Confessions of a Little Black Gown (14 page)

She’d seen her father do much the same thing on more than one occasion, as if cataloguing one and all surrounding him. Felicity had the same talent, yet for her own reasons.

But whyever did Mr. Ryder care who the other guests were? That is, unless he was looking for…

Miss DeFisser!
Tally’s gut clenched in displeasure. The same feeling she got every time she saw their old schoolmate, Miss Sarah Browne. Which made no sense, for Miss Browne was a detestable peahen and Tally didn’t even know Miss DeFisser.

Except that the girl was destined for…

“Still, to have written a play, Miss Langley,” he was saying. “That is quite an achievement. May I read it?”

She was so lost in her own reverie, of imagining Miss DeFisser and
him
together that she didn’t quite discern what he’d asked. “Read what, sir?”

“Your play, of course.” He bowed slightly. “I would be honored to read your efforts.”

She shook her head. “Heavens, no! It is hardly appropriate for a…for a…”

“A young lady perhaps?” He rocked on his heels, his brows tilted at an angle that could only be described as teasing.

Teasing!
From a vicar. A shiver whispered down her arms, like the portent of gooseflesh.

“Have you been writing something wicked, Miss Langley? Something you fear you will have
to repent? Something untoward I might discover about you?”

She did shiver this time. No, tremble. Right down to the soles of her slippers. “Discover?” she managed to whisper. “I doubt it, sir.”

He leaned closer. “I don’t. I think you have some very distracting secrets, Miss Langley, that I would be delighted to uncover.”

Tally felt her insides unravel. Secrets? Uncovered? This was becoming more unnerving than the notion of being a vicar’s wife. For suddenly he was no longer harmless, with his Fordyce sermons and horrid pomade.

This was a man capable of uncovering her darkest secrets.

The loose ends inside her coiled into panic, because with it came a realization that as much as she feared discovery, she longed for him to try.

To test her.
To uncover her.

“I believe my sister needs me,” she said, turning to flee and nearly stepping into the path of a carriage.

Mr. Ryder caught her before the distracted coachman ran her over, holding her by the elbow. The grand carriage came to a stop before them, the horses dancing and prancing, the driver setting the brake with a tired arm.

And all the time, Mr. Ryder held her fast. His touch, firm and strong, sent rebellious ripples of desire down her limbs. Whyever did he affect her thusly?

“Tell me, Miss Langley,” he asked, “is your play a lesson on the art of love? One that even I could learn from?” His voice teased her, tempted her. Sparked
that fire that he’d kindled last night, as if he’d stroked her neck, kissed her lips, touched her…

The door to the carriage flew open, and a young lady descended. “Oh, Miss Thalia!” she exclaimed. “Don’t tell me! You’ve been scribbling another of your monstrous plays. Well, you can set your pen aside, for I have the most engaging story for you that will leave all your imaginings in the pale.”

Larken glanced up at the young lady making her way out of the carriage and found himself horror-struck that this “gel” might be Miss DeFisser. If that wasn’t excuse enough to send him high-tailing it back to the London, he knew of no better.

“Oh, how foolish of me,” she said, holding out her hand for Larken to take. “I should say
Miss Langley
, now that your dear sister is married. That makes you the spinster of the family, doesn’t it?” Her lips curled into a spiteful smile as she descended, a look that faded as she glanced over at him and realized who held her hand. She plucked her fingers back, her nose wrinkling as a waft of pomade hit it.

“A spinster?” Tally said, her spine going stiff as she spoke. “Something we have in common, wouldn’t you say, Miss Browne? Being spinsters, that is?”

Larken had lived through more than one hair-raising incident, but none that spelled more tension than this meeting of misses. Was it him or did this exchange sound like a pampered housecat hissing at a wild stray?

He eyed the pink-festooned creature standing before him and suppressed—as best he could—the shudder that rose up his spine. Well, if there
was something to celebrate it was her name. Miss Browne. Not Miss De Fisser. At least he wasn’t about to be saddled with this bi—ahem,
miss
—for the next few days.

As it was, Miss Browne struck a commanding pose, glancing up at the magnificent house before her and sniffing, as if it was well and good but hardly up to her standards. “At least you will have your dear cousin to share your days with, for I can’t see how she will ever marry. My situation, on the other hand, is quite promising, what with my inheritance and my good name unsullied.” She glanced at Larken, and in the flick of a lash, dismissed him.

He would have grinned, but that probably wouldn’t have been very vicarly.

Having removed him from her consideration, Miss Browne continued baiting Miss Langley with a look that might have been sincere if her eyes weren’t dancing with malice, “Poor, poor Lady Philippa. There are so many who say her disgrace has completely tarnished her virtue.” She turned to the matron getting out the carriage behind her. “Isn’t that so,
Maman
? That Lady Philippa’s disgrace is still the subject of much discussion in Town.”

He felt, rather than saw, Miss Langley surge past him, and caught hold of the back of her skirt, smiling over her shoulder at Miss Browne with the blandest expression he could muster as he held Miss Langley fast.

Miss Browne continued unabashed. “Though not I. I find such talk so distasteful, for I feel so deeply over her ruin. So very deeply.”

Larken considered releasing Miss Langley and
letting her loose on this harpy, but he had to imagine
that
scandal would only give Miss Browne more to gossip upon—that is once she got out of bed after the thrashing she’d receive.

To his delight, Brutus came to the rescue, darting out from beneath one of the wagons and catching hold of a beribboned confection decorating the hem of Miss Browne’s dress.

“A-a-a-h!” the nasty chit shrieked, leaping back and dancing on her toes as she tried to dislodge the little beast. But Brutus, true to his breeding, hung on until he’d torn his prize free, then he raced away, head high and ribbons trailing after him, like a horse that had just won the derby.

“Oh, stop him!” Miss Browne cried out. “He’s gone and ruined my gown.”

Larken glanced down at her hem and in truth, couldn’t discern where the ribbon had come from, since there were so many of the demmed things crowded all over the hem.

“Tally!” the duchess chastened, coming forward to greet her guests and smooth over this less-than-perfect welcome. “Please restrain him, will you?!”

Dutifully, Tally caught hold of her dog and after a bit of a tug-of-war, she was able to get the frou-frou out of his mouth and hand it over to their guest.

It hardly looked the perfect flower now, all wet and mangled, and Miss Browne stared down at it in horror. Whatever protest she’d been about to impart fell away as the crunch of wheels announced the arrival of yet another carriage.

Suddenly Miss Browne was all smiles again, straightening and posing for the new arrivals, that
is until they began to alight and she frowned by wrinkling only her nose. “Ah, the Elsfords. How egalitarian of Your Grace to invite
them
.”

“The duke and Major Elsford served together,” the duchess replied.

Tally stepped closer to her sister. “I find the Misses Elsford delightful, and not the least bit overreaching like other people.”

“I suppose you would,” Miss Browne replied, eyeing her hem again and having completely missed the slight aimed at her.

Hollindrake and his wife strolled forward to greet their guests, and Larken searched his memory, an alarm ringing through his thoughts.

Major Elsford? Have I met him?
He perused the panoply of officers and agents he’d encountered in Spain and Portugal, but no, Major Elsford was not amongst them. Thankfully. The fewer people who needed to be drawn into his deception, the better.

He was having a hard enough time keeping his identity a secret from Miss Langley.

As it was Major Elsford alighted his plain carriage as one might expect a career army officer would, straight and at attention, while his wife, a narrow lady who appeared older than her years—most likely from a life following the drum—exited in much the same fashion, tall and rigid.

The Misses Elsford came bubbling out of the carriage like a pair of frolicking kittens—ready for this grand adventure and delighted to be included. No feigned manners with them, for when they looked up at the house before them, their easy natures turned to openmouthed awe.

But the Duchess of Hollindrake moved in quickly, dispelling their sudden case of cold feet with her easy smile and warm greeting.

Hollindrake shook the major’s hand enthusiastically, and there was the usual slapping on the back and jests tossed about in the easy manner of military men who had shared years of adversity.

“Ho there, Major!” Hollindrake said. “Welcome, welcome!”

“Ah, yes! Thank you, indeed, Thatcher,” the man blustered and then stopped himself, as if just seeing the house beyond for the first time. “Ah, demmit, I forget myself. Your Grace it is now, and a fine title for a most excellent officer.”

Hollindrake took this compliment with a modest nod. “News from London, sir? What do you hear?”

“Hear? Hear? Nothing, sir. ’Tis a quiet and dull place, now that summer is upon us.”

“Nothing much? I daresay you quite mistake the matter!” This loud exclamation came from Miss Browne, and all eyes turned toward her. “Nothing much in London, sir? Why the Town is all abuzz, quite rife with talk and speculation.” She paused again, preening with importance.

Larken had to give the gel her due. She knew how to draw attention to herself, for she certainly had the floor now.

“Whatever has everyone been talking about, Miss Browne?” the duchess asked politely.

“Why, I would think you of all people would know, Your Grace,” she replied. “For haven’t you heard? Captain Dashwell has escaped from Marshalsea Prison.”

He watched not Miss Browne, but Tally. And to his horror, the flowers she’d held in her hand fell away.

She couldn’t have condemned herself more openly, more completely, and for Larken, the petals struck the ground with the same damning finality of an executioner’s axe.

T
ell me you had nothing to do with this,” Felicity said, facing her sister and cousin in their suite upstairs.

After Miss Browne’s announcement fell like a cannonball on the guests, Felicity had managed to sweep aside the chaos like a general—directing Mrs. Elsford and her daughters to their rooms, the Brownes to theirs, and delegating the rest of the matters of trunks and necessities to Staines.

Then she had caught Tally by the elbow and led her upstairs, where she was now holding her own personal tribunal.

“Tell me you didn’t help that…that…
bounder
escape,” she said, shaking from head to toe with anger.

Tally shifted from one slipper to another, for she’d never seen her twin so angry. Ever.

Even Brutus seemed to know that now would not
be a good time for one of his interruptions and made a beeline for furthest spot under the sofa.

“Duchess, I—” Tally began, using her sister’s nickname.

Felicity’s hands waved frantically in the air before her. “No! Don’t tell me. Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to know.”

Of course, Miss Browne had regaled her audience with a complete account of the night. How an elegant (albeit masked) lady had distracted Dashwell’s guards, then with the help of accomplices, freed the American privateer. Shockingly, all had escaped into the Southwark stews, not to be seen or heard of since.

A plot too familiar to escape Felicity’s notice.

“But Felicity, I thought you said—” Tally began again.

“Never mind what I said,” the duchess replied, groaning and then pacing in front of them. “Oh, this is dreadful. And on the eve of my house party. Of all the times!”

Pippin and Tally shared a quick glance, Tally all too ready to groan,
If I have to hear one more time about her demmed house party, I’ll…

Her cousin’s eyes filled with agreement.
Yes, but we have other worries…

“Haven’t you a care of how this looks?” Felicity exclaimed. “That most likely Uncle Temple will be arriving any moment now to have a look around. Or worse, that horrible Mr. Pymm will send someone to pry about without our knowing it. And then if Dashwell himself were to come here! Or worse, be found here—”

“Will you lower your voice,” Tally told her sharply. “Not only will you wake Aunt Minty,” she said in a harsh whisper, adding a nod toward the door behind her, “but you might have a care who hears you. If your intention is to have your wild theories aired before all of Sussex, then continue on, for you are doing a better job than the
Morning Post
with your mad ranting.”

Her sister’s mouth fell open, as if to contradict her, but then Tally’s words sunk in and she snapped her lips shut, her hands fisting at her sides.

But at the same time, Felicity’s fears came to roost in Tally’s chest, her heart hammering.

Send someone to pry about without our knowing it…

If only it could be an impossible notion. If only she didn’t know the truth.

That he was already here.

For even as Felicity had made her declaration, an image of Mr. Ryder rose up before Tally. No, it couldn’t be. He was Hollindrake’s cousin.

Wasn’t he?

Marching back and forth across the carpet, Felicity fired off her questions, though her register was noticeably lower. “It is one thing for my reputation to be sullied,” she said, pausing before them and striking her most ducal stance. “But what of Hollindrake’s?”

Tally’s gut clenched.
Hollindrake?
Oh, the devil take Felicity. She would have to remind them about Thatcher. Of their obligation to him. Worse yet, the duke had only ever been kind and generous to his wife’s collection of relations, odd acquaintances and questionable servants.

More generous than they deserved, Tally was ashamed to admit.

“All of London is going to be speculating who that mysterious lady might be…” Felicity was saying, letting her voice trail off and pinning her glance on Pippin.

But their cousin wasn’t an earl’s daughter for nothing, and she held her own against Felicity, staring her right back with deadly calm.

The duchess glanced at both of them before she said, “Tell me you’ve had nothing to do with this. Nothing that will draw shame on Hollindrake. I must know.”

The desperate note behind Felicity’s plea plucked at Tally.
Oh, dear heavens, what a terrible tangle…

“Nothing, Felicity,” Pippin told her, calmly and with a sincere note to her voice that would have erased the doubt of even the most cynical of judges. “I am as shocked as you are.”

Tally didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded her agreement.

Felicity let out a large sigh. “Good. Now it is on to my other problem. Mr. Ryder. The tailor and his assistants are attending to him in the second parlor, and I can only hope this Monsieur Gaspard is as good as they say and will have a new suit in order before the ball tomorrow night. I so want Miss DeFisser to be suitably impressed with him.” She sighed again and started to leave.

Tally looked up after her, but saw not her sister’s departing figure, but rather Mr. Ryder dressed to the nines and entering the ballroom.

Any woman would be impressed, as long as he was…Oh, yes! She’d almost forgotten.

“Felicity?” she called after her sister.

“Yes?”

“Consider asking Claver to act as Mr. Ryder’s valet. The poor man does nothing for Hollindrake, and it seems a shame to see his excellent talents going to waste.”

That, and Claver would take to this assignment with such alacrity and glee, he’d keep Mr. Ryder entangled until Tally found a way to unravel all this.

Felicity brightened. “That is the perfect solution. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”

Tally smiled in return, but it did little to lessen the guilt jostling about inside her. “And one more recommendation, if you truly want Mr. Ryder to make a good impression—”

“Yes?” Felicity asked eagerly.

“Have Claver dispose of Mr. Ryder’s pomade jar.”

Felicity laughed. “That will be his very first order of business.”

Tally waited until Felicity’s sharp-heeled steps hit the stairs before she turned to face Pippin.

“This must end,” she told her. “It is exactly as Felicity fears. And worse. We are already under scrutiny.”

Pippin shook her head. “Not more of your fears over Mr. Ryder? Tally, you are seeing spies where there are none. That man is nothing more than Hollindrake’s odd cousin—”

Tally opened her mouth to argue, but Pippin cut
her off. “I will hear no more arguments on the subject. We are above reproach, I tell you. We have left nothing to chance.”

The door to Aunt Minty’s room opened and a tall figure appeared in the doorway.

“That, my dear Circe, is why you should be scared,” Captain Dashwell told her, using the pet name he reserved for her and her alone. “For when you’re convinced your enemies can’t outwit you, they’ll corner you every time.” He paused and held out his hand to her, and she moved quickly across the room to take it, easing into the crook of his arm where she fit perfectly, her head gently resting over his heart. “Tally has the right of it,” he told her, his hand smoothing over her hair. “It is time for this to end.”

Yet what he didn’t say was the one thing they were all thinking.

Before our luck runs out.

They had good reason to be wary, for Miss Browne’s announcement hadn’t sent only Felicity into a panic, but Larken as well.

Damn that stupid, prattling chit!
he thought as he stood in the second parlor, having been caught by the housekeeper and towed down here only to find himself outflanked by an overeager tailor and his flotilla of assistants.

It didn’t serve his temper any better that he was being measured and taped and pinned as if he were being fitted for his shroud. And it
would
be his shroud if he let Dashwell escape. Pymm had made that all too clear.

“The bottle green or the mulberry, monsieur?” the tailor asked, holding up two bolts of wool. “I believe the bottle green would look quite handsome with a naccarat waistcoat.”

There was a collective outburst of oohs and aahs from the man’s help, as if he had just doubled their wages.

Larken stared at the offerings in horror. Orange? This man wanted him to wear an orange waistcoat? He shuddered. Why, he’d look like that utter nincompoop, Stewie Hodges. Didn’t anyone make a good black coat and nankeen breeches any more? For that was all a man needed, in his estimation.

“You don’t approve?” the tailor said with a little sniff, as if he had never had one of his brilliant suggestions rebuffed. “But Her Grace said you were here to court a lady. And how else does a man charm a woman but with his fine ensemble? You will distract her from all the others, and lure her into your favor.” He turned to his assistants. “Is that not so?”

“Of course,” and, “Most assuredly, sir,” came the assistants’ ready chorus of agreement.

“You’ll have her utterly deceived,” added the youngest of the lot, and his less than sycophantic answer did not serve him well with the others, who glared disapprovingly.

Larken ignored them all but the tailor before him. “My good man,” he said. “I am a simple clergyman”—
Not your usual aging coxcomb or Lothario who inhabits Tunbridge Wells because he can’t afford London’s prices—
“and prefer a more somber selection, befitting my station.”

“I feared as much.” The man sighed and then
snapped his fingers at one of the assistants. “The Spanish blue.”

Larken nodded his approval immediately. It wasn’t black, but the dark, deep blue was close enough.

“The naccarat would make an excellent addition—”

“No!” Larken barked at him. “I’m not wearing orange.”

“It’s more of a tangerine,” an assistant corrected, and then slunk away quickly when Larken shot him a look that said while he was a vicar meant to save men’s souls, he wasn’t opposed to sending one directly to the very fires of hell.

The room grew still, except for the snips of scissors and the occasional sniff from the tailor. All the while, Larken stewed and simmered over having to stand there like a poppet while his adversary was most likely getting away.

If he weren’t tied to secrecy and discretion, he’d be blazing through the duke’s house like a hound on the scent, and make short work of this assignment…
to kill Dash.

He flinched, and this time not from a wayward pin.
Demmit
, why did he find himself so tied up over this? It wasn’t like he hadn’t killed before.

But not a friend…
Oh, it had been an easy enough thing to agree to in the half-wakened state in which they’d found him, for he hadn’t really believed Temple’s cockamamie theory that two Bath misses had somehow managed Dashwell’s escape…and from Marshalsea of all places…not only that, but out from the very tight grasp of a naval officer and his marines.

That is until he’d met Tally…

“I believe we have all we need,” the tailor said, with a wide flourish and bow.

“Thank you,” Larken said, getting down from the stool he’d been perched on and making a hasty exit from the room before the duchess returned with yet another distraction.

He’d had enough of those for one day. Lord! He’d all but given himself away—twice—to Tally. First, telling her how his mother had died when he was born, and secondly…over the flowers he’d given her. What idiotic thing had he nearly said? Oh, yes.

…
They even grow in…
Portugal, he’d nearly said. Portugal! Oh, yes, most country vicars spend time lolling about the war torn plains of Portugal.

Perhaps he was as ’round the bend as they whispered about him behind his back at the Foreign Office. As dangerous and reckless as his superiors had claimed.

He certainly felt reckless around
her…

Worse yet, he didn’t want to discover that Tally—no, he corrected himself—
Miss Langley
was involved in any of this. He didn’t want to discover that this miss who intrigued him, enlivened his spirit, who teased him to flirt—
him, flirting!
—was in any way tangled up in this treasonous mess.

He paused in a long gallery and glanced out one of the windows toward the meadow where the wildflowers grew.

Flowers…

What was it that the tailor and his assistants had said?

You will distract her from all the others, and lure her into your favor…

That was close to the point, but there had been one other offer of advice.

You’ll have her utterly deceived…

That was exactly what he had to do. Lull Miss Langley into his favor and deceive her completely.