by Lucy Ashford
‘Minions,’ she whispered.
‘I’ll set my investigators to continue watching the premises, in case he is indeed about to vanish.’
‘Would you be able to stop him?’
‘I would prefer this business of the jewels to be kept absolutely quiet, as you know. But, yes, I would take drastic action if necessary.’ He leaned his hands momentarily on the windowsill, then turned back to face her, his hard features accentuated by the light. ‘Meanwhile, we’ll assume that Newman meant what he said when he told you that he would have them for you in a week or so. I’m afraid the bad news is that your stay in London will have to be a little longer than either of us wanted—which will open us up to the likelihood of even more visits from Paulette’s former acquaintances than I’d anticipated. Though perhaps that’s not too bad a thing; you’ll be able to take the opportunity to consolidate your presence here as my brother’s widow. I hope you can tolerate staying until Newman contacts you again.’
She held her head high. ‘Much as I dislike it, your Grace, we have a bargain.’
He strolled towards her, his face expressionless. He cupped her chin suddenly, forcing her to meet his gaze, and his touch seared her. He couldn’t know what his nearness did to her—could he? But she was unable to hide the way the warmth flooded her cheeks at his merest touch, nor could she hide the fluttering of her pulse that left her shaking and breathless.
‘You cannot possibly dislike all this as much as I do, Miss O’Hara,’ he told her softly.
As soon as he’d left the room, Deb let out her breath in a small, shuddering sigh and sank into a chair, feeling utterly distraught.
* * *
Beau went to his library, where he sat at his desk, pushing the day’s mail aside, trying to gather his thoughts. He felt relief that Newman still appeared to have the jewels, somewhere, but he didn’t understand the delay. He had expected the man to hurry to retrieve them for Lady Simon. To be anxious to please, and eager for a monetary reward.
What troubled Beau even more, though, was that he just couldn’t stop thinking about Deborah O’Hara, Couldn’t stop hearing her voice as she said, Much as I dislike it, your Grace, we have a bargain.
He ran his hands through his hair, then pressed his palms to his eyes. He had to do this, for his family’s sake. He had to get the jewels back quietly, for his family’s honour; though sometimes, if the truth be told, he wished the damned things at the bottom of the ocean. Or the lake at Brandon Abbey. He pictured Miss O’Hara’s lovely eyes opening very wide indeed if she were to learn that.
She would end up hating him, and he couldn’t blame her. It shouldn’t matter, that she hated him—but it did. Too much.
* * *
Over the next few days Deb became as familiar with the routine at the Duke’s London house as she’d been with that at Brandon Abbey. But she still made mistakes, and the Duke never failed to notice them.
‘You are proud,’ the Duke reminded her whenever he caught her putting away an item that should have been left for a housemaid, or thanking a footman for some small service he’d performed. ‘You are haughty, and conscious always of your own importance. Tidying up after yourself is a servant’s work. Paulette would never do it.’
She saw too much of him, she thought distractedly. As his sister-in-law, she had to eat with him, of course, at meal-times in the vast dining room, and she was expected to sit with him in the evenings in the drawing room, where she would pretend to read a novel—he had reminded her that Paulette had liked romantic fiction, in a tone that indicated what he thought of her tastes.
His presence disturbed her. She could not help being aware of his physical charisma—he was, after all, the Dangerous Duke, who left beauteous mistresses with broken hearts scattered in his wake—although these days he showed nothing but apparent indifference to her. Often she retreated early to her room, where she continued to study Paulette’s diaries.
She’d skimmed them rapidly the day before they left St Alban’s, but now she read them more thoroughly, absorbing Paulette’s breathless accounts of her London Season last year; her descriptions of the daily parties she’d attended, the clothes she wore, and the people she met. But nothing else affected Deb quite as much as that single, moving sentence: I love him so much that it hurts.
She gazed out of her bedroom window, seeing how the summer-flowering shrubs in the back garden shimmered slightly in the twilight.
Why had Paulette left her husband? How had it all gone so terribly wrong?
* * *
The fact that Bethany knew nothing of Paulette or her past made the little maid the only person in that vast house with whom Deb felt in any way comfortable. Indeed, Deb found a kind of solace in the daily routines Bethany was so eager to organise, and grew to enjoy the warm baths, the luxury of having her hair washed and brushed, even the unchanging predictability of the clothes that Bethany laid out for her.
The clothes were, of course, all in relentless black. There were gowns for the morning, gowns for the afternoon, gowns for dinner and gowns for visiting hours, because the Duke had been quite right about the attention she would attract. Indeed, as news of her arrival spread, people came to call every afternoon, one after the other, although at first the Duke would not let them meet her.
‘Lady Simon is extremely tired,’ she would hear him say calmly out in the hallway while the visitors—mostly female—expressed their regrets.
‘Your Grace,’ she heard them say, ‘if there is anything at all we can do for your poor sister-in-law...’
‘She will be glad of your company soon, though not just at present. I’m sure you will understand, and sympathise.’
But he showed no sympathy to her. If anything, he appeared to distance himself from her more each day. One evening after dinner, when she’d endured an almost silent meal while the footmen served course after course, she told him calmly that she was going to her room.
He told her, equally calmly, that she was not, but she was coming with him to the drawing room, so he could remind her how she was supposed to behave.
‘How I’m—’ she’d exploded.
‘Please don’t give way to your emotions in front of the servants. Come with me.’
She followed him, and wished she hadn’t.
‘Sometimes you clump around,’ he told her after closing the door sharply, ‘as if you’re still wearing the scruffy breeches and jacket you wore when I first laid eyes on you. You’re meant to be wealthy and elegant, even if you are in mourning. You must remember that rich people live differently.’
‘In which case, I’m very glad that I’m poor,’ Deb murmured fervently.
‘Did you say something, Miss O’Hara?’ His voice was icily, dangerously polite.
‘Nothing of any importance whatsoever, your Grace,’ she replied.
His eyes raked her slowly. He was wearing a formal tailcoat that hugged his muscular frame, and a white cravat in which sat a single diamond pin. No wonder women almost fell at his feet, Deb thought helplessly, turning her attention instead to the small glass of port he’d handed her. She hated port even more than sherry, but that was the least of her troubles—the main problem was that the Duke was, quite simply, the most compelling person she’d ever met. There was a brooding, intensely masculine quality to him which set him apart from any other man, and he knew it.
She sipped the port, finding it rich and sickly, and for some reason her hand was so unsteady that the glass rattled against her teeth.
He took the glass from her, put it to one side and leaned closer. ‘You know, of course, that in general, you’re learning to play Paulette very well.’
She caught her breath. ‘I’m glad to hear it—your Grace.’
‘Are you?’ he asked softly. ‘Is—this intentional?’ And calmly he reached out to adjust the black stole she wore to
hide the low neckline of her gown. It had slipped, she realised in utter dismay. It had slipped—and he thought she’d done it deliberately.
She jumped away from his touch as if it burned her. She wanted then, more than anything, to tell him the truth about those hateful books. She even moistened her throat and opened her mouth to say, They weren’t mine. They were Palfreyman’s. But the words died on her lips.
Now it seemed so very late to tell him the truth. Too late. Would he even believe her? And...wasn’t he right, to think her weak and sluttish? Wasn’t she a whore at heart, to react as she did to his kisses?
‘Was there something you wanted to say, Miss O’Hara?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Absolutely nothing.’
He turned and left the room, leaving her standing there. He was maddening, he was hateful—and she was trapped. Trapped.
* * *
Time and time again he did that to her, winding up her emotions to breaking point; then, when she’d finally had enough and was about to erupt, he would walk away, leaving her shaking, and filled with the longing to run after him, and—what? What, Deb, you fool?
Insult him? Slap him? No. She didn’t want to do any of those.
What she really wanted, what she longed for, was for this man to pull her into his arms and kiss her.
She had to be losing her mind. She was spending too much time alone, she told herself, and she hated being alone; she was used to being amongst her friends, the Lambeth Players, sharing fun and hardships with them. She hadn’t realised until now how truly rich her life was. She wished she could be with them again if only for a short while, but she had given the Duke her word, and his power over her was complete.
Her helplessness was, Deb told herself urgently, the only reason why everything around her seemed to suddenly change whenever the Duke came in. His overbearing manner had to be the sole reason why she awaited his visits with a kind of tension that made her pulse pound and her heart beat so painfully against her chest that it almost hurt. And when he was with her, she wasn’t in the slightest bit happier. His dark, brooding maleness dominated her senses almost unbearably, and much as she fought against it, she was only too aware, whenever he was near, of her blood rushing to her head, and her breath coming shallowly.
At night, once Bethany had left her, she would walk around her room and recite some lines from her favourite plays, and even do her breathing exercises, but it was no good.
It was as if the Duke was in the room there watching her. Sometimes, she even imagined she heard his mocking applause, but of course when she whirled round he wasn’t there. Often, when she’d put on one of the extravagant silk nightdresses Madame Celine had made for her—oh, how she’d rather sleep in cotton—she would look in her mirror before she climbed into bed, and see—Paulette.
Paulette, with her carefully tended hair and her mischievous dark-lashed eyes. Paulette—her eyes shadowed now—whispering, I love him so much that it hurts.
Soon the dealer, Newman, would contact her. She would get the jewels back, she would perform her role as Simon’s grieving widow for just a little while longer, and then it would be over, she told herself. Over.
Meanwhile more and more visitors called, and a fresh set of challenges faced her.
‘Dear, poor Lady Simon!’ her visitors would exclaim. ‘We heard from the Duke that you have been extremely ill. And there we were, thinking...’ They glanced at one another, eyes glinting. ‘You see, my dear, there really have been some very odd stories about you.’
Deb sheltered behind her black veil and her fan, and murmured, ‘I fear that people are always ready to spread cruel gossip, are they not?’
The Duke was constantly at her side during these visits, and she was aware of his steady eyes on her as her visitors talked, learning to quickly adjust her own behaviour to his subtle shifts of mood. Some of their guests he welcomed quite warmly, whereas with others he was almost frigid.
When a particular gentleman called one day—his name was Lord Featherstone—the sun was as hot as ever outside, but Deb instantly sensed that the atmosphere in the room was frigid. Featherstone was younger than the Duke and could probably have been his brother Simon’s age, Deb guessed. Well dressed and handsome, Featherstone’s manners towards Deb—Paulette—were faultless.
‘Lady Simon,’ Featherstone said fervently, bowing low over her hand. ‘How we have missed you.’ He turned round to address the Duke. ‘Your sister-in-law’s absence has compounded our grief for your deeply lamented brother, your Grace, has it not? Your brother, who was such a fine upholder of all the traditional Beaumaris values—honour, integrity, family duty...’
Featherstone talked on a little longer, but Deb noticed how abrupt the Duke was with him, and how, after a few more moments, he was virtually showing him the door. Deb confronted him as soon as he returned to her.
‘You were very rude, I think, to Lord Featherstone,’ she said, a little shaken.
He answered curtly. ‘That’s because he treats his young wife abominably by parading his mistresses around in public. He’s also a notorious gambler.’
‘I see.’ Deb spoke very quietly. ‘And does knowing all this entitle you to...to sit in judgement on him—your Grace?’
He cast her a short, sharp glance. ‘That’s not all I know about Featherstone,’ he answered flatly, ‘believe me.’
Most of the visits were more relaxed, and easier for her to handle. She would sit quietly, protected by her veil, while the ladies would sip tea and the gentlemen wine. ‘Dear Lady Simon,’ one of the ladies said as they at last turned to go, ‘I cannot quite put it into words, but you seem different, somehow.’
‘Perhaps I did not know what true grief was,’ Deb murmured, ‘until now.’
The gentlemen were quite awed, and the women glanced at one another with feeling. ‘So we see.’
And so the whispers began to spread around London that summer, about the overwhelming grief of the enchanting young widow who was the Duke of Cirencester’s sister-in-law. ‘Don’t overdo it,’ Beau said to her afterwards. ‘But—well done.’
He approved of her? He wasn’t criticising her? Deb felt pure relief—it was relief, wasn’t it, and nothing else?—flowing through her veins, warming her.
And so it was that the next stage in the reclamation of the Brandon jewels came as an utter and mind-numbing shock.
Chapter Fourteen
It was a little under two weeks later that the Duke brought Deb Mr Newman’s sealed letter. She opened it quickly, conscious of his watchful eye. Briefly, Newman told her that he would welcome a visit from her regarding the items she required, at her earliest convenience. Wordlessly she handed the letter to the Duke, who scanned it and said, ‘Armitage will escort you to Gresham Street, later today.’
Mr Armitage did indeed take her, in a hired carriage again; Deb entered the jewel-dealer’s premises as before, and Newman greeted her politely, but still, she felt, a little oddly.
‘Here are the items you left in my safekeeping, Lady Simon,’ he said, putting a black satin box on the table in front of her. ‘You will want to inspect them, of course.’
He was already opening the box for her, and she looked carefully at the ornate necklace and earrings, made of rubies and diamonds. She found herself frowning a little. Yes, they looked exactly like the ones Paulette had worn in that portrait, but she’d expected to be dazzled by them. She’d expected to be stunned by them.
She touched the necklace with her gloved fingertip and said to the jeweller, ‘Thank you. You will have to remind me, Mr Newman, if we agreed on any fee for you to take care of the Brandon jewels during my convalescence. They are such valuable items—you can imagine my joy at seeing them safe once more...’
Her voice trailed away as she saw the expression on Newman’s face. He looked star
tled. He looked utterly bewildered.
‘My dear Lady Simon,’ he said, ‘surely you cannot have forgotten?’
Deb felt her throat go dry. ‘Forgotten what?’
‘Why, that these jewels are fakes! I had to tell you so when you brought them to me, back in March, to have them valued. It was a great shock to you, naturally, and you were extremely angry. You must remember!’
Deb’s mind reeled. Remember to breathe deeply and speak calmly. Remember you are playing a part.
‘Of course I remember,’ she said quickly. ‘I was speaking of the value of these jewels to me personally, of course, and I would like to offer you a reward for your discretion, Mr Newman.’ She was already reaching for some coins from her purse, and handing them across the table to him.
‘My thanks, Lady Simon. That is generous of you, in the circumstances.’ He took the coins, and dabbed at his brow a little with his handkerchief. ‘I did in fact try to find out what happened to the originals, as you asked me at the time. But I made little progress, I fear, apart from learning that my suspicions were unfortunately true—that your husband secretly gambled them away.’
Deb need all her acting skills to hide her shock at that. Somehow she managed to nod. ‘So you haven’t succeeded in discovering who has them now?’
‘All I know,’ Newman said heavily, ‘is that your sadly departed husband lost the jewels at cards one February night—not in a club, but at someone’s private residence. As is sometimes the case, the person who won them allowed him a respite of a few days in order to have replicas made. I happen to know the jeweller who made the copies—one of my less conscientious colleagues, I fear. These, of course—’ he pointed to the jewels ‘—are the replicas.’
‘And they are exactly what I wanted. Thank you so much, Mr Newman.’ She picked up the box and rose to her feet. ‘I trust I can continue to rely on your absolute discretion?’
