed Beck appreciatively. “That was quite a speech, my friend,” he commented with a nod of his head. “You always were civil as a nun’s hen when angry. Feeling put upon, are you?”

His bravado successfully deflated by Fletcher’s bantering tone, Beck sighed, saying, “I could do with a bit of help, yes, although the estate admittedly does all but run itself.”

“But—” Fletcher prompted.

“But dash it, man—did you have to be so full of yourself last night, teasing the ladies that way? You’re lucky your aunt didn’t suffer a spasm, and as for Miss Darley, well, if I’m right about her, you’re even more lucky that she didn’t clunk you over the head with a vase or something. To announce, almost in one breath, both that her true identity was known to you, and your engagement... Well, I just think you overreached yourself.”

Fletcher moved along the sideboard, loading his plate with thin slices of ham and various other foods meant to satisfy his extremely hearty appetite. “Would it please you to know, Beck, that I have suffered myself in this thing?”

Beck followed along behind, stabbing at a slice of ham with a silver serving fork. “It would,” he agreed tersely.

Fletcher looked about the room, just to assure himself they were in no danger of being disturbed by either the ladies or some servant intent on replenishing one of the serving platters. He leaned toward his friend and said, “I found a letter in Miss Darley’s desk, Beck. A letter to a certain Mrs. Rimston in Clerkwell, in answer to that woman’s advertisement of services rendered in the newspaper.”

“And?”

Fletcher leaned closer. “Mrs. Rimston,” he whispered importantly, as if gifting Beck with the supreme secret of the universe, “is an acknowledged abortionist.”

The china plate, piled high with ham, vegetables, a shelled boiled egg, and three slices of turkey, dropped to the floor, to shatter into six separate pieces. “A what!”

Looking down on the tangible evidence of Beck’s shock upon hearing his news, Fletcher smiled, saying, “That closely mirrors my initial reaction. Thankfully,” he added, putting down his own plate so that he could begin filling another for Beck, “Miss Darley’s interpretation of Mrs. Rimston’s advertisement meant to attract ‘any female involved in distress from an expectation of inevitable dishonor’ and in need of—and again, I quote—‘the motherly attention so necessary on those occasions for the restoration of that Security of Mind attendant on cultivated life,’ was not the one intended by this same Mrs. Rimston.”

Beck watched helplessly as Fletcher placed a quantity of sliced cooked carrots, which Beck had never been able to abide, on the plate he was preparing for him. “How can you be sure?”

Fletcher handed over the plate, returning his attention to his own, picking it up and heading for his chair at the head of the table. “I can be sure, Beck, because I, feeling myself pushed past all concerns of discretion and personal privacy, took it upon myself to read the letter Miss Darley had composed to the woman, imploring her help.”