Barbara Metzger (25 page)

Root and Newt had escaped their mother’s eye to the billiard room, forsaking even Elsbeth, who quickly claimed a headache. Niles took himself off to drown his sorrows with his cousin’s excellent brandy, for lack of a better idea, and Mr. Hilloughby declared he had to work on his sermon.

All of which left Juneclaire and St. Cloud all alone in the gold parlor, except for Aunt Marta and Uncle Avery. Aunt Marta did not believe in gambling, so cards were out. Juneclaire did not play well enough to entertain with music. They had no mutual friends and no common interests, and the earl and Aunt Marta each represented what the other most despised. It was not a comfortable gathering, especially in contrast to the past few nights. St. Cloud as host could not retire before his guests, and Aunt Marta would have dyed her hair red and gone on the stage before leaving her niece alone with the earl. Therefore Juneclaire yawned, and yawned again until Lady Stanton decided they would all do better with an early night. She walked Juneclaire right to her door and would have locked her in if she weren’t sure that the libertine had copies of all the keys to the house anyway.

Juneclaire would just have to do her hunting without Merry. Under the heavy eyes of Pansy—Aunt Florrie had tried darkening the pig’s lashes with bootblack to match Sydelle’s—and with the assistance of a curious kitten, Juneclaire removed every single item from her wardrobe. When the closet was absolutely bare, she pulled and twisted, pushed and poked at every shelf, hinge, and hook. There had to be a way to get into the secret passage from her room. Uncle George had done it, at least twice. There were seams in the wood panels on the sides and back, but she could not get any of them to move. Nothing.

She rested her hands on the closet rod that held the hangers while she thought—and the bar turned under her hands. Then she rolled it the other way, away from her, and one of the panels slid back. She found it! Juneclaire poked her head through, hoping to see Uncle George on the other side, but she saw nothing, only darkness past the little circle of her own light. She thought she’d better go get Merry.

As Juneclaire backed out of the opening, though, the cat came to investigate and kept on going. “Oh, no, Shamrock. Here, kitty. Come back, kitty, kitty.” Kitty did not come back. Shamrock would be lost forever, and the dowager would be heartbroken. There was nothing for it; Juneclaire had to go after the foolish furball.

She was
not
being impetuous. She made sure she had a fresh candle in her holder and another in her pocket, along with a flint. She put a hatbox in the opening to make sure it did not shut and checked the mechanism on the other side, a kick-wheel device, so she could get back in, in case.

Someone had swept the floor in the secret passage, but not well, and she could see footprints and, yes, the mark of Uncle George’s peg leg going in both directions. Shamrock’s went in only one. Juneclaire followed, trying to keep count of the doors, the turns, the side passages. She couldn’t. She turned to check and no longer saw the light from her own room. For one awful minute she thought she’d be lost forever; maybe curiosity was going to kill more than the cat this night. Maybe Merry would be heartbroken. No, he would be relieved. Then reason reasserted itself: Merry would come after her in the morning and give her one of those dire looks and sarcastic comments. She’d better find Uncle George to lead her back.

She found the cat instead, sitting next to one of the wheel devices, licking its feet. Juneclaire picked the kitten up, hugging it more for her comfort than its. Now she had two choices: she could wander around these corridors looking for her own room for the next eight hours or so, or she could turn this wheel and pray. “Please let the room be unoccupied.”

Her prayer was answered. Unfortunately, the answer was no. She found herself and the kitten in her hands in a closet so full of silks and satins and shoes and hats that there was hardly room for her to stand. A light shone through the crack in the door facing into the room, and she could hear voices. She took a deep breath. Hungary water . . . Niles. She decided to assay the dark passage again, with rats and bats and spiders, rather than come face-to-face with that slug in his bedroom.

As she was backing out of the narrow opening in the back of the closet, however, Pansy was coming in. The lonely pig’s sharp nose had no trouble finding her mistress in the maze and no trouble detecting the wine and biscuits Niles had in his room. She pushed past Juneclaire, who lost her footing. Juneclaire reached up to save herself and the cat and the fop’s expensive wardrobe from a fall, and grabbed onto the hanging bar, which turned, nearly shutting the rear panel on Pansy’s curled tail. Pansy went flying forward, pushing open the doors.

Juneclaire followed. What else could she do? If a woman, a pig, and a cat flying out of an armoire astounded Niles and his companion, the sight that met Juneclaire’s eyes was only slightly less shocking.

Somewhere in the middle of his second bottle downstairs, Niles had finally had a better idea. Instead of letting the widow Pomeroy and her voluptuous charms—not the least of which was her ample checkbook—hie off to London in the morning, Niles had one last card up his sleeve. And a cinder in his eye.

Juneclaire’s garbled account of the cat, the secret passage, and “I’ll just be going now” was lost as the elegant widow,
en déshabillé,
explained how poor Niles needed her assistance. What Niles needed was more time. The wine stood ready on the low table, the bed stood ready, and his flea-brained sister had dashed well better stand ready to burst in on them at the right moment. This wasn’t it, so Niles shoved the damned interfering wench out the door.

Juneclaire leaned against the wall, breathing hard, her eyes closed.

“My, my, what do we have here?”

Her breathing stopped altogether, and her eyes snapped open. Merry, with his abominable quizzing glass, was surveying her disarranged hair, her heaving chest, her flaming cheeks. “Do you know what a good influence you have been, Miss Beaumont? I am still maintaining my New Year’s resolution to keep an open mind. I find my affianced bride coming out of my loose-screw cousin’s bedroom, looking, ah, shall we say, hot and bothered, and I haven’t even skinned him alive yet. Aren’t you pleased?”

Juneclaire was happy there was a wall holding her up; for sure her trembling knees were not. “We . . . we’re not engaged,” she quavered.

“True. Then I’ll skin him after I murder him.”

“No, he didn’t . . . I wasn’t . . . Don’t go in there!”

“Why, did you already do him in with your darning needle? And here I thought you were going to be less impetuous.”

“Stop it, you gudgeon. He’s not—”

“Juneclaire Beaumont, what are you doing out of your room?” Aunt Marta yelled loudly enough that Uncle Avery peered out of his room across the hall. “And you, St. Cloud, how dare you carry on in this abandoned fashion right under my very nose? I’ll—”

They were never to find out what Aunt Marta was going to do because a shriek came from inside Niles’s room. The earl pushed past Juneclaire and flung the door open.

When Niles tossed Juneclaire out of his room, he forgot about the pig. Pansy didn’t mind, as long as the biscuits were in reach. When they were gone, she went snuffling around, looking for Juneclaire or another friend. Her wanderings took her closer to the fire, where Sydelle was leaning over Niles, dabbing at his eye with a scrap of handkerchief. Pansy whiffled closer, right up Lady Pomeroy’s skirt. Hence the shriek. Sydelle fell forward, and Niles, simply doing what came naturally to an immoral, licentious lecher, pulled her down on top of him.

“Congratulations, cousin,” St. Cloud said from the doorway. “May I be the first to offer my felicitations.”

And Elsbeth, tripping down the hall, said, “For heaven’s sake, Niles, if you changed your plan, you should have told me.”

Aunt Marta declared, “Well, I never,” to which Uncle Avery sadly replied, “Twice, my dear, twice.”

T
he dowager was so pleased with the match that she decided to go downstairs to see Niles and Sydelle off to London. Lady Pomeroy wanted to see the last of St. Cloud Priory, and Niles wanted to see the notice in the papers before Sydelle changed her mind. Juneclaire was walking the dowager down the long hall.

“Tell Talbot to serve champagne,” Lady St. Cloud ordered. “That ought to ruffle your aunt’s fur, the old hellcat. Maybe she’ll take those scamps of hers and leave early.”

Aunt Marta disapproved of the couple, among other things. She would not come down. Juneclaire was afraid St. Cloud really was going to send her off with the Stantons, though, so she tried to divert the old woman. “Do you actually think Niles and Sydelle will suit?”

“Like hand in glove. He’ll have his glove in her pocket, and she’ll have her hand on his—Well, she’ll keep him under her thumb. They’re both decorative, expensive fribbles, with less morality than alley cats. He’ll have his gaming and clubs, she’ll have her respectability and a title when Harmon sticks his spoon in the wall, and they’ll both go their own ways. Perfect marriage, my dear, perfect.”

“I think it sounds perfectly horrible, cold and mercenary.”

“Wouldn’t do for just everybody, mind, but those two? Besides, it’ll get them out of my grandson’s house. Now, if I can just remind Harmon that the older Stanton twit will inherit a tidy pig farm one day, and won’t he and Elsbeth be happy in Farley’s Grange, I might get them out of here also. What are you giggling about, girl? You don’t think Harmon’s already figuring that Sydelle has that London town house and the right connections to fire Elsbeth off? Trust me, the man’s liver mightn’t be up to snuff, but his wits ain’t gone begging.”

She was right. Lord Wilmott had decided that Sydelle needed his chaperonage on the journey to London and Elsbeth’s help with the wedding plans. Root’s and Newt’s hearts were breaking as they stood on the steps waving farewell to their first love, until the earl invited them to help exercise his bloodstock. Lady Fanny waved her handkerchief to the departing coaches, and Aunt Florrie waved a dead halibut.

Juneclaire helped the dowager back inside and made her comfortable in the morning room with the rest of the champagne. “Fine day’s work, my girl,” the dowager said, lifting her glass to Juneclaire. “Now if we can just see the dust of your relatives, the place will be near livable again.”

Juneclaire rearranged some figurines on the mantel. “I . . . I’m afraid I’ll be leaving with them, my lady.”

“Gammon, you’re engaged to my grandson. You belong here.”

“No, my lady. I am not really engaged. He just offered because he had to.”

“Nonsense, girl. Satan St. Cloud hasn’t done anything he hasn’t wanted to since he was in short pants. You’re good for him, miss. I could hear him laugh when you were dancing and such.”

“But Uncle George . . .”

“Faugh, you haven’t got your eyes on a man old enough to be your father, have you, girl? He’s Fanny’s. Always was and always will be, though heaven knows what he or his brother ever saw in the widgeon. Robert wanted her, too, you know. Always jealous, even if he had the title and estate. For the life of me I don’t know how I raised two such bobbing-blocks. If you tell me my lobcock of a grandson is making mice feet of his future now, too, I’ll take my cane to the both of you, I swear I will. But don’t worry, girl. George’ll bring him round.”

“Then Uncle George is here, and he can tell Merry about—?”

“He said he’d make it right. Soon. Word of a Jordan.”

 

Juneclaire couldn’t wait, not if Aunt Marta was going to carry her away after tomorrow night’s celebration marking the end of the holy season. It may as well be the end of Juneclaire’s life, she thought dismally. Aunt Marta was already guarding her like a rabid sheepdog, not allowing her two minutes alone with Merry, following her to her bedroom and coming back an hour later to make sure Juneclaire was in bed, alone, with her door locked and bolted.

Locks and bolts on the bedroom door meant nothing to Juneclaire, of course, but no one had thought to ask how she came to be in or out of Niles Wilmott’s bedroom last night. She had no chance to explain to Merry about the trick of the secret passage until now. It was his house; he should know.

Juneclaire wrapped a warm shawl over her shoulders and turned the bar. It was much harder, with the hangers all back in place, but the back panel finally slid aside. She counted doors until she was behind the master suite, she hoped. She turned the wheel and the door opened, revealing . . . nothing. She was in an empty closet. She mentally recounted doors and rooms, until she realized she must be in the mistress’s chamber. The unused bedroom reserved for the countess, Merry’s wife. Good. At least now she—and Pansy, of course— wouldn’t have to burst out of my lord’s closet like blackbirds from a pie. She nudged the wardrobe door open, waiting for protests from unused hinges, but rust must be another one of those things unacceptable in an earl’s residence. Edging her way out of the closet, she tiptoed toward the right, where light showed under a connecting door. Juneclaire listened for a minute, in case Merry’s valet should be with him. Should she knock? Maybe this wasn’t a good idea after all.

As usual, Pansy took matters into her own . . . knuckles. She knew a friend was on the other side of the door, and she knew her friend had something to eat. She grunted, loudly.

“What the bloody—”

Pansy trotted through the now open doorway, but Juneclaire stood where she was. She never thought he’d be naked! Or half naked, for he did have britches on, but his chest was bare except for dark curls that spread to where his hard muscles tapered into a lean vee that disappeared to where he
did
have britches on. She didn’t trust that gleam in his green eyes, and why the rogue picked now to smile she never knew, but when she lowered her own, they saw—Oh, dear, this wasn’t a good idea at all.