Suzanne Robinson (6 page)

So far she’d remained true to her discipline. No English aristocrat’s smarmy ways were going to fool her, and no skunk of a duke’s son was going to make her look ridiculous. Pushing aside memories of old hurts, she scurried around the table and to the door as her friend popped inside. Narcissa handed her a pastry confection that resembled a pink custard pie.

“Don’t let anyone come in,” Mattie whispered. She raced to Allington’s chair, put the custard on the seat and ran back to Narcissa. Just then they heard voices outside the drawing room.

Mattie whispered, “Quick, act like you’re helping me button my glove.” They rushed to the middle of the drawing room and posed as the duchess entered on the arm of a royal minister.

As Americans of no rank, she and Narcissa featured
near the end of the procession with gentlemen of no title but good breeding. Her seat was directly opposite her adversary, and Mattie watched Allington closely as he engaged in conversation with the lady he’d escorted. He hadn’t sat down yet.

Mattie scooted closer to the table, clasped her hands in her lap and waited.

 
4
 

In the cavernous and drafty saloon Cheyne stood beside his chair making conversation with his dinner partner, the eternally fatuous Lady Plimpton. The woman was over thirty, but her character had frozen during her first Season, and she preserved the girlish enthusiasm and trite conversation of the schoolroom. Cheyne kept up his end of the light banter while he tried to see where Miss Bright was seated.

If it had been possible to lash his own tongue for his rudeness upon meeting Miss Bright, Cheyne would have done it. But it wasn’t all his fault. His mother had dragged him over to introduce him to a likely young lady—likely in the sense that she was young, wealthy, and in search of a titled husband.

No matter how many times he corrected her, Mother persisted in believing he would relent in his decision to go into “trade.” She also assumed that he was poor. Her greatest wish was that he marry and
settle down to the life of a gentleman, which meant living on a great country estate and doing little else. She concluded that he needed to marry wealth in order to fulfill the destiny she’d planned.

Thus when he’d telephoned, she had taken it for granted that he was ready to do as she wished. He’d allowed her to keep the illusion. He couldn’t tell her about the blackmailer.

So far his work had seldom required him to move in Society, and he didn’t miss it. So when the duchess brought him to the group of sycophants surrounding a vision in ivory lace, the last person he expected the vision to be was Miss Motorcar. He’d anticipated another dashing American girl fresh from being finished on the Continent, a girl who wore a Paris gown and ruled the gathering like and empress. As he’d drawn close to the heiress and extraordinary feeling had come over him. He took in the long neck and sinuous curves wrapped in priceless lace, and his body responded. He’d seen plenty of lovely women. Yet there was something about that long, elegant neck that enthralled him. It was so long that it looked unable to support those thick, smooth waves of hair.

And then she’d turned around. He’d recognized her, but it hadn’t mattered. If he’d drunk an infusion of poppies or a full snifter of brandy he couldn’t have felt the effect more. It wasn’t that she was beautiful, for her nose was too short, her mouth too wide. But her face was one of those that captured the eye by its contrasts—the black hair and brows, the cream of
her skin, the tulip-pink lips all gave her a vibrancy lacking in pale Englishwomen. Then there was the way the lace gown molded itself to her figure, not stiffly but naturally, lending her whole being an uncontrived grace he’d never encountered before.

What had been in his mind at that moment? Ah, yes. He’d been thinking that it would be incredibly stupid to quarrel with a young lady who looked like that. In a few moments he’d managed to conceive an infatuation for a young woman he thought he detested. How utterly callow.

Alarmed at the effect she’d had on him in spite of his disapproval of her, Cheyne had blurted out the first thing that came to his lips. Harpy. What bloody lunacy.

He’d never have been rude had he not been so upset at having to deal with his family, with having to reenter a world he’d fled years ago. He was learning, however, that his antipathy toward the duke and duchess faded in comparison to the havoc wrought by his desire for Miss Bright. Damn her. She made him feel infernally uncomfortable. His skin felt tight and hot, and he was breathing like he’d run the length of Rotten Row.

He had to control himself. He was here to do a job, not to lust after a lovely savage. He would master this absurd weakness at once.

All the while he’d been thinking, Cheyne had been exchanging pleasantries with Lady Plimpton and watching for Miss Bright. She entered on the arm of some man he didn’t recognize and took her
seat across from him, of all places. Cheyne helped Lady Plimpton to her chair and pulled out his own while trying not to stare at Miss Bright. As he sat, he knew he failed to keep his gaze averted, and he was looking at her as he made contact with the chair. He hit something wet and squishy.

His gasp caught Lady Plimpton by surprise, but he was still staring at Miss Bright, who showed not only no surprise but much amusement. He remained still, taking in the glitter and satisfaction in those dark eyes. His posterior felt clammy while his face burned. Cheyne rose slowly, glaring at his adversary across the table. He felt a suction, and the silver plate holding the pastry plopped back to the chair cushion.

“Oh, dear,” Lady Plimpton trumpeted for all to hear, “whatever have you sat on?”

He heard sniggers and saw ladies hide smiles with their napkins. Miss Bright calmly smoothed her own napkin in her lap and patted her hair.

His friend, perhaps his only real friend left in this gilded world, the honorable Lancelot Gordon, exclaimed, “Dear God, Allington. Your trousers are pink.”

The sniggering was louder now, and some of the men were chuckling aloud. Cheyne forced himself to smile.

“It seems I’ve found a misplaced pastry, old chap.” He managed a slight bow to his mother. “I’m afraid you must pardon me, your Grace.”

He left the saloon as quickly as dignity allowed. As
he went, he silently cursed Miss Bright and vowed revenge. Hurrying to the entry hall, Cheyne donned his coat while he waited for a footman to summon his barouche.

“Evil little beast,” he muttered, feeling the wetness of his trousers. “Bloody colonial.” Everyone had laughed at him. His father had roared the loudest, just like when Cheyne was a boy and he’d made some embarrassing mistake. Bristling with suppressed outrage, he stepped outside and breathed in the damp, foggy air.

Mutton appeared out of the mist. “Wot’s this about us leaving?”

“Shhh!” Cheyne glanced at the footman standing inside the doorway and shut the front door. “You can’t speak to me that way when I’m working.”

“ ’Pears to me you done a bit more than me to ruin your dignity.” Mutton eyed the back of his coat. “Sat inna pie, according to Daisy.”

“Who’s Daisy, and how did you find out so quickly? Never mind. You were supposed to be getting information from the servants.”

“That’s what I was doing, until the butler came down and said you got your trousers ruined.”

“Damn her!”

“Who?”

“Miss Motorcar—Miss Bright, that is. She put that pastry on my chair. I know it. You should have seen her. She knew it was there, and she was waiting, just waiting to see me sit on it.” Cheyne stalked down the steps and paced back and forth in front of
the circular drive. “God, I wish I could get my hands on her. She was smiling so charmingly, the little ruffian, looking so elegant, all lace and ivory roses, with her damned tulip lips and damned midnight hair and damned graceful neck.”

“Blimey, she’s got you proper, she has.” The barouche rumbled out of the fog as Cheyne cast a look of supreme disgust at Mutton. “She’s not going to get away with it.”

“T’ain’t a good thing, you making a spectacle of yourself over a bit of a joke.”

“I’m not the one who’s going to be a spectacle,” Cheyne snapped. He jumped into the carriage.

Mutton climbed in after him. “Wot’s wrong? You look like a dog’s dinner.”

“Have you ever sat in trousers caked with strawberry pastry?”

“Nah. I don’t usually squat in pies, me.” Through grinding teeth, Cheyne said, “I’ll thank you to abandon your humor at my expense, or you can bloody well pack your things and get out of my house.”

“Have it your own way,” Mutton replied, unperturbed. He pounded on the roof of the barouche to speed the coachman. “We got to get you out of them trousers. If I don’t clean them and the coat quick, I’ll have to order new ones from the tailor.”

“Damn the tailor.”

Mutton sighed. “Did you find out anything before you decided to scrap with the lady?”

“I talked to Elland Capgrave. He told me Sir
Archibald Preston has been nervous and distracted lately. Perhaps the blackmailer has got hold of him. I was going to try to speak to Lord Randolph Latimer, but my mother waylaid me and dragged me off to be introduced to that woman.”

“What woman?”

“Miss Matilda Bright, the most annoying, rude, uncivilized witch in all of England. I tell you, if she isn’t taught a lesson, she’ll be a thorn in my side the whole time I’m trying to work. Everyone was laughing at me, and I can’t stick it. She’s appalling, and a blight on my existence.”

“Yeah, all that midnight hair and them tulip lips.”

“Oh, shut up, Mutton.”

The next morning Cheyne had recovered his dignity and his good humor. He whistled as he plucked a new tie from a dresser drawer. Mutton was in the sitting room laying out Cheyne’s breakfast. He appeared in the doorway.

“You got to hurry if you’re going to call on the countess by eleven o’clock.” Cheyne had decided to talk to several people he knew were rabid gossips in order to get a hint of the most likely next victim.

“There’s time,” Cheyne said. “What’s the matter? You look like you just smelled rotten fish.”

“Beggin’ your pardon, gov’nor. You going to wear that tie?”

Cheyne looked at himself in the mirror. He’d admired
the tie at his tailor’s and purchased it last week. “What’s wrong with polka dots?”

“Gents wear black ties with their coats.”

“This tie is black, with white polka dots.”

“Won’t do.” Mutton went to the dresser and began inspecting Cheyne’s ties. “Here, this one’ll do a treat.” The valet held out a simple black length of silk like half a dozen others in the drawer.

Cheyne drew himself up. “Mutton, this is the tie I wear.”

“Awright.”

“Indeed.”

“Course, you look like a ponce.” Sighing, Cheyne turned back to the mirror. He studied the bright piece of material around his neck, then yanked it loose. “I suppose I’ll never have any peace if I don’t listen to you.”

“Prob’ly not,” Mutton said, and he handed Cheyne the black tie.

“You’d never know I was an officer in the cavalry from the way you behave,” Cheyne said as he tied a new knot.

“You was a right proper gentleman even then,” Mutton said, “but you wore uniforms what was already designed for you. Never had to choose any ties. Least, not where I could see you.”

Mutton stood back and examined his master. “Splendid. Nice starch to the collar, good crease on the trousers. I like that new frock coat.”

“God, you’re so fussy.”

“I’m not lettin’ you out o’ here without you lookin’
sharp. It reflects on me, and I got me reputation to think of.”

“If I remember correctly, your reputation extends no farther west than Cheapside.”

Cheyne forestalled more argument by quitting the dressing room and wolfing down his breakfast. On the drive over to Belgrave Square, Cheyne passed the time by designing his revenge on the detestable Miss Matilda Bright. For once he hardly noticed the din in the streets, the clatter of horse-drawn omnibuses, the shouts of street vendors and shopkeepers chasing urchins from their stores. In Belgrave Square he presented his card and waited to be admitted to the Countess of Ixworth’s drawing room.