Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (6 page)

“Your old friend Paynter,” Joss began as their feet crunched on still-damp gravel, “reminded me of an aged highwayman. That grizzled hair in a widow's peak, and that scar through one brow.”

Augusta chuckled. “He apprenticed in a forge as a young man; I think the scar happened at that time. But he's very kind. Married, seven children, all that. I used to play with his youngest daughter.”

“‘All that' includes a talent for silence. You might have warned me that he hoards words as well as land.”

They were passing beneath the stretching branches of a winter-bare tree, and Augusta stopped walking in its shadow. “Oh, dear. He got you talking, I expect. What did you say?”

“The usual pleasantries.” Joss flicked at a spindly twig, sending a drop of dew flying. “But chat about the weather won nothing but a stern look. An allusion to my acquaintance with Miss Meredith, whom I hastened to mention I had not seen in some months, earned nothing but a grunt. It wasn't until I mentioned the nature of my business in Bath that he came to life.”

Augusta tipped her face up, an expression of utter exasperation crossing her fine features. “Never tell me you mentioned that someone was being blackmailed.”

The frustration in her tone was no more than Joss felt himself, yet her words stung a bit. “You give me too little credit. No, I only mentioned that I hoped to sell some land.”

Tugging at his arm, Augusta began walking again. “You might as well have told a dog that you had a pocket full of meat, but that it wasn't for him. Now he'll try to sniff it out, and he'll snap it up if he can.”

“A well-turned metaphor.” Joss covered her fingers with his. Despite the thick leather of his gloves, his fingertips were being nipped; hers must be colder within their thin kid. “Believe me, I could tell at once I had blundered. As soon as I mentioned land for sale, Paynter drawled something about how low land prices have fallen at the present, even though I hadn't offered to sell to him.”

“That doesn't matter. If he knows you
need
to sell land, he will never offer you a good price.”

She made a fair point. Prices were always bad for those who needed to sell land, because no one sold land except out of desperation. And Sutcliffe was desperate indeed.

“What ought I to have done differently, though?” Joss asked. “I merely tried to converse with him as one does a fellow human being.”

“Of the
beau
monde
, yes. But those methods won't work on Paynter. Nor on Duffy.” For a few steps, there was only the sound of tiny stones being scattered by their boots, the distant bark of a dog, the terrified chitter of a bird fleeing a bush by which they walked. “I assumed a man of business would have frequent dealings with, well, men of business. But I suppose that's not necessarily true.”

“Your veiled insults are enchanting.” Would it be impolite to shake a branch over her head and soak her with cold raindrops? Probably.

“It is not an insult, but a statement of fact. You work for a baron, and you deal with men like him—or with simple tradesmen, whom you could likely intimidate with a lift of one brow. Yes, exactly like that.”

With his free hand, Joss rubbed at his forehead until his brows relaxed.

“I would love to be a part of these negotiations,” Augusta added. “It would be a pleasure to pit my wits against those of my father's old friends. But Paynter cannot meet with Mrs. Flowers or Mrs. Flowers will cease to exist.”

The regret in her tone mollified Joss, and he stopped looking down the neat row of trees for branches against which he could accidentally brush. “What would you do differently from me?”

“You request my advice? What happened to the damnable pride you could not say enough about yesterday?”

Joss gave a dry laugh. “I can't afford so much of it as I could then. Sutcliffe is growing more worried by the hour. I owe him a success.”

“Hmm.”

“I can still afford honor,” he added, “so don't you go making me another of your indecent propositions.”

She sniffed. “I wouldn't dream of it.”

A pity, for he would. Had. Did. Last night, he had dreamed of her awaiting him in a large bed, her bright hair long and unbound, her wicked mouth speaking delicious lewdness into his ear. They had stroked one another, taking pleasure, and it was all right because she wanted him just as he was, and there had never been any question of him wanting her, with her needle-sharp mind and siren's body. Kisses and embraces and words of passion, until his dream body had been wound hard and tight with passion. When he finally covered her, ready to thrust—

His body had jerked, snapping him awake. To the sight of the sloping ceiling of his rented room. To solitude, and a superfluous erection, and an awkward awareness that he had never had such a passionate dream about any of his few and cursory past lovers.

“You relieve my mind,” he said, only because that sounded better than,
Are
you
sure? Not even one more proposition? Not even a little indecency?

Better for them both to keep the gloves on, to remain at a safe distance.

If there was such a thing as
safe
distance
when one person sought a blackmailer and the other a lover.

“I can't exactly tell you how to proceed with Paynter and Duffy,” Augusta explained, heedless, “because you cannot do what I would do, using a breathy voice and batted eyelashes.”

With an effort, Joss dismissed his heated dream and returned to the present. “Two weapons outside my armory, that is true. How are they best employed?”

“When interfering in my father's business affairs without seeming to do so. If I wore trousers and had my hair cropped short, I might be credited with knowledge. But since I am burdened with gowns and a
dockyard
”—Joss choked—“then Meredith Beauty's affairs are overseen by trustees.”

“Men, I assume, who wear none of the company's lotions or cosmetics or perfumes.”

“Not in public, no. They do not. Their private affairs might be quite different.” Augusta paused at a turning in the path. “Which way ought we to go?”

“To the left,” Joss said at random, and onward they walked. When he ventured a look back through the lacework of tree branches, he could just see the northern side of Queen Square. It appeared to be one giant mansion of pale stone, yet it was cleverly chopped into a series of houses behind the long pedimented facade. Nothing was quite what it seemed among the wealthy. “How do you persuade the trustees around to your way of thinking?”

“I give them a bit of cooing on minor matters related to the company's products. The labeling that catches the eyes of flighty females. The pricing suited to a lady's pin money.”

“Labeling and pricing? You advise them on important aspects of the business, then.”

She tipped her face up to his, and a devious smile crossed her lips. “I don't know what you mean, sir. Those are only small affairs, far beneath the dignity of men. As my breathy voice and batted eyelashes make entirely clear.”

With a low laugh, Joss said, “I see you were not exaggerating your persuasive abilities. Indeed, you persuaded me to take a list of four names, when I thought myself too proud to take anything at all.”

“About that list, yes.” Her voice returned from a coo to its usual timbre. “There's probably no purpose to speaking to Paynter again, since he won't give you a good price for your cousin's land. If you choose to meet with Whittingham or Duffy, take care not to…oh, I don't know what to call it. ‘Man flirt,' maybe.”

Joss stumbled. In righting himself, he shook her hand from his forearm. “Man flirt?
Man
flirt
?”

“You know what I mean. All those sly smiles and jokes that may or may not be bawdy and chatter about sporting events.”

“I know what you mean, and I would
not
call it ‘man flirting.' It is
conversation.
”

She shrugged. “Call it that if you like. Whatever the name, that approach works for puffed-up dandies of the
beau
monde
. To a man of high society, money is the means to buy things to impress others. Like curricles and…I don't know. I'm not a man with deep pockets.”

“I am not either,” Joss replied. “But I see your point. And to men of business, I suppose, money is not the means, but the end in itself.”

“Precisely.” Augusta's look of gratified surprise was rather lowering, as though she had not expected him to follow her reasoning. “When dealing with self-made men, one must persuade differently.”

What was the means, or the end, for a man such as Joss? For years, he had been bound to Sutcliffe's employment by family ties and poverty. Long enough, it seemed, that he had lost the knack for doing business with anyone who responded with subtlety and sense. In Bath, he had won himself a little distance. He had traveled a step closer toward independence. But it was only a single step, and then—what next?

He would figure that out when the time came. Surely.

Impatience seized him. “I shouldn't have brought you out here. It's too cold for walking.” He took up Augusta's hands, rubbing her gloved fingers between his. He had thought of his own escape, but not of her comfort.

“That doesn't matter,” Augusta said. “I'm always cold.” She caught his eye for a moment, then looked away. Not quickly enough to hide the truth: though she attempted a smile, her eyes looked lost. Deep and worried and afraid and still. Oh, so still. Hoping if she were just still enough, no one would notice.

Or maybe he only saw his own reflection.

They had made a circuit of the garden by now, and the northern face of the square was visible again. Once they stepped outside the bounds of the garden's fence, she would become Mrs. Flowers again, and he—no one of significance. Best to remember that. “I should get you inside so you can warm up. Bath doesn't need another invalid to add to its ranks.”

“I told you, I'm always cold. Even indoors. Yet I'm healthy enough.” Pulling her fingers free, she walked forward. “It looks like a new lodger has taken the house next to Emily's. See the carriage? It must have just arrived.”

When Joss reached her side, he shaded his eyes below the brim of his hat until he could pick out the lines of the carriage's crest. “Oh, for God's sake,” he muttered. “Not four days, and he's followed me.”

“What? Do you know whose carriage that is?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I do. Lord Sutcliffe has decided to grace Bath with his presence.”

After seeing Augusta back to her doorstep with more speed than grace, Joss marched next door and rapped on it with a fist. He wished he had something larger to knock with—a cudgel, maybe, or a mace.

An unfamiliar manservant opened the door, all high-bridged nose and supercilious smirk.

Joss ignored both. “I need to see Lord Sutcliffe. Please tell him his man of business is here.”

The cursed man began to swing the door closed in Joss's face, but thundering footsteps sounded on the staircase. Joss craned his neck to see over the shoulder of the servant. As he expected, within a few seconds Sutcliffe skidded across the marble-tiled entryway.

“Let him in! Let him in! Let Everett in!” Panting, Sutcliffe tugged at the door. The servant still seemed disinclined to grant Joss entry, but after a pause that was slightly too long, he bowed and stepped back.

“Everett,” Sutcliffe said. “Thank God. I thought I'd have to search high and low for you. Where have you been? We arrived ten minutes ago at least.”

Everything about the baron was quick, impulsive, scattered. In his mid-thirties, he was blond and gray-eyed to Joss's dark coloring. Though too thin for handsomeness, his free-spending ways and boundless energy were enough to keep him at the center of any crowd.

“A red coat, my lord? How elegant you appear during your travel,” Joss observed as he crossed the threshold, removing his hat. “It's new, is it not? And the boots too. Hoby, I assume?” The baron had overspent his budget for this quarter before the last quarter had even begun; now he must be running through the funds intended for the summer.

Sutcliffe extended a foot, his boot as glossy and black as the marble tile on which he stood. “Nothing else for me. They're the best. Your boots have lost their shine, Everett; you ought to see to them. But not now—no, not now.” He caught Joss's arm, as though he thought Joss might head off in search of a cleaning cloth that instant. “Thank God you're here, Everett. I've written you so many letters and you didn't answer any of them.”

Joss laid his hat on a stack of trunks against one wall, then snatched it up again as a pair of footmen entered with another trunk to heft atop the tower. “I did, in fact. My replies will probably reach the hall later today. Perhaps tomorrow.”

His voice had fallen into a soothing timbre. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn't.

“I couldn't wait for that. I got”—Sutcliffe lowered his voice to a carrying whisper—“another of those notes.”

Ah. This explained the fit of nervous energy, excessive even for Sutcliffe.

A wave of fatigue crashed over Joss. It seemed five hours ago rather than a few minutes that he had walked with Augusta in the bracing chill of the garden.

“I am sorry to hear it,” he told his cousin—not that either of them, ever, referred to one another as such. “Did you bring it with you this time?”

“Yes. It's in my pocket.” The baron patted at the breast of his red wool coat, then his pale eyes opened wide. “My pouch! Where's my pouch?” Frantic fingers scrabbled inside his coat; then with a sigh of relief that made his whole body sag, the baron pulled forth a small leather bag no bigger than a man's palm. Hundreds of times, Joss had seen this panicky reaction and the successive relief.

“Is there a room here where we might look at the letter?” Joss said as though nothing had interrupted them.

A twitch of Sutcliffe's head. “Not here; too many servants. Let's go to your house.”

Joss shifted his feet. “We can, if you like. But it's only a room.”

“Nonsense.”

“No, it really is only a room,” Joss said mildly. “Though now you've arrived, perhaps I can give it up and lodge with you. Did you take this whole house?”

“Ah. I—” The baron cut himself off, striding to the doorway and calling some instructions to the footmen. When he returned to Joss, his eyes sought out the chandelier in the center of the entry ceiling. “So many servants about! The place is crawling. No, you know I'd like nothing better than to have you stay with here. But I'm not sure how long I'll need to remain in Bath. I'm taking the house a week at a time, so it's easier for you if you stay where you are. Eh?”

“Of course. That seems perfectly logical.” Joss hadn't expected a different answer, yet Sutcliffe's expression of relief still made his throat stick with dull disappointment.

“Let's be off, then,” said the older man. “How far is your lodging from here? We can take my carriage.”

Joss shook his head. “It is still being unloaded, as you just saw. We can walk. It'll take only a few minutes.”

“But there might be rain!”

“Let us bring your umbrella.”

Sutcliffe chewed at his lower lip. “Do you have brandy? I need something to settle my stomach.”

To another man, Joss might say,
Surely
it's a bit early. You haven't even dined yet.
To Sutcliffe, he only said, “Surely there's a decanter somewhere in the house.”

“Quite right. Quite right.” Off darted the baron through a side doorway; he returned even before the door had managed to close behind him. “Right, indeed. That was some sort of drawing room. Last tenants must have left this. What luck!” He brandished a glass bottle in which an inch of sediment and syrupy liquid sloshed.

“Excellent.” Joss feigned a smile. “Off we go, then.”

After he located an umbrella, the two men began their short walk. In the few minutes it took to pass from the crisp facade of Queen Square to the older houses of Trim Street, Sutcliffe kept up a constant stream of talk about the way Lady Sutcliffe had plagued him about wanting to accompany him, but that would have meant bringing their three children, and they would take up the best bits of the carriage seat and never cease talking, and then they
would
want to take the waters, which he hadn't ruled out himself, not that he needed it because he was in fine form except for these cursed letters, which surely he had done nothing to deserve.

So quick and determined was his flow of talk that at one point Joss had to tug him back from the path of a Bath chair. Twice did a wild gesture smack a passerby; Joss hastily apologized as his employer strode on, oblivious.

When they reached the Trim Street house, Sutcliffe asked to see the landlady. A pleasant-natured, stoutish woman met them in the cozy, cluttered entryway. Somehow Joss was shunted backward, laden with the foul-looking decanter and Sutcliffe's umbrella, as his cousin stepped forward with a bright grin to request an introduction.

Mrs. Jeffries, a widow of late middle age, professed herself honored to meet “a real lord.” Her curtsy to Sutcliffe was all the baron could desire; his kiss on her hand, all she could wish.

“My good woman,” said the baron with another flash of straight teeth, “I wonder if you might arrange for a teapot of hot water to be sent to the drawing room? Mr. Everett and I will be talking in there.”

“Not boiling one another,” Joss added. Not that either of them were listening to him.

“Mr. Everett's lodging doesn't cover use of the drawing room, my lord.” The woman's cheeks went red, and she looked uncertainly from Sutcliffe to Joss. “But if it's not in use right now, I'm sure I wouldn't mind just this once.”

Sutcliffe held up a hand. “Not necessary, Mrs. Jeffries. It was my error entirely. Mr. Everett and I shall speak in his room, if we might just have that hot water. Extremely hot, I mean. Just off the boil.”

“Of course.” Looking relieved, she curtsied again. “And I'll have some tea things put together too, my lord.”

Joss's stomach expressed interest. He had not, after all, partaken of any biscuits or tea with Augusta before escaping to the chilly outdoors.

“No need, no need. Just the water—and a cup, of course. Wouldn't want you to go to any extra trouble.” With a smile that left the landlady dithering, Sutcliffe caught Joss's arm. “Show me up, Everett.”

“I wouldn't mind tea,” Joss murmured.

“Eh? What's that?” Sutcliffe looked confused, as though the unexpected words were a fly buzzing around his head. His free hand wandered to his coat pocket.

“Never mind. Follow me.” Up the stairs they went, three flights in all. Each one narrower, until they reached the top of the house.

“Good God,” Sutcliffe wheezed. “We must have climbed all the way to heaven.”

“Let us see if you still say that when you see the room.” Joss unlocked the chamber and showed his cousin inside, setting the umbrella and decanter on the floor by the door.

He could scarcely imagine what the room looked like through Sutcliffe's eyes. Had the baron ever entered servants' quarters? Had it occurred to him that a floor could be other than carpeted or marble, or that some ceilings sloped under the line of a roof instead of soaring high?

Yet the plain wood was clean, the plaster of the unpapered walls neatly whitewashed. Mrs. Jeffries kept no slatternly servants here. True, there was a small leak in the roof above the room, but Joss had put a basin on the floor until such time as the leak was repaired. The patchwork quilt spread across the bed had been pieced together from velvet and satin scraps. Jewel-bright and supple despite its age, it had probably been created from snipped-up gowns by some long-ago lady's maid or daughter of a wealthy house. A little taste of luxury in this small room.

“How interesting this room is!” Sutcliffe seated himself on the narrow bed, bouncing to test the tension of the ropes. “Why, it's like living in medieval times, isn't it? Only you've no fire. There ought to be a great fire with a sheep on a spit. And a servant bringing tankards of mead.”

“I'll keep that in mind,” Joss said drily, seating himself in the wooden chair at the writing desk. He moved aside a stack of correspondence. “Now. Show me the letter.”

Sutcliffe pulled forth a single sheet and stretched it out to Joss. Unfolding it, Joss read the spiky, ink-clotted capitals aloud. “‘One thousand is not enough. Make it five. Delivered by the end of the month or your wife knows all.'”

He caught Sutcliffe's eye. “It's succinct, if nothing else.”

“Lady Sutcliffe
can't
know, Everett. She'd leave me and take all her money. The marriage settlements—ah, her father knew what he was doing. Her fortune is all held in trust for the children, not for me.”

As Joss held the crackling paper in his fingertips, several replies came to mind.

The first, that if Sutcliffe cared so much about having money, he could spend it less freely and hold fast to what he had.

The second, that Joss's grandmother or mother ought to have been so lucky as Lady Sutcliffe, to have money tied to them irrevocably by legal strings even after marriage.

The third was yet more pointless, but Joss said it all the same. “I think you ought to tell your wife the truth, Sutcliffe. The law does not permit her to leave you or take her children from you. Not even if you recognize the maid's child.”

For that was the crux of the matter: after decades of flirting with servants and doing God only knew what else with them, Sutcliffe had impregnated a housemaid. The woman had been sent away, and with Joss's influence, given a stipend to ensure her comfort and health. Sutcliffe was indignant that the woman had been so foolish as to fall pregnant.

Joss was not of the opinion that blame lay with the younger, weaker, poorer person.

Sutcliffe shook his head. “Lady Sutcliffe can tie up her money, though. She and her father have already put me on a spending allowance. Why—”

Tap
tap.
The door swung open to reveal a young maid holding a tray that Joss recognized as his landlady's finest. A pewter affair with blocky handles, it bore a white porcelain teapot with rows of tiny hand-painted flowers. Also the finest in the house. There were two cups on the tray, bless Mrs. Jeffries, but Joss knew Sutcliffe intended the pot of hot water for his exclusive use.

“Thank you, my dear,” said the baron, setting the tray atop Joss's desk. As Joss tugged his papers from beneath the shining surface, Sutcliffe spoke again to the maid. “What a pretty little thing you are. Do you like magic?”

“Thank you, sir. I mean, my lord. Yes, my lord.” A pale slip in her late teens, she nodded and curtsied again. Her mobcap slipped down her forehead. As she pushed it back into place, Sutcliffe tapped her nose, then ran a forefinger around her ear.

“Aha!” He pulled back his hand, open-palmed, to reveal a shilling. “For you, my dear. It was inside your head all along.”

The maid covered her mouth, giggling.

“Add another coin to pay for the hot water,” Joss said drily.

As Sutcliffe took out another coin, he asked, “Do you have a special fellow, my dear girl?”

Before the maid could answer, Joss rose to his feet. “That will do. Thank you, miss.”

The maid looked from Joss to Sutcliffe, then bobbed another curtsy and departed. Joss turned on his cousin. “Sutcliffe. Good
Lord
. What were we
just
talking about?”

“My allowance?” Sutcliffe poured out some of the steaming water into a cup, then pulled forth the leather pouch from his breast pocket. Untying its cord, he shook out a quantity of small green blades into the cup.
Somalata
, as always. After a pause, the baron popped a few dry blades into his mouth before stowing the pouch again.

“We were talking,” Joss continued after this ritual was complete, “of your financial difficulties at present, the greatest of which comes from your unwillingness to leave the female servants alone. That being the case, I would appreciate it if you would not harass the maids in my lodging house.”

“It was only a magic trick,” Sutcliffe said carelessly, sipping at his brew. Joss knew from experience that further conversation would be pointless until the cup was drained.