The Lady's Deception

by Susanna Craig

  Too far from home for her to resist what he had planned?

  Quickly, she removed her nightgown, and slipped into the only dress she owned that did not require a corset or a maid’s assistance. She had been under her brother’s protection for most of her life. Or thought she had. Now, however, she was going to have to find a way to escape it.

  Once clad in an airy confection of muslin in the newest style, far more suited to a ballroom than the outing she was about to undertake, she closed the inlaid door of the wardrobe with a snap. The weight of a bag of fine dresses would only hinder her getaway.

  But where would she go? A sympathetic clergyman might be persuaded to take her in. Then again, perhaps it was only in novels that such gentlemen provided sanctuary to unfortunate women. She needed someone bold—or reckless—enough to challenge her brother over the matter of his guardianship. After all, she was nearly one and twenty, almost of an age to take responsibility for herself…though she hadn’t the slightest idea how to begin.

  So, a lawyer? But she had nothing to offer such a man as compensation for his services. Charles controlled the family purse strings.

  Well, she would have to find a way to do without money. If she could make her way to Dublin, surely someone would help her.

  In a fit of resolve, she strode to the window. The full moon had risen higher, casting a glow almost as bright as daylight. Far below on the lawn, all was quiet. She let her eyes roam over the stretch of velvety grass and peer into the shadows beneath the shrubbery. Nothing. Not even a tomcat on the prowl. What had she seen?

  A servant boy, or some child from the village. She must have imagined the resemblance. But when she tried to call up the unknown boy’s face, even her mind’s eye seemed determined to betray her. She could see only Alexander, or a child enough like him to be his—

  Nonsense. Alexander’s only sibling was Eugenia. And Rosamund did not intend to be party to any arrangement that might give him another.

  Stretching out her arm, she caught the shutter, jerked it inward, and latched it tight, throwing the chamber into darkness.

  Chapter 2

  At the knelling of church bells, Paris Burke swore—blasphemy, no doubt, but what did it matter? He was damned already.

  He paused in his descent from Constitution Hill to shake the sound from his head. The call to Evensong at Christchurch? Surely not. The waters of the Liffey must be making the bells echo, doubling their peals. It could not possibly be as late as…

  He pulled his watch from his waistcoat pocket, tilted its face toward the fading sunlight, and at its confirmation of the hour, swore again.

  During the years of his life when he might have offered ample excuses for running late—the combined and sometimes competing demands of the law and his hopes for Ireland’s liberation—only once had he failed to keep an assignation. The disastrous effects of that mistake would haunt him for the rest of his days. Fortunately, the consequences of missing an appointment with Mrs. Fitzhugh were not so dire. Nonetheless, he regretted what it revealed about the kind of man he’d become.

  Tucking the watch away, he glanced over his shoulder in the direction of King’s Inns—not with longing, precisely. Oh, the dinner in the commons had been good enough, and the wine had flowed freely. Time was, the company alone would have been enough to call him back. The brotherhood of jurisprudence. The discussions, the debates.

  Tonight, though, he had felt certain absences too strongly. The faces that could no longer join them. The voices that would never be heard again. No matter how many times he had signaled for his cup to be filled, their ghostly shadows had refused to be dispelled.

  For the first time, he was not sorry he’d been forced to give up his lodgings closer to the courts. The walk across the city would help to clear his head. And give him time to concoct some explanation for his lateness, though whatever he produced would do little to blunt the disappointment with which he was bound to be greeted.

  He took another half-dozen strides, rounding the corner of Church Street to pass in front of the Four Courts. The last of the daylight cast a jagged chiaroscuro across the ground, the building itself too new for its shadows to have grown familiar to his eyes. From the gloom, something slipped into his path. What sort of claret had they been pouring, that it continued to conjure these spectral apparitions, this one with pale hair and paler skin? He swore a third time.

  “You ought to mind your tongue in the presence of a lady,” the wraith said primly, stepping into the light and resolving itself into the perfectly ordinary figure of a blonde woman wearing a pelisse the color of Portland stone.

  No, not perfectly ordinary. Perfectly ordinary women did not materialize on the King’s Inns Quay. They did not have hair the color of summer butter, spilling from beneath a ridiculous frippery of a hat that looked a little worse for wear. Nor did they have eyes the color of—well, no sea he had ever had the pleasure to know. With another shake of his head, he stepped closer, finding himself in need of the support of hewn granite.

  “I’m looking for someone,” she said, warily watching his every move. Her brows knitted themselves into a tight frown. “A lawyer. You see, I—”

  “You’re English.” Part observation, part accusation. She wasn’t the first beautiful woman his fancy had invented, but never before had his imagination betrayed his politics so thoroughly.

  “I’m Miss Gorse,” she replied, as if that decided the matter.

  Oddly enough, it did. Because only a real woman could have such a prickly name. And such a prickly voice. Which, heaven help him, was still speaking.

  “—and his two children—”

  Damn it all. His sisters. He’d promised them, when the last interview had turned up no likely candidate, that Mrs. Fitzhugh would surely know of someone suitable. And now he’d have to confess that he’d—

  A tongue of wind licked along the river, rippling the water before gusting up the face of the imposing edifice in whose shelter they stood. He pushed himself up a little straighter, bolstered as much by the cool air as by the cornerstone’s sharp edge where it fitted neatly along the groove of his spine.

  Two children… Was it possible? He’d understood the meeting with Mrs. Fitzhugh to be preliminary, but perhaps she had not waited to speak with him before deciding on the right person for the job.

  “You’re looking for a lawyer, you say?”

  Her mouth, already forming other words, hung open a moment before shaping an answer to his question. “Yes. I thought—”

  “Mrs. Fitzhugh sent you to find Mr. Burke at King’s Inns, I gather.”

  “Er—”

  “Well, you’ve found him. I’m Paris Burke. Barrister. Of course, you’ll really be in my father’s employ. A man without children isn’t likely to need a governess, now is he?” His wry laugh ricocheted off the stone walls, startling a flock of drowsy rooks who cawed their disapproval.

  Her lips were parted once again, but this time no words came. She was watching him with wide eyes that did not narrow, even when she at last closed her mouth and jerked her head in some uncertain motion, neither disagreement nor agreement.

  “My sisters will be delighted to meet you, Miss Gorse. I am surprised, though, that Mrs. Fitzhugh didn’t send you directly to Merrion Square.”

  “I don’t—” She paused, wetted her lips, and appeared to weigh her reply before beginning again. “Is it far?”

  “No more than a mile. An English mile, to be precise,” he added, curving his mouth into a sort of smile. He would not have guessed that Mrs. Fitzhugh had a sense of humor. To send him, of all people, an Englishwoman… “At least we’ve a fine night for a stroll.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she dipped her head in a nod. “Indeed, Mr. Burke. I had no thought this morning that the day would take a turn for the better.”

  “Ah, well. It mightn’t’ve, you know.” Turning, he se
t off along the quayside. “An Irish spring is not to be predicted.”

  “This is my first,” she said. “My first Irish spring, that is.”

  Last spring, then, she’d been elsewhere. In England, presumably. Far from the turmoil that had enveloped Dublin and the surrounding countryside. Far from the rebellion that had taken the lives of so many. And for what? For naught, for naught…

  The warm glow of the claret guttered like a candle, struggling to withstand the damp, clammy mist rising from the Liffey. He had not realized he had lengthened his stride until he heard the sounds of someone struggling to keep up.

  “Mr. Burke?” She had one hand pressed to her side and a hitch in her gait. “I wonder if we might walk a bit more slowly.”

  When she reached his side, he held out his free arm and she took it, not with the perfunctory brush of her fingertips, but with her whole hand, leaning heavily against him. Odd. She was petite, but she didn’t look frail. “Shall I hail a sedan chair, Miss Gorse?” Though truthfully, this was an unlikely spot to hail anything but trouble. And the more he thought of Mrs. Fitzhugh directing a woman to meet him here, in this fashion, the less he liked it. Why, he might have been detained at commons for hours, and she left alone as darkness fell…

  Her touch lightened as she bristled. “I can walk.” Her step was almost brisk as they crossed the Carlisle Bridge. “So you’re in need of a governess?”

  “For my sisters. Daphne and Bellis. Aged ten and eight, respectively. You’ll find them as ignorant as most girls their age, I daresay.”

  She drew back her shoulders at that description. “Their previous governess was not firm enough with them?”

  “I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but they haven’t any previous governess. They are the youngest of the six of us and shockingly spoiled. My father in particular has always been prone to indulgence where they were concerned.”

  Some emotion—he hesitated to call it disapproval—sketched across her face. “Then whatever made him decide to hire a governess now?”

  “He knows nothing of the matter, Miss Gorse.”

  Those words brought her up short. “Will he not be angry that you hired someone to teach his daughters without reference to his authority?”

  He very nearly smiled at such an image of his father. “My parents are in London until the summer. After they left, I determined it would be best if I hired a temporary governess for the girls. I did not expect it would be so difficult.”

  A group of young men, Trinity students, passed in a noisy gaggle and were gone. Beneath the high walls surrounding the college, the evening shadows were deeper still. But not too deep for him to read a question in her eyes. A question for which he had never yet determined a satisfactory answer.

  He’d already done a masterful job of proving himself unequal to the responsibilities of an eldest son and brother. Why in God’s name had his parents entrusted him with the care of two young girls?

  “Not much farther now,” he said brusquely. Obligingly, Miss Gorse resumed walking, though her pace had slowed and she was limping noticeably now. But she made no complaint, and he had the distinct impression she would not thank him for enquiring about it.

  To cover the sound of her shuffling, irregular footsteps, he passed the last quarter mile regaling her with stories about the girls: Daphne’s interest in learning the harp, which he attributed to their eldest sister Cami’s unfortunate book—although he omitted that particular detail from his account. And Bell’s fondness for a game of cricket, in which both he and their brother Galen had been wont to indulge her.

  On the north side of Merrion Square, he stopped. “And here we are.”

  She climbed the steps of Number 3 as if they were mountains, tottering a bit at the end while he fished for his key and opened the door to let them in. It hardly seemed possible for two girls, both slight of build, to make as much noise as Daphne and Bell as they thundered down the stairs from the drawing room to greet them on the landing.

  “Did you see Mrs. Fitzhugh?” demanded Bell.

  At the same time, Daphne asked, “Is she our new governe—?”

  Miss Gorse looked from one to the other, gave a wan smile, and collapsed on the floor.

  Bell’s eyes grew round and her lower lip quavered. “I didn’t mean to frighten her to death, Paris. Honest I didn’t.”

  “She isn’t dead, eejit,” Daphne declared, nudging her younger sister with an elbow.

  “Silence.”

  Years of training had given Paris exceptional control over his voice. It could command a crowd. It could compel a confession in the courtroom. But never in all his life had it actually managed to quiet his youngest sisters.

  They were both staring at him now, wide-eyed and wobbly-lipped, and he knew in another moment there would be tears. Oh God, anything but tears.

  “She’s just fainted. Bell, run downstairs and ask Molly to make us a pot of tea, will you?” Bellis nodded. With one backward glance at the woman at his feet, she was gone. “And Daphne? If you could…” Could what? The clarity that had come with the cool evening air had flown, and the lingering fumes of claret in his brain showed very little interest in forming themselves into a coherent request. He knelt beside Miss Gorse, who was deathly pale and breathing shallowly.

  “I’ll see if I can find a vinaigrette,” Daphne offered.

  “Yes. Thank you. And I’ll take Miss Gorse upstairs.” Because he couldn’t very well leave her in a heap in the foyer, though if this was the sort of weak-spirited person Mrs. Fitzhugh recommended for a post as governess to two energetic girls…

  He slipped his hands beneath her and rose, expecting to be pulled off balance beneath her weight. But she was no burden at all. Tucking her against his chest, he ascended the stairs, thinking first of the sofa in the drawing room, then bypassing it in favor of a proper bed in a chamber one floor up, the room that Cami and Erica had once shared. As he laid her atop the coverlet, she stirred and murmured but did not wake. His fingers fumbled to unpin her hat. More golden locks sprang free, tumbling over the pillow and across her brow. He brushed them carefully from her eyes. She wasn’t feverish, at least. Pray God, it was nothing contagious that had caused her to faint dead away. Perhaps he ought to send Molly for the physician who lived across the square.

  He turned his attention next to unbuttoning her gray pelisse with swift, businesslike motions. Then his hands traveled to hers, tugging free her gloves. Her fingers were icy cold, but he paused to note with relief the steady drum of her pulse in one fine-boned wrist. At last, he removed her shoes and found that her hems were damp, stained with grass and fresh mud. The shoes themselves were shockingly worn down. On the sole of one was a hole the size of a three shilling piece. No wonder she had limped! It looked as if she’d walked considerably farther today than the distance from Four Courts to Merrion Square.

  Where had she come from? Far enough away that she could have collapsed from the fatigue of her journey? Surely Mrs. Fitzhugh must have known he was more than capable of paying for suitable transportation.

  In the bottom of the wardrobe he found a blanket and laid it over her supine form. When Daphne returned holding out a vinaigrette, he shook his head. “I think perhaps we’d best let her rest.” Already, some color was coming back into the woman’s face.

  “But what about her dress?” Daphne’s cheeks pinked. “And her—her…stays?” The last word escaped in an embarrassed whisper.

  His arms retained a memory of the young woman’s soft curves. “She isn’t wearing any, Daph.”

  Before his too-precocious sister could ask how he knew, he waved her from the room, pausing on the threshold for one last look.

  She put him in mind of the princess in some fairy tale, imprisoned by a wicked spell. In repose, her expression had lost its wariness, its prickliness, and he realized for the first time how young she was. Barely twenty, if he h
ad to guess. Hardly the woman of experience he’d requested.

  Silently, he closed the door behind them. The mystery of Miss Gorse would have to wait until morning.

  Chapter 3

  Noises woke her. The sibilance of children’s whispered voices. Likely Eugenia and Alexander plotting just outside her door, though Rosamund could muster very little curiosity about what they were saying. Last night’s escapade had caused trouble enou—

  She squeezed her eyelids more tightly shut, as if her sight might betray her. But her other senses were quick to muster reassurance. She had indeed escaped Kilready and marriage to Lord Dashfort. Instead of damp stone walls and musty tapestries, she was surrounded now by scents of dried lavender and laundry starch and… Good heavens, was that a whiff of farmyard?

  Despite the soft surface on which she now lay, her muscles’ assorted twinges and aches pushed her to recall yesterday’s uncomfortable adventure. The dark, dreary walk from the castle to the village and beyond. Begging a passing farmer to take pity on her. The jouncing, jostling ride in his cart, seated atop a sack of grain, holding a pair of chickens and fending off the advances of a persistent nanny goat that had taken a fancy to her chip bonnet. Another long walk from Dublin’s outskirts into the city proper, through unfamiliar streets, amid unfamiliar faces, her destination uncertain. Pain in her feet, her legs, her head…

  More wisps of memory floated through her mind, thinner now than high clouds on a summer’s day. She’d found herself in the shadows of some hulking building near the river. She’d met…a man. A handsome, dark-haired man. Too handsome to be trusted. But in an extraordinary turn of events, Mr.—Burke, wasn’t it?—had claimed to be a lawyer. He’d also clearly been expecting someone. A woman. And she’d…oh, had she really let him imagine she was the one he sought? Had she foolishly accompanied him to his home? And had she—had she fainted?