The Perfect Princess (34 page)

“I’m all ears,” he said woodenly.

“Because all my life, I’ve been surrounded by people who flattered me. You don’t flatter. You don’t try to charm. You don’t whisper sweet nothings in a lady’s ear. When you say something, you mean it.”

The smile went out of his eyes. “You’re right about that. I do mean what I say. I won’t give you up, Rosamund, so if your family makes you choose, you’re coming with me.”

She cried out when he suddenly reached for her and swung her into his arms. He kissed her long and hard. She tasted passion, and she also tasted desperation. If only it could be this simple, his kiss told her.

It wasn’t simple. A dark cloud hung over them, a malevolent cloud that could swallow them up. They might have a future together, or this might be all they would ever have. A bittersweet ache clogged her throat, and her kisses became as desperate as his.

Their lovemaking was slower this time, the urgency
gone, but it was prolonged. Just for a little while, they shut out the world and thought only of themselves.

Long after he had seen her back to the house, Richard tossed restlessly in his bed. He told himself that he had no regrets, that he’d tried to give her up, but he’d been fighting a losing battle. Sooner or later, it would have come to this. The shock of thinking he had lost her had only precipitated things.

But now that she had committed herself to him, he was plagued by fears and doubts. What if he could not clear his name? He would be a fugitive for the rest of his life. What would happen to Rosamund then?

It wasn’t his way to agonize over what might have been, but to work with what he had. There was no going back for Rosamund and him, so the possibility of not clearing his name was unthinkable.

Having settled that problem in his mind, he concentrated on sifting through the sequence of events that had led to his downfall. He thought about Cambridge, moved on to Lucy Rider’s murder, then finally to the attack on Prudence Dryden.

There was something nagging him, something similar about Lucy Rider’s murder and the attack on Miss Dryden tonight. What was it? He fell into an uneasy sleep as his mind groped for the answer.

R
ichard’s interview with Rosamund’s father had to be postponed until the magistrates’ work was done, and they didn’t leave until the dinner hour. They questioned key witnesses and took copious notes, but they didn’t look farther than their noses, in Richard’s opinion. According to below-stairs gossip, they were satisfied that Prince Michael was the target and that the most likely suspect was some unknown fanatical countryman who had a grievance against Kolnbourg’s royal family.

The delay gave Richard plenty of time to think about the question that had teased his mind before he’d fallen into a restless sleep last night. What was similar about Lucy Rider’s murder and the attack on Miss Dryden was that in both cases, the assailants vanished without a trace, and this in spite of a crush of people rushing to the scene almost as soon as a shot was fired.

It occurred to him that these killers hadn’t tried to slip away. They could have been there in the crush,
perhaps even first on the scene of the crime. There would be nothing to attract anyone’s notice to them, because they were not outsiders. They were where one would expect to see them.

It wasn’t a blinding revelation so much as a theory that should be looked into. Or maybe he was just clutching at straws. He had one solid lead he was going to pursue. Major Digby had known about Dunsmoor. Who had told him about it? Who knew all the private details of his life? Only someone who had gone to a great deal of trouble to find out.

It wasn’t much to go on, but it was the only lead he had.

He spent the day helping groundsmen clear away the debris of the storm. Harper was there, too, grim-faced and watchful. Though he had no theories of his own to put forward for the attack on Miss Dryden, he wasn’t satisfied with the magistrates’ verdict. All his instincts were telling him that Twickenham was no longer healthy and it was time to move on.

Lord Justin came for Richard when he and Harper were clearing away after their evening meal. He’d decided not to wear livery on this occasion and was dressed in black trousers and a dark coat. When he met with the duke, he wanted it to be man to man, not servant to master. Besides, servants got time off, and he’d decided this was his night.

Harper’s presence wasn’t required, but he insisted on going along. His instincts were still at full pitch and he slipped into his bodyguard mode. Lord Justin thought it was funny. Richard didn’t. Like Harper, he had his hand in his coat pocket where he kept his pistol. He trusted Harper’s instincts as well as his own.

The duke was waiting for him in his library, and only the duke. Gesturing with one hand, he indicated a chair. His Grace, Richard remembered, was a man of few words, and every word counted. He took the chair.

“You’ll have a brandy?”

“Thank you.”

Richard had been prepared to find the duke stiff and formal. He knew Rosamund would have told her father that they were going to marry. He couldn’t say the duke was friendly, but he’d obviously been warned to be on his best behavior. As indeed, had he.

The duke handed Richard a glass half filled with brandy and took the chair opposite. “You’ll note,” he said, “I can be as egalitarian as the next person. I don’t always stand on my dignity.”

Those were Rosamund’s words, thought Richard, and would have been amused except that he felt all the awkwardness of his position. He wasn’t exactly the catch of the marriage mart, and he was sure the duke would drive home that point. He must remember, too, Rosamund’s parting words to him last night: he was to be gracious and keep a civil tongue in his head.

“First off,” said the duke, “tell me what you think about this monstrous business of last night. You’ve heard, I suppose, that the magistrates are convinced that Prince Michael was the intended victim?”

“I’ve heard,” said Richard. He shook his head. “It’s too early to come to any conclusions. But the motive seems far-fetched. If he were the crown prince, that would be different. What I’d like to do, with your permission, is interview both Miss Dryden and the prince. We can tell them that I’m an agent from Special Branch. They won’t know who I am.”

“It’s out of the question—”

Richard’s back stiffened.

The duke took a breath. He didn’t know why Maitland was always so quick to take offense, especially when he, Romsey, was the injured party. “Because,” he went on testily, “the prince decided that Miss Dryden would be better off with her brother. They left right after the magistrates did. But I can tell you that they saw and heard
nothing after the shot was fired. Miss Dryden has no enemies, why should she, a young woman of good family? And the prince has other enemies—husbands, would you believe, whom he has cuckolded over time? I was never more deceived . . . well, that’s beside the point. He swears he’s all reformed now that he’s met Miss Dryden.”

Richard relaxed against the back of his chair. He was thinking that one of the first things he would do when he left Twickenham was go out to Chelsea and interview both Miss Dryden and her brother.

A pulse began to beat in the duke’s temple. He fixed his gaze on Richard. “My daughter tells me,” he said, “that you have something particular that you wish to say to me.”

Richard’s stare was as unwavering as the duke’s. “Rosamund and I are going to be married,” he said.

“I might have something to say about that!”

“Whatever you could say,” said Richard, “I’ve already said to myself. Believe me, I’m no more happy to have the Deveres for relations than you are to have me!”

“At least we see eye to eye on something!” snapped the duke. “But unlike you, we Deveres do not judge others by their position in society. Oh, yes, I had that from Rosamund. There is very little that my daughter does not tell me.”

“Then she will have told you that our marriage is inevitable.”

“Imperative is the word I would use.”

Richard said nothing.

“Imperative!”
repeated the duke. “That’s what Rosamund told me. Do you know, I’m disappointed in you, Maitland? Oh, not so much for compromising my daughter. The circumstances, she tells me, were exceptional. She is determined to have you with or without my consent. I suppose that’s why she told me you were lovers. What can I do? She’s not a child. She has made her choice and I have to accept it.”

“Thank you,” said Richard, letting out a relieved breath.

“That doesn’t mean I have to like it! You may believe I did everything in my power to make her see reason.”

And to every argument he put forward, Rosamund had countered that she was of age; she wanted his blessing, but with or without it, she would marry Richard Maitland.

She was just like Caspar after he came home from the war. There was a steel in her that he could not bend. He knew well enough that he could prevent the marriage by sending her to Castle Devere and keeping her under lock and key, but the cost was more than he was willing to pay. She would never call him Father again.

The duke wasn’t finished yet. “What disappoints me is that I misjudged you. I thought you were a fighter. I thought your driving ambition was to clear your name.”

Richard frowned. “That hasn’t changed.”

The duke gave a short bark of laughter. “Oh? And how do you propose to clear your name when you’re living in Italy or wherever you plan to run off to?”

“What,” said Richard slowly, “has Rosamund been saying to you?”

“That you’re to be married at once and run off to Scotland or some equally inaccessible place and live, one supposes, happily ever after, though how—” He noted Richard’s appalled expression and stopped. “You’re not going to run off to foreign parts?”

“I can’t think how Rosamund got that idea. Oh, hell!” Richard visibly winced as a memory came back to him. “We talked of starting a new life, but I meant
after
I’d cleared my name. And it was never in my mind to leave England.”

There was a prolonged silence as the duke digested this, then he said, “Then isn’t this conversation premature? Wouldn’t it have been better to wait before approaching me for my daughter’s hand? Why the haste?
It’s unlikely that she is pregnant. Clear your name, then marry her openly and with my blessing.”

“No. This is the right thing to do. For Rosamund’s sake, we must marry at once. I don’t want to sound melodramatic, but we have to face facts. In another week or two, she could well be a widow. If there’s a child, it would crush Rosamund if we were not married.”

The older man’s eyes flared in shock. Finally, he said, “It would crush her if anything happened to you, married or not. What is it you intend to do that will put you in such jeopardy?”

Richard replied quietly, “It may not come down to it, but if all else fails, I may have to set myself up as bait to entrap a killer. And I’ll need your help.”

It was brazenly done, with no attempt at subterfuge. Lord Caspar procured a special license in Richard’s own name and found a little, out-of-the-way chapel in Cheap-side with an ancient cleric who had trouble remembering the time of day. They were married in the presence of Rosamund’s brothers, her father having begged off because he was too well-known and was afraid his presence would draw attention to their little party. Rosamund knew he was right, but her father’s absence cast a small shadow on the happiest day of her life.

There was no celebration. As soon the ceremony was over, Rosamund removed her wedding ring. It was her mother’s and she had always intended, if she ever married, that it would be her wedding ring, too. Then they took a hackney to the coaching inn where they’d left their carriage in case someone might recognize it at the church, and they made the return journey to Twickenham House.

With her brothers in the carriage, there was little chance of Rosamund having the heart-to-heart talk with
Richard she so much wanted, but at least everyone was civil, and that pleased her. Her family had not exactly been civil that morning when she’d broken the news to them.

She’d talked to her father first, then her brothers were brought in, and she’d faced the three of them as they put forward one good reason after another for, at the very least, postponing the marriage. So she’d given them the one good reason why the marriage had to take place. She had gone to Richard’s cottage, she said, and seduced him.