The Deception of the Emerald Ring (7 page)

It probably hadn't been diplomatic to inform him of that.

No wonder Frobisher had been pushing Lord Pinchingdale to do the honorable thing! It certainly wasn't concern for Letty's well-being. Frobisher probably hoped that if Lord Pinchingdale were forcibly removed, it would leave the field clear for him. Letty grimaced at the ceiling of the carriage. It was a forlorn hope on his part, but it would be nearly impossible to convince him of that. He really ought to have listened more closely to Letty's home truths about his lack of a title.

Even so, there had to be some way to silence him. She couldn't marry Lord Pinchingdale, no matter what Percy had said. Even if Lord Pinchingdale weren't already in love with Mary No, it would never do. Letty shut that thought away in the realm of forbidden daydreams, locked in a box with a triple padlock. The idea that Lord Pinchingdale might, under any circumstances, have welcomed the idea of marriage with a little freckle-faced homebody like herself was nothing short of ridiculous.

Besides, she assured herself, she had simply been trying to prevent the scandal of an elopement. She certainly didn't object to Lord Pinchingdale marrying Mary if they went about it in the normal way. Even if she did have her doubts about Mary's feelings for him that was none of her business.

The whole carriage incident would just have to be squished out of existence.

Her parents wouldn't be a problem; they would still be fast asleep, along with the rest of the household. Her father did have a habit of nocturnal wandering, but those wanderings invariably took him from bedroom to study, never to check on his sleeping offspring. Mary wouldn't tell, of course. Martin Frobisher could be threatened into silence; like so many bullies, he was really a coward at heart. As for Percy Ponsonby One word to his mother, and half of England would know by noon and the other half by tea. On the other hand, if Mary could get to Lucy, and Lucy could get to Percy before Percy spoke to Mrs. Ponsonby

Letty rocked forward as the coach jolted to a halt. Once again, the door was wrenched unceremoniously open. This time Lord Pinchingdale's intentions were clearly anything but amorous.

"Ready?" he demanded.

Letty didn't answer. All her attention was focused elsewhere, on the first floor of her parents' rented town house, where every single candle of their month's allowance was melting cheerfully away.

"Oh, no." Letty would have liked to say something stronger, but the training of a lifetime restrained her. "They can't be awake."

"Can't they?" Lord Pinchingdale said ironically, offering her his arm in a gesture so courtly it couldn't be anything but a mockery. "I'm sure they always sleep with all the candles lit. So much more conducive to rest."

With an effort, Letty refocused, frowning down at her partner in impropriety. Avoiding the outstretched arm, she felt cautiously for the step with one inadequately shod foot. "You don't need to come in with me. In fact, it would be better if you didn't."

"And forgo the pleasure of sharing the happy news with your parents?"

Letty looked up from the all-absorbing task of trying to place her feet on the proper steps without tripping over the hem of her cloak.

"I can manage this much better on my own."

Lord Pinchingdale took her by the elbow and all but lifted her down the last two steps. "I'm sure you can."

Wrenching her arm out of his grasp, Letty started to say something that began with, "If you would only—"

Geoff silenced her by the simple expedient of dropping the knocker. The sound of iron hitting oak drowned out whatever it was she had been about to say.

No sooner had a sleepy maid wrestled open the door than slippered feet padded rapidly down the stairs. Decked out in a ribboned nightcap, Mrs. Alsworthy took one look at her disheveled daughter, let out a shriek, and sagged against her husband, nearly knocking him down the last few steps.

"Is that my daughter? Oh, tell me the worst!"

Staggering under the impact, Mr. Alsworthy retreated a safe few paces away. "If you must faint, my dear, kindly contrive to do it in the other direction."

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" demanded Letty, taking a step inside. Automatically, she blew out the candles in the sconces on either side of the door. Candles were so dear, and the household finances were precarious as it was.

The silent presence of Lord Pinchingdale, looming behind her like a nightmare in the closet, forcibly reminded Letty that their finances weren't the only thing hanging in the balance. She planted herself firmly in front of him, a gesture that had all the effectiveness of a squirrel trying to block a tree.

"Sleep? Sleep!" Mrs. Alsworthy's beribboned head quivered with indignation.

"Yes, sleep, my dear," murmured Mr. Alsworthy. "It is what one generally does at night."

"How could I sleep with my daughter out wandering goodness only knows where, falling into the hands of rogues and seducers and and pirates!"

"What very enterprising pirates they must be," commented Mr. Alsworthy, "to venture so far inland, just to kidnap our daughter. You do see the honor being done to you, don't you, my Letty? If the pirates have come all that way, just for you, it would be a positive discourtesy not to let them kidnap you."

"Speaking of kidnapping," began Letty, "the oddest thing happened tonight ."

"Mr. Alsworthy!" exclaimed Letty's mother. "How can you laugh at such a matter! Although, I must say, I would have thought if a pirate were to kidnap anyone, he would kidnap Mary. She looks quite as I did in my youth, and I'm sure a pirate would have wanted to kidnap me."

"Don't taunt me with lost opportunities, my dear."

"As you can see," interjected Letty firmly, before her parents could be off again, "there were no pirates, and I'm quite safe. There was just a small—"

"But where were you, you impossible child? You cannot possibly imagine the agonies I've suffered! The hours I have paced this floor "

Mrs. Alsworthy illustrated her statement with a representative turn around the room, which ended abruptly when the flowing end of her nightrobe caught on an uneven piece of flooring, ending her progress with an unfortunate rending noise.

"That would all be very affecting," put in Mr. Alsworthy, as his wife clucked over her ruined peignoir, "if you hadn't awakened a mere ten minutes past."

"Ten minutes? Ten minutes!" Mrs. Alsworthy looked up indignantly from her abused hem. "You cannot reckon how time moves within a mother's heart."

"A curious sort of mathematics, to be sure."

"If you would pardon the interruption "

Geoff neatly sidestepped Letty and strode into the room. Being forced to marry the wrong woman was bad enough; being tortured with a Punch and Judy show in the intermission was more than a man could be expected to bear.

Mrs. Alsworthy shrieked and affected to swoon, and even Mr. Alsworthy momentarily abandoned his customary pose of indolence.

"There, my dear," said Mr. Alsworthy, "is your pirate."

"Don't be absurd, Mr. Alsworthy!" exclaimed Mrs. Alsworthy, taking a step forward to attain a closer look, just in case. "That's not a pirate; that's Lord Pinchingdale. Lord Pinchingdale? Whatever are you doing here?"

Lord Pinchingdale was beginning to seriously consider a career on the high seas.

"I should think that much is clear," replied Mr. Alsworthy, before either Geoff or Letty could say anything at all.

"Why must you always be so provoking?" protested his much put-upon wife. "Saying things are clear when they're not the least bit clear at all. Why, they're as muddy as as "

"A pirate's conscience," put in Mr. Alsworthy, enjoying himself hugely.

"Pirates, pirates what have we to do with pirates?"

"You brought them up."

"I most certainly did not!"

"As fascinating as this is, can we return to the matter at hand?" Geoff's voice cracked through the small foyer, lashing both the Alsworthys into silence. "I have come to request your daughter's hand in marriage."

The idea of their being married was absurd.

Letty would have said so had she been able to get a word in edgewise, but her mother pipped her to the post. Mrs. Alsworthy clapped her plump hands together. "Dearest Mary will be so pleased!"

"Your daughter Laetitia's hand in marriage," Lord Pinchingdale specified tersely.

"This is quite unnecessary!" protested Letty in her loudest voice.

No one else paid the slightest bit of attention to her.

"Ah." Mr. Alsworthy's heavily pouched eyes moved from his bedraggled daughter to the irate viscount. "Not at all what I expected, but an interesting twist. A very interesting twist, indeed."

"I don't understand." Mrs. Alsworthy wrung her hands in her effort at cogitation. "You wish to marry Letty?"

"No, he doesn't," put in Letty.

"'Wish' might not be exactly the right verb, but it will do for lack of a better. I believe our daughter is compromised, my dear," explained Mr. Alsworthy mildly. "You should be very proud."

Mrs. Alsworthy flung herself at her daughter with a delighted squeal that made the crystals in the chandelier quiver.

"My dearest daughter! My very dearest daughter!"

"Mmmph," said Letty, whose head was buried beneath her mother's ruffles.

"Oh, so many things to do!" Mrs. Alsworthy clutched her new favorite daughter to her beribboned bosom. "The wedding clothes the guest list an announcement in the Morning Times Oh, it is too much happiness!"

"Mother " Letty fought her way free of the clinging ruffles.

The movement was a mistake, since it brought her into full view of Lord Pinchingdale's face, stiff with revulsion. It was enough to make her wish herself into indentured servitude in the farthest antipodes. She wasn't quite sure whether they had indentured servants in the farthest antipodes, or even quite where the farthest antipodes were, but she was sure they must need servants.

Letty fought a craven urge to hide in her mother's bosom. It might not be the antipodes, but at least it was there.

Mrs. Alsworthy released Letty long enough to grasp her by both shoulders and hold her at arm's length. "My daughter." She sighed on a wave of maternal pride. "A viscountess!"

With a strength borne of ambition, she wrenched Letty around to face the silent men. "Viscountess Pinchingdale! Doesn't it sound well?"

"My dear"—Mr. Alsworthy's voice filled the uncomfortable silence—"before you exclaim any further, be so kind as to give the rest of us a moment to adjust to our extreme rapture."

"All this rapture," managed Letty, wriggling out of her mother's grasp, "is decidedly premature."

Mrs. Alsworthy, with the word "viscountess" ringing in her ears, was incapable of hearing any others. She brushed off both her daughter's and husband's demurrals with equal inattention. Both hands extended, she advanced on Geoff. "You must think of me as a mother now, my dear boy."

Geoff backed up several steps.

"I have commitments that demand my attendance abroad within the week," said Geoff rapidly, directing his words at Mr. Alsworthy. "We will be married as soon as I can procure a special license."

"No!" Mrs. Alsworthy's alarmed cry shook the chandelier. "But the lobster patties! Think of the lobster patties! You cannot possibly have a wedding without lobster patties!"

"My dear," interjected Mr. Alsworthy, "I don't believe the world will topple off its axis for lack of lobster patties at our daughter's wedding breakfast."

"Have a wedding without lobster patties! I'd as soon have a turban without feathers!"

"And so you ought," murmured Mr. Alsworthy.

Mrs. Alsworthy plunked both hands on her hips. "Do you mean to imply, Mr. Alsworthy, that you do not approve of my headgear?"

"I merely mean to say, my love, that the birds might approve if you left them a few of their feathers to fly with."

"Ooooh! If you understood the first thing about fashion—"

Letty ended the discussion by dint of marching between her parents.

"This," she said firmly, "is ridiculous."

"I should say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Alsworthy. "My bonnets are exceedingly becoming!"

Letty could feel the last fragile threads of patience beginning to snap. "Can we all just speak reasonably!" she demanded. "For five minutes? Is that too much to ask?"

It was. As Letty plunked her hands on her hips and glowered at her parents and her accidental abductor, a new voice entered the fray. A soft voice, pitched just loud enough to carry, with a plaintive note that whispered around the small foyer like an enchantress's charm.

"Geoffrey?" ventured Mary.

Mary must, thought Letty cynically, have taken the time to change out of her traveling clothes when she heard the hullabaloo downstairs, because she was impeccably garbed for bed, her white linen night rail entirely wrinkle-free and every black lock falling in gleaming perfection along her lace-frilled shoulders.

"Oh, Mary!" exclaimed Mrs. Alsworthy. "Your sister is to be married. Isn't it above all things marvelous?"

"Look and learn," added Mr. Alsworthy. "A bit more practice and you, too, could be compromised, my girl."

Mary's deep blue eyes widened in a way that suggested the concept of being compromised was entirely foreign to her. In a gesture worthy of Mrs. Siddons, one elegantly boned white hand extended toward her former lover, halted, and, as if the retraction caused her extreme pain, dropped again to her side. Mary's eyelids drooped and her lightly parted lips quivered in a way meant to suggest passionate emotion nobly contained.

It was a masterful performance.

Lord Pinchingdale's throat worked in a way that wasn't feigned at all. Turning abruptly on his heel, he addressed Mr. Alsworthy in a rapid monotone. "I will call on you tomorrow to make the arrangements. Your servant, ladies."

And with a brief nod in the direction of the center of the room that never quite made it as far as the white-gowned figure on the railing, he achieved the door and was gone, leaving an unhappy hush behind him.

From her position on the stairs, Mary raked Letty with a long, appraising gaze. "I never knew you had it in you."