The Blue Devil (The Regency Matchmaker Series) (20 page)

Even if he were inclined to wed a woman so young, he would not. It would not be fair to saddle her with a man of his years. They could have nothing in common. She had just come from the nursery, whereas he had just come from the battlefield. She was inexperienced, and he was . . . not. Besides, they were so different in temperament. Nigel was not code-named The Blue Devil in recognition of his cheerful nature. No. He was frequently bad-tempered, especially as his birthday approached each year. He was not a fit companion for a young lady like Kitty. But Jeremy? Jeremy was much closer to her age. He was irrepressibly cheerful and optimistic. And they obviously got on famously together. Nigel would not stand in their way.

He stood at the carriage, pulling crocks and wrapped parcels out of the largest basket at random. He was making a muck of it. He didn’t know what any of it was. Mrs. Farmworthy, his housekeeper, had seen to the baskets’ packing.

“May I help?” a timid voice asked at his side. Kitty? Timid? Nigel looked down at her. Unless he was mistaken, her words were full of apology.

“The boys are having a splendid time,” she said. “Thomas seems so happy.”

He nodded.

She looked down at her hands. “I . . . earlier . . . I did not mean to seem ungrateful. That is to say . . . about Thomas’s employment with you, I—”

“I know. It is nothing.” And indeed it was nothing.

She fidgeted with the buckle on one of the baskets.

“The boys are enjoying themselves,” he said. “Perhaps we should follow their lead. Don’t you think?”

Kitty smiled impishly up at him. “Of course I think.” She was being deliberately obtuse. Then she added a little shyly, “I just do not see all of the time.” She looked up at him through her lashes.

Nigel’s heart skipped a beat. “While I, it would seem, do not listen all of the time,” he said. At her surprised expression, he laughed softly, and she joined in.

The boys came back and were encouraged to join them on the quilt.

Together, Nigel and Kathryn served the meal, improvising a comedy by pretending to be a deaf butler and a blind housekeeper. Nigel genuinely enjoyed himself, much to his surprise, and he thought Kitty enjoyed herself as well.

Much to her surprise, judging by her expression.

As they ate, the girl-child with her box of puppies sat in the sun near the drive, obviously hoping to sell the whelps. After a few moments, Nigel put his sandwich down.

He could smell the girl before he reached her. He hadn’t been able to smell her over the stench of the puppies, before, but he certainly could now. She had probably never had a real bath, he thought. Nigel scanned her hands and face, which were almost—but not quite—as dirty as the rest of her. Until recent years, most people had thought regular bathing was unhealthy. Still, the hands and the face were certain to receive regular attention, if the girl had attentive parents. He was glad her hands were indeed a little cleaner than the rest of her, for he did not relish the prospect of yet another of his housekeeper’s lectures on bringing home strays.

As Nigel approached, she looked up at him fearfully. Nigel thought she might run. He held out his hand. “Do not be frightened. I am not angry with you. See?” He brushed at his ruined sky blue waistcoat. “It is nothing. A few specks of dirt.” The girl smiled tentatively, and Nigel peered into the box. “What are you going to do with those puppies?”

“Sell ’em, if’n I can, sir.”

“
No
. . . ! Sell pups as fine as these? Well . . . it is a good thing I was the first to arrive, for I have need of such fine dogs as these. Of course, the price will have to be right,” he said.

The girl looked shrewdly up at Nigel. “I dunno, sir. I’m expectin’ my other customers to meet me ’ere soon. Mebbe they’ll want to pay more. What might you be thinkin’ on payin’?” she asked.

Mentally, Nigel calculated how much blunt he had left in his pocket after the morning’s activities and named a sum. After ten minutes of intense negotiation, Nigel led the girl back to the blanket, where he traded every farthing he had with him—and his own lunch—for the splintery box of yapping puppies. After the girl’s hands and face were washed—Nigel insisted—in the Serpentine, she was served her meal with all the formality the group could display, given the circumstances. Well fed and half clean, the girl promptly fell asleep. Nigel wrapped her and his money pouch up in the picnic blanket and ushered the party away so as not to wake her.

The six climbed aboard Nigel’s carriage and rolled away as quietly as possible.

Jeremy couldn’t contain his laughter any longer. “Are you mad? What are you going to do with these mongrels?”

“I’ll send them to one of my estates.”

“They’ll ruin your hunting dogs. Spoil their bloodlines. And you don’t even like dogs.”

“Then I’ll send them to Northumberland.” Nigel almost never visited his remote estate in the North. “I shall send them today, without delay.”

“Oh, Nigel,” Jane cried, “do let me keep one of them, won’t you? They are so . . .”

“Smelly?” Nigel supplied.

“ . . . so . . . ”

“Flea-bitten?”

“Adorable was the word I had in mind,” Kathryn said, lifting one from the box.

“Adorable and lovable,” Jane agreed, liberating another pup.

“If it pleases you to have a pet, my pet, then of course you may have one,” Nigel told her. “One,” he stressed, but by the time they had reached Baroness Marchman’s School, Nigel had agreed to two, as he knew he would from the beginning. The puppy in question promptly thanked him by soiling the white leather seat of his carriage.

“Oh, Nigel, would it not be cruel to break apart a family of siblings? Only think how charming it would be to have all five running around your town house and licking your—”

“No more,” Nigel told her, trying hard to keep his sense of humor but failing miserably, “or to Northumberland they go. All of them.”

“Beast. Brute. Cad,” Jane said happily.

Kathryn, meanwhile, looked on incredulously.

She’d been certain that when he’d rescued the kittens, he’d done it to impress Titania, who in spite of her disappearance might still have been peeking out from behind a tree. Or that he’d taken them for the more mundane purpose of mousing. But that wasn’t the case this time. For all he knew, Titania was not present. And he certainly wasn’t trying to impress Kitty Davidson; a man bent upon making an impression did not snooze the afternoon away beneath a tree while another man—Jeremy Scott—paid court.

A mixture of suspicion and gladness warred inside her, for she knew something was terribly wrong. How could it be possible for Nigel to be both demon and angel? For an angel is what he had shown himself to be this day. If she had been touched by his tender treatment of Thomas, she had been blown over by his kind and sensitive “bargain” with the poor little girl selling the puppies. As she watched, one of the puppies chewed happily on the blue silk tassels hanging from his mirror-like Hessians, while another threw up into his hat. Kathryn held her breath. He eyed the pups distastefully but said nothing. The miserable, darling creatures were going to cause no end of havoc, and he had to know that.

Beside her, his empty stomach rumbled.

And, in that moment, Kathryn realized she had fallen in love with him.

She closed her eyes. Dear Lord! How had she allowed that to happen?

How could she fall in love with a scoundrel? Or was he? How Kathryn wished his character was unassailable! But she knew what she had seen and heard upstairs on the night of the masquerade ball.

Confusion bound together her suspicion and her hope and shook them cruelly. The two sides of Nigel could not be reconciled. She didn’t know whether to hate him—or to give him her heart. She loved the side of him she had seen today. He was merry and generous, intelligent and courteous. He seemed to be all that was good in men. His handsome face was quick to smile—and quick to apologize, for he had done so, with and without words, so many times that day.

She had even begun to feel apologetic for her mean treatment of him. She’d shown him her back a number of times that day. She had told herself he deserved nothing more from her. She had reminded herself why she had accompanied them to the park in the first place: to foil the demon’s desire to keep his ward in isolation—and in financial thrall. But he hadn’t said as much as one syllable against her outrageous performance with Lord Bankham. And he was nothing but patient, tolerant, and loving toward Jane. Was it all an elaborate game? A carefully constructed illusion? Was he trying to put them all off their guard? Or had she been terribly, terribly wrong about him from the start?

Her mind journeyed back to the beginning, to the first time she heard his richly toned voice.

Images of Lydia’s anguished face, her dress torn and her hair askew flashed into Kathryn’s mind. Lydia’s distress had been no illusion.

Kathryn had to get hold of herself. She had to be alone. She had to think, to sort all of it out. Perhaps he still was a demon. Perhaps he’d managed to hide his true nature from everyone in London. But if that were so, Kathryn vowed, he would not deceive her.

A carriage approached them on the narrow street and Kathryn looked up, eager to replace in her mind the image of Nigel with the image of a stranger. But when she looked up, it was not into the eyes of a stranger she peered, but into the eyes of her incredulous parents.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

K
ATHRYN FROZE. HER
father was smiling warmly at her, and her mother was positively beaming. Violet St. David raised her hand and waved enthusiastically to her daughter. Kathryn tilted her head forward so she could appear to have looked away yet still see through the open weave of her chip bonnet. As the carriages passed, Blackshire nodded politely to her parents, whose faces registered their confusion.

She watched her mother’s waving hand still and wilt. “Kathryn?” she heard her father ask uncertainly as they rolled out of view in one of Auntie’s fine, open barouches. She could not turn to see what they would do next. She only hoped they would not come after her.

“Do you know those people?” Blackshire asked, slowing his cattle. “I can turn and catch them, if you wish.”

Kathryn swallowed and tried to appear calm. “No, my lord. I do not know them. Perhaps I resemble some acquaintance of the lady’s. Pray, drive on.” Blackshire’s carriage was soon rolling briskly along again, and the seconds ticked by as Kathryn waited for the sound of her parents’ pursuit.

“Is your name Kathryn? Kitty is short for Kathryn.”

“My name is Kitty,” she lied, “not Kathryn.”

Why were her parents in London? What had Ophelia told them, and how was Kathryn to find out, now that Thomas was no longer able to carry messages for her? Oh dear! What a pickle! They would never approve of their daughter’s shocking masquerade at the school, but that was the least of her worries. If they were to catch up to Blackshire’s carriage at this moment, all would be lost. Ophelia would be ruined, and Kathryn might just be thrown into gaol. She sank back against the plush seat, willing away the real swoon she could feel coming on. She was trembling. She could feel her whole body shudder with the violence of her beating heart.

When, after what seemed an eternity, Nigel’s carriage rounded the corner into Silver Street, Kathryn finally relaxed. They were not being followed. Jane looked up from the puppy she was stroking and alarm claimed her features. “Kitty, whatever is the matter? You are as white as the chalk at Dover!”

Across from Jane, Mr. Scott frowned. “I say, Lady Jane is quite right. You do not look at all the thing, Miss Davidson.”

The marquis turned a concerned look in her direction and examined her intently. “Do you feel a swoon coming on?”

Lud
! Now she had a reputation as a swooner! Kathryn resisted the urge to roll her eyes, settling on a dismissive wave of her hand. “I am fine. Really. Just a little warm, is all. That is the trouble with swooning. Once it is done, everyone expects another at the least provocation. I assure you I am well.” She fanned herself with the edge of her pelisse, whereupon Jeremy had the embarrassing story of Kathryn’s swoon from Jane. She was quite glad when the carriage rolled over the school’s gravel drive once more. The gentlemen alighted first. Jeremy turned to hand Jane down, then Kathryn.

Kathryn’s feet gained the ground, but Mr. Scott did not let go of her hand as was strictly proper. Instead, he held it a moment before tucking it firmly under his arm and setting off toward the garden. Kathryn had no choice but to follow. Back in Heathford, his behavior would be considered quite bold, but perhaps it was to be expected here in London. Not wishing to seem churlish, Kathryn trailed along helplessly, though she would much rather have been walking on Nigel’s arm.

Mr. Scott led her to the small, ornamental garden next to the orchard. A pair of stone benches flanked the walk, and he led her to one of them. Motioning for her to sit, he claimed the space at her side. When Blackshire and Jane followed a moment later, they had no choice but to sit on the other bench, and Kathryn was thus paired with Jeremy Scott for the rest of the afternoon, she supposed.

There were worse fates. Mr. Scott was possessed of a quick wit and a pleasing appearance. To say he was attentive to her would have been unjust, for he was not merely attentive, he was everything a willing companion could be. A pleasant hour passed in interesting conversation. Mr. Scott had travelled widely, and there seemed to be no end to his fascinating stories, which ranged from the mildly amusing to the wildly outrageous. At Kathryn’s slight clearing of her throat, he retrieved a cooling drink from inside. When she commented that the roses were beautiful, he plucked one for her and tucked it behind her ear. Oh, he was very attentive indeed, and she knew she should be thrilled to be the object of the dashing Jeremy Scott’s attention. But she wasn’t thrilled. She felt oddly uncomfortable at the notion.

As he left to procure yet another glass of lemonade, she decided she was only being sensible. She could not, after all, enter Society. Blackshire would expose her. Or would he? Kathryn stole a glance at him.

Where was he?

A moment or two ago, he and Jane had been off in the kitchen garden, examining the herbs and the sundial. But now only Jane stood there, intent upon a pair of golden spotted fish Lady Marchman kept in a stone pond to one side of the herb garden.

Kathryn shivered, half expecting to feel Blackshire’s fingers brush the back of her neck. She looked behind her, but he was not there. He was nowhere in sight.

Kathryn wandered over to Jane. “Has Lord Blackshire gone inside for lemonade?”

Jane bent over and held out her finger, trying to get a butterfly to land on it. “No. He said he was going to Berkeley Square for a short while to make some final arrangements for my ball.”

“What ball?”

“What ball?” Jane’s eyes widened. “Oh! What a bobbery-brained thing I am. Did I not tell you? Of course I did not,” she answered herself. “How very thoughtless of me! Tomorrow night Nigel is holding an entertainment for young people, in my honor. It is almost a ball, but without the adults—except for the chaperons, of course, and you may be assured there will be quite too many of those!” She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes. “Oh, you must come. There will be music and dancing and silly games and tests of skill with favors for the winners. You simply must come. I shall introduce you as my new bosom friend. What say you?”

“I—I have nothing to wear.”

“Oh, I have a dozen gowns that would look lovely on you, though they would have to be taken in a bit. I doubt you shall have need of them, though. La,” she said, her voice chiming, “I daresay Nigel will produce yet another—” Her words came to an abrupt halt and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Above her fingers, her eyes were wide.

Kathryn put her hand on her young friend’s arm. “Do you mean to say that Nigel—er . . . Lord Blackshire—is who sent me this?” She brushed her hand over her walking dress.

With a pained expression, Jane answered, “No. I did not mean to say it at all. But I did, did I not?”

Kathryn nodded. “Yes.”

Jane shrugged. “Do not be angry with him. You must know it was obvious you needed the gowns. And he meant to give them anonymously. I myself found out only because I . . . well . . . I was eavesdropping on Lady Marchman yesterday. Listen, Kitty, it cannot have been improper to accept them, if you did not know from whence they came, can it?”

“Mmm.” Kathryn was finding it very difficult to focus. The robin, the girl in the park, the kittens and puppies, Thomas, and now this?

“What say you?” Jane broke in on her thoughts.

“Hmm?”

“Please say you will attend my little entertainment.”

Kathryn would love to accept! But that would be madness. Wouldn’t it? She had to find the diary and end her schoolgirl charade before she was found out and plunged into exposure and disgrace.

Oh, but the party was only one night.

An image of Blackshire pierced her thoughts, and Kathryn could feel herself blush. Surely, he would be there, at Jane’s “entertainment.” It was being held at his town house, after all. He would see her in one of Jane’s fine gowns with her hair dressed elegantly. Perhaps they would dance. Perhaps, as they turned figures on the floor, Nigel would look into her eyes and decide that he loved her.

Perhaps she had been wrong about him all along, and perhaps there was a reasonable explanation of what had appeared to happen upstairs at Aunt Ophelia’s masquerade ball between the Marquis of Blackshire and Lydia. She heaved a sigh, hugged herself, and smiled. Perhaps he would ask her to marry him and they would hasten away to Gretna Green or marry by special license in the morning.

And perhaps pigs would sprout daisies from their arses and whistle “Greensleeves.”

She sighed. She would never have a Season at all. There would be no come-out for her. There would be no balls, no opera, no Season at all. Either the diary would be found or Blackshire would prove to be a duplicitous blackguard. Either way, her reputation would be ruined—either by Auntie’s scandal or her own. Jane’s ball was but a pitifully meager crumb of the Season she could never have.

She tried to summon some of her usual optimism. She would still have a choice of marriage to young John Bothwell back in Heathford—or she could embrace spinsterhood.

She sighed again, and her chin quivered. Impulsively and perhaps recklessly, she decided to attend Jane’s entertainment for young people. Apart from Auntie’s masquerade ball, it was probably the most lavish occasion she would ever attend, and Auntie would want her to go, Kathryn was sure. She put aside her intention to decline Jane’s invitation. It was only one night, a few hours at most. What could it hurt?

After a time, Jane wandered into the shade of the orchard, while Kathryn lagged behind, trying unsuccessfully to banish regret from her heart, regret that she had not accepted Nigel’s offer to dance at Auntie’s masquerade. She doubted John Bothwell knew or approved of the waltz, and there would not be any waltzing at tomorrow night’s party, of course. As she wandered listlessly back toward the garden bench, a movement caught her eye. A shallow stone basin sat on a pedestal in the middle of the lawn next to the house. A smile came to her lips, for a pair of starlings were dipping and splashing in the basin, tossing water everywhere. Wishing to observe them more closely, Kathryn crept closer, little by little, hiding behind tree trunks and bushes.

Soon she found herself next to the house outside the library, crouched beneath the neatly trimmed rhododendron bushes once more. The birds continued to splash and play, and Kathryn watched for several moments until another movement caught her eye. A movement inside the library.

Blackshire?

She goggled and moved closer. Indeed, it was the marquis. He was supposed to be at his town house in Berkeley Square. What was he doing in the library? As she watched, her mild puzzlement turned into amazed confusion, for Blackshire was clearly searching for something. His keen eyes cast to and fro, missing nothing, and Kathryn shrank back. She was suddenly afraid, and she did not know why. Backing away from the window, she became aware that Mr. Scott and Jane were calling to her. She hurried back to them.

How silly, she told herself. What was there to be afraid of? Surely there was a simple explanation. He must be searching for his gloves or a lost cravat pin.

Cook was there in the garden, setting out tea for the foursome. She was grumbling, half in French and half in English. Kathryn understood most of what the poor, overworked lady said and offered to assist her. Nodding her thanks, Cook motioned to a blanket on a bench nearby. While Kathryn helped her spread it upon the ground beneath a tree, Cook muttered, “First Madame Briand, then a messenger weeth a tremendous box I must carry up the stairs, and now thees! Do I not have enough to do to feed the hungry faces who leeve here? But no! I must now entertain guests. You would think thees was a roadside tavern. Cook do thees. Cook do that.
C’est la
disgrace! I am a famous cook, not a serving wench!”

“Poor Madame Cook,” Kathryn said quietly. “I am sorry to cause you such trouble.”

The woman grunted, but the sound was not without a little gratitude. “In France I am a cook,” she repeated, “not a delivery boy!”

“Someone asked you to make a delivery?”

“Her Highneess, Madame Briand. Heh! She was een a hurry. She was too eem-portant to stay for five minutes. She demanded I take Ladee Marchman a package, that I cease everything I was doing and—snap, snap—run off to Lady Marchman right away.”

“Goodness,” she said carefully, “it must have been an important package.”

“Eet was not! Eet was just a book.
The Corsair.
Eet ees a silly title, if you ask me. What could be so eem-portant about a book with such a silly title, eh?”

What
indeed
? Kathryn thought.

“I put eet on the mantel over the kitchen fire, and there eet will stay—until I finish preparing dinner. Ha!”

Kathryn stood quivering. Another book! What was so important about this one? Was it a part of the strange happenings at the school? Another piece of the strange puzzle she’d discovered coming to shape around her?

Blackshire came striding around the corner.

Jane waved to him. “Nigel, you are just in time. Tea is ready. Is everything put right for tomorrow night? You did not encounter any new problems in Berkeley Square, did you?”

“Everything will be perfect, my pet.”

Kathryn averted her eyes as Jane chattered happily on about their plans for the entertainment. Why had Blackshire allowed Jane to believe he had gone to Berkeley Square?

Or did she?

Kathryn bit her lip. Jane had agreed to observe the goings-on at the school and report back to Nigel, and . . . She sipped her tea and nibbled on her biscuit and thought furiously. Something was going on here, and somehow Jane and Blackshire were involved, but how? “I believe,” she said, nodding at Jane, “that I shall accept your invitation to attend your ball tomorrow evening.” Perhaps then she might discover some answers.

After a time, Lady Marchman and the students returned. Lord Blackshire and Mr. Scott soon departed, and Kathryn was immediately summoned to Lady Marchman’s private salon, where the baroness handed Kathryn a sealed envelope. Her mouth was grim.

Kathryn looked at the envelope and felt her face grow white. For the missive was from Auntie—though once more the faked seal and direction was designed to make Lady Marchman think the missive was from Lord Arborough.

“Uh . . . m-may I be excused?” Kathryn asked.

“You’d best open it here, my dear,” Lady Marchman said kindly. “We don’t want you fainting alone, now, do we?”

Kathryn sat.

The letter read,