Lady Whistledown Strikes Back

by Julia Quinn

“The house is in my name,” Max said imperturbably.

  “Oh.” John rubbed his chin. Finally, he said, “Soph, I think he has you there.”

  She stiffened. “How can you side with him?”

  “I’m not siding with anyone. He owns the house, therefore it makes sense he must have a key.”

  “While I’m in it?”

  He looked at Max with a narrow gaze. “Will you use it?”

  “Only if she invites me.”

  John looked at Max a bit longer, then seemed satisfied at last by the serious expression in Max’s eyes. “Sophia, he promises not to use it. And he’s a man of his word, as we all know.”

  She flared a look at Max guaranteed to scorch his stockings, then tugged on her hand. “Blast you! Just keep the key. I shall have the locks changed in the morning.”

  “And I shall make use of any window with a loose latch, should I wish to visit.”

  “You said you’d ask first!”

  “That was if I had the key,” he said with a smug smile. “If I don’t, then any window will do.”

  “Try it and you will be shot. I shall arm all of my servants.”

  “Balderdash,” John said. He took a large plush chair near the tea tray, sitting in a full slouch and crossing his legs at the ankle. “You have said a thousand times that you don’t believe in having weapons—said they cause more harm than good.”

  She shot him a dagger glance, wishing Max would release her hand so she could box her brother’s ears. “Did anyone invite you into this conversation?”

  “Actually, yes. You did when you asked me—”

  “Don’t make me sorry for it, then.” She turned to Max. “I offered to trade you the key for the diary.”

  “I named my price.”

  “Price?” John asked.

  Sophia sent him a baleful glare. “Max makes no sense. If that diary leaks out, his family name will be the topic of conversation in every salon and sitting room in town.”

  Max shrugged. “That will be nothing new.”

  “Then why did you return to England if not to get the diary?”

  “I returned because you asked me to.”

  She looked at him, too startled to even speak for a moment. “That’s all it would have taken.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh!” She stomped her foot, tugging even harder on her hand. “I hate that!”

  Max’s brow lowered. “You hate what?”

  “How you’ve made it all my fault! Not only did you leave because of me, but now, you return because of me! Maxwell, you are—you are—” She snapped her mouth together, took a deep breath, then burst out, “You are a beast!” She yanked her hand free, jumped up, and marched from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Max looked at the door in astonishment. All he’d done was tell the truth.

  “Whew!” John said, sitting forward to peer into the half empty tea tray.

  “Your sister is stubborn to an inch.”

  John picked up a tea cake and munched it thoughtfully. “Two of a kind, I’d say. You’re not known for your mild manner, yourself.”

  Max’s face flashed darkly, but then he caught himself. “I daresay you are right. Sophia and I are not known for our level temperaments, even under the best of circumstances.”

  “No,” John said. He poked another tea cake and scrunched his nose. “Raspberry. Never could abide that.”

  Max glanced at John from beneath his brows. “I didn’t come here to upset her.”

  “I know. Sophia’s just a bit touchy when you’re about. She has no sense, which is why I’m worried about her chasing after that damned bracelet.”

  “Chasing?”

  “She wants to catch the thief and clear your name.”

  “Bloody hell! Who asked her to do that?” Of all the impulsive, quitoxic, Sophia-like things to do…how like her.

  “No one. I think she’s just trying to make reparations.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “It is to Sophia.” John sighed and rested the tips of his finger on the folded piece of paper that rested beside Sophia’s abandoned teacup. He fingered the edge thoughtfully. “This is her list of suspects. I fear she could end up in a hell of a situation if she might be right and one of them did indeed steal that bracelet.”

  Max muttered an oath. “She’s an impetuous fool.”

  “Indeed,” John said, leaving the list to pick up a crustless sandwich hardly larger than his small finger. He eyed the morsel uncertainly, sniffing at the edge.

  Max raked a hand through his hair. “Even if there is no danger, she is likely to start a new scandal while trying to put a cap on this one.”

  “Exactly so,” John said cheerfully. He popped the sandwich in his mouth and smiled. “Plum jam!”

  Max’s gaze fixed on the paper that lay on the table. “I suppose I should keep an eye on her.”

  “Someone should.” John casually picked up the paper. “Let’s see…Lord Alberton, Lord Rowe, Mrs. Warehorse, Lady Markland, and Lady Neeley’s nephew, Mr. Henry Brooks.”

  “Henry Brooks? But Lady Neeley had him searched at the dinner.”

  “Sophia seems to think that something might have been missed. I’m glad you’re going to be there for m’sister, Easterly. Don’t like her out there, wandering around and asking awkward questions.”

  Max pinned him with a sharp look. John gestured with his sandwich. “I’d do it myself, you know, but I’m very busy just now. I accepted a challenge at whist with Comte du Lac. Can’t let the old gent down, so I thought I should brush up on my game in the interim. So it’s whist, whist, whist for the next two weeks, at least. In fact, I should leave now.” John finished his sandwich and then ran a finger over the empty plate, sighing regretfully when the last dab of jelly was removed. “Well! I suppose I must go. Nothing else to be done here.” He stood and patted his stomach. “I love tea.”

  Max shook his head. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “You should be glad for that.”

  “I am,” Max said promptly. He went to the door and held it wide. “Shall we retreat, Standwick? With this weather, Sophia should be safe here for a while. Besides, I’ve a feeling we’ll be more welcome at White’s. I’ll even treat you to a nice rack of lamb, if there’s one available.”

  John’s eyes brightened. “Lamb? You don’t need to ask twice.” He ambled out the door, humming a happy tune.

  Max followed John out the door, wishing Sophia would be as amenable. But somehow he could not see her changing her mind so easily, and only for a rack of lamb, at that. He’d have to discover what it was that she needed from him in order to open her heart once more. And once he did find that secret key, he’d never let the door close again.

  Chapter 5

  The Easterly drama continues. By all accounts, Lord Easterly was chasing his wife down Bond Street Saturday morning. And if that weren’t cause enough for comment, Lady Easterly was dragging Mrs. Warehorse the entire way.

  Although Lady Easterly and Mrs. Warehorse have not been known as close friends, the viscountess was clutching the widow’s hand as if her very life depended on their reaching their destination together and in one piece.

  Alas, the latter was not to be. Lady Easterly pulled Mrs. Warehorse along at such a speedy clip that the older lady lost her shoe directly in front of Prother & Co.

  Perhaps the good milliners would see their way to constructing for her a matching bonnet?

  LADY WHISTLEDOWN’S SOCIETY PAPERS, 3 JUNE 1816

  It took Sophia a good bit of time to arrange a chance meeting with Lord Alberton. He was at a hot air balloon launching, sitting in his curricle in a field crowded with spectators. Sophia instructed her coachman to pull up beside his carriage so that she could lean out the window and speak to him, all under the guise of watching the launch. Alberton seemed pleased for the company, expounding on his life with little prompting.

  To her chagrin, Sophia soon discovered that Alberton had benefited from t
he same flash of good luck that had blessed Lord Rowe. “The horse’s name was Cold Hearted Loser,” Alberton said with a beatific smile. “As Rowe and I decided, how could it lose?”

  Unable to follow this rather convoluted logic, Sophia merely nodded and smiled, all the while gritting her teeth in frustration. The conversation then turned to ballooning, and Sophia learned far more than she wished on the subject. She was inordinately glad when a companion of Lord Alberton’s pulled in on the other side of him and she was spared more explanation.

  Feeling a little dejected, she was still sitting in her coach, watching out the window as a particularly large balloon was being filled, when a curricle pulled up beside her. Sophia knew before she turned and looked that it was Max. It had to be—no one else had the power to make her body perk to such awareness.

  She steeled herself before tossing a glance in his direction.

  Max touched his hat, the brim throwing a shadow over his eyes. “Good afternoon.”

  Sophia nodded coolly, though her stomach tightened into a hot knot. She’d seen neither hide nor hair of the wretch since he’d held her hand imprisoned. She noted irritably that he was dressed in the peak of fashion, his multicaped greatcoat obviously cut by a master hand, his cravat showing at his throat, expertly tied and adorned with a sapphire cravat pin. It surprised her that he could wear it so well. The Max of her youth, though always impeccably neat, had never been one to bother with fashion.

  But this Max, leaner and edgier, the one with the shadowed eyes and the hard smile, this Max was one she didn’t seem to know at all. To cover her uncertainty, she said in as cool a tone as she could muster, “How are you?”

  Max’s brows rose. “How do you do that?”

  She shot him a suspicious glance. “How do I do what?”

  “Ask commonplace questions in that go-to-hell voice. Makes me feel as if I should answer, ‘Fine, except for this horrid pain in my chest. Not sure I’ll last the day.’”

  She sniffed. “That wouldn’t please me at all.”

  “No?”

  “No. Your curricle is in the way. If something were to happen to you at this moment, I could be stuck until someone moved it.”

  Max sighed and looked up at the heavens. “See what I must contend with? Is it any wonder I eschewed painting people for such a length of time?”

  That caught her interest. “People? When did you start doing portraits?”

  He shrugged and glanced past her at the balloon that lay in the field, slowly growing in girth as it filled. “Twelve years ago.”

  She wanted to ask more, but couldn’t think of a way to do it without appearing far more interested in his life than she should be. “I didn’t know you enjoyed this sort of spectacle.”

  “I don’t. I just came to see you. Why did you come?”

  It was just as she’d suspected: Jacobs must have told Max where she was. Sophia would have a sharp word for her butler when she returned home. “If you must know, I came to speak with Lord Alberton.”

  Max looked past her to Alberton, who was engaged in an energetic conversation with the man in the coach on the other side. “A bit old for you, isn’t he?”

  “I didn’t wish to speak with him about anything of a personal nature. I wanted to ask him—” She caught herself just in time, glancing at Max from beneath her lashes.

  “Ask him what?” His voice was rich and deep, like the clover honey her father used to cultivate when she was a child.

  It enticed her to relent, to confess all. She bit her lip, regarding him for a long moment. God knew she could use all of the help she could get. And wasn’t she doing all of this for him? Well, partly because of him, anyway. If she was honest, there was something appealing about doing something with Max. Not as a couple, of course—they could never be that again. But as partners. Yes, that’s what they would be, partners. Good, friendly partners. “I am trying to discover who took the bracelet from Lady Neeley’s. It’s the only way to keep her from bespoiling your good name.”

  Max sighed. “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”

  That wasn’t the reaction she’d expected. “I am helping you.”

  “That is a matter of opinion,” he replied ruthlessly.

  “Someone has to act since you will not,” she replied hotly, her hands curling into fists. He was so stubborn! “I cannot sit tamely by while others mock you.”

  “Why do you care?” The question hung in the air like the crack of a pistol shot.

  Sophia wet her lips. “I didn’t say I did.”

  “You must, or you wouldn’t be doing this.”

  “I—” Her voice lodged in her throat, wrapped around a jumble of thoughts, none coherent enough to utter aloud. Oh, blast it! Why did she get so muddled just talking to Max? It was silly. She never felt this way with anyone else—all nervous, her tongue unwieldy, her mind fuzzed with chaotic thoughts and memories, her heart thudding as if she’d been running. Not a single male of her acquaintance had this power over her, not even Thomas—She paused. She hadn’t thought about Riddleton at all, not even once, since the night of the Hargreaves’ Grand Ball. How strange. Of course, she’d known he’d be out of town for some time; he went to his mother’s every year at this time and always stayed at least a month, sometimes more. She’d just thought that she’d miss him, since they’d been together so often in the months before he’d left.

  Max eyed her with a resigned air. “Who else do you suspect, besides poor Lord Alberton? The prince, perhaps? Or Wellington?”

  “Neither the prince nor Wellington were at Lady Neeley’s dinner.” Sophia glanced over her shoulder at Alberton, who was still deep in conversation with his other neighbor. “And it is not poor Lord Alberton. He and Lord Rowe just made a fortune off the races. Other than that, they were both good suspects.”

  Max raised his brows. “Who else is on your list?”

  “Lady Markland.”

  “Can’t be,” Max said promptly. “I sat beside Lady Markland at Lady Neeley’s dinner and she told me three times that her brother had just died. She inherited a rather large and bulky estate in the Americas. Seems to expect a good income from the lot.”

  Blast it. That left only one name on her list—Mr. Henry Brooks. Sophia bit her lip, and her brow lowered as she considered the possibility. What if Lady Neeley’s first instincts were right when she’d ordered her own nephew searched at her table? He was a notorious spendthrift, and everyone knew he’d been living off his aunt’s grudging bounty for years. Added to that, there was something about him that Sophia didn’t trust…. She wasn’t sure if it was his rather protuberant eyes or his weak chin. Whatever it was, he bore watching. She had to find that silly bracelet, even if she had to follow Lady Neeley’s nephew to the pits of hell.

  Which was, unfortunately, where he tended to reside. Brooks was a well-known figure at any number of disreputable gaming hells. She pursed her lips and glanced under her lashes at Max. She supposed that if she had to, she could find someone to escort her to a gambling den. Certainly John would never do so, but Max had never been as prudish as—

  “I don’t like that look,” Max said abruptly, leaning back in his seat and crossing his arms, his silvered eyes narrow. “What trouble are you brewing now, I wonder.”

  A normal man would have instantly offered to assist her in whatever way he could. Of course, “normal” was not a word one applied to the large, muscular behemoth beside her. Max was many, many things, but using a word as mundane as “normal” around him seemed a sacrilege of some sort. A misstatement, rather like calling a sleek, powerful lion a “rather small, fluffy kitten.” She sighed. “I have only one name left on my list.”

  “Henry Brooks.”

  “Why—yes. How did you know?”

  He shrugged. “Who else could it be?”

  That was true. There simply were not a lot of suspects. “I must speak with him, but he is not usually found in locales I frequent. I’ve heard he is rather fond of gaming hells.�
��

  “Yes, he is,” Max said without hesitation. “And no, I will not escort you to one.”

  There were definite liabilities to speaking with someone who knew one Too Well. Sophia sent Max a dagger glance. “How else am I to interview him? He goes to very few acceptable events, unless forced by his aunt.”

  “Maybe Lady Neeley will invite you to another dinner.”

  Sophia remembered her interview with Lady Neeley. “I doubt that will happen.”

  Max’s lips twitched. “Burned your bridges, did you?”

  “No, I did not. It’s just that I have no wish to associate with people who toss out accusations without the slightest bit of evidence to back their claims.”

  “Hm.” Max gathered the reins. “Tell your coachman to go home. You are coming with me.”

  Her heart thudded against her third rib. “I am?”

  “Brooks is expected at the Tewkesberry Musicale this evening. If we leave now, I should be able to get you home to change into a more suitable gown, and then we can go on to the musicale.”

  “How do you know all this?” she asked, astonished.

  Max gave her a mysterious smile. “What does it matter? We have to hurry, though. The musicale is over at eight, since some of the party are going on to Lady Norton’s ball.”

  Sophia considered this. It was too good an offer to refuse. “Why can’t I have my coachman take me home? You will need to change as well.”

  “Yes, but I can make twice the time in the curricle. Besides, I am dressed.” He undid the top button of his greatcoat and gave her a glimpse of his black evening coat.

  Suspicion darkened her eyes. “You already knew who was on my list! Did John—”

  “If you don’t wish to go, then don’t,” Max said promptly. “Good luck finding Brooks and in locating an escort to take you to a gaming hell. A word of warning, though; do not drink the sherry. It’s far inferior to what you are used to and will make you tipsy in an instant. Oh, and I would not wear many jewels, either. Gaming hells are not located in the best part of town, and there are thieves on every corner.”

  She regarded him with a flat stare. “And perhaps a wild boar might be residing in that part of the city. Or horrid, unwashed gypsies could come and bear me off, as well.”