One Little Sin (22 page)

Esmée was good enough, at the very least, to go riding the following afternoon with Mr. Nowell, who shocked her by arriving in Grosvenor Square in a dashing new cabriolet with a pair under the pole. Perhaps she had misjudged the young politician? She had initially believed him earnest, but dull as ditchwater.

Unfortunately, on closer acquaintance, she realized his earnestness was intact, and bordered on pomposity. On the way to the park, he treated her to a rant about Wellington’s foot-dragging over parliamentary reform. As they drove along Rotten Row, the topic turned to his traitorous support of the Catholics. Apparently, the end of English civilization as they knew it was upon them, and it was all the Prime Minister’s fault.

Esmée, who had more than a little sympathy for the Catholics, did not bother to ask Mr. Nowell’s political view on England’s treatment of its more northerly neighbor. Their opinions on that subject would most almost certainly diverge, and Mr. Nowell, she had decided, was not worth the argument. But after tooling the length of the park, he surprised her by dropping the subject of politics altogether and asking if she would like to see his new house.

“Not that it is quite mine yet,” he admitted almost shyly. “Indeed, it isn’t even finished.”

Esmée was intrigued. “How far away is it?”

“Not far at all,” he said. “Near Chelsea.”

Esmée agreed with alacrity, though she wasn’t perfectly sure where Chelsea was. After scarcely two months in London, she had grown weary of trotting round the same old streets and parks, and waving to the same silly people.

The streets leading away from Hyde Park were not crowded, and Nowell set his horses at a surprisingly good clip. Esmée clapped one hand on her hat and sat back to enjoy the drive. On the outer fringes of Belgravia, they began to see beautiful new mansions in various stages of construction. “My house is farther on,” Nowell said, as the glorious white edifices breezed past.

Soon the white mansions vanished. Mr. Nowell made several turns, and they began to pass an occasional open field, tidy church, or quaint manor house—sometimes even a row of shops; the odds and ends, Esmée supposed, of little villages destined to be swallowed up by greater London. Eventually, terraced facades of brick came into view. These houses looked a little like those in Mayfair, but more modern and more imposing. After passing along several finished dwellings, Mr. Nowell turned into what was soon to become, so far as Esmée could surmise, an elegant close.

The dusty, cobbled space was abuzz with activity. Men wielding shovels, hammers, and trowels were everywhere. In one corner, two surveyors were setting up tripods. Farther along the close sat a cart laden with mortar, a dray stacked with brick, and even a glossy black curricle with a groom carefully attending it. Nowell pointed across the close to a soaring edifice of brick-and-marble glory. The house appeared complete from the exterior, but was surrounded by piles of stone and dirt on one side and an incomplete foundation on the other.

“Number Four, Ballachulish Close,” said the young man proudly.

Esmée was impressed. Mr. Nowell was not, it seemed, in need of a fortune—unless it was to pay his mortgage. She shut away that bit of cynicism, and smiled. “Ballachulish Close,” she echoed. “That’s Scottish.”

Nowell nodded. “The architect who conceived and built all this is a Scot,” he said. “A singularly moody fellow, but a genius nonetheless. Won’t let them lay so much as a brick without his approval, and manages the design, the financing, every little detail, personally. Worse than crazy Cubitt up in Belgravia, I reckon. I’m to take title on December 1, if the poor devil can bring himself to part with it.”

“How lovely it all is!” said Esmée. “And I’ve never seen so many workmen in one place at one time.”

Nowell’s expression turned fretful. “Perhaps this isn’t a proper place for a lady to visit?”

“Nonsense,” she returned. “Still, I daresay we ought to go. Aunt will be wondering where I am.”

Nowell snapped his reins, and attempted to turn his cabriolet amidst all the carts and drays. In the process, he edged perilously close to the black curricle. The groom jerked to attention and watched Nowell assessingly, as if daring him to so much as scratch his master’s fine conveyance.

Esmée exhaled a little sharply as Nowell cut the turn with only two inches to spare. “You needn’t worry,” he said calmly. “It’s Mr. MacLachlan’s, and believe me, he can easily afford a score of ’em.”

Esmée’s grip tightened on the side of the cabriolet. “I—I beg your pardon?” she managed. “It belongs to whom?”

Nowell was still working his way around the close. “Merrick MacLachlan, the famous architect,” he said absently. “He and his brother are the investors behind all this. But wait—you are distantly related to them, are you not? That is to say, Lady Gravenel mentioned something to that effect.”

“Aye, distantly, perhaps. I’m not sure.”

Esmée looked back at the close, and almost as if she’d willed it, Merrick MacLachlan came round the corner of Number Four and stepped carefully over the low foundation adjoining it. His dark coat and waistcoat were immaculately brushed as always, but his trousers were covered in dust to the ankles. His face was fixed in its perpetual glower, the nasty scar across his cheek stark and taut. And worse, he was not alone.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” said Nowell, as the men approached the curricle. “Miss Hamilton and I were just admiring the house.”

The brothers exchanged glances and greeted them with cool politeness. “Well, you may trot out here and look about all the livelong day, Nowell,” Merrick added, “but the house won’t be ready ’til December, and wishing won’t make it otherwise.”

Nowell looked at Esmée a little sheepishly. “I have made rather a pest of myself,” he admitted. “Tell me, Sir Alasdair, has your brother enlisted your help in his architectural endeavors?”

Alasdair gave a bark of laughter. “For your sake and his, Nowell, you’d best hope not.”

Merrick MacLachlan shifted his gaze from Alasdair to Esmée uncertainly. “It’s as well you’re here, I suppose,” he said to Nowell. “Penworth is inside, torn between two different chimneypieces I designed. I prefer one, he prefers the other. Do you wish to choose for yourself? It will likely ruin your shoes.”

Nowell glanced back at the house almost covetously, then hesitated, but whether over the propriety of leaving Esmée alone or the welfare of his shoes, she could not say.

“Alasdair will hold your horses,” said Merrick.

“Oh, nothing would give me more pleasure,” said his brother.

Covetousness won out. Nowell leapt down. “I shall return in a jot, Miss Hamilton!”

Critically watching his departure, Alasdair gave a sour smile. “I don’t think your aunt would approve of Mr. Nowell just now, do you?”

“She wasn’t overfond of him when I left,” Esmée admitted breezily. “I believe I am merely to practice my feminine wiles on him until something better comes along.”

Alasdair shot her another dark look, but somewhere along the way, it turned into a spurt of laughter. “Oh, she said that, did she?” he asked. “Good God, I have thrown you into the clutches of a true Machiavellian.”

Esmée looked imperiously down at him. “Aye, so you have,” she retorted. “And I’m glad to hear you admit ’twas your own doing.”

His eyes narrowed, and his perfectly chiseled jaw twitched. “Don’t cut up at me, Esmée,” he warned. “No one put a skean to your back—neither to go, nor to flirt so outrageously with these fools.”

Esmée lifted her brows. “Flirt outrageously?” she echoed. “Really, Alasdair, I think you give my feminine wiles more credit than ’tis warranted. And as to that skean, I could have sworn I felt it draw blood.”

He turned his head away, and the knuckles holding the horses’ harness went white. “I see,” he gritted. “And who is to be the next spider in the web?”

“Your friend Wynwood, I collect,” she said airily. “He is to take me to the theater Wednesday night.”

She heard him curse softly. “Quin?” he responded incredulously, his head swiveling round again. “To—to the theater?”

“Yes, but it will be hard for me to
flirt outrageously
with the poor fellow,” she went on. “It is a very moralizing sort of play, so I daresay I shall be obliged to leave my fan at home, wear a demure neckline, and confine myself to mild coquettishness. For propriety’s sake, you know.”

“Good God,” he responded. “You are—but you are going to see
The Wicket Gate?”

“Aye, what of it?” she answered, dropping her voice to a more serious tone. “Really, Alasdair, I cannot quite make out what it is you wish me to do. I thought I was to get out of your hair and find myself a husband, and yet nothing I do to that end seems to please you.”

“But
The Wicket Gate,”
he said again. “That is—is—oh, never mind!”

“You did not answer my question,” she said.

He flicked another of his dark looks up at her. “What I wish you to do, Esmée, is go straight home when that lack-wit Nowell comes out,” he said. “And don’t tell your aunt you’ve been out here. A building site is no place for a lady.”

Esmée cast an uneasy glance toward the house. “I did begin to wonder at it,” she admitted. “I never seem to know what’s expected. I was used to doing as I pleased in Scotland.”

“This isn’t Scotland.”

“Aye, I’d noticed,” she returned. “Besides, you seem almost as out of place here as I do.”

He was no longer looking at her, but instead letting his eyes run over the distant piles of rubble and brick. “I am out of place,” Alasdair agreed. “But Merrick has a notion to build one of these modern monstrosities for our grandmother. She’s having none of it, of course. So it falls to me to make peace and explain to Merrick why one of his ideas is thought less than brilliant.”

“Oh, I’m sure that concept is hard for him to grasp.” Esmée looked up and squinted against the sun. “Your grandmother is in Scotland, is she not? Why should she wish to leave?”

Alasdair shrugged. “It is a colder, harsher life there, isn’t it?” he replied. “But she more or less manages my estate for me. She has command of a drafty old castle and a whole army of servants. No, I do not think she would willingly give up such independence for a little warmth and a few modern conveniences.”

“Good for her!” said Esmée.

He looked up at her appraisingly. “You would do the same, wouldn’t you?” he murmured. “You would go home in a flash if you could.”

She was silent for a moment. “I no longer have a home to go to,” she said simply. “And I could not bear to be so far away from Sorcha.”

One of the horses shifted a little restlessly, and to soothe him, Alasdair began to stroke him from neck to withers with slow, almost mesmerizing motions. “If you are trying to make me feel guilty, Esmée, it won’t work,” he finally said. “I am her father, and any sort of father is better than none at all.”

Esmée stiffened. “Did I say otherwise?” she asked. “I never even knew my father, and I would not wish that on Sorcha. I have never so much as suggested she should leave you.”

“No, but your aunt did.” Alasdair was still stroking the horse, as if he did not wish to hold her gaze. “Esmée, why did you not tell me you were an heiress?”

She blinked in mild surprise. “An heiress?” she echoed. “Why, I’m not, really. Am I? I mean, I suppose that I will bring wealth to my husband if I marry. But that money does me not a jot of good now, does it?”

“But you are still an heiress.”

Suddenly, the devil seemed to gig Esmée. “Rethinking your haste, Alasdair?”

He looked up, his eyes hardening. “That remark does not become you, Esmée,” he snapped. “I am trying to do what is best for you and for Sorcha.”

“Aye, there it is again!” said Esmée. “That overweening paternalism! Poor little Esmée! So young! So naïve! We must do what is
best
for her!”

Alasdair suddenly exploded. “God damn it, what do you want of me?” He lifted one arm so violently the horses started. “Just tell me, for pity’s sake! And be careful what you wish for!”

Esmée was still clinging to the side of Nowell’s cabriolet, and staring at his face, which had gone stark with anger. “Nothing,” she finally whispered. “I want nothing.”

“Aye, if you’re smart, you don’t!” he agreed. “It is one thing, Esmée, to rely upon your looks to find yourself a husband. But when money comes into play—well, you need be excessively careful. That is all I’m trying to say. Fortune hunters are a clever lot. Be on your guard.”

Just then, Merrick stepped outside. Nowell followed, gingerly picking his way down the steps, and along the boards which fashioned a sort of path into the close. Esmée watched him almost dispassionately. “What do you think, Alasdair?” she murmured. “Is my handsome young suitor a fortune hunter?”

His face looked bloodless now. “Nowell?” he answered. “Not so far as I know.”

Esmée turned on the seat to squarely face him. “And what of Mr. Smathers?” she asked, forcing him to hold her gaze. “Or Lord Thorpe? Or your friend Wynwood? Tell me, Alasdair, what would you advise? You seem to have such a strong grasp on what is best for me.”

His eyes flashed again. “Fair enough, then,” he answered. “Since you asked, Smathers is a fortune hunter, Thorpe is a mamma’s boy, and Nowell is about as exciting as watching herring pickle. I’m shocked, honestly, that your matchmaking aunt cannot reel in a better fish.”

“You did not remark upon Lord Wynwood,” she said quietly.

He tore his gaze away. “I cannot,” he said quietly. “He is a friend. But if he marries, Esmée, it will be out of duty.”

“And not love?” she asked. “Is that what you meant to suggest? For if it is, feel free to dance at our wedding. I am not looking for love. Not any longer.”

Alasdair turned away and said no more. Merrick and Nowell had finished their conversation and were striding toward them now. After a curt thanks to Alasdair, Nowell climbed up, clicked to his horses, and set off. At the last possible moment, Esmée turned on the narrow seat to look back. Merrick MacLachlan had vanished. But Alasdair still stood in the cobblestoned close, watching them as they rolled away.