How To School Your Scoundrel (16 page)

He said, between his teeth, “Don’t talk nonsense. You are under my protection, Markham. You need have no further concern for your well-being.”

She folded her hands back in her lap, and the sleeves fell back down to cover them. How straight she held her spine, though the balls of her shoulders curled forward in exhaustion! And her chin, still so proud, and the stubborn symmetry of her bony face, and the way her brown eyes regarded him in that unflinching way, smudged with shadows beneath. The bravery of her.

“How kind of you, Lord Somerton,” she said, “but I prefer to earn my bread honestly. Even in my reduced state.”

He shot to his feet. “Damn it all, Markham, I did not mean—”

His words fell away, because that straight spine before him had begun to waver. Her eyes lost focus, and then recovered, and then wandered again.

“Markham!”

Quincy let out a piercing whine.

She braced her hands on the arms of the chair. “I’m quite all right. Just a . . . a momentary . . .”

Somerton vaulted around the corner of the desk and caught her just as she slumped forward.

“Damn you, Markham. You shouldn’t be up.” He laid her head against his shoulder and lifted her in his arms. “You damned little fool.”

She was so frighteningly light, almost buoyant, like a child, like a hollow-boned bird. What had he been thinking, letting her stay downstairs in her proud posture?

Her breath warmed his shoulder. He turned the doorknob and stuck out his foot to open the door.

“I’m all right,” she muttered.

“You’re a damned little fool, and you’re going back to bed.”

“I had to speak to you—”

“In the future, you will kindly send a message through Pamela, and I will trouble myself to attend you at my earliest convenience.” With Quincy trotting at his heels, he strode down the length of the library and into the great corridor that ran along the eastern end of the house, past a pair of astonished housemaids dusting the cabinetry. A staircase stood at the end of the hall, the one the family used to access the apartments above.

The family, such as it was.

“I’m sorry.” The words were soft, muttered into his shirt, either weakly or reluctantly.

“So you should be, Markham. Very sorry indeed.” He had reached the stairs, he was climbing them, he was cradling her against his chest. She smelled of some sort of feminine soap, floral, quite unlike her, but pleasant nonetheless. “You are a very great deal of trouble to me, you know. You always have been.”

She sighed, and the warmth of her breath penetrated his skin and soothed his chest. “I have always . . . endeavored . . . to give satisfaction.”

“You are not required to give satisfaction, Markham.” There was her door, white and quiet at the end of the hall. The northeast corner, overlooking the lake and the sunrise. It had been his own room, after he left the nursery upstairs, before his father had died. “You are only required to recover your strength without doing yourself further injury. Is that so very much to ask?”

“No. It is just so . . . bloody
boring
.”

God, she would kill him. He reached the door and kicked it open. Pamela started and made a little scream, holding up a white linen sheet as if to shield against evil.

“What the devil are you doing?” he asked.

“Ch-changing Miss Markham’s sheets, my lord!”

“Finish your task at once, if you will. Miss Markham is in need of rest.”

Pamela’s mouth went as round as her eyes. She whipped the sheets into place with the speed of a well-oiled machine, and spread the blankets over. Somerton stood, legs planted into the rug, while the beat of Markham’s heart made its way through her dressing gown and between his ribs. She lay so absolutely still in his arms, he thought she might have gone to sleep, except that her hand had crept upward and was now curling around the edge of his waistcoat.

Pamela plumped up a final pillow and pulled down the covers. “There we are! Fresh and clean.”

“Move aside, please.” He stepped forward, laid Markham in the middle of the bed, and raised the covers around her body in its green brocade dressing gown.
His
brocade dressing gown, which had once covered his own skin, and now sheltered hers. “I will return at three o’clock this afternoon to take you outside for an hour of fresh air. Pamela, see that Miss Markham is well rested and dressed warmly.”

“Yes, sir. But the doctor said . . .”

“Damn the doctor.”

“Yes, sir.”

Markham’s eyes closed. He turned to the door. His arms ached with emptiness.

“Thank you, Pamela,” he said, and walked back into the hall, closing the door firmly behind him.

Downstairs in his study, he stared at the map on the wall. If he wanted, he could scribble a telegram right now and have it sent to the post office in the village, which had been wired for the telegraph five years ago on his own orders, and at his own expense. He could order one or another of his minions to investigate the ownership of the mews in which he had found Markham, to track down the references in his letters, to find out who she really was. An afternoon’s work, really. The clues surely abounded, waiting to be followed.

He picked up his pen and twirled it between his fingers. A rapid clicking sound drifted through the door, louder and louder, until Quincy’s inquisitive face peered around the edge of the door, which Somerton hadn’t closed.

“I could ask
you
, couldn’t I?” Somerton growled. “I daresay you know everything.”

Quincy trotted across the study floor and came to rest at his feet, looking upward with an air of expectancy.

Somerton laid down the pen and turned back to stare at the map. “But that’s the thing, you see. It seems I’m afraid to know.”

T
he warmth of the June sunshine soaked agreeably through Luisa’s jacket of summer-weight brown tweed. By afternoon, she judged, the rays would grow too hot for outdoor tramping, and she would shed her jacket in favor of her waistcoat and shirtsleeves in the shade of Somerton’s study while she toiled at her little desk under the dark weight of his disapproval.

But now, in this moment, the sun was perfect.

She had learned to hold such moments close. When you had been stripped of everything, when all hope had gone and the chamber of your ambition had to be refurnished from the bare walls, you started with small things. June sunshine, and the scent of ripening roses. A glass of sweet-tart lemonade, squeezed from the lemons in Somerton’s well-tended greenhouses. The healing silence in the study, as she and Somerton worked side by side, Quincy nestled between them in the quietude of shared understanding.

The growing strength of her legs as she strode through the meadow toward the millpond, while Quincy trotted along gamely at her heels.

At first, she had rebelled against that growing strength, as if her body were betraying her by thriving, when everything else had been flattened. But her limbs persisted. They twitched with returned energy, they yearned for the outdoors and the greening meadows. They wanted to live. So she had followed them, and had taken a reluctant pleasure in the return of pleasure. A virtuous circle in which she hadn’t wished to participate.

At the edge of the millpond, a massive oak tree waited for her. For weeks now, she had sat in its shade and stared out at the rippling water, as the spring breezes chased themselves across the surface. On the other side, where the stream entered the pond, the mill wheel turned tranquilly, making a gentle continuous splash into the country stillness.

Another small pleasure, the comforting wash of the water mill.

How long would it last, this healing routine of sleep and work and sunshine? Not long, around Somerton. The earl was not made for resting. He would be back into action again, back into his schemes. Telegrams arrived almost hourly from the village, some of which she was privileged to read and answer, and others that he dealt with on his own. “Any word on her ladyship?” Luisa would ask, eyebrows up, and he would shake his head, scribble a reply, call for the footman, and burn the original with a few quick strikes of a safety match (the fireplace had remained unlit, coals stacked expectantly, since early May).

Why hadn’t he returned to London yet? Why hadn’t he found Lady Somerton?

Why hadn’t he discovered Luisa’s own identity? It couldn’t be hard.

If he actually tried.

She reached the edge of the shade, removed her jacket, and spread it out on the damp morning grass. A month ago, this walk would have exhausted her, and she would lie down and watch the chasing clouds until the strength returned to her body, while Quincy curled confidingly into her waist.

Now, she merely settled herself on her jacket, drew her knees to her chest, and—

“My dear Luisa.”

Luisa shot to her feet, stumbled, recovered. “What the devil?” she called out.

A branch rustled, somewhere inside the canopy of shade. Up flew a startled bird, in a flurry of feathers and leaves. Quincy barked twice and made a rattling growl, ears cocked forward at an almost impossible pitch.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you looking well,” said a familiar voice.

Luisa breathed out slowly. “Good God,” she whispered.

A shape emerged from behind the thick trunk of the oak tree. It was tall, and commanding, and it wore a magnificent straw hat.

“M-Mrs.
Duke?
” said Luisa.

•   •   •

T
he woman who stood before the Earl of Somerton looked vaguely familiar, though he could not quite place her face. Her shape, however, was unmistakable: rounded with a pregnancy of perhaps seven months’ gestation, in Somerton’s expert estimation.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “I don’t believe I know your name.”

“It’s Yarrow, your lordship.” She bobbed an awkward curtsy. “Mrs. Yarrow. Lord Kildrake’s nurse.”

Outside, a cloud slipped past the sun, and the windows flooded with a rush of light, illuminating the drowsy motes of dust in the air between them.

Somerton rose slowly to his feet. “What did you say?”

“Lord Kildrake’s nurse, sir.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but I’ve nowhere left to turn. Her ladyship, she turned me away in Milan when she found me increasing, and then John . . .”

“Milan!” Somerton’s gaze shot to the map on the wall.

“Yes, sir. And I stayed there until there was no more money, because she told me you would have me beaten if I returned in this state, but I have nowhere left to go, sir, no one at all, and John insists it isn’t his . . .”

“John the footman?
John
put you in this condition?”

“Yes, sir.”

Somerton’s brain was reeling, sending off sparks of conjecture. Where was Markham? He needed Markham.

Mrs. Yarrow was wavering on her feet. He came around the edge of the desk and led her to the chair. A faint scent of wet wool drifted from her clothes, the sourness of neglect.

“Milan, you say. Did you travel there by train?”

“By steamship, my lord, through the Bay of Biscay and the Strait of Messina into the Mediterranean. A worse voyage I’ve never had.” She fished a damp handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes.

Somerton walked to the bell cord and gave it a single tug. “Did her ladyship say where she was headed after Milan?”

“No, she didn’t, sir. But I heard her tell Miss Harewood to buy tickets for Florence.”

Miss Harewood. That would be Elizabeth’s cousin Abigail. If young Miss Harewood had traveled with Elizabeth, so must her guardian, Elizabeth’s other cousin, the beautiful widow Lady Morley. A managing sort, Lady Morley, and singularly cunning. She had probably arranged everything herself, the entire disappearance. No wonder he hadn’t been able to trace them.

“Florence.” He paced across the room to the map and drew out a single red pin from the jar. His heart jumped so hard, it jolted his hand as he hovered above the crown of Italy’s boot. “Did she perhaps have any gentlemen traveling with her? Other than my son, of course.”

“Why, no, sir.”

Never mind. Penhallow was undoubtedly waiting for her, at whatever little Continental nest they’d arranged for themselves. Wherever Elizabeth was, he would find Penhallow.

Of that, he was certain.

A knock on the door.

“Come in,” he said.

A footman walked in. “You rang, sir?”

“I did, Thomas. Bring in a tray of tea for Mrs. Yarrow, with plenty of food.” With a triumphant strike of his hand, Somerton jabbed the red pin into the dot marked FIRENZE. He turned and folded his arms. “And tell Mr. Markham I want him in my study at once.”

•   •   •

M
y dear niece,” drawled the Duke of Olympia, “you look confounded. Do sit, I implore you. I understand you have been ill.”

“I am quite recovered now,” Luisa said stupidly, unable to think of anything else. Was that a genuine stuffed sparrow in the duke’s hat, or merely a lifelike imitation? “Where the devil have you been?”

“Tut-tut.” Olympia walked toward her and held out his hands. Quincy, at her feet, let out a disapproving growl. “Such language. And still in your male costume. I’m surprised his lordship didn’t plumb your disguise during your illness. Give me a kiss, now.”

Luisa took his hands in a daze and kissed each powdered cheek. “What are you doing here? Where have you been? I thought you were dead.”

“Thought I was dead? Good God. Where did you come by such a notion?”

“From Miss Dingleby. She said . . . I don’t remember exactly . . .” Luisa rubbed her forehead, and all at once, the wonder of it burst over her like a firework. She flung her arms around his tall, silk-shouldered figure. “You’re alive. My God, you’re alive!”

“Yes, yes. Quite alive. Mind the lace.”

“But my sisters.” She drew away. “What’s happened? All this time . . . my God . . . I thought she’d caught us all, that everyone was dead, that I would be dead if it hadn’t been for Somerton . . .”

“Who caught us all?”

“Miss Dingleby! The night of the ball!”

“Ah.” He disengaged gingerly from her embrace and set her down in the grass, lowering himself with only a faint creak of his long limbs. A light scent of sandalwood drifted from his clothes, not at all feminine. Luisa wanted to take him by the shoulders and shake him.

“Uncle, what’s happened? Where is everyone? Emilie and Stefanie. Are they . . . ?” She couldn’t say the word. Her hands were shaking, her heart had been captured between the wings of a butterfly.

“Your sisters are safe,” he said gently.

At the word
safe
, Luisa buried her face between her knees and burst into tears.

“There, now.” His hand rested on her back. “Poor lamb. Did you really think, all this time . . . ? Ah, poor lamb.”

She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say,
I thought I was alone, I thought everyone was dead, I wanted to die.
She turned instead into her uncle’s chest and gripped the material around his magnificent false bosom.

“Now, now. Mind the lace, I said.”

“Where are they?” she whispered. “Where are they?”

“They’re . . . well, they’re safe. You needn’t worry.”

“But Miss Dingleby . . .”

The chest beneath her face heaved with a sigh. “Miss Dingleby. What an immense disappointment.”

Luisa looked up. “She betrayed us, didn’t she?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But what’s happened? Where is she?”

“I don’t know, my dear. I’ve spent the last two months trying to discover the answer to that question.”

“Two months? But . . . but the ball was in February.”

“Like you, my dear, I was stricken with an unfortunate episode of typhoid fever, shortly after that tumultuous evening.” He held up his hand at her exclamation of dismay. “I had it as a child, so my case was not so severe as yours. I had my valet convey me to a rather remote house in the country, quite unknown to even my most trusted friends, so no one would suspect my condition. When the fever abated and my senses had returned, I had my agents investigate. Miss Dingleby had disappeared, but in the kitchen in Battersea, inside one of the cupboards, my men found a laboratory culture that, when tested, was found to contain the causative organism for typhoid fever.”

Luisa put her hand to her mouth.

“Which, as you may be aware,” Olympia went on calmly, “is a disease communicated primarily by oral transmission of infected matter. Those engaged in the preparation of food are particularly effective at spreading the agent.”

Luisa’s stomach made a little heave. “The tea.”

“Or the cake. Let us hope, for dear little Quincy’s sake, that it was not the ham sandwiches.”

Luisa couldn’t speak. She shook her head, blinking, trying to quell the nausea in her belly.

“In any case, Dingleby appears to have left the country shortly after the events of that evening, and hasn’t been seen since. The agents of the Revolutionary Brigade appear to have departed England as well, according to my sources, or at the very least they have not made the slightest stir.”

“And you’re trying to find them?”

The duke fingered the brim of his hat and stared toward the waterwheel on the other side of the millpond. “My most recent intelligence suggests that she has returned to Holstein-Schweinwald-Huhnhof. To the conspirators there, who are trying to quell popular unrest on your behalf.”

Luisa straightened her posture. “Quell? What do you mean by quell? What are they doing?”

Olympia waved his hand. “Summary arrests and interrogations by the secret police. Random midnight raids of suspected royalists. Terrorizing of women and children. That sort of thing.”

She jumped to her feet. “How dare they! By God, they’ll pay for that!”

“Calm down, my dear. We shall take care of the matter, never fear. Besides, all this works to our favor. The people shall be clamoring for your return. In any case, I’m off to the Continent tomorrow—I have other business there, so it’s all quite convenient—and I shall investigate the state of things personally.”

Luisa lifted one eyebrow and razed him, from the top of his extravagant hat to the tips of his enormous heeled shoes, constructed of pink kid leather. “I daresay you shall slip in quite unnoticed.”

Olympia picked at his dress and sighed. “Yes, that’s the trouble, rather. Dingleby is intimately familiar with my methods and disguises, blast her.”

Luisa put her hands on her hips. “Intimately, Uncle?”

Another wave of the ducal hand. “But I shall confound her, never fear. I’ve already had a pair of lederhosen constructed for me by an authentic Tyrolean tailor. The effect is exactly what one might wish.”

Luisa shook her head. “Let me do it.”

“What’s that, my dear? I don’t believe I heard you correctly. These old ears.”

She sank to her knees and looked at him earnestly. “Let me do it.”

“You do it? Ha-ha. My dear, how you amuse.”