The Duke of Olympia Meets His Match (6 page)

“Yes,” he said softly, staring at her hair.

“But I can't lose my standing with the Morrisons, as I said before. That would be the last stroke for me. So you really must leave.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You must leave.” She was smiling gently, the way one smiled at children and idiots. “I'm sorry to interrupt the fun, but off you go. Amuse yourself with one of the lovely young matrons we've got on board—I don't think their husbands will mind—or better yet, with Ruby. Ask her about Miss Austen. She's read those books a dozen times.
Persuasion
is her favorite, but if you come on like Darcy, you'll win her for life.”

Dismissed. She was dismissing him.

It occurred to him that he didn't want to leave, that leaving this room—abandoning this attractive and unexpected and
scintillatingly
intense woman for the pleasant unmarked skin of Miss Ruby Morrison—was the last thing in the world he wanted to do. After all, he had business with her. A few questions to put to that queenly face. He couldn't quite remember them now, but they were still there, waiting to be asked.

He laid his hands on his knees and rose. “I quite understand your position, Mrs. Schuyler. But as it happens, I'm here to find a book.”

“A
book
?” As if to say,
A Bengal tiger?

“Yes. We are in the library, after all. A handsome room, isn't it? What are
you
reading, if I may inquire?”

She held it up. “Collins.”

“Ah! A sensational novel. You surprise me again. I had you pegged for something more serious. Enjoy your book, Mrs. Schuyler, and pay me no attention at all.” He bowed and strolled off to stand before one of the nearby shelves. “Simply browsing.”

“As you wish, sir.”

For perhaps half a minute, the room was perfectly still, except for the slow tick of the grandfather clock and the distant grind of the twin screw propellers, thrusting the
Majestic
across the surface of the North Atlantic. As a young man, Olympia had traveled the ocean aboard the earlier steamships, and he sometimes forgot how noisy and dirty and rough they were, how cramped and smelling of oil and smoke, how devoid of ornamentation. How one was occasionally pitched across one's cabin in the middle of the night, without the slightest warning. Steaming across the seas now resembled a stay at a fine hotel, except for the occasional lateral tilt and the fact that you couldn't decamp for another establishment if the company didn't suit. Also, there was the democracy. Passengers traveling in the same class of cabin treated each other—and were treated by the crew—more or less alike. They ate the same food, they enjoyed the same entertainments, they slept under the same linens. The Duke of Olympia and the widowed Mrs. Schuyler of New York City were, for the space of five or six days, equals.

And yet they were not.

A few feet away, Mrs. Schuyler exhaled quietly and rose from the sofa. “Good day, sir,” she said, and her skirts rustled against the carpet as she left the library.

He waited about twenty seconds before he followed her out of the room.

A round of faint applause greeted his entry into the hallway, drifting up the main staircase. The charades match, reaching its thrilling climax in the saloon, two decks below. Was Mrs. Schuyler off to join them? His eyes caught the edge of her disappearing dress around the corner of the staircase as she skimmed downward to the upper deck, and he moved after her, leaning his head a few inches over the balustrade to see if she was continuing her journey down to the saloon deck or walking forward, where (he knew) her commodious shared stateroom with Miss Morrison lay on the starboard side of the ship.

But no flash of dark aubergine wool appeared on the staircase to the saloon deck. To the privacy of her cabin, then.

Olympia drummed his fingers on the balustrade. There was no point in following her; on the other hand, the charms of the smoking room—his usual refuge—seemed rather flat at the moment. He might return to his own spacious suite on the promenade deck (Stateroom A, as it modestly appeared on the deck plan). He had, after all, a forbidding stack of paperwork to sort through before the train whisked him off to London from Liverpool.

But he was still no closer to discovering the identity of the agent on board the ship, despite an hour spent dissecting the final first-class passenger list in the meticulous company of Mr. Simmons. Any one of them might be a suspect, of course, but he had no means of investigating their lives and fortunes, no vast official and unofficial archives at his disposal. At the moment he had no recourse except to eliminate all two hundred and nineteen souls, one by one, using the old-fashioned methods of observation and deduction.

Which left him only one real option; the thing he dreaded most.

Charades.

Olympia expanded his chest like a martyr going to the stake and descended the stairs. Possibly it wouldn't be so bad. The teams were already formed, the game afoot. He wouldn't actually be called upon to
perform
, God forbid. No, no. He could simply lurk about unnoticed at the back of the saloon, eyes half-hooded, six-and-a-half-foot frame half-hidden by a convenient pilaster, balancing a cup of tea in his palm as if he'd just stopped by for the refreshments. He might not even be required to applaud.

So why did the task—a duty he'd performed countless times in countless settings, the kind of thing he used to relish—seem so damned onerous? The last place in the world he wanted to be. Had he finally grown weary of the game? Was old age at last settling down upon his shoulders? He would really rather sit in civilized conversation with an impecunious American widow of half a century than track down a dangerous opponent hidden among the passengers of an ocean liner, armed by wit and instinct?

Yes, by God. Yes, he would.

Perhaps God heard his plea. He had just set his toe on the rubberized floor of the upper deck landing when the noise reached him, through the gust of another round of applause: a gasp, followed instantly by a small and strangled cry.

The familiar outraged noise of a lady whose modesty had just been offended.

Several years had passed since the Duke of Olympia had occasion to bolt—he delegated such indignities to chaps of fresher blood—but he bolted now, around the newel post and down the corridor like a Derby winner swinging past the final post. A rectangle of daylight beckoned ahead, beaming from the open door of an outside stateroom, exactly where Mrs. Schuyler's cabin should lie.

A peculiar rage overtook him in that instant, a white fury he hadn't felt in ages: the protective passion of a much younger man. He pounded down the final yards to the open stateroom and swung under the doorway, curling his right hand into a preparatory fist, only just remembering to duck his head, and the words
Mrs. Schuyler! Who's there?
shot from his throat, just exactly as if he had some right to pronounce them.

But only one figure stood in the room, bent over the steamer trunk at the end of one of the beds. She leapt up at once and swiveled around to meet him, and the look on her face could only be described as accusatory.

“
Someone
,” she said, stabbing her finger at his chest, leaving the identity of this mysterious
someone
in no doubt, at least in her mind, “has been searching
my
room.”

***

He wasn't shocked; she saw that at once. As soon as the words
searching my room
left Penelope's mouth, the wild light in the Duke of Olympia's blue eyes dimmed—or perhaps
intensified
was a better word—yes, that was it—
intensified
into something keener. He cast an experienced gaze around the stateroom, taking in the two brass beds, neatly made; the stately mahogany washstand, set with Pears soap on one side and two toothbrushes in a fixed jar on the other, protected from spillage by a railing around the rim; the dresser, quite bare; the two trunks set at the bottoms of the beds. The sunlight flashed on his hair, turning it white. He altogether filled the room. He was so tall, he nearly brushed the deck above.

For an instant, she allowed herself to admire him.

His gaze fell back to meet hers, blue and inscrutable, faintly curious. “I beg your pardon, Mrs. Schuyler,” he said, “but may I inquire
why
, exactly, you believe the room has been searched?”

She pointed to one of the beds. “I am
not
in the habit of arranging the bedclothes in such a
slovenly
manner.”

He followed her finger. “No, of course not.”

“And my trunk. It has clearly been disturbed. Do you not see how it has moved at least three inches from the center position? And there is a corner of . . . of
clothing
escaping from the lid.” The clothing was, in fact, of the strictly unmentionable variety, a fact that Olympia's eyebrows seemed to comprehend instantly.

“Indeed,” he said. “Has anything been taken?”

“I was about to make an inventory.”

“Hmm. And are you certain the perpetrator wasn't simply Miss Morrison, hunting about for a hair ribbon? I note that her belongings appear—correct me if I am mistaken, Mrs. Schuyler—quite undisturbed.”

“How observant you are.”

“Attention to detail, Mrs. Schuyler, is one of the guiding principles of my life.” He paused. “We seem to be of kindred spirit in this regard, if you will allow me the liberty of observing it.”

“I don't think I can stop you,” she said crossly.

He made a short bow, a mere inclination of the head. “Then if you are quite
intact
, Mrs. Schuyler”—there was just the slightest hint of innuendo on the word
intact
, making her belly go all inconveniently warm—“I will leave you to make your inventory while I inform the necessary authorities of this intrusion.”

“There's no need. I've already rung the bell.”

“Nevertheless. I feel quite certain that Mr. Simmons, in particular, would wish to hear about the matter at the very earliest instant. May I be of service to you in any other way? A glass of water, perhaps?” His hand was already reaching for the door handle.

“No, thank you,” she snapped.

The duke's expression moved from bland watchfulness to reproach. “Mrs. Schuyler! You are very cold. Am I correct in surmising—good Lord, I hardly dare to pronounce a thing so absurd—am I correct in surmising that you suspect
my
involvement in this little affair?”

Did she? But who else on board could possibly have an interest in her affairs? The necessary skill to unlock her door? On the other hand, now that the red mist had dissolved from her eyes, she couldn't quite imagine the Duke of Olympia leaving behind such obvious signs of his handiwork as an improperly tucked coverlet, or a trunk left off center.

“I don't know what to think, sir. It's such a dreadful thing, to have one's privacy violated in such a crass and dishonorable manner.”

“I quite agree. I am shocked to the core. I will demand a full investigation and apology from the White Star company—”

“That's hardly necessary.”

“Yes, it is. In fact, if you'll excuse me, I shall see to the matter straightaway.” He hesitated and smiled. “With, of course, the utmost discretion and the most exact regard for your privacy and delicacy, Mrs. Schuyler.”

He was gone so quickly, Penelope felt a vacuum of air in his wake.

She lost no time, because the stewardesses on board the
Majestic
were wonderfully efficient. As soon as Olympia's step disappeared down the corridor, she shut the door and turned to the trunk at the bottom of her bed.

The contents weren't badly disturbed; at least the intruder had made some effort to disguise his rooting about. Her fingers dug along the side and found the tiny catch at the bottom, to spring open the mechanism.

The portfolio was still there, thank God. Her shoulders sagged in relief.

But now Olympia's suspicions would be awakened. She'd seen it in his gaze, the speculative quiet with which he'd surveyed the room, noting the peculiar details of the intrusion. What a fool she'd been, letting out that silly little cry. A ninny. And now she'd wasted her only natural advantage over the duke.

And yet.

When he'd burst into the cabin, shouting her name, crackling with a kind of competent male vitality that promised doom to her enemies: no, she couldn't deny the little thrill that had shot through her veins at that instant. The pure pleasure of his unexpected entrance. Quashed at once, of course, because she was fifty years old and had no business feeling thrills of any sort, least of all for an oversized English duke of cunning and charm, the chosen matrimonial target of her benefactors . . . and
least
of all for a man who appeared to be her primary opponent in this task with which Madame de Sauveterre had entrusted her.

She gazed down at the portfolio in her hands. So much fuss for a few pieces of paper, a mass of wood pulp and ink.

But it was better this way, wasn't it? Because without the need to protect those few pieces of paper, she might actually find her head turned by the so-mighty Duke of Olympia, owner of beautiful mistresses and prospective husband of American heiresses. She might actually find herself falling under his spell.

And that would never, ever do.

***

By the time the Duke of Olympia reached the main saloon, the charades were nearly finished and his heart was quite nearly under control.

What a shock, to find himself still capable of the kind of tawdry green emotion of which he had thought himself cured in youth. What a shock, to find himself galloping down a corridor to render chivalrous duty to a woman in distress. Except that she hadn't really shown much distress, had she? Mrs. Penelope Schuyler had, in fact, been absolute mistress of the situation.

Surely it wasn't possible. Surely the identity of the French agent had not simply fallen into his lap, like a ripe American peach.