Always a Temptress (6 page)

“Yes, my lady.” With a final curtsy, she walked out.

Left behind, Kate wasted no time opening her trunk and pulling out the contents. Her money was beneath the false bottom. It wouldn’t do for anyone to know. Or to know that in five minutes it would be hidden under the loose floorboard alongside her candles. For the first time since tumbling into her coach, Kate felt a sliver of hope.

Nothing. Not so much as a scrap of lint. Harry went through Kate’s clothing as thoroughly and meticulously as if it had been a battle plan. He ran his fingers over every inch of material, from the bright yellow twill of her carriage gown to the silk of her stockings to the lawn of her chemise. Mudge offered to help, but Harry growled at him and the boy retreated. If there was evidence here of a crime, he wanted to be the one to find it. He wanted to be the one to wave it in Kate’s face so that this time she couldn’t deny it. It had nothing to do with the fact that the cloth was still warm from her body, or that her elusive scent still wafted from the fabric like incense. He was only doing his job.

Even so, he couldn’t help noticing how fine the material was, how sensuous. He could see his fingers through her chemise, which fit the Kate he knew now. He couldn’t forget, though, how indifferent Kate had once seemed to fine clothes. In fact, she’d always made a point of showing up in her sisters’ old hand-me-downs, which had never fit, even before she ruined them going over fences and sitting in the dirt to fish. When he’d asked her why she’d not had a better wardrobe, she’d challenged him with that sharp, bright smile of hers and said, “Why, this is what I wear,” as if it would explain all.

Harry had always believed that she’d done it just to be contrary. He’d obviously been right. There were certainly no hand-me-downs in the duchess’s luggage.

He wondered if it had been the duke who had taught her to skirt the edge of propriety. She was never vulgar, exactly. But each time Harry saw her in public, her attire was just shy of being too bright, too bold, too revealing. Her carriage dress was a prime example, cut to hug her figure, when most dresses were as shapeless as gunnysacks, the soft wool a bright lemon yellow. Her evening dresses were far worse.

Funny, though. He would have expected her undergarments to be even more decadent. Just like everyone else, he’d heard about Kate’s legion of lovers. Surely a woman intent on attracting a man to her bed would indulge in silk and satin, elaborately embroidered and made to slip off in a hurry. His mistresses certainly had.

The only embroidery on Kate’s chemise was a pair of honeybees just beneath each strap. And the chemise wasn’t silk. What was it, lawn? The same stuff they made handkerchiefs from. As soft as a whisper, true, and sheer enough to give a damn good idea what was beneath. But…plain. Practical. Not what he would have expected the most notorious duchess in the realm to wear.

How many men had run their hands over this chemise? he wondered. How many had slipped it off and tossed it to the floor in their hurry to get to her body?

Cursing, he dropped the garments as if they’d caught fire. He needed to stop this. He needed distance, time, perspective. Instead he had an aching cock, itchy eyes, and a growing conviction that he was about to walk off a shaky pier in heavy boots.

No matter what had passed between them, the last thing he needed was to join the procession into her bedroom. And yet here he was, fondling her garments as if she were in them, and he was sweating like a fat man in a steam bath.

“Unless you want to cut her open like a cadaver,” came Schroeder’s voice from the doorway, “I can guarantee there is nothing hiding anywhere on Lady Kate’s body.”

Harry was sitting at the freshly dusted library desk, Kate’s dress spilling over the side like a waterfall of sunlight. He couldn’t seem to look away from it, mesmerized by the conundrums it posed.

“Major?” Schroeder said with a cough. “What next?”

Harry yanked himself to attention. “We wait to hear from Diccan.”

“You’ll be sending a messenger off right away?”

He saw the direction Schroeder’s gaze had taken, and realized he was once again running the cloud of lawn through his fingers. Quickly he bunched it up and tossed it onto the desk, where Schroeder recovered it.

“See if Frank is finished in the stables.”

“What about the duchess?”

Harry leaned his chair back on two legs. “What
about
her?”

Schroeder tilted her head, her arms overflowing with Kate’s garments. “We didn’t find anything. Why don’t you let her out?”

“Because I don’t trust her.”

“She doesn’t have the verse.”

He wasn’t about to tell Schroeder that the verse had little to do with it.

“It is obvious you don’t get along with her,” Schroeder said suddenly. “Is there something we need to know?”

“No.”

“Nothing that could impact how you discharge your duties in this situation.”

“No.”

She stood there, passive, damning in her silence. “Major,” she finally said. “If you have credible information that the duchess is part of a plot against the throne of England, then you have my full and unquestioning support. But if this is something personal between the two of you, then I must…wonder.”

“We were…close once,” he snapped, then shrugged. “We are not now.”

Schroeder nodded. “And this happened recently?”

Harry got to his feet. “Ten years ago.”

She stared at him. “You can’t mean to say that all this noise is over something that happened when you were, what? Twenty?”

“Of course not.” He turned away from her and walked over toward the window. “I’ve run afoul of the duchess enough times to know what to expect from her. Suffice it to say that my experiences with her impressed on me the fact that she is not to be trusted. She is a facile liar, manipulating all those around her for her own pleasure. I wouldn’t put it past her to be involved in this plot just for the fun of it.”

“Has she committed any crimes?”

He sighed, wishing like hell that Schroeder were a Rifleman who took orders without question. “I was engaged twice,” he finally admitted, looking out the window as if he could see past the grime. “She managed to end both.”

“The duchess?” Schroeder asked, her disbelief evident. “Ruined your engagements.”

He could still see the fury in Lady Poppy Posts’s great blue eyes as she threw his ring at him. He’d never even had a chance to defend himself. “Yes,” he said baldly.

“Why?”

Why the hell was he having to dredge up the past? Schroeder didn’t need to know his personal history to follow orders. “Don’t you have work to do?”

“Yes. Helping you figure out why the Surgeon mentioned Lady Kate in relation to the verse. I just thought it might be good to know whether we’ve locked her up because she is a danger to the Crown, or because you feel the need to exact some sort of revenge.”

For a minute, Harry couldn’t manage an answer. He did get to his feet. “We’ve locked up Lady Kate to keep everybody safe until we find out what the hell’s going on. That’s all you need to know, and more than I usually tell a servant.”

She was nodding. “Ah, but you see, I’m not a servant. Mr. Hilliard should have told you that.”

“Then what are you?”

She smiled, and Harry was struck suddenly by the quiet confidence he should have seen before. “Somebody who is very good at what she does. Now. I would ask you again. Since we’re just waiting around, why don’t I see if I can get any answers from her.”

Harry kept staring at her. “What does Drake think of you?”

“The earl?” she asked, then shrugged. “I have no idea. We’ve never met. I work solely with Mr. Hilliard.”

Finally, he nodded. “Diccan says you have excellent instincts. Use them on Kate.”

And without another word, she walked out, leaving Harry with the uncomfortable feeling that she had been right. He was looking for revenge. He was looking to cut Kate Hilliard down to size. Back to the Kate he’d known before she had added
duchess
to her name and become impossible. Before she’d betrayed him so thoroughly.

Well, he thought, looking around the dim room. He had nothing to do right now but wait for Schroeder’s report. He could either wait here, up on his bed, or outside walking the estate.

No question. Right now he needed to be busy.

“Mudge!” he yelled, knowing the batman wasn’t far away. “I’ll be outside.”

And grabbing his sketchbook and charcoal, he left the room.

“You truly don’t know what the Surgeon meant when he said you were involved?” Barbara asked.

Her calm a hard-wrought facade, Kate sat on her rickety little chair running one of Bea’s handkerchiefs through her fingers. Barbara had returned a few minutes ago for a bit of gentle interrogation over tea. “I truly don’t.”

At least it was keeping Kate occupied. The hours till dark and escape would be long enough.

Barbara, for her part, had the courage to sit on the bed, as if she hadn’t noticed the puff of dust that lifted when she sat, or the spiders that danced away over her head. “But Major Lidge said that you were at the wedding last week when the Surgeon was killed,” she said.

“Indeed I was. Most entertaining house party I’ve attended in ages. One should always count an assassin among one’s acquaintances, Barbara, if only for the notoriety. But if he told anyone that I was involved, he seems sadly delusional.”

“He said you have the verse.”

“And we proved I don’t.”

“You know many people, Lady Kate. Could you know someone in the Lions?”

“I know
everyone
, Barbara, which means that chances are very great that I do. But so far none has suggested I help him drive a knife into Prinny’s back.”

Kate paused for a bit, her eyes on the shuddering flame as she tried to gather her scattered wits enough to see if she might have ever heard something suspicious. It didn’t take long to shake her head. “No. From what I know about the Lions, they sound to be archconservatives; Liverpool’s kind of people, who seek order above all else. As you can imagine, that kind of person doesn’t frequent my At Homes. I draw those who delight in being scandalous, of course, but only because they befriend artists and literati and such. And people like Byron are much more interested in Greek independence than British insurrection.” She smiled. “I believe it is because the costumes are so much more romantic.”

Barbara nodded. “Yes. That is what my operatives have surmised.”

Kate couldn’t help but grin. “Do you really run an army of domestics who spy for the Crown?”

“Indeed I do.” Barbara smiled genuinely for the first time. “It was an ingenious idea of Dic…Mr. Hilliard’s. After all, the staff know what happens in a house before anyone else. We’ve been able to gather quite a bit of proof and give the government the names they seek.”

“But
you
aren’t a domestic.”

Barbara’s smile became mysterious. “Of course I am. I am an excellent abigail.”

Which meant Kate would learn no more. “Tell me what
you
know, then. Maybe new information will spark my memory.”

But Barbara shook her head. “I know very little more than you, my lady. Some of the people who have been named, of course. Some who aren’t named yet, but as you say, none who would frequent your affairs. I know, of course, that these are in the main aristocrats who think that the country needs a return to the government of the last century, and that placing Princess Charlotte on the throne will accomplish this. There are only about three or four people at the core of the Lions who know all. The rest, I understand, are broken up into smaller…squads, I suppose, who don’t know one another except by an identifying sign—”

“Like the verse. Yes. I gathered that.”

She was awarded another nod. “There have been no arrests as of yet, although the Earl and Countess of Thornton are reported to have escaped to the Continent along with Mr. Geoffrey Smythe, who worked with them. I know that Mr. Hilliard has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to insert himself into the Lions, although we don’t know whether he has been successful yet. And I know that his father the bishop was killed after admitting to his own complicity. From what I gather, his task was to bring the House of Lords into line when the time came.”

Kate nodded thoughtfully. “If anybody believed he was more worthy of ruling a country than the king and Parliament, it was certainly my uncle Evelyn. I’m just relieved he didn’t survive long enough to be drawn and quartered.”

“I don’t think anyone will be, if you want the truth,” Barbara said. “The culprits are too high-placed. Can you imagine what would happen if they had to try a dozen aristocrats for treason?”

Kate looked up, her stomach taking an unexpected dive. “What do you mean? You think that they’ll just…disappear?”

Schroeder didn’t even blink.

Well, that certainly gave Kate something to take her mind off her escape. “Do you think it was the Lions who shot my uncle, or the government?”

“I think we’ll probably never know.”

Kate took in a slow breath. “I imagine I should thank Harry for merely kidnapping me. I have no doubt that he would have much rather shot me and been done with it.”

Barbara stayed another hour, but neither woman learned anything new. At least it kept Kate busy. She had been right about those hours she had to wait. They stretched out like a desert road, wearing on her patience and testing her composure. As the house settled around her and all the voices stilled, she changed into the sturdiest dress she had, a dark blue kerseymere gown. Sadly, she hadn’t thought to bring hiking shoes to a wedding, so she settled for the strongest slippers she had. Then she waited until she could hear no more voices or movement outside her door. There were rustlings in the walls and weird creaks in the corners, but Kate knew that to be the betrayals of old age and disuse. She would wait another thirty minutes or so, and then she would test the shutters.

She had just gotten to her feet when she heard the most curious sound. It sounded exactly as if someone was tapping on the shutters. Three stories above the ground.