The Most Wicked Of Sins (21 page)

“I summoned all of you here, instead of dear Ivy alone, so it would be clear to you how simple it is to become a respectable member of this family. And with respectability comes reward.” He tipped his head to the second footman, who carried a parcel to Ivy. “A new gown of blue satin. Go now, and dress.”

Ivy stepped forward and kissed her father’s cheek, then hurried out of the parlor.
No, no. This cannot be happening! My fondest dream is coming true, only now it is my greatest nightmare.

Grant was a godsend of a brother. He persuaded the duke to join him and his brothers in the garden for a whisky-heavy noon meal while Ivy and her sisters prepared for Tinsdale’s arrival.

Siusan and Priscilla barely spoke to her as they pinned her hair and helped her dress, but their eyes expressed the concern that their words did not. When they had finished, her sisters kissed her cheeks, then with bowed heads, they left her bedchamber.

There was no way to avoid the next hour, and so she decided to face her future directly. She would wait at the door for Tinsdale to arrive, then she would tell him, before he could speak to her father, that she did not love him and would never marry him.

After that she would take the consequences.

She packed what she could fit into a small portmanteau, set that beside her bedchamber door, and descended the stairs to wait for Tinsdale. The tall case clock warned her that in two minutes Tinsdale would arrive. He was never late.

From the parlor, she peered out the window, watching the square, then glanced again at the tall case clock in the passage. At one minute before one of the clock, Tinsdale’s carriage drew up before No. 1 Grosvenor Square, and he walked up to the door.

Poplin, who was peering up at the clock, turned to go to the door, but Ivy raced past him and opened it, catching the brass door knocker before Tinsdale could lower it to its rest. Ivy turned to Poplin. “Please, Poplin. I only need a minute alone with Lord Tinsdale.” The short butler nodded and excused himself. Ivy dispensed with formality, grasped Tinsdale’s hand, and pulled him hurriedly into the parlor.

Tinsdale was already scowling at her.

“I know why you are here. My father told us all. But I will admit to you now that I will not marry you. I cannot.” She glanced into the passage, making sure her father’s footman had not alerted him that Tinsdale had arrived. “I am in love with Lord Counterton.”

A snarl spread over Tinsdale’s lips. “Who? Lord Counterton…or that actor you hired to impersonate him?”

“What?” A jolt shot through Ivy, and she staggered backward until the back of her legs struck the settee. She sat down. “H-how—”

Tinsdale strode confidently over to her and sat down beside her. Too close. His thigh brushed against hers. “I knew something was not as it seemed from the moment you first introduced us. And then, at the fête, when Lord Rhys-Dean did not recognize his old school chum, Dominic Sheridan, then I was sure something was afoot. And so I watched and waited. And when he left the Berkeley Square residence of Lord Counterton, I went to the door and spoke to the butler, Cheatlin.”

“Cheatlin,”
Ivy muttered beneath her breath.

“Oh, it cost me a month of tenant rents, but in return he gave me a fortune. Yours.”

“What do you mean?” Ivy whispered. “I have nothing.”

“No, but your father does, and when I marry you, I expect quite a lovely dowry to be attached to my lovely bride.” Tinsdale snatched up her hand and stroked it roughly with his thumb.

“What about Miss Feeney? You left me so readily for her,” Ivy spat.

“And I came back to you. Your Lord Counterton, your actor, made me doubt my decision to leave you. Seeing the two of you together, so happy, made me envious of what he had. What I could have had.” Tinsdale followed Ivy’s gaze to the clock in the passage and moved restlessly. He was going to be late for his interview with the duke. He looked back at Ivy and spoke more quickly. “And so I thought more carefully, and compared your assets more prudently. In the end, you were both beautiful, but you, dear Ivy, have a name and a fortune, while she does not.”

“I will not accept you.” Ivy tried to stand, but he held her hand and tugged her next to him again.

“Oh, I think you will, if you love him as you say.” Tinsdale leaned his mouth to her ear and whispered to her. “What he did is illegal, and I can make sure he pays for his crime in Newgate…for a very long time. It’s a hard life in prison, and I doubt he’ll look quite so handsome when, if ever, he is released.”

Ivy’s eyes heated with coming tears. “No. Please, just let him leave London. I can make sure he does.
I-I
will do whatever you ask…please, just don’t turn him over to the magistrates.”

Tinsdale finally released her hand but pressed his hand to her shoulder, keeping her seated, as he stood. “Well, now, that all depends on what your father offers in the way of a dowry.”

“But I have no say, no control, over that, you must know that, Tinsdale,” she called out to him, not bothering to lower her tone now.

He didn’t turn back to her until he reached the passage. “Then wish me luck, darling. Your Lord Counterton will need it.”

Poplin appeared at the parlor doorway and gestured for Tinsdale to follow him to the garden.

A cold sweat broke over Ivy’s skin. She sat very still, too stunned to move. Until she realized that she had to warn Dominic. Had to convince him to leave London.

Right now.

She rose and hurried into the passage. Snatching her bonnet from the row of hooks, she dashed out the front door, not caring if she had to run all the way to Berkeley Square.

Envy shoots at others and wounds itself.

English proverb

The Counterton residence
Berkeley Square

It wasn’t Cheatlin who opened the door of the Counterton town house, as Ivy had hoped, but Mr. Felix Dupré, in full butler costume. “Lady Ivy.” He smiled nervously.
p. She started forward, expecting to be welcomed into the house at once, but instead he stepped outside and closed the door behind him.

“I need to see Dominic. Please, let me inside.” She tried to step around him, but he moved his body in front of the door, blocking her.

“You should know that he has an important guest—his
uncle.
” Felix widened his eyes and Ivy took his meaning. The man whom Lord Rhys-Dean had mentioned crossing at the hotel was there.

Blast.
Was there anything worse that could happen this day?

Ivy scanned the square behind her for Tinsdale’s carriage. She didn’t have much time before Tinsdale concluded discussions with her father—and made his decision about marrying her. Would he allow Dominic to leave London or have him arrested out of spite? “Has he been exposed? Does the uncle know he is not Counterton?”

Felix shrugged his shoulders. “They are in the garden, and I haven’t been able to hear a word said.”

“By chance, is Cheatlin in the house?” She eyed the door latch as she spoke.

“I believe so. He’s in the kitchen with one of the…
maids.
” Without probably realizing it, he glanced at the outside stairs leading to the kitchen below.

“Thank you, Mr. Dupré. I shall return in but a moment to call on Dominic.”

His brow furrowed in confusion as Ivy whirled around and descended the steps to the kitchen.

She flung the door open and spotted Cheatlin immediately. He was groping a very willing maid against the pantry door. He jerked his head up from her heavily painted lips as the heavy kitchen door hit the wall.

“Bloody hell!” he howled, yanking himself around to face her. “What are you doing ’ere?”

Ivy had forgotten how hulking and menacing Cheatlin was. She fixed her hands to her hips to look as confident as she might. “I will ask you the same thing. Had I betrayed
both
of my employers, the true Lord Counterton and me, I would have left Town right away.”

Cheatlin set one booted foot on the seat of a chair before the kitchen table. He rested his elbow atop it and leaned forward menacingly. “Lord Whatever-his-name-is paid me nearly twice what you did for the house and staff. And all he wanted was a little information about the current occupant, which I happily supplied. He was very pleased when I told him about your little ruse.”

No doubt.
Her heart pounded like a bird’s, and she started to feel light in the head.

Cheatlin must have seen the ebb of her confidence. He chuckled, releasing putrid fumes of gin into the air. “His Lordship told me if anything came out about my role in the
crime,
I could say I was duped like the rest of Society into believing that this actor fellow was the true Lord Counterton. So you see, Lady Ivy, I ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.”

“Except that you illegally sublet Lord Counterton’s house to me—a noblewoman—not a mere actor.” Ivy narrowed her green eyes.

“Only you ain’t going to give me up, Lady Ivy. If you do, you’re sinking yourself in the muck as well.” Assured in his position, Cheatlin folded his hands over his barrel chest. “What have you got to say now?” Realizing she didn’t want to be any part of this exchange, the maid backed out of the room and slipped away, leaving Ivy and Cheatlin alone.

“I would say that I honestly don’t know what I might do, Mr. Cheatlin. Not yet. Because Lord Whatever-his-name-is hasn’t decided what
he
will do with the information you gave him. He may hang me along with my Lord Counterton, and, if that happens, I promise you it will be a scandal that heads every newspaper in London. You can be assured that I will not forget to mention your name as the unscrupulous carpenter who rented out his employer’s house and aided in the illegal impersonation of a peer.”

Cheatlin stared at her, his mouth flapping like fresh-caught salmon on the riverbank.

“That’s right. You’ll be in Newgate Prison before you can say ‘I should not have said anything to Lord Whatever-his-name-is.’” Ivy lifted a smug smile to her lips. “Were I you, I would be on the North Road out of London within the hour.”

She was shaking as she turned her back to him and walked out the kitchen, then up the steps to the street.

There, she took a deep breath and walked up the front door, where Mr. Felix Dupré was still waiting for her.

Nick walked on the shell path beside Mr. Garland Pittance through the beautiful but neglected Counterton rose garden. Though the sky had grayed to deep ash, the day was still pleasant enough that
Uncle Pittance,
as he had asked to be called, would not think it unusual in the least that his nephew, Dominic, would suggest taking sherry in the garden.

“I can’t help but be amazed at how you’ve matured,” Pittance commented.

“I am a man, full grown now. How many years has it been since we’ve seen each other,” Nick probed.

“Since your mother died. And I apologize for that. It pained me too much to see you. You have her eyes, you know.”

Nick averted his gaze and pretended to busy himself kicking a twig from the pathway.

“But not now,” the uncle added. “Oh, they are the same dark blue, but the expression is altogether different now.”

Nick looked up from the crushed-shell path and turned to face Pittance. “Life is hard for a boy without parents.”

The older man nodded dolefully. “I suppose it would be.” He smiled then, as a new thought seemed to enter his mind. “You were still quite a young a lad, all gangly arms and legs, and teeth!” He chuckled then. “You hadn’t grown into your features yet. But look at you now, son.” He clapped him on the back. “Mrs. Pittance and I were not in London for an hour when we encountered Lord and Lady Rhys-Dean. Her Ladyship wasted no time in telling us how the handsome new Lord Counterton is the talk of the ladies. I bet you have your pick, don’t you?”

“I have my pick, yes, sir.”
Ivy.
Nick’s gaze strayed to the French window, and he turned. There she was, standing there, with Felix watching him. Nick tipped his head toward Pittance, then looked back at Ivy, silently asking her if she wished to join them.

When she shook her head, he saw how pale her countenance was, and even from a distance he could see the haunted expression in her green eyes.

“Uncle Pittance”—he turned his gaze from the house—“I have another engagement just now, and must away. Please forgive me.”

“Only if you agree to join Mrs. Pittance and me for dinner this night at the Clarendon Hotel. I fear she would not forgive me if I didn’t introduce my famous nephew to her.” He laughed at his own play on words. “What do you say, man, eight of the clock?”

“I believe that can be arranged, sir.” Nick faced the house again and turned Pittance along with him. Ivy and Felix disappeared into the shadows of the house.

Pittance stopped abruptly and dug something small from his pocket and palmed it. “When my wife decided we needed to escape the rains and go to London, I decided to bring this along to give to my nephew.” He grasped Nick’s hand and dropped an emerald ring into it.

Even in the muted light, the emerald gleamed in Nick’s hand and recalled to mind Ivy’s eyes, just before she cried. He closed his hand and pushed it toward Pittance. “I cannot accept this.”

“Why not? It’s yours—it was your mother’s, and your grandmother’s before that.” Pittance pushed Nick’s hand back against his chest and held it there. “I cannot let you refuse this gift, Dominic. Giving you this ring is the fulfillment of a promise I made your mother, shortly before she passed. She didn’t want it sold, or taken from you, and so she asked me to hold it for you until the time was right. And it is. Look at you now, son. Look at you now.” He was smiling warmly and proudly at Nick.

A way he’d never seen anyone look at him so fondly and warmly…except Ivy.

A few minutes later, Mr. Garland Pittance was in a carriage returning to the Clarendon Hotel, and Nick was headed for the parlor, where Felix had informed him that Ivy was waiting.

The moment he entered the room, Ivy was on her feet, running toward him. She threw herself against his chest and clung desperately to him.