The Painted Lady (20 page)

“What, spells, demons, devils? We’ll be hunting for witches next, or holding exorcisms. No, that is too farfetched for me, and too public. I have enough trouble accepting an animate artwork.”

“I suppose.” Lilyanne had walked to the stall of her old horse and was stroking the gray-muzzled mare between the ears. “Then what are you going to do? If you do not think speaking with Uncle Osgood will be of any use, or another week of his regimen, what can I do to help?”

“You can come to London.”

She laughed. “What, are you trying to prove me wrong, that you really are as mad as a March hare? You know I cannot go with you.” Her smile faded. “You are not asking me to
...
”

“No! I swear I mean nothing dishonorable. I am inviting you to stay at Caswell House with my aunts. I spoke to them about you, and they will be delighted with your company. They’ll take you around to see the sights, meet their friends. Someone of their acquaintance is bound to need a companion, if you and the aunts don’t suit. More likely you and Ticket won’t suit, but no matter.”

“I cannot stay at your house, and you know it. That would be grossly improper.”

“Not at all, for my aunts are well respected in Polite Society. They’ll keep your reputation safe, I swear. If I have to, I will lease bachelor quarters.”

“Heavens, I would not put you out of your own house. The impropriety would be in accepting your hospitality that way.”

“But it’s not charity I am offering. The aunts need you. All they do now is bicker over which one the pug loves better. They will be happier with you to fuss over, and you’ll know how to manage their quarrels. My brother needs a steadying hand, too. Your very presence in the house will teach him to mind his manners, if not his wardrobe.”

Kasey was standing behind her, and now he turned Lilyanne around to face him, his hands on her shoulders. “And I need you in London to tell Mr. Dimm that I was here, visiting, not having visions. If he finds out about the hallucinations, he’ll have just cause to get that search warrant, and everyone will know about my painting.”

“That would be so bad?”

“My parents thought so, and my tutors. It’s not a fitting occupation for a duke, so I have spent my whole life hiding it. I do not wish to become a byword for bizarre behavior now.”

“But my uncle ..
.
”

“Has already accepted on your behalf.”

“He has? That is the most implausible thing yet!”

“Not only does he approve of your visit, but he is coming along to help safeguard your good name. So is Lady Edgecombe. With the two of them to discuss and dissect, the tattle-mongers won’t have time to bother with you.”

Lilyanne did not fear only for her reputation. Here was the opportunity she’d been dreaming of forever, it seemed: a trip to London and a chance to find a position or a parti. If Caswell’s aunts did introduce her to their friends, one of them just might have a second son in need of a competent housekeeper, or a widowed nephew who required a mother for his children. Stranger things had happened.

Stranger things were standing in front of her.

Kasey’s hands were warm on her shoulder right through the layers of clothing. Here was her biggest fear, a chance too great for an insignificant country miss to take. If Art was beneath a duke, where did that leave a moonstruck maid? With her heart in tatters, that’s where. Lilyanne could not go to London with Kasey, not knowing she had to live the rest of her life without him.

She was about to tell him she could not accept his wonderful invitation when Kasey pulled her close again, her face pressed to his chest. She was breathing in the masculine scent of him, listening to hear if his heartbeat was galloping the way hers was, when he murmured, “Most of all, Lilyanne, I need you.”

She was lost. She was going to London, and she was going to fall in love with this confused, complicated, and completely captivating man—if she hadn’t done so already.

She was also baffled. Lilyanne had absolutely no idea what to do for Kasey, no glimmer of how to make his world right, even if that made him stop needing her. “Have you thought about asking the lady in the portrait what she needs? What it will take to see her gone?”

“You think I should ask a mirage? Then you believe she exists?”

“I cannot understand your vision, no, no more than I can comprehend the nature of angels or miracles. That is called faith. If you believe, it is so.”

“I believe I really have to kiss you, my dear Miss Bannister.”

Chapter Twenty-one

“All those people, dear? You said you were inviting one young female, not a house party.”

“Maeve is right for once, Caswell. Ticky does not care for strangers.”

Ticket cared for nothing, as far as Kasey could tell, except his patronesses and his privates. The duke lowered his quizzing glass from the sight of the pug in flagrante delicto. “Nonsense. Ticky will have more people to cadge bonbons from.” He leaned forward in his chair, toward his aunts on the sofa, and confidentially whispered, “Besides, Ticket does not own this house, you know. I do.”

Aunt Maeve had the grace to blush; Aunt Mirabel adjusted the lace collar of her gown and said, “We will all, naturally, be delighted to welcome whatever guests you choose to invite. Won’t we, Maeve?”

Maeve nodded, setting her bleached curls to bobbing. “Even that doctor who is in such ill-odor at court?”

“Gossip,” Kasey said. “Nothing more.”

“And Catherine, Viscountess Edgecombe? The one who is supposed to be attics to let?”

“She has found a tenant. The whole hobble was a simple misunderstanding between an unhappily married couple. The rest was also idle gossip. Furthermore, she will be of great help in showing Miss Bannister the ways of the ton.”

Aunt Maeve was confused. “I thought Miss Bannister was to be a companion?”

“That, too.”

Aunt Mirabel pursed her already thin lips. “You do realize, nephew, that what you consider mere chitchat will become a clamor when your guests arrive? Neither the house of Cartland nor the Caswell name has ever been the subject of scandal,” said Aunt Mirabel, who was, of course, a Cartland. “Schoolboy pranks and a propensity toward philandering, but no outright scandals. I am certain you would not wish to disgrace your father’s name at this date.”

“I am afraid we shall have to weather the storm, and worse.” Another of Kasey’s former mistresses was, if not missing, temporarily misplaced. The newspapers were beginning to be interested, and the men’s clubs were swarming with speculation. “You must have heard the rumors concerning the disappearance of certain females of my acquaintance. Do you believe I had anything to do with whatever misfortunes the women might have suffered?”

“Of course not, dear.” Aunt Maeve was so dismayed at the thought that she needed a kiss from the dog. After he’d been
...
? Kasey tried not to think about it.

Mirabel frowned. “Maeve tries not to believe that you had aught to do with them alive, Caswell. We do not listen to such filth.”

“Then do not believe all the gossip about Sir Osgood and Lady Edgecombe. I consider Caswell House’s consequence sufficient to overcome any scandal broth before it boils over.”

“We do have the ears of all the important hostesses, don’t we, Mirabel?”

“I am on terms with the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting.”

“But I know Sally Jersey’s aunt.”

“I correspond with—
”

“Ladies, the carriage has been sent. Our company arrives tomorrow.”

* * * *

‘Tomorrow, Caswell?” Charles Warberry straightened his papers. “You never used to be so precipitate, cousin. I swear, I do not understand you at all these days.”

Kasey studied the equine print on the wall of Charles’s office. Since when had understanding him been part of his secretary’s duties? “Don’t concern yourself, old man. I will not hold you to account if the chandeliers do not all glisten. You take too much upon yourself.”

Warberry studied the duke carefully, as if he was trying to read between the lines. Since “You take too much upon yourself” was one line, Kasey hoped Charles had no trouble deciphering the message. They were cousins and friends, besides employer and employee. Kasey could not change the first, and would hate to lose the second. He was not, however, running his life for his cousin’s convenience, no more than he was for the pug.

“I realize it’s short notice,” His Grace said, “but we do have a competent staff. I have already notified the housekeeper, and everything is in train to make guest rooms ready, so you will not be disturbed from your work.”

“But you are bringing Lady Edgecombe here? Is that wise?”

Kasey knew his cousin still believed Catherine was his paramour, despite his disavowals. The duke had to wonder if Charles was more worried over the possible gossip or Lady Edgecombe’s possible disappearance. Then he had to wonder if he and his cousin were such good friends, if Charles could doubt his motives.

“It is perfectly wise,” he said, pretending to misinterpret his cousin’s concerns. “After all, Edgecombe swore to have the viscountess committed to an asylum if she left Sir Osgood’s care. Since the doctor is also coming to London, the lady is not breaking the terms of her detention.”

Charles gave the briefest of smiles. “Perhaps you should have read for the bar, cousin. You would have made a good barrister.”

“Perhaps I might have made good at many things. For now I shall try to content myself being a creditable duke.”

* * * *

“What do you mean, no more credit?”

“I mean, Jason, that you have an allowance, a generous budget within which you never manage to live. Now I am offering to resign your guardianship and give you control of your inheritance, capital plus income. I’ll throw in that unentailed estate in Devon, to boot.”

“If?”

“If you pledge never to borrow from me again. You’d beggar even the Caswell fortunes, if I let you. I will not. I’ll give you what’s yours, and let you oversee it. Then I am done. Forever.”

“You’re washing your hands of me?”

“No, I am trying to let you make something of yourself, not my shadow, not my heir apparent, not my pensioner.”

“But I don’t know the first thing about managing money or an estate.”

“So you’ll learn. You learned how to be a fribble with no apparent exertion. Becoming a man of means ought to take less effort.”

“What if I fail?”

“You are a Cartland. You will not fail.”

* * * *

Kasey was feeling better. His world might be going to Hell in a handcart, but at least he was pushing the cart as hard as he could in the opposite direction. He took the stairs two at a time, whistling, to check the guest chambers in the east wing. The family apartments were in the west wing, which should help curtail the spread of rumors. His aunts’ influence might deter the dowagers, and his own authority could manage the men’s clubs, but no one, he knew, could suppress servants’ gossip.

He switched the floral arrangements between Lilyanne’s rooms and Catherine’s. Then he asked the housekeeper to make a new bouquet for Miss Bannister altogether. And freshen the room with lavender water, exchange the heavy velvet bed hangings for sheer lace ones, and trade the seascape on the wall for a floral painting that hung in what used to be his mother’s room.

The servants were not going to gossip. Not much.

Clothes were going to be a problem. Kasey knew he could not possibly buy Miss Bannister a new wardrobe, not without breaking another handful of Society’s strictures, but he also knew Lilyanne would feel out of place in London in her somber, home-sewn frocks. He did not mind her serviceable gray dresses, but he knew the ton would treat Lilyanne like a serving girl in her dowdy, drab clothes.

So he wrote to Madame Celestine. Lud knew he’d single-handedly supported her establishment for years, dressing his mistresses in finery so he could undress them later. Surely Madame had some unfinished gowns, or frocks waiting to be delivered, samples of styles, perhaps, or returned goods. For enough money, Celestine could hire on extra seamstresses and pay them to work through the night, so the wardrobe in Lilyanne’s bedroom would not be entirely empty when she arrived. Lady Edgecombe could help select the rest of it, shoes and bonnets, et cetera, later.

Kasey knew exactly what colors and fabrics he wanted for Miss Bannister: a deep rose satin, a silver-shot blue silk, a rainbow-hued shawl of gossamer wool. He knew the sizes, too, to give the modiste: two inches shorter than Dolly, a hand’s width narrower in the waist than Veronica, slighter in the bosom than Sophia, with longer legs than Jean-Marie. Celestine had dressed all of them.

He had the bill directed to Caswell House, but addressed to Sir Osgood. The doctor was about to surprise his niece—and himself—with his generosity. Kasey would deal with Bannister and his penny-pinching ways later.

His Grace had a more important mission. He was protecting Lilyanne’s reputation, and he was making her surroundings more welcoming. He was doing what he could to ensure that she was accepted by the members of her parents’ class. Now he had to see about her safety.

If someone—or something—was marauding among his mistresses, Kasey could not leave Miss Bannister unprotected.

So he hired Mr. Dimm.

“There is no conflict of interest, since we both want to solve this mystery.”

“I ‘spect that’s so, Your Grace.”

“And I know that Bow Street’s staff is often hired by private citizens.”

“The good Lord knows there’s not enough money in the budget to pay the men an honest wage, otherwise.”

“And you’ll be watching my house anyway, won’t you?”

Since Kasey had found the detective in the park across from Caswell House, the question was moot. Dimm was chewing on his pipe stem, taking notes. An empty sack of breadcrumbs was by his side and a flock of pigeons was still squabbling around his feet.

“What about t’other mort the servants say is coming? From what I hear tell, that ‘un’s ripe for any trouble. More your type, too, from what folks recall. I’d of thought she’d be a likelier victim, iffen your other lady friends was victims of anything, a’course. No family to speak of, no one noticing her comings and goings.”