Tarnished (25 page)

She began to pace.

I blinked at her as the rustle of her heavy poplin skirts filled the silence.

“You vanished for an entire day and almost all of the night,” Fanny pointed out, her gloved hands twined together. I bit my lip. “Betsy was beside herself; we practically had to force it out of her by a switch,” she added grimly.

I stood so quickly, the blood left my head in a dizzying rush. “You didn’t!”

“Sit down, Cherry,” Fanny snapped. I sat, but only because it was that or fall. “Of course we didn’t,” she added irritably. “What do you think we are?” She pointed a gloved finger at me before I could answer, though I hadn’t the faintest idea what to say. “We’re your family, that’s what! How dare you, Cherry St. Croix?”

I flinched.

It wasn’t enough. My rail-thin chaperone was nobody’s idea of a formidable foe, but as she stared me down across three feet of elegant parlor, every quivering inch clad in elegant navy blue poplin, I thought even a seasoned pugilist would quail.

“How
dare
you,” she demanded again. “How dare you place Betsy into such an untenable position? How long has this been going on?”

I opened my mouth.

“Trousers, Cherry!”

I shut my mouth again.

Red-cheeked and all but vibrating in high dudgeon, Fanny spun and stalked to the mantel, her thin shoulders rigid. “And your corset! Good heavens, what on earth was it doing being seen by anyone who could look at you?”

“It’s plated,” I began, then threw my hands up in surrender when she spun, fury glinting in her pale blue eyes.

“You are a disgrace,” she snapped. I winced. “A disgrace to your father and mother, God rest their dearly departed souls, and a disgrace to this very house!”

I shot to my feet, impatiently scraping away tendrils of my less-than-expertly pinned hair. “Now you see here,” I began heatedly.

Fanny had no mind to see anything. She covered her eyes with one hand, groaning, “If this gets out, you’re ruined. Don’t you see that? All the hard work and effort we’ve put into you—”

I’d had enough. “
Madam
Fortescue,” I said tightly, my voice pitched to a dangerous edge. “Will you shut your bleeding mouth!”

Fanny gasped, her cheeks draining of all blood. Her eyes widened, and I swear she swayed.

It was, I reflected later, likely the first time anyone had ever used such a word in her presence. And it coming from me, no less.

I forged ahead before she could collect herself. “My parents are dead, thank you very much. I can’t possibly disappoint them as they’re rather beyond caring.” I strode to the window, but didn’t reach for the drapes. I spun, my skirts frothing around my feet, and pointed at her. “They should have thought of what I’d become when they bloo—” No. I censored myself before the word escaped again. One such shock was enough for the old woman. “Before they died,” I amended tightly. “You have
no conception
of the life I’ve led, the choices I’ve made.”

“Of course we don’t.” But it didn’t come angrily. Fanny sat back on the settee I’d abandoned, her tone—her very demeanor—weary.

I blinked at her, my anger suddenly trapped between walls of uncertainty.

I could handle yelling. Even the too-sharp barbs that were Fanny’s way of keeping me in line.

I didn’t know what to do with . . . this.

“How could we possibly know, Cherry?” She looked at me, and her eyes were so large in her thin features. Brimming with tears. “You’ve never told us.”

My mouth closed once more. What could I say?

Nothing. She was right.

I tried anyway. “I’ve never told anyone. Betsy only found out that I’m a collector by accident, and I swore her to secrecy on—” I winced. “On pain of losing her post.”

“Oh, I think that girl enjoyed the secret,” Fanny said wryly, but it lacked every trace of humor. My chaperone rubbed at her cheeks, pale and so delicate, I was suddenly seized with the awareness of how old my chaperone suddenly appeared.

Were those wrinkles always there?

Were her veins always so dark in her translucent skin?

Something cracked in my chest, and I crossed the room, sank to the cushions beside her and took Fanny’s fragile hands in mine. “I’m sorry,” I said. I wanted to give her something, anything. So I began to speak. Quietly, calmly. As if I were only recounting the plot thread of a book, I spoke to her of Monsieur Marceaux’s Traveling Circus. What little I could remember, I told her. Of the acts I participated in, the quota the vile ringmaster required of his acquired children. I mentioned the thievery, the threat of failure, but I left out a great deal more. Like the auction rings. The loss of limb or life when an act went terribly awry.

I avoided all those things I knew would bring pity to her eyes as she listened to me, her hands tight in mine. To her credit, my dear chaperone listened in silence, her gaze steady.

“Oh, my poor child. And now?” she asked when my voice fell to silence.

“Now, I collect,” I admitted. “I have for nigh on five years, Fanny. I was afraid you’d force me to stop.”

“Stop?” Her chuckle strained. “I don’t even pretend to know what it is you do.” She blew out a hard breath. “Nor,” she added quickly as I opened my mouth, “do I wish to. Please, let this old woman live in as much ignorance as possible. I know what I
think
a collector is, I’d rather leave it at that.”

That ache in my heart tightened, and I raised Fanny’s hands to my cheeks. I loved her. She was as close to a mother as I’d ever had, and I knew that I’d betrayed her trust in me.

In so many more ways than she even suspected.

She turned her hands, cradling my cheeks in her gloved palms, and ducked her head to meet my eyes. Her regard was steady. Worried. “But you must be ever so careful now, my dove. Your reputation is only a whisper away from ostracizing you from everything you know.”

“There is nothing to be ostracized from.”

“You know better, Cherry.”

I did, and I gave in. “No one here will breathe a word,” I said firmly. My staff trusted me. So much more, I realized, than I had trusted them.

That would have to change.

“And besides, Fanny,” I said lightly, patting her hands as I pulled away. “No one else even knows.”

“Ahem.” A masculine throat cleared itself of nothing at all, and both Fanny and I jumped.

Teddy hovered in the doorway, his hazel eyes sharp within a carefully tempered expression of indolent curiosity. “Knows what?” he asked.

Fanny’s lips moved, but I was quicker than she. I had to be. That’s what I did, after all. “Teddy!” I said brightly. Then, glancing sidelong at my recovering chaperone, I added, “That is, my Lord Helmsley.”

“I prefer Teddy, thank you.” His rejoinder was quick, but not entirely distracted.

Fanny harrumphed softly as she rose to her feet. “I shall see that tea is arranged,” she announced. She sailed past us both with her nose firmly in the air; the very model of a proper Englishwoman.

Too proper, really. I’d have to work on her, I thought.

Teddy’s hands clasped my shoulders, and I half turned in surprise, eyes wide. “Are you all right?” he demanded.

“Yes?” I looked down at myself, at my perfectly boring gray dress, and back up to meet his gaze. “Do I appear not to be?”

He let me go with a sigh, crossing the parlor in three long strides to throw himself into his favorite overlarge armchair. “They said you’d been ill,” he half accused. “You still look worn. I was rather afraid that I’d arrive to find you’d passed of some mysterious plague.”

This made me grin, morbid as it was. “You should only be so lucky.” I once more found comfort on the settee, arranging my skirts neatly. “I’m well. I came down with some touch of the ague, but I’m quite recovered, as you see.”

Lying came ever so easily. A pang of guilt clanged once more in my chest.

I ignored it.

I couldn’t afford to give in now. There was a murderer to be caught, after all. And a cameo to locate. Above all, I was a collector. I’d given my word.

Fanny returned, her eyebrows arched high and a colorful bundle in her hands. I blinked. “Flowers?”

“Your pardon, my lord,” Fanny said, ignoring me for the moment’s courtesy.

Teddy rose to his feet. “Not at all, Fanny, there’s no need to stand on courtesy with me.”

“Charmer,” I muttered, pitched so he could hear.

He flashed me a grin.

Fanny handed me the bouquet. “This was left at the stoop for you.”

“Me?” My gaze flew to Teddy, who shrugged.

“I saw no such thing when I arrived,” he replied. His eyebrows furrowed. “Red roses, eh? Perhaps it’s from that ruddy earl.”

Fanny had the grace to ignore this.

I did not. “He’s not a ruddy anything,” I replied in exasperation. “Teddy, really.”

“Maybe it’s a farewell gift.”

This gave me pause. “Farewell?” I was acutely aware of Fanny’s suddenly sharp stare. “What farewell?”

Teddy leaned back, ankles crossed fashionably. “He didn’t inform you? He and his younger wastrel of a brother have left Town.” His eyes glinted. “Rather suddenly. All the tongues are wagging, at least out of the marchioness’s hearing.”

Compton had left London without so much as a by-your-leave, then? I couldn’t even begin to speculate on this. Such a leave-taking was bound to provoke gossip. And though a small, bruised part of my heart ached at the realization that I did not warrant a proper farewell, or even a polite explanation, I quashed my hurt with a careless gesture of the nosegay. “Regardless, why on earth would he send me roses?”

“You were quite the model of beauty at Lady Rutledge’s ball, you know. Perhaps he’s simply admitting his deep and abiding pas—”

I coughed.

Teddy snapped his mouth shut before he said something entirely too scandalous for Fanny’s ears.

Fanny chuckled as she once more took her seat; a sound that eased some of the anxiety wrapped inside me. It wasn’t as it once was, and I didn’t know that our relationship ever could be, but it was a start. “Cherry hasn’t received many flowers in her time,” Fanny said lightly. “My lord, you may need to translate.”

“Surely you’ve received many a nosegay, madam,” he replied with a wicked grin. “Your translation skills may be equally as important.”

“Not for many years, now.” Fanny’s knitting needles clicked quietly. “And as all things must, the terms have changed with time. Although red roses,” she added with a pointed look at me, “still indicate a deep love, unless I am grossly misinformed. Are you sure it’s not from your earl?”

I eyed the bundle. “It seems . . .” Not his style? I shook my head. “What are these white flowers?”

Fanny frowned. After a moment, she retrieved a pair of spectacles from a chain about her neck and placed them firmly on her nose. “Aside from the roses, it looks like . . .” Her eyebrows knitted. “Foxglove? And white verbena.”

“The pink is sweetbriar,” Teddy pointed out. “Ah, I do love a mystery.”

“I didn’t expect you to know flowers,” I teased my friend.

He didn’t look even a smidge repentant. “I shall teach you one day. There’s much to be said with flowers.”

“Of flowers,” I corrected.

“No, dear,” Fanny said, smiling. “
With
. In my time, foxglove meant the sender had ambitions only for the recipient. A declaration of intent, if you will.”

Teddy craned his neck to study the bouquet. “Is there a card?”

I carefully separated the boldly crimson roses from the morass of smaller white and pink blooms. It was a lovely nosegay, admittedly.

And lush enough to mask a small, folded piece of card stock beneath the flower heads. I fished it out with only minimal loss of petals. “Found one,” I crowed triumphantly.

“Ah! Of course. Sweetbriar is a flower of sympathy,” Fanny said, then glanced at me over the top of her spectacles. “Why would someone declare love, ambition and sympathy all in one go?”

I opened the card, squinted at the slanted handwriting. The ink was tobacco brown, decently dark, but the lettering too cramped for easy deciphering.

“I’m afraid,” Teddy said slowly, “that foxglove is an entirely different message from what you recall, madam.”

“Oh?”

My dear
, I read slowly.
Know that you are in my thoughts, and that we look forward to your prompt perception in this matter.

A dull ache began to throb behind my forehead.

“It carries an accusation of insincerity,” Teddy was saying. He leaned closer, peering at the bouquet I still held loosely in one hand. “But what are these?”

A knock resounded from the back of the house.

Fanny once more crossed the small parlor, her mouth pinched in deep thought. She bent to study the tiny white flowers Teddy captured between two fingers. The five-petaled blooms were mostly white, with a hint of darker pink at the center and dusting the stems. Three petals curved down, and two up.