Tempting Her Reluctant Viscount (6 page)

So call it fear, obtuseness, or sheer ridiculousness, but Hope did not want to talk to Lady Lancaster about it. She would much rather pout, whine, and rail against the indignities committed against her. It was just so much…
safer
than the alternative.

With a sigh, Hope looked up to find she was already entering Grosvenor Square. She only lived two blocks from the square, so no amount of feet-dragging was going to delay the inevitable arrival by much more than a minute or two, but anyone of Hope’s acquaintance had to admire her effort—or lack of one, in this case. The especially humorous part was that Hope had allotted herself an extra fifteen minutes for what she planned to be a very slow walk to the Lancaster House so that she would not be late.

Good Lord. Even in her positively wallow-y temper, she could not bring herself to be anything less than respectful to her superiors, especially her elder superiors.

Hope shook her head in dismay as she walked up the front steps to Lady Lancaster’s house and knocked on the door. By her estimation, she was actually early, for goodness sake. If that wasn’t the most absurd thing—

The opening of the front door by Jacobs interrupted Hope’s berating thoughts. “The duchess is expecting you, Miss Stuckeley. Please follow me,” Jacobs intoned evenly.

Hope nodded morosely and followed the somber man. Of course Lady Lancaster was expecting her. Why shouldn’t she be expecting her? Didn’t Hope do
everything
that was expected of her? Even her dressing up as a gentleman from time to time didn’t completely erase the fact that Hope was utterly reliable. Ugh! How much more unromantic could one be than
reliable
? Exciting, enchanting, inspiring, even interesting…all things she had heard her friends described as, but not her, never her. Hope was reliable, proper, expected…
boring
.

By the time Hope entered the Rose Room, her disposition was positively black. She considered, for one brief, scintillating moment, turning around and walking right back out of the house, but of course, she did not do so. Scowling to herself, she waited to be announced to the dowager duchess.

“Ah, Hope…early as usual,” Lady Lancaster exclaimed.

“Would you prefer I leave and come back on time?” Hope muttered under her breath.

“What was that, dear?”

“Oh, nothing.” Hope sighed, taking her seat next to the duchess. She really did need to snap out of her mood. None of this was really Lady Lancaster’s fault. Who was Hope to expect the dowager Duchess of Lancaster would tell her all of her secrets? It was just that
this
secret included Michael and that made it a particularly bitter pill to swallow.

“My dear, I find that I am in the position that I must explain myself,” she said immediately, catching Hope’s eye. “About Lord Lichfield.”

With the utmost politeness, Hope replied, “No, my lady. That is not necessary. What is between you and Mic—I mean, Lord Lichfield—is none of my business.”

“Nonsense! It certainly
is
your business, and frankly, I should have told you about him sooner, but I felt uncomfortable revealing things about Michael that he should probably reveal himself. However, after seeing what I saw yesterday, I realize that Michael probably feels much the same way about revealing things about
me,
” Lady Lancaster explained before leaning in close to add, “He clearly does not understand my relationship with you or, indeed, the rest of my girls.”

With a sigh, Hope said, “Then perhaps you shouldn’t tell me anything, Lady Lancaster. I have no ties to Lord Lichfield. He owes me no explanations and neither do you.”

“Nonsense!” Lady Lancaster snorted again, hitting the arm of her chair forcefully. “I believe, over the course of the next few days, you may be working closely with Michael, and it will be helpful if you know a little about his background; therefore, I feel perfectly justified in telling you about my relationship with the man. If he weren’t such a, well,
man
, he would have undoubtedly told you something of his past by now anyway.”

Giggling, Hope said, “I thought you said he hadn’t told me out of deference to you.”

Waving a hand to indicate the matter unimportant, Lady Lancaster replied airily, “Believe me, Hope-dear, most of the inherent faults of man lie in the fact that they were born male..”

“Lady Lancaster!” Hope choked out over her laughter.

“Oh, don’t misunderstand me…I think men are a wonderful addition to the human race—”

“Well, there would hardly be a human race without them,” Hope pointed out.

The duchess gave Hope a dry look before continuing. “But they are anything but perfect.”

“Neither, I suppose, are we,” Hope replied with a touch of reproach.

Lady Lancaster arched an imperious brow at that. “Speak for yourself, Hope-girl. Speak for yourself.”

Laughing again, Hope was amazed at how quickly her mood had changed for the better. Now she felt positively silly for making such a production of coming to visit the duchess. Even though she was not one bit the wiser about Michael and Lady Lancaster, she felt reassured nonetheless.

“Now then, back to the subject at hand,” the duchess announced. “I wanted to tell you why I know Michael Ashmore so well…”

No longer dreading the conversation, Hope eagerly waited for Lady Lancaster to continue. Honestly, now that the cloud of doom had blown away, so to speak, she found she was insatiably curious as to what the lady had to say.

“It all started about ten years ago,” Lady Lancaster began. “My beloved James was still alive and we both were working for the war office. By that time, we were well past our prime, but still founts of knowledge, and the war office was loath to let us retire. So, we had taken it upon ourselves to find new talent and recruit them into the spy business. One of our first recruits was the young Michael Ashmore.”

Of course, Hope had known that Lord and Lady Lancaster worked for the war office, but this was the first she had heard of them recruiting other spies. Knowing that she, herself, along with the rest of the Garden Society, had been recruits of a sort, Hope suddenly realized just what that meant. Lady Lancaster must have seen some of the same skills and talents in them as she had in the spies she had brought into the war office.

Feeling rather pleased by that, Hope asked, “What made you choose Michael?”

“Michael has an uncanny skill with languages and accents, in addition to an unassuming, trustworthy air about him. Even the most suspicious and paranoid people failed to perceive Michael as a threat. That is a spy’s greatest asset, really. It is why women do so well in the field. We are so often…underestimated.”

Hope had to smile at that. Lady Lancaster had said as much before and on more than one occasion.

When the Garden Society was first formed and the ladies told of their mission, the duchess said their success would come from being relatively unseen and undervalued, because men, in general, wouldn’t hold their tongues around them, believing—erroneously, of course—that women didn’t have the intelligence to understand the simplest of concepts or intrigue.

And in Hope’s experience, Lady Lancaster was correct. Even her father, knowing Hope’s skill with numbers and odds, thought she was unaware that the amount of money he was making from her investments and betting advice was not actually making it into the bank and certainly not into the household accounts. He was skimming the funds. Hope was not sure for what reason, as he was the only one who had access to the bank accounts and therefore all of the money anyway, but thus far, she had not mentioned anything to him about her findings. He must have his reasons. Or so she hoped.

Returning to the more comfortable topic of Michael, Hope said, “So that is why you know Michael so well. You worked with him in the war office?”

“That is how we met, yes, but there is more to it than that,” Lady Lancaster said with a sigh. “You see, Michael was just nineteen when we brought him into the war office. His mother had passed away when he was quite young and his father was simply more interested in his eldest son—molding him for the title, you understand?”

Hope just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She had no idea Michael had lost his mother young, nor was she aware of his relationship—or lack of one—with his father.

“I suppose he was looking for some parental figures and James and I…well, we never had children of our own and something about Michael…touched our hearts.”

“He is like a son to you, isn’t he?”

“Just as you are like a daughter, Hope-girl.”

Lady Lancaster’s eyes welled with tears and Hope found she was hard pressed to hold back her own emotions in light of the heartfelt words.

…

Standing just inside the doorway of the Rose Room, Michael wondered what Lady Lancaster and Hope had been discussing for them both to be so obviously maudlin. He hoped to God it wasn’t him. The last thing he needed were two women such as these discussing him. Certainly that would only end in no good.

“Ahem,” Michael coughed from his vantage point near the door.

Both ladies jumped at the sound, their heads whipping around to see him standing there. Turning back to look at each other again, Hope and Lady Lancaster both started laughing. Then they gave each other a brief, but heartfelt, hug.

“Michael, dear, don’t just stand there. Please come in and have a seat,” the duchess commanded, looking around for something with which to wipe her eyes.

When Michael approached with his handkerchief held out, Lady Lancaster took it from him with a gruff thank-you, but also with a noticeable fondness. When the lady had finished with it, Michael held out his hand to take it back, but instead the duchess passed it over to Hope.

For the first time since he had entered the room, Michael took a good look at Miss Stuckeley. She looked quite lovely. Her eyes were bright with tears, turning them a molten golden brown, and she was smiling tremulously, looking as happy as he had ever seen her. Not an obvious kind of happy, but more of an inner contentment that simply shone through. Again, Michael wondered what on earth the ladies had been talking about.

As he sat down, he said, “I feel as if I am interrupting something. I hope that is not the case?”

“No, no,” Lady Lancaster assured him. “Miss Stuckeley and I had just finished our little chat. Your timing is impeccable, as usual.”

Michael eyed them both suspiciously, but Hope was nodding in agreement, so he decided to relax and take the women at their word. It seemed the safest course of action, given the circumstances.

“Then is it appropriate for me to ask what you may have found out about the stock conspiracy from yesterday?”

“Oh, yes. Very good. Thank you, Michael,” Lady Lancaster said. “As it happens, I
was
able to get some information on that subject. After talking to a contact of mine at the Stock Exchange, I learned that they do indeed suspect deliberate stock manipulation. As a result, they have decided to form a committee to track down the conspirators. Michael, I have asked that you be assigned to the committee.”

“Me?” Michael questioned. “But I have very little knowledge of the stock exchange.”

“Yes, that is true,” Lady Lancaster conceded, “however, Hope does. And as she cannot be put on the committee for the completely asinine reason of her being female, I chose you instead. You and she will simply have to work closely together on this until the guilty parties are found out. I trust you do not have a problem with that?”

The only problem Michael had with the lady’s plan was the fact he usually found himself extraordinarily addled around the fair Hope, but try as he might, he couldn’t stop the flutter of excitement in his belly when he thought of working
closely
with her. So while he was fairly positive he would make no end of a fool out of himself over the length of their assignment, Michael found himself shaking his head. “No, no problem at all,” he murmured as he looked at Hope.

Hope returned his gaze with a curious one of her own. “Are you sure?” she asked softly.

“Yes, I am quite sure,” Michael assured her. “While I don’t have much to offer on the stock side of things, I did trail the imposter Du Bourg across England and perhaps something I saw will aid in the investigation.”

“And I will help you with the stock side of things, as you say, as much as I am able.”

Michael nodded. “Thank you. I am sure your help will be invaluable.”

There, that wasn’t so hard. Just keep it cordial and businesslike.
I can do this
, Michael told himself. And then he looked up to see Hope smile at his cordial and businesslike comment…and he was lost again.

Chapter Seven

Funny how what’s good for the gander is good for the goose…until it’s your goose.

~The Duke of Lancaster

Later that afternoon, Hope was sitting quietly in her study working on the estate accounts. Again, she was finding a discrepancy in the numbers. She knew very well that her father had won a sizeable amount of money at the club earlier that week, but only a fraction of the total had made it into the bank.

By her calculations, nearly 10,000 pounds were missing from the family accounts. That was a king’s ransom for most people. Certainly enough for a household to live comfortably on for many, many years…a lifetime even.

Knowing that she was only aware of some of the monies her father brought in as a result of her assistance, Hope wondered if there was even more missing than she currently thought. And if so, what was her father planning to do with all that money? Did he have a mistress? Was he attempting to gamble on his own and losing? Was he being blackmailed? As a member of the House of Commons, her father was in a position of power and there were many who would do whatever they had to in order to take some of that power themselves.

“Miss? There is a gentleman here to see you. Ah, Miss…?”

“Oh, Rivers,” Hope said, looking up at the serious man, her mind still on the matter of her father. “I’m sorry. Did you say something?”