Compromising Miss Tisdale (24 page)

“Tamsin?” Ambrosia called toward the girl once she had reached out to turn the door knob.

“Yes,” she called back without turning.

“You’re not nearly as bad as Lilly says you are.”

Tamsin laughed loudly as she exited the room, the halls echoing with the melodic sound.

Ambrosia sat there in the dimly lit room for some time after the ginger-tressed heathen had left. The fire was nothing but embers and the last candle was dangerously close to extinguishing itself and leaving her alone in the darkness. But her legs refused to budge, tethered by invisible ropes to the floor, rendering her unable to returning to her own chambers.

She had come to Brightly in search of clarity. And suddenly, it seemed as if she had finally found it.

She always did what was right; which was always proper and appropriate.

But what if what was
right
was actually neither proper, nor appropriate?

What if the best way to honor her brother’s life was to live like him—true to his self and exemplifying his character?

It would seem clarity would come at a cost and Ambrosia was at a crossroads.

She set in front of her two fresh pieces of foolscap, dipped her quill into the ink pot, and began constructing her first letter, addressing it to Lillian.

Chapter 23

At half past six the next evening, Ambrosia stood upon the doorstep of a fashionable address near Grovesnor Square. A footman clad in velvet green with gold cording opened the door and escorted her into the foyer. He made no secret of the fact that he was searching for her escort, peering around her as if the size of her hips could have possibly eclipsed a second person.

“I’ve brought no one with me,” she finally announced, saving him the trouble of reopening the door and searching the stoop. “Is her Ladyship at home?” she asked, producing her card.

The man shook his head. “I apologize, but Her Grace is out for the duration of the evening. She did not inform me that she was expecting guests.”

“Probably for the best,” Ambrosia mumbled. “Well then,” she started authoritatively. “Please go fetch His Grace. I must speak with him straight away.”

The man startled for a moment, but then bowed. “I apologize, but His Grace is
indisposed
at the moment.”

She applauded the man for at least trying to maintain the appearance of decorum. No easy feat when one worked for the devil himself.

Ambrosia hugged her pelisse a bit closer. “I do not care who the Duke is entertaining. Tell him that Miss Ambrosia Tisdale is here to see him.”

The man swallowed, his Adam’s apple dancing its way up his throat. He sped away toward the stairs at quite an impressive clip, considering the height of the heel on his shoes. Obviously, Lady Kenning had a particular fondness for decades old French costume.

Not everyone could be blessed with good taste.

The man returned and silently, swiftly escorted her into one of the nearby salons. The room was also done in the French style—clawed feet and fabrics featuring country landscapes decorated the diminutive furniture. Each piece appeared gilded. It was as if the room surpassed opulence and landed in some other state beyond words. And not for the better.

Ambrosia took a seat and enthusiastically helped herself to a newly delivered tray of tea and biscuits. She had been traveling most of the day and hadn’t even allowed the coachmen to stop for nourishment except in the case of the horses. She had two stops in London to make and could ill afford to waste time at inns waiting for food.

“Do mine eyes deceive me?” James announced as he entered the room, dramatically closing the doors behind him. He was clad only in his shirt linen and a pair of immodestly snug breeches that would have made her blush during any other circumstance. He had managed to put on a pair of polished hessians so his appearance wasn’t wholly inappropriate, but still suggestive.

“Is the most lovely woman in all of London here, at last, to pay me a visit?” He bowed deeply, taking her hand and lavishing it with a moist kiss that left her hand wet.

Ambrosia smiled, rather than surrender to her first impulse, which was to shudder. “Hello, James,” she said, doing her best imitation of her mother—the constant, proficient flirt.

It worked. He smiled in return, basking in her attention. “You are lovely today, aren’t you?”

Ambrosia had taken special care to make herself presentable, even borrowing one of Lilly’s gowns. She felt such an occasion called for something special.

“You flatter me, Your Grace.” Before he could correct her, she corrected herself. “I mean,
James
.”

He took the seat next to her, and held both her hands in his. “Ambrosia? Does your visit mean what I hope it means? Have you finally reconsidered my offer? My
offers
?”

Ambrosia took her hands back and clutched her reticule, the letter inside burning through the bag and searing her leg with its intention. “Now, I know my visit is unexpected, but I have so much to speak with you about that it just didn’t seem appropriate fare for casual correspondence.”

“Sounds promising.” James sat back, crossing his ankle over his knee and draping his long arms atop the back of the sofa. “Is this about Lord Bristol? Have there been any developments that I should know about? Or perhaps congratulate you on? Is this the reason you have come to me now?”

“So many questions, James!” she playfully scolded. “They shall all be answered in time.”

He smiled and exhaled an unsteady breath. “I had so hoped this day would come. I had only to wait for you to become betrothed so that we could finally enjoy each other in the way we were intended to.”

Ambrosia swallowed, her nerve wavering slightly.
Better to get on with it now
. She opened her reticule, removed a piece of foolscap, then handed it to him.

He took the letter and began reading. At first, his face was bright and open. But as he progressed through the letter, his brow began to furrow and his face took on an entirely different light.

She waited patiently for him to finish the letter. And then to reread it.

James folded the paper and set it upon the table in front of them. He sat there, elbows on his knees, hands supporting his chin. “What is all that about?” he nodded his head toward the missive as if touching it again were dangerous.

Ambrosia took a deep, cleansing breath before speaking. It was as if she were readying herself for a vigorous walk or a spirited argument. “It is the amount you owe the Maddox family for the money you’ve stolen from the prior Earl.”

What seemed like minutes, but were actually seconds, passed by in silence and frozen postures till James finally stood and started to pace around the room like a caged tiger.

“What are you doing, Ambrosia?” he said quietly, but intently.

She stood up, refusing to cower before the beast. “I’m giving you the opportunity to right your wrongs.”

He snatched the letter off the table and clutched it in his hand. “By ruining me?” he growled, shoving the crumpled letter in her face.

She took a step back. “After you yourself has ruined so many? Then yes, if that is what it takes, so be it.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, Ambrosia.”

She puffed her chest up. “I know perfectly well what I’m getting myself into. It’s you who severely underestimated your opponents.”

He snorted. “Underestimated my opponents? Please, spare me your rhetoric. I did no such thing. My opponents could hardly be considered worthy adversaries. They were fools, every one.”

“You’d speak that way about your own sister? Of your friends?”

He dismissed her accusations with a broad wave of his hand. “My sister hasn’t any sense. I’m certain you’ve picked up on that over the years. And my friends? You mean Jason? What makes you think you know anything about any of this?” He threw the letter at her, which she clambered to pick up.

“I know everything!” she yelled back, finally raising her voice. “Your sister came to me—heartbroken, that her own brother would resort to blackmail.”

“Her husband is rich. And she wastes his fortune on ridiculous dresses and the like when my life was in danger. Real and actual danger!”

“But it is her fortune to waste, not yours to extort, James.”

“I needed the help. I’m her brother. Family comes first!”

“She did help you. You squandered the money and then vowed revenge when she refused to give you more. You let greed get in the way of your relationship.”

He walked over to a cabinet and took out a bottle of brandy—first helping himself to a lengthy drink before pouring a generous amount in his glass. “And what else do you think you know?”

“I know all about how you stole from Jason Maddox.”

James narrowed his gaze. “Dead men are telling stories now, are they?”

The chill in his voice caused every hair upon the back of her neck to stand on end. “I saw his ledgers. I went through them. One by one. I saw the name of his solicitor—it’s the same as yours. I recognized it from a card Amelia had shown me. There were entries that didn’t make sense and none of the numbers added up properly. He should have made a fortune with his investments. Many of them were the same as my own father’s, yet he never realized those earnings. And there were others where he lost thousands—yet those were all fictitious ventures, weren’t they?”

She met his cool blue eyes with a stony stare of her own. “You took it. You stole his money. His solicitor lied to him and turned the profits over to you. He trusted you, James. He trusted you entirely.”

“His mistake.”

“Yes. An unfortunate mistake that I intend to remedy.”

James was silent for a moment. “Jason was a good man, but a fool. He trusted people and that’s hardly ever a smart thing.”

“Why did you do it?” she asked, trembling with righteous anger.

James shrugged, a callous gesture. “I needed the blunt. My father lost practically everything we had at the tables. Luckily, he bartered me off to my rich wife to save his own skin. Her dowry turned things around for us. But I inherited his bad luck. So, not only was I trapped in a miserable marriage, but I hadn’t a pot to piss in. I did what I had to survive. The people I owe money too don’t really care if my wife holds the purse strings or my father’s a lousy cheat, only if they are paid what they are owed. It was a matter of life and death.”

For a moment, she felt a bit sorry for him.

“And then it became so easy to take the money, not to continue would have been foolish of me.”

Her sympathy quickly dissolved.

James continued as if he were reciting a story to a group of children. “Jason didn’t ask questions, so I kept taking what I could. The more he lost, the more he gave to me. It was quite the boon, I tell you. But then he had the nerve to up and die on me. I had to turn to my sister till my next mark made good on his promises.”

“But you went back to your sister?”

He shrugged again. “Yes, unfortunate turn of events. I had made some rather large promises to some rather large fellows expecting my newest investment to come into a great deal of money. Only, things didn’t work out in the time frame I had hoped. Amelia was the only one I knew I could secure such a fortune from, given the limited amount of time I had to produce it all.”

Ambrosia was horrified by his cruel lack of remorse. The man actually felt as if he were owed the right to steal another man’s fortune. This was entitlement at its worst.

“I’m going to tell Duncan,” she said quietly, unwavering decisiveness thick in her tone.

James shook his head. “Don’t be foolish, Ambrosia. He doesn’t need the worry right now.” He began walking toward her. “I’m all he has left after his uncle dies. You wouldn’t want to irreparably damage our friendship, now would you? Besides, what about me? Can’t you see that I’m also the victim in all this? My money—gone. My marriage—decided for me. All I wanted was the opportunity to offer for you, and that was ripped from me in order to make up for what my father had lost. Don’t I deserve even the slightest bit of reparations for what I’ve had to endure?”

Ambrosia began stepping backward toward the door. “I’m not going to lie to Duncan for you. And you shouldn’t say such things about me. You’re married, James.”

“And your point is? I didn’t want her—I wanted you. My father made me marry her for her dowry. But I knew I could never be truly happy unless I had you. Ambrosia, I know you share my feelings—why else would you remain unmarried for all these years?”

She swallowed, and for the first time since she arrived, she was terrified at what he would possibly do next. “I was waiting for Duncan. Not you, James.”

She opened the doors and quickly shut them behind her. After steadying her breath, she proceeded quickly to exit the home.

Her hired hack was still waiting for her in the front, no doubt because of the large fee she had paid at the beginning of her journey. She quickly spoke the next address and the driver took off before she could see James run out of the house after her.

Chapter 24

Ambrosia knocked hesitantly at the next address, still shaking from her experience with James. She hadn’t exactly formulated the rest of her plan, but she knew no matter what transpired at Kenning’s home, she was always going to end up at this very door.

A somberly dressed man answered and escorted her into the foyer.

“Please tell Lord Bristol that I must speak with him,” she ordered, regretting her tone after she had spoken the words.

“Ambrosia?”

She turned her attention to the stairs, where Duncan was making his way down.

The bravado she wielded so confidently at the previous home suddenly retreated, leaving her with nothing but a sensation of uneasiness. Frayed, exposed, heightened nerves stood on end throughout her body. “Oh.”

Impressive use of the English language.

Duncan looked around the entryway. “You’re here? It’s so late and your mother? Your sisters?”

“I’ve come alone.”

Duncan stopped walking. “You’ve come
alone
?”