Lady Be Good (15 page)

Upstairs, the residential apartments opened onto a corridor furnished with the typical suits of armor and marble statuary. But this hall looked to have been borrowed wholesale from some eastern potentate’s palace. Turkish carpets blanketed the flagstones. Handsome carved screens concealed the plaster walls.

The auction house had pretensions to grandeur. But beyond the marbled public rooms, it was, after all, a place of business, marked by bare floors and workaday furniture. Never before had Lilah found herself in a place that spoke so strongly of power and wealth—and she was at full liberty to explore. How diverting!

Somebody was occupying the area, for the wall sconces were lit. Checking her pocket watch (not strictly appropriate for evening attire, but Lilah had not forgone all her old habits; every dress she owned contained a hidden pocket or two), she discovered that enough time remained before dinner to allow a brief prowl. If discovered, she would simply claim that it was her duty, as Miss Everleigh’s assistant, to survey the area. These screens, for instance, might fetch a very good price at auction.

Four doors lined the short hall. Her hairpin opened them easily. The first room was a small, attractive salon, with dark wallpaper and large, handsome oil paintings depicting a string of Hughley scions and their hounds.

The second room contained a billiards table, the green baize visibly warped by time and the damp. A hint of ancient pipe smoke lingered in the furniture.

The third room was a very fine water closet, done in Moroccan tile.

The fourth room . . . ah! A fire burned low in the hearth, and on a low scrollwork table, a glass of wine sat, half-emptied.

She hesitated, one hand on the doorknob, unnerved by the depth of her curiosity. She was a practical woman. Pragmatism was a woman’s best advantage in the world. Lord Palmer was her enemy. Her interest in him was only . . . practical. She must learn as much of him as possible, the better to protect herself.

She walked into the room. The desk was littered with a variety of letters, many of them bearing diplomatic insignia. A curious group of correspondents—all of them Russians, some of whom she knew from their patronage of the auction house. Obolensky was a special emissary of the czar, whom Susie had shown through the Slavic collection during the party last week.

She nudged aside the letters. Beneath them lay a large map of London, on which somebody had circled the location of the auction house. Other areas had also been notated—neighborhoods that an aristocrat typically avoided. Mile End, St. George’s-in-the-East—these made up part of Nick’s territory, poor areas whose local bigwigs paid monthly tributes to her uncle.

Mile End. Who was the bigwig in Mile End? A Russian, wasn’t it?

She stepped away, frowning. What use had an English war hero for such interests? Were this a theatrical set, such props would have marked him as a spy . . . and not for England.

Dinner was predictably joyless. Palmer tried to lure Miss Everleigh to speak more of herself. She answered his
attempts with enervated courtesy, not so much rebuffing his charm as presenting a mask of perfect indifference to it.

He turned the conversation toward Buckley Hall. Here, Miss Everleigh grew animated. As Lilah nursed a single glass of wine and forced down bites of overcooked venison, Miss Everleigh launched into a lecture on the furniture of the Sun King.

Lilah did not incline to paranoid fantasies. English viscounts did not trouble themselves with espionage, particularly not for Russians. Of course they didn’t.

Palmer noted her silence. “And how fare you, Miss Marshall? You seem tired. Did you set yourself too exhausting an aim?”

She gathered that was a subtle reference to her dagger throwing. “No,” she said brightly, “I was not taxed in the least. Is
your
arm sore, sir?”

It seemed there were two subjects, after all, on which Miss Everleigh would wax enthusiastic, the second being Lilah’s manners. “You might refrain from mention of bodily parts at the table,” she said icily. “I am surprised, Miss Marshall. I thought conversational politesse was the main talent for which my brother employed you.”

Lilah delayed her reply with a long sip of the Bordeaux. “Forgive me,” she said evenly. “It’s true, I find myself somewhat fatigued. I have never kept country hours before.”

These tidings sank into an astonished silence. “You have never been to the country?” Miss Everleigh asked at last, as though her ears might have deceived her.

“I’ve been to the seaside, miss. But only for the day.”

“Then you’re bound for pleasant surprises,” Palmer said. “The quiet, for one.”

“Yes, I noticed it last night.” Along with the immense darkness outside, which had terrified her, and driven her to stay up till dawn with that book on the Hughley family.

As though he’d read her mind, Palmer said, “Miss Marshall made a study last night of my ancestors. Some ancient volume of family history, lying about in her rooms. Did you manage to finish it, Miss Marshall?”

She smiled at him. “First page to last.”

“A pity,” said Miss Everleigh. “Sleep might have equipped you to prove more useful. I trust you won’t fritter away tonight.”

Lilah bit her tongue. “No, miss. I expect I will sleep very well.”

“Excellent. Though I hope you will stir from your rooms at an earlier hour than you managed this morning.”

Lilah did not let her smile budge a fraction. She did, however, take the comfort of fondling her dinner knife. It was sharp, and there was satisfaction in knowing that if she chose, she could rid Miss Everleigh of that stray wisp of hair currently escaping her blond coiffure. It would hardly require the pause to take aim.

She felt Palmer’s eyes on her. She glanced over. He dropped his gaze to the knife.

She pulled her hand back into her lap.

The dimple appeared in his cheek. He was fighting a laugh. Clearing his throat, he turned and addressed some bland question to Miss Everleigh. More discussion of the Sun King.

Lilah sighed. It was the most vexing development imaginable that she should feel, at odd moments, a real liking for him. He was a bully and a blackmailer—but
that made him little different from many acquaintances of her youth. Once she’d realized he had a purpose in stealing those papers other than to torment her, she’d found her anger hard to hold on to. It was the way of the world, after all; one did what one must to thrive. And she
had
been clumsy—all but begging to be caught as she’d hidden beneath that desk.

No, moral indignation would not have furnished her the key to disliking him. Not when he, unlike most of his brethren, spoke to her as a real person. Not when he caught her little jokes and laughed, albeit reluctantly.

He did not want to find her charming, either. That was obvious. A fine pair they made, struggling to dislike each other despite having every good reason to do so.

But if he was some kind of underhanded plotter . . . well,
then
she could loathe him properly. Hypocrisy, after all, was her least favorite quality. A traitor disguising himself as a war hero? That was dirtier business than her uncle’s.

She studied him as he flirted with Miss Everleigh. She could not square her suspicions with her gut feeling. Something was rotten, but she didn’t sense he was dangerous—not in an underhanded way, at least. More in a . . . kissing kind of way.

Heaven help me
. She looked down at her plate to hide her blush. Knowing him better would help her make up her mind about him. But time in his presence only seemed to erode her wits further.

The days settled into a predictable pattern. Lilah was not invited to dine downstairs again, which suited her perfectly. She took her suppers in her sitting room, then
read until exhaustion overwhelmed her dislike of the dark. At dawn, she hurried—and failed—to beat Miss Everleigh to breakfast. Then, for the next twelve hours, she trailed her mistress like a sheepish dog, trying her best to learn more of the woman without appearing chatty or forward or inattentive to the tasks at hand.

Some days, Miss Everleigh lost patience with her, and sent her off to comb through rooms on her own, with the instruction to set aside and make note of objects that promised good value. These days felt positively magical. As a child, Lilah and her sister had often pretended to be explorers, hunting their household for buried treasure. Now she did the same—but instead of discovering the pennies her father had used to hide, she uncovered items that belonged in museums. Beneath a pile of yellowing canvas, she found a pair of silver candlesticks, intricately engraved with a variety of exotic beasts, elephants and tigers. She forced open a broken chest of drawers, and out spilled chess pieces carved from ivory and inlaid with precious jewels. Cobwebbed corners concealed figurines, china plates, and handsomely painted tiles, abandoned and forgotten by long-dead generations.

Meanwhile, out the window, she saw things that city life had never shown her. A sunset as red as blood, in a sky so wide that it was a wonder the clouds didn’t get lost. Storms showed themselves on the horizon an hour before they arrived, so one could see rain slanting at a distance while sun still shone across the lawn. One day, a band of tinkers trundled up in a yellow caravan to sell their wares. Miss Everleigh would not let her go meet them, but she watched from the window as the housekeeper purchased pots and pans.

Fiona had nursed a dream of growing old in the countryside. Property in London was very dear, but careful savings might purchase a cottage in some village far from London, where nobody would ever discover a girl’s past. She’d made a habit of memorizing poems about country lanes and babbling brooks and the like.

But you don’t even know if we’ll like the country
, Lilah had told her once.

Well, one day we’ll go and find out, won’t we?

Now Lilah found herself in the middle of her sister’s dream. But Miss Everleigh’s punishing schedule left no opportunity for outdoor explorations . . . until one afternoon when she dispatched Lilah to the farthest corner of the house and forgot to summon her afterward. The sun still rode high in a clear sky as Lilah finished her work. At last she saw the chance to explore the charms of the pastoral.

But three steps down the lawn toward the wood, she discovered what Fiona had never guessed, and poets never bothered to mention: country air was poisonous! First her eyes began to water. Next, her nose caught an itch. At her third sneeze, she turned back for the house in a state of high alarm.

It was just her luck to run into Lord Palmer in the front hall. He was dressed for riding, in tall boots and a close-fitted hunting jacket. “Where is Miss Everleigh?” he said curtly. “Why are you not with her?”

She held up one finger. The next sneeze was coming.

“You have a single task here.” He underlined his point by slapping his quirt against his thigh. “To assist—”

The sneeze exploded, knocking her back a pace. “It’s dreadful out there!” she said. “Don’t go!”

He blinked. She sneezed again. When the fit subsided,
she saw a smile tugging at his lips “Spot of hay fever?”

“Is that what it is? Is it curable? Oh, I—” She sneezed again. “Drat it!”

He handed over a handkerchief, which she gratefully pressed to her runny nose. It smelled of him—soap and leather and clean male skin, with perhaps a hint of horse. “Avoid the greenery,” he said, “and you’ll recover.”

“There seems to be a great deal of it here.” Yet he looked aggravatingly hale, his bronzed skin suddenly suspect. He had been out in the sun very recently. “How do you not suffer?”

“Country raised,” he said.

That sounded like a curse. “I must go lie down.” But when she started past him, he caught her arm.

“You must go assist Miss Everleigh. You are not here on a holiday.”

“She put me to my own work, and—” She pulled free in time to spare him her next sneeze. “She’s not likely to welcome me in this state, is she?”

Looking at her, he sighed. “All right. Come with me.” Turning on his heel, he started off down the hall.

She hurried after him. A brief, twisting, confounding route led them to a door that opened into the hallway she had discovered once before. She slowed, a nervous flutter distracting her from misery. He was leading her into his study! What would she say about the map? Would it be wiser to pretend not to notice it?

But it transpired that he had cleared away any incriminating documents. With the drapes pulled back and daylight spilling across the bright Turkish carpet, the room looked very different—a far less likely site for the conduction of treason. She felt foolish, suddenly.
Country air rotted her brain as well as her health. He was no traitor. There must be a very good reason for him to correspond with all those Russians.

But then why had he hidden their letters? One only hid things one needed to conceal.

He crossed to a handsome cabinet, pulling out a decanter. “Odd as it sounds, whisky is the quickest cure.” He splashed a finger into the glass and carried it back to her. “I’ll leave a portion in the kitchens for your use. Ring for another glass in the evening, along with a spoonful of honey. That always suffices for my mother.”

“Oh, she also has hay fever? Was she raised in the city, too?” Perhaps his mother was a well-born Russian, which would explain his connection to luminaries from that nation.