Lord Perfect

by Loretta Chase

  While not as busy as it would be during the daylight hours, the area was by no means deserted. The waterman still carried buckets to the hackneys lined up at the coach stand. Some soldiers gossiped under a street lamp. A milk-woman carried her empty pails back toward Knightsbridge. The tollgate keeper would continue to work through the night.

  At least some of these people had been about during the afternoon. If Olivia had been here, some one of them would have noticed.

  Here, therefore, Bathsheba alit, while Rathbourne drove on, as he’d finally and not very graciously agreed after a short, fierce argument. She would meet him a short distance down the road, opposite the Horse Barracks.

  The first person she spoke to was the waterman. He had no trouble recollecting Olivia. He wasn’t the only one. As one might expect, she’d caused a scene.

  Not long afterward, Bathsheba was climbing back into the carriage. “Well?” Rathbourne said.

  “My daughter’s so-called squire, Nat Diggerby, has been brought before the magistrate for causing a disturbance,” she said. “Olivia, in true DeLucey style, abandoned him and found another pigeon. A pie seller heard my daughter tell a young farmer a heartbreaking tale of a sick mother.”

  She described the ensuing scene, adding, “Lord Lisle must have a chivalrous streak. Olivia would have left him without a second thought. But it appears that someone has inculcated in him a sense of responsibility.”

  She strongly suspected the someone was Rathbourne. Despite the light way he spoke of the boy, she’d sensed a strong bond between them from the first. His rage with Lord Atherton’s method of dealing with Lisle had made clear how important his nephew was to Rathbourne. Olivia’s mad act might jeopardize that relationship.

  Typical, Bathsheba thought gloomily. Whenever a Dreadful DeLucey appeared on the scene, someone’s life was sure to change, and seldom for the better.

  “Though his parents have failed to recognize it, Peregrine is mature for his age,” Rathbourne said as he set the horses in motion. “He would consider it unthinkable to allow a twelve-year-old girl to travel completely unprotected.”

  “Among the lower orders, a twelve-year-old is, to all intents and purposes, an adult,” Bathsheba said. “Olivia has not lived a sheltered life. Furthermore, she has inherited my family’s talent for talking or cheating her way out of any difficulty. The tale of the sick mother is a perfect example. I wonder why I waste money sending her to school, when she might be making us a fortune by writing melodramas for the stage and the more sensational periodicals.”

  He glanced at her. “You cannot be as cold and cynical as that,” he said. “I will not believe it.”

  “One cannot be softhearted about Olivia,” she said. “She will only exploit it. She is a dreadful child. One can either face the fact or one can live in a delusion and watch her go straight to the devil. I refuse to let her go to the devil. Therefore I cannot be sentimental about her, or pretend she is a normal girl.”

  There was a silence. Bathsheba let it stretch. Her hardheartedness had shocked him, naturally. Being an aristocratic male, he had no inkling what it was like to raise a difficult child. Few of the women of his class had any idea. Someone else looked after their children.

  She did not point this out. She did not want him to feel sorry for her. She did not even want him to like her—the sensible part of her didn’t, at any rate. The sensible Bathsheba was glad this crisis had started them quarreling. Hostility would keep them at a safe distance from each other.

  After a time, he spoke. Growled, rather. “They left in a farmer’s cart, you said. Did you happen to find out their direction?”

  “The farmer offered to take them to Brentford,” she said. “She must be headed to Bristol.”

  “Bristol is an odd place for a pirate to bury treasure,” he said.

  “There is no treasure,” Bathsheba said. “It’s legend, nothing more. Edmund DeLucey wasn’t really a pirate, either. I have explained it all to Olivia time and again. A precious waste of breath.”

  “And the truth is?”

  “My great-grandfather had the Idea of becoming a pirate, yes,” she said. “But it quickly palled. Edmund was a dandy or a macaroni—or whatever they called them in those days. Pirates, he soon discovered, were crude, ill-dressed, and dirty brutes. Not at all in Edmund’s style. Furthermore, because they were far from intelligent, they were constantly getting themselves maimed, hacked to pieces, drowned, and hanged. Smuggling suited Edmund far better. Playing cat and mouse with the English authorities was vastly entertaining. He especially delighted in daring forays into the mouth of the Severn, not many miles from his family’s ancestral home.”

  “Ah, indeed,” Rathbourne said. “I’d forgotten. The—er—other DeLuceys—”

  “The good ones,” she supplied.

  “The less exciting ones,” he said. “The ancestral pile is near Bristol, if I recall aright.”

  “Every member of my family knows where Throgmorton is and all about it, though they know better than to come within fifty miles of it,” she said. “Meanwhile, they never tire of boasting about Edmund DeLucey. Perhaps because Jack, too, had a rebellious streak, he never tired of hearing about him. He started repeating the tales to Olivia when she was a baby. Those were among the bedtime stories he told her. I had assumed that as she grew up, she must realize the buried treasure was make-believe, like the tales from The Thousand and One Nights.”

  “A treasure is not completely unreasonable, in the circumstances,” Rathbourne said. “A smuggler might easily amass a fortune.”

  “He might,” she said. “But would he bury it?”

  “That seems doubtful,” he said.

  “It makes no sense,” she said. “Edmund was a wastrel. Why bury it instead of spend it? I have made this point repeatedly. I cannot tell you how many times the three of us had the same exchange. It became a game at bedtime. ‘Where do you think Edmund DeLucey buried the treasure, Mama?’ Olivia would say as we tucked her in. ‘Men like that don’t bury treasure,’ I would say. ‘They spend it as fast as they get it, on drink, gaming, and women.’ Then she would ask Jack: ‘Where do you think he buried the treasure, Papa?’And Jack would say, ‘Right under his family’s noses. That’s where I’d hide it, if I were him. I’d go in the dead of night and bury it at the base of the mausoleum where all the revered ancestors lie a-moldering: all my ill-got gains, on hallowed ground. And I’d laugh and laugh every time I thought about it.’ ”

  She heard Rathbourne suck in his breath.

  “Do I shock you, my lord?” she said.

  They’d reached the Hogmire Lane tollgate. He halted the vehicle.

  “Well, yes, I am shocked, actually,” he said slowly. “Your husband put his child to bed. He told her bedtime stories. Astonishing.”

  THE TOLLGATE KEEPER had seen too many farm carts to recall one in particular, with or without young passengers.

  Still, this was the usual route to Brentford, so Benedict drove on. To his vexation, he had to do so far more slowly. This stretch of road, while set with paving stones and therefore less dusty than the section they’d just traversed, was also a good deal narrower and more congested.

  Benedict tried, as he’d tried before, to concentrate on driving, always a chancy thing after dark. The carriage lanterns illuminated the vehicle somewhat but not the way ahead. The street lamps made a halfhearted twilight. He tried to keep his eyes and mind on the road while Bathsheba Wingate’s voice rippled and flowed about him.

  He was used to letting women’s voices go on and on about him while his mind wrestled with important matters: the war widows and veterans, the inadequacies of present policing methods, and the vagaries of English law.

  He could not get his mind to turn away from Bathsheba Wingate. He listened to her, to every word. He couldn’t ignore her. He was too intensely aware of her next to him on the seat: the not-nearly-wide-enough seat. While the carriage was in motion, the only way to keep from touching was to hug the side of th
e vehicle, which he could hardly do while driving, even if it wasn’t ridiculous, which it was.

  And so they touched, frequently, hip briefly pressing against hip, thigh brushing against thigh.

  And every touch reminded him of the last time they’d touched: the kiss, weeks ago . . . the taste of her mouth and the scent of her skin and the mad hunger she awoke in him.

  To distract himself from physical awareness, he focused on what she said. The result was, he now wanted to know more about Jack Wingate.

  The image Benedict received from her did not match the one Society had painted: the victim of a heartless siren, a man destroyed by a fatal passion. Benedict had pictured a broken man living in lonely exile from the world to which he properly belonged.

  The Jack Wingate she spoke of sounded like a man who’d ended up where he truly belonged. His remarks about burying the treasure made him sound more like a Dreadful DeLucey than his widow did, in fact. Intrigued, Benedict wanted to probe.

  He was very good at probing subtly and manipulating others into imprudent speech. But that was strictly for political purposes. It was justified if used to promote worthy causes or to crush opponents. Employing such methods in a personal conversation was disgraceful.

  Prying into others’ private affairs is the preferred occupation of small minds.

  He certainly never meant to offer glimpses of his own private life. The trouble was, her nearness was a constant distraction and irritation, and the words spilled out before his irritated and distracted brain had properly examined them.

  This must be why, shortly after they’d passed Kensington House and a press of vehicles brought them to a standstill, he said, “I am deeply shocked. I had always believed that nursemaids put one to bed and told one bedtime stories. Fathers, on the other hand, want to know why you tied your little brother to a bedpost and cut off most of his hair with a penknife.”

  He’d hardly said the words before he wished he hadn’t. But he hadn’t time to fret. A space appeared in the solid mass of vehicles, and he quickly guided the curricle into and through it.

  Though focused on the maneuver, he felt her shift in the seat, turning toward him. He was as aware of her gaze on his face as if it had been her hand there . . . and he knew she hadn’t missed a word.

  “Why did you?” she said.

  “We were pretending we were in the American Colonies,” he said, striving for a tone of cool amusement. “I was a Red Indian chief.” He was always the Red Indian because he was the dark one. “Geoffrey was my English captive, and I scalped him.”

  She laughed, and the wicked, haunting sound almost made him smile.

  “You were not a perfect child,” she said.

  “By no means,” he said. He’d hated Geoffrey’s golden curls and golden eyes and angelically sweet countenance. “I should have scalped Alistair, too, if I could have got my hands on him. But he was safe with a nursemaid elsewhere.”

  She said nothing. He need say nothing, either, but, “The nurses called my brothers ‘little golden angels,’ ” he went on. “They were not angels by any stretch of the imagination, but they looked the part.”

  “You should have scalped the nurses, too,” she said. “For stupidity.”

  “I was a child, no more than eight or nine years old,” he said. “Geoffrey and Alistair were fair and I was dark. If they were golden angels, what was I?”

  “What else could you think?” she said feelingly. “In your place, I should have done exactly the same.”

  He glanced at her. “No, you would not.”

  “Because I am a female?” she said, eyebrows aloft.

  “Girls do not behave that way.”

  “How little you know my sex,” she said. “All children are little savages, even—or perhaps especially—girls.”

  “Not all children,” he said. “Not for long, at any rate. Certainly not when one is the eldest. As soon as the next child arrives, we have responsibilities. We are not quite children anymore. ‘You must take care of your brother, Benedict,’ they say. ‘He is smaller than you.’ Or, ‘You ought to know better, Benedict,’ they say. ‘You are the eldest.’ ”

  “Is that what your father said?”

  “More or less. I remember little of the lecture, except the end. He sighed and said he wished he had daughters.”

  “That was nothing more than parental exasperation,” she said. “Few men—and no noblemen—would wish to have daughters instead of sons.”

  “He meant it,” Benedict said. “He’s said it countless times since then.”

  “Still?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? You have all got past the trying stage. You are all grown up.”

  “Not to his satisfaction,” Benedict said.

  She turned fully in the seat to stare at him. “Even you? Lord Perfect?”

  “I am perfect by average standards,” Benedict said. “My father’s standards are not average. Nothing about my father is average. I am not sure anything about him is even human.” He added quickly, “At any rate, he did not tell bedtime stories. I was unaware parents did such a thing.”

  “Then it’s unlikely Jack’s parents did,” she said. “The Dreadful DeLuceys must have corrupted him.”

  “Not necessarily,” Benedict said. “You said he was rebellious. Maybe, like Peregrine, your husband wanted a different sort of life. Maybe it was in his nature to be unconventional.”

  And among the DeLuceys, Jack Wingate must have experienced the kind of freedom he could never have in respectable Society. He’d found a world without rules.

  “He had no trouble adapting, admittedly,” she said. “Still, Jack could distinguish between truth and fiction. I am not sure my relatives can. They spin brilliant tales, and perhaps their lies are so convincing because they believe them. I think it is the same for Olivia. That is the only way I can explain this mad quest of hers.”

  “She needs a governess,” he said—and cursed himself immediately the words were out. It was an idiotish thing to say. Why not suggest a pack of servants, while he was at it—and a house in the country, away from London and its pernicious influences?

  Face hot, he waited for a sarcastic comment from her regarding the obliviousness of the upper orders.

  “I could not agree more,” she said, startling him again as she too easily did. “That is next on the list. Miss Smithson runs a fine school but it is not the same. I had a governess. A dragon. Even Papa was afraid of her. But that was the idea. If she could not intimidate my father, she hadn’t a prayer of making an impression on me.”

  “Are you saying that you were not a properly behaved child, either?” he said.

  “From whom would I have learnt to behave properly?” she said.

  “You must have learnt from somebody,” he said. “You are a lady.”

  She turned away, facing forward once more, and folded her hands in her lap.

  “You are,” he said. “There is no question—and I am an expert on the subject.”

  “I had to be a lady,” she said tightly. “My mother had ambitions for me.”

  “Thus the dragon governess,” he said.

  “I admit I have ambitions for Olivia,” she said.

  “You aim to keep her from going to the devil,” he said, dodging a clumsily driven gig. “A noble ambition.”

  “You needn’t be tactful,” she said. “I can guess what you’re thinking.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. Even he wasn’t sure what he was thinking. He was aware of the busy road and of his impatience at the delay. He was aware of anxiety about Peregrine and Olivia, of time passing and night settling in. He was aware of the woman beside him, of warmth and physical nearness . . . and, perhaps more dangerous yet, of his fascination with her, with what she said and how her mind worked.

  Her mind! A woman’s mind!

  But there was no getting round it. He was too aware of the growing mental intimacy and too uneasy with it to pretend it wasn’t there. He was too aware of someth
ing in the air—or about the darkness—or about her—that lowered his guard and made him say things he would never dream of saying aloud to anybody, especially a woman.

  He was aware at the same time of a distance as vast as if an ocean rolled between them and of a rage almost like despair because he must not bridge the distance. Perhaps the rage worried him most.

  In any case, it was all too much. He couldn’t think because he needed order to think, and what he had at present was disorder, chaos.

  “My mother was determined to see me married into a noble family,” she said, voice still taut, body still rigid on the seat beside him. “I was to be the key that opened the doors of Society to the Dreadful DeLuceys.”

  Her tone and posture told him far more than her words what her mother’s ambition had cost her. She had been hurt—or shamed perhaps—and deeply so, else Bathsheba Wingate would have spoken with her usual droll wit. He wanted to know more . . . but Reason told him it was better not to know. He felt too much for her as it was.

  “All mothers want their daughters to marry up,” he said, making his voice light in hopes he could make the conversation become so, too. “They plot and scheme, and they are thoroughly unscrupulous.” He paused. “My father is, too, in that regard.”

  She started. “Your father?”

  “I know,” Benedict said. “It is shocking. But he does not confine his manipulations to politics. He has determined that all my brothers must marry wealthy wives—and so far, he’s had his way. Even with Rupert, whom he declared a hopeless case.”

  “And what about you?” she said.

  “Oh, I have always been excused from vulgar financial considerations,” he said. “I shall inherit everything.”

  The topic appeared to have diverted her from whatever deep unhappiness it was, for her posture eased a bit.

  “All the mothers must have pushed their daughters at you,” she said. “They must still do.”

  He shrugged. “I am not sure I was aware then of the mamas and chaperons scheming and plotting. It’s more obvious now, looking on from the outside. I had not thought about it, but it must be hard on the girls—at least those with a modicum of sensitivity or intelligence. Not that I was one to notice such subtleties at the time. I noticed their faces and figures first, then whether their voices were agreeable or not, then their deportment.”