Loe raamatut: «A Marquess, A Miss And A Mystery»

Chapter One

There was nothing for it. Horatia Carmichael was going to have to do something drastic.

She peered round at the congregation, who were gathering their prayer books and Bibles together as the Duke of Theakstone’s elderly chaplain mumbled the service to a close, and swallowed. The Duke’s private chapel was awash with lords and ladies. She didn’t think anyone below the rank of viscount had been invited to stay at Theakstone Court for the week preceding his wedding. Apart from her. Which made her feel a bit like Cinderella must have done at that ball to pick a bride for Prince Charming, or whatever his name was. She’d never paid all that much attention to fairy tales. They were always full of pretty people getting unlikely rewards simply for being pretty. Or titled. She’d have been far more impressed if, for once, cleverness had been the virtue that won the prize.

But anyway, even though Cinderella was undoubtedly pretty, she must have felt completely out of her depth walking into a castle packed with titled people. Just as Horatia did, right this minute.

But then desperate times called for desperate measures. Two months it had been since Herbert’s murder. Two months during which she’d waited, with mounting impatience, for the Marquess of Devizes to come and offer his condolences, so that she could pass on the information which could prove vital to tracing her brother’s killer.

But the...the... She wrestled with a suitable word to describe the character of the man who’d been her brother’s best friend and colleague in his clandestine work...and could think of nothing polite enough to voice, not even in her mind, while in a chapel.

But anyway, the point was the...the...she had it! The puffed-up popinjay hadn’t come anywhere near her. And, of course, she hadn’t been able to simply go to him. A lady could not just walk up to the door of a single man’s residence and gain admittance, not without drawing attention to herself. Especially not a single man with the kind of reputation he had. He was the kind of man who could persuade just about any woman into his bed with just one slow smile. And so he did.

Nor would Lord Devizes have welcomed her visit, not even when he heard what she had to tell him. Marching up to his front door in broad daylight, or at any other time, would have drawn the attention of the very people they most needed to outwit. They would have put two and two together and that would have been that.

Which meant she’d had to find some way to approach him that wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

The trouble was, since she was in mourning, she couldn’t attend any of the balls or parties where she might have simply walked up to him. Especially since they weren’t the kinds of events she’d gone to very often, even before Herbert’s death. That would have raised as many eyebrows as if she’d gone to one of the gambling hells she knew he attended, or walked into a cock fight, or a coal-heaver’s tavern, or any of the other disreputable places he’d gone with Herbert in pursuit of information. Or so Herbert had maintained. Though she hadn’t forgotten he’d gone to such places even before he’d started looking for the group of people he’d told her were trying to drum up support for the exiled French emperor, Bonaparte.

It was a good job the Marquess’s half-brother, the Duke of Theakstone, had suddenly decided to get married, or heaven knew what stratagems she might have been obliged to adopt. Fortunately, a friend of hers, Lady Elizabeth Grey, had an invitation to the wedding, so all Horatia had had to do was persuade her to bring her along in the guise of a companion. She’d assumed that once here, while everyone was wandering around the grounds, or taking tea, she was bound to find an opportunity for sidling up to Lord Devizes and passing on her translation of the coded letter Herbert had given her, to decipher, the very night he’d been murdered.

But, drat the man, even here she hadn’t been able to get near him. There were too many other females fluttering round him, like so many brainless moths dashing themselves against a glittering lantern. Or pigeons, perhaps. Preening themselves and cooing up at him. Well, whatever type of brainless creatures they resembled, at any given time, he always behaved like a...pasha, surrounded by an adoring harem. As though feminine adulation was no more than his due. He lapped it all up, doling out that lopsided smile of his like a kind of reward to any that particularly amused him, though his lazy-lidded eyes made him look as though he was on the verge of laughing all the time. As though life was one huge joke.

Which made her want to wring his neck. Or kick him in the shins. Or something equally violent, because while he was lounging about, flirting with every female in the place under fifty, the trail that might have led straight to Herbert’s killer was getting colder and colder.

To her left, the friend who’d played fairy godmother to her Cinderella was getting to her feet. Which meant that she would have to do the same. And then follow meekly back to the main part of the house for refreshments. And it was no use telling herself she could approach him over nuncheon, because it was far more likely that she’d feel so out of place that instead of confronting Herbert’s friend, she’d retire to a corner where she’d perch like a little black crow and watch the gaudier females flock round Lord Devizes.

It was now or never. Pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, she got to her feet and shuffled to the end of the pew, then pulled open the strings of her reticule and took out a handkerchief. Behind her, Lady Elizabeth’s mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Tewkesbury, breathed in sharply though her nostrils. Something she was wont to do whenever Horatia crossed her line of sight. The Dowager made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of her daughter becoming so friendly with a mere Miss. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that mother and daughter were barely speaking to each other at the moment, she suspected she would have forbidden Lady Elizabeth from bringing her along.

However, she was here. And Lord Devizes would be sauntering past the end of her pew any second now.

She blew her nose, then thrust her handkerchief back into her reticule, her heart thundering. It was too much to hope he might pause and bid her good morning. He’d had ample opportunity to do so any number of times since his arrival at Theakstone Court. But over and over again, he’d looked right through her. As if she was beneath his notice. As if he didn’t recognise her.

Though why should he? Though Herbert had introduced them, during her one and only Season, while he’d still been trying to persuade her that he could make her ‘fashionable’, Lord Devizes had clearly been highly unimpressed by his friend’s dumpy, dowdy little sister. He’d danced with her just the once. And that clearly only as a courtesy to his friend. Lord Devizes had barely spoken to her during that dance. Had never subjected her to an iota of the charm for which he was so famed, let alone actually progressed to flirting with her.

But never mind that now. This wasn’t the time to indulge in ancient resentment. Especially since he’d treated her no worse than any other of the so-called gentlemen who’d been persuaded to take pity on such a frumpy little wallflower. He was within three yards. A couple more steps and she’d be able to reach out her hand and tug at his sleeve.

Like a beggar, seeking alms.

So, no, she wouldn’t do that. She had to make their contact look accidental, or she’d be drawing attention to her desperate need to speak to him. Which she must not do.

And so, as he drew level with her, she fumbled her Bible off the pew and tossed it at his feet, hoping it would look as though she’d dropped it.

He stopped. Looked at the Bible lying in his path. Looked at her. Placed one hand on his hip and raised one corner of his mouth into a...a cynical sort of sneer.

Her face flooded with heat. The...the...bad name. The swear word. He was making it look as though he suspected her of dropping her handkerchief at his feet, in the age-old way women had of attracting the notice of a man they could not get to notice them any other way. Which she was. But not because she was lovelorn. Surely he could not be as stupid as he looked? Surely he must realise that it was because she was Herbert’s sister that she needed to speak to him? About Herbert? And his work?

Even if he was that stupid, didn’t he have even a modicum of good manners? Surely he could go through the motions of polite behaviour and bend down to pick up her book?

Apparently not. He just stood there, that cynical smile on his face, his mocking eyes regarding her steadily as her face heated with all the pent-up frustration this aggravating man had caused her recently.

‘I can’t believe,’ she muttered, stepping forward, then bending down to reach for her Bible, ‘that Herbert rated you so highly when you cannot even pick up a hint, never mind—’

She’d been going to say my Bible, but unfortunately, at the very moment she bent down to snatch up her Bible, he finally leaned down as well.

With the result that her head clashed with his outstretched arm. And, as she’d been bending down angrily and his arm was the consistency of an iron bar, she bounced off it, then off the end of the pew, and ended up sitting on her bottom on the cold, hard chapel floor.

She heard a lot of muffled sniggering.

‘I cannot believe,’ said the Dowager Marchioness of Tewkesbury, presumably to Lady Elizabeth, although Horatia could not see either of them from the chapel floor, ‘that you could have brought a person like that to a place like this, even if you are—’

‘Mother!’ Horatia heard Lady Elizabeth’s skirts swish as she whirled round in her pew and, to judge from earlier altercations, glared at her mother.

While she glared up at the agent of her misfortune, who was smiling a little wider now as though barely holding back laughter himself.

And extending his arm, as though to offer his help in getting to her feet.

‘I don’t need your help,’ she snarled, ignoring his hand and grabbing hold of one of the finials on the end of the pew she’d just bounced off, which had lots of knobbly bits to give her purchase, instead. ‘Not to get to my feet, not to find Herbert’s—’

‘You are Herbert’s sister?’ He raised one eyebrow, as though the fact astonished him. ‘I never,’ he said, running his eyes over her bedraggled frame, ‘would have guessed.’ Not many people did. Herbert was so handsome and elegant. Even he had laughingly said that while she had all the brains in the family, he had all the beauty.

‘You...’ she stuttered. ‘You...’ Once again, her vocabulary didn’t come up with a word sufficiently insulting to hurl at him that she could possibly use in a chapel.

He lowered his hand. ‘Take your time, Miss Carmichael,’ he said with infuriating calm. ‘I feel certain that you will be able to think of a suitable insult, should you take a deep breath and count to ten.’

The sniggering grew a touch less muffled. Although there was a roaring sound in her ears, now, almost drowning out the sounds of mockery.

She hated him. She really, really hated him. It had been bad enough that he’d neglected to do the decent thing and at least come to visit her, given how closely he and Herbert had been working, to offer his condolences. But to first pretend he did not recognise her, then to make her a laughing stock...

‘There isn’t one,’ she grated. And whirled away before giving him the satisfaction of seeing the tears that were burning her eyes. Tears she absolutely would not shed, not in front of such a...

She strode down the aisle and slammed out of the door of the chapel. And as the heat of the sun struck the crown of her bonnet, she finally let the bad words come. In English, and French and Italian.

And it wasn’t just because he’d humiliated her in front of all those titled people. It was because she’d wasted so much time and effort. Instead of thinking of ways to get in touch with the man Herbert had referred to as Janus, she should have gone on the hunt for his killer herself.

Because it was clear he wasn’t going to be of any help to her. At all.

She was on her own.

As always.