The Wicked Sister

by Lancaster, Mary

  “A further bevy of beauty to greet the eye,” Lord Underwood said in his lazy if amiable way.

  Maria had rather liked his humor and, although he was nearly twenty years her senior, she had been intrigued by the way he seemed always to be laughing at the world. When she had decided to stay at the Wickendens for another few days while Serena and Tamar traveled back to Braithwaite Castle, he had been the reason. His presence had caused a little flurry of excitement, and she had actually wondered if he was the man she would marry.

  Only, during dinner that first evening at Wickenden, when she had been placed beside him, she had suddenly realized that the beguiling humor in those eyes was also turned on her. She amused him. Which was fine, for she liked to amuse, but whenever she made a serious comment on any subject, the same humor lit his eyes. It had come to her that while he might indeed wish to marry her, he would never take her seriously. This realization had occupied her mind to the extent that she had barely heard Beauchamp’s blandishments.

  Now, she let her sisters answer his greeting and sweep him off upstairs. Maria barely knew Mr. and Mrs. Gayle, though she was aware he was a member of parliament. He also favored a very colorful style of waistcoat, which was what Maria chiefly remembered about him. Mrs. Gayle, at least ten years her brother Underwood’s junior, had the air of a dashing young matron. She cast a rather appraising glance back at Maria as she accompanied Serena upstairs.

  Gervaise, after bowing, made his way toward the increasingly loud argument between the servants.

  Not that Paton was ever loud, but his companion was growing increasingly frustrated. Maria lingered from pure curiosity.

  “I demand to see the earl!” the little man cried, unaware that Gervase was two feet behind him.

  “Unfortunately for you, sir,” Braithwaite said at his haughtiest, “no one is permitted to make demands of my servants, except myself, my family—and my guests who are unlikely to be so ill-mannered as to try. I am unaware of inviting you at all.”

  The little man’s face turned beetroot red, but he managed a clumsy bow and refused to be intimidated. “I hope your lordship will forgive my hasty speech. I find your servant frustrating in the extreme.”

  “I pay him to be so,” Braithwaite said dryly. “If you state the nature of your business with me, I will see when—or if—I might spare you five minutes.”

  “Government business,” he said grandly. “My name is Betts, and I am inquiring about certain pamphlets circulating in London.”

  Gervaise’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you, by God? Paton, show Mr. Betts into the library. Ask Mr. Hanson to look after him.”

  “Ha!” Betts exclaimed with apparent delight, while Paton bowed in his usual, inscrutable manner. “That was to be my next request.”

  Gervaise hesitated a mere instant, only enough to show Maria that he was finally surprised. But he said only, “Was it?” And walked away.

  “This way, sir,” Paton said with such superiority that there could be no doubt the butler regarded the insolent visitor as rather less than the dirt beneath his feet.

  But on impulse, Maria made her presence known. “Don’t bother, Paton,” she called. “I am going that way in any case, and I know you are busy. Come with me, sir.”

  She didn’t wait for him but sailed ahead up the stairs. After a stunned silence, an eager footfall skipped up the steps behind her.

  “There is to be a ball at the castle tomorrow night,” she told Betts. “We are expecting many guests to stay today and tomorrow, so the whole household is busy.”

  “On frivolous matters,” Betts pronounced.

  “Few people ever called his lordship frivolous,” Maria remarked. “It’s not an opinion I should repeat to his friends. Or his servants. This way.”

  Fortunately, he seemed stunned by the grandeur of the staircase and the gallery with its gracious proportions and ornate ceiling, to say nothing of the rows of Friday-faced and gaudy ancestors staring down upon him.

  “Here is the library,” she said brightly, leading the way inside.

  Chapter Four

  Mr. Hanson was not at his usual table, on which resided a large, full bag. He stood on the other side of the room with an armful of books, which he was returning to the shelves.

  “And here is Mr. Hanson,” she observed.

  Hanson, looking around in surprise, set his pile of books down on the nearest table and crossed the floor to join them with a bow.

  “Lady Maria.” He turned expectantly to Betts, who was looking a trifle anxious, as though he had put her down as a poor relation or even someone’s dresser rather than as the earl’s sister.

  “Mr. Hanson, this is Mr. Betts, who has come on behalf of the government, I understand, to see my brother. His lordship would like you to look after him.”

  “I believe Mr. Betts and I are already acquainted,” Hanson said. “Please sit down. Have you come far? I can ring for tea to be sent in.”

  Mr. Betts looked as if you would burst with fury at being offered hospitality by such a person. Intrigued, Maria sat down to observe proceedings.

  “You expect me to take tea with you?” Betts demanded with loathing.

  “I didn’t say I would have any,” Hanson said gently. “What might I do for you, Mr. Betts?”

  Betts pulled something from his pocket, a crumpled pamphlet by the look of it, and flung it on the table. “You can tell me what you know of that!”

  Hanson picked it up, glanced through it, and returned it to the table. “It looks like the sort of thing a man in your position shouldn’t have in his pocket.”

  “It is seditious!” Betts snarled.

  “Well, I’m sure you are a better judge of that than I,” Hanson said.

  “Do you deny it is yours?”

  “My dear sir, as God and Lady Maria are my witnesses, you brought it out of your own pocket.”

  Betts narrowed his eyes. “You know perfectly well I am asking if you are responsible for it.”

  “No.”

  “And your master, Lord Braithwaite?”

  “No,” Hanson said, “and that’s not an accusation you should throw around if you mean to keep your position.”

  “Are you threatening me, Mr. Hanson?”

  “No, I’m warning you. Lord Braithwaite is an influential man, much liked by both parties.”

  “He wouldn’t be so liked if this filth discovered all over London came from his press.”

  “What on earth makes you think it did?”

  “Timing. We came across it just after he left London.”

  “Does that not exonerate him?”

  “It could make him simply wily.”

  “Well it doesn’t,” Hanson said bluntly. “His lordship would have nothing to do with such radical views.”

  “But you would.”

  Would he? Maria wondered, interested. Was Gervaise’s secretary a secret radical?

  Hanson smiled faintly. “I have already answered you on that score.”

  “What are you doing working for an earl in any case?” Betts sneered. “Being a Jacobin, surely you don’t believe in the House of Lords, or the aristocracy!”

  “I’d have to be blind not to see they both exist,” Hanson replied without apparent interest. “And I am not a Jacobin.”

  “What’s in the bag?” Betts asked suddenly.

  “What bag?” Hanson asked provokingly.

  “The large one on that table!”

  “It belongs to the earl.”

  “According to you. Show me what is inside.”

  “It belongs to the earl,” Hanson repeated.

  For the first time, Maria began to feel uneasy. Seditious pamphlets? Hanson, who seemed to be a known radical, had been on his way to the print shop. Surely, he would not have printed anything so dangerous in Gervaise’s name? His face revealed nothing except vague irritation.

  “His lordship is not here to deny it.” With an air of triumph, Betts strode across the room to Hanson’s table, but Hanson
had longer legs and moved faster without seeming to.

  It was the secretary’s hand that landed on the bag first. “Not without the earl’s permission.”

  “You brought it from the print shop, didn’t you?”

  Maria’s stomach twisted in shock. Betts had been watching him or questioning others. He was serious about finding sedition here…

  But Hanson only smiled at him, a faint, careless smile. “Yes, I did.”

  “Open it,” Betts said fiercely.

  “With the earl’s permission,” Hanson repeated.

  They were still staring at each other when Gervaise walked in. “Mr. Betts, how can I help you?”

  Reluctantly, Betts turned away to face Gervaise. Hanson’s hand slid off the bag.

  “I need to talk you about sedition and the circulation of illegal pamphlets,” Betts said with dignity.

  “Then please sit down,” the earl invited, indicating the chair at an empty table.

  Even more reluctantly, Betts walked away from the bag beside Hanson.

  Gervaise had not yet acknowledged Maria’s presence, so she had hopes she could remain unnoticed. However, her brother quickly scuppered that plan.

  “Mr. Hanson, perhaps you would be so good as to escort my sister to the drawing room?”

  Maria frowned at her brother in annoyance, but he was gazing at his secretary. There was a pause. It was impossible to tell from Hanson’s expression if he was relieved or chagrined by the request.

  “If your lordship is sure I am not needed,” he said at last.

  “I’ll send for you,” Gervaise assured him.

  Hanson walked across the room, and Maria rose reluctantly to accompany him. Mr. Betts bowed, though he, too, seemed undecided as to whether to feel triumphant or frustrated by Hanson’s departure.

  Only as he closed the door, did Mr. Hanson allow himself a faint grimace.

  “You are disappointed to leave?” she asked curiously.

  Mr. Hanson sighed. “I was looking forward to his lordship’s masterly set-down of that miserable, self-important little worm.”

  “How do you know him?” Maria asked curiously.

  “He pursues me around London in the hope of catching my offensively radical thoughts in print. Every lampoon, every revolutionary word he finds, he attributes to me.”

  “Why?”

  Hanson shrugged. “He has a bee in his proverbial bonnet.”

  “Why?” she asked again, slowing her step for they were almost at the drawing room doors. “Are you a radical?”

  He appeared to consider. “I have what some consider radical ideas for changing the world for the better.”

  She came to a halt. “Does my brother know?”

  “Yes. We have had many interesting discussions.”

  “And the bag?” she blurted.

  “Contains pamphlets his lordship asked me to have printed. They are to support the speech he will make on his return to Westminster.”

  “Then why were you hiding them?” she demanded in frustration.

  “Because they were none of Betts’s business, and he has no right to search Lord Braithwaite’s possessions.”

  “Has he a right to search yours?”

  “Not while I draw breath. The drawing room is only three feet ahead of you.”

  “I know.” There was even a hovering footman waiting to open the door.

  “You are reluctant,” he observed. “Are the guests not to your liking?”

  Of course, he knew about her family’s hopes of Lord Underwood. Gervaise and her mother had discussed the matter in front of him during that scolding in the library.

  “That’s the odd thing,” she confessed. “I thought he was and he isn’t. I find him a little too…superior, and as you must know, my family is promoting a match between us. Or at least hoping for one. My instinct is to avoid him, and yet I can’t.”

  “No, and you must pay attention lest you find yourself engaged to him by mistake.”

  Maria let out a breath of laughter. “That would be the last straw. I would have to marry him from sheer embarrassment. Oh, well, I am a Conway and know how to do my duty.” She glanced up at him as a bright, welcome idea intruded. “Or… we could take a walk in the orchard, and you could tell me all about your radical ideas.”

  *

  Michael did not hesitate. As far as he was concerned, choosing one’s own marriage partner, or even one’s own company, was a matter of right. Enough members of her family were present to ensure no neglect of their guests. Besides, the girl was clearly troubled, and her so-called social duties were not helping. So, he merely inclined his head and walked on beside her, pausing only to inform the footman. “If his lordship should look for me, I’m escorting Lady Maria to the orchard.”

  “So, you don’t believe in the House of Lords or the aristocracy?” Maria asked as they walked into the fresh air and down the front steps. She wore an old cloak over her fashionable gown and the contrast was rather fetching.

  He shrugged. “I believe they should both be abolished. But I’m not advocating revolution.”

  “Then I don’t see how it will happen,” Maria said frankly.

  “Time and education. But my quarrel is not so much with the existence of privilege as with extending those privileges to everyone.”

  “What privileges?” she asked curiously.

  “Education. The right to have enough to eat and to live in decent accommodation. To be represented in parliament. Even to represent others in parliament. Power and wealth should be earned by ability and honesty, not by an accident of birth.”

  “Goodness, you are a revolutionary.” She sounded surprisingly happy about it, almost gloating. “But I can’t see Gervaise agreeing with any of it!”

  “But he does,” Michael told her. “About education and the eradication of the worst of poverty, at least. And extending parliamentary representation, even if not quite so far as I would advocate. Your brother takes his duty and his responsibility seriously.”

  “And that is why you deign to work for him?” she asked.

  “It’s why I am glad to work for him,” Hanson corrected.

  The orchard, in full blossom, was beautiful, a riot of pinks and whites. Fallen petals carpeted the paths under their feet.

  “And Mr. Betts,” she said thoughtfully. “Why does he pursue you up here? Did you write that pamphlet he threw at you?”

  Michael didn’t answer directly. “There is nothing illegal in the pamphlet,” he said. “Though I’ll allow it may have been ill-timed. With Bonaparte escaped, many Whigs are tarnished by their support of him against the Bourbon restoration…”

  “You do not support Bonaparte, do you? I know Gervaise does not!”

  “Oh, the man has more talent in his little finger than several generations of Bourbons could manage between them. But no, he betrayed the very principles that brought him to power and became just another power-hungry tyrant threatening the peace of the world. I am no Bonapartist.”

  Her eyes searched his. “But Betts does not know that,” she guessed.

  “Betts only knows what his superiors tell him. And they are nervous.”

  Something flashed in her beautiful, hazel eyes. “Is Gervaise in danger? Are you?”

  He shook his head, smiling. “I believe his lordship to be above suspicion. If I cling hard to his coattails and Bonaparte is beaten soon, I shall survive.”

  “Then no more revolutionary pamphlets,” she said sternly.

  “I didn’t know you could be so imperious.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” she admitted. “Lady Wickenden told me I should do so in front of the mirror so that I might depress unwanted attentions more easily.”

  “Like Mr. Beauchamp’s?”

  “Exactly.” She paused, reaching up to catch a falling blossom in her gloved hand. “You must find my life very trivial, a perfect example of why the aristocracy should be done away with.”

  Startled, he took a step closer to her. “I t
hink no such thing. If anything, I believe you have been too hemmed in by tradition and expectation to find your own way. But you can only be what, seventeen years old?”

  She gave a funny little smile. “Young in years but old in sin, or at least in scandal.”

  “We should probably go back before my escort lands you in another. Or am I too much like the furniture to count?”

  “Furniture?” She laughed. “Hardly! But as to the rest, you are probably right. My mother once dismissed Miss Grey, our favorite governess ever, just for being in the same room as Gervaise when the door had blown shut.”

  “Oh dear.”

  Her grin was mischievous. “You needn’t worry. My mother forgave her eventually and even begged her to come back. In any case, it is Braithwaite, not my mother, who employs you, so you should be safe.”

  “Thank God.” As the smile died naturally between them, he said, “You should talk to your sisters, or Lady Braithwaite. Any of your family. I don’t think they see your pain or know what is troubling you.”

  She blinked, then tore her gaze free. At first, he thought she would turn it off or run away as she had done the previous evening in the kitchen. Then, in a slightly choked voice, she said, “How could they? I do not know.”

  He counted the beats of his heart—stupidly, as though the rest of his life depended on his next words. “I hope you know, I would also stand as your friend.”

  She glanced up at him a little uncertainly, and then her eyes softened in a way that tugged at something buried deep inside him. A fugitive smile flickered across her face. “Thank you. And I yours.”

  *

  Michael couldn’t remember a declaration of friendship that had moved him more. Oddly happy, he finally left her at the drawing room door and strode on to the library.

  Betts had gone. Lord Braithwaite sat at one of the tables, the pamphlet in question open in front of him.

  “Ah, there are you are,” the earl said, glancing up. “Close the door and sit down.”

  Michael obeyed.

  Braithwaite sighed and pushed the pamphlet toward him. “I’m pretty sure you did write this. I can hear you saying the words, and I know the arguments.”

  Michael let his lips quirk upward.