“But your father will—”
“He will be long gone before that time.”
“But why, Rex? You’ve always known you had to marry. It’s part of the requirements for being the heir and all. Like wearing your sword into battle. Lordlings have to produce the next generation.”
“This lord shall not. The world does not need another freak in its carnival show. The haut monde does not need another target for its vicious gossip. What did the earldom gain my father? Nothing but ignominy and insult for his so-called gift. My own reputation is lower than a lizard’s, and yours not much better by the mere association. And if the truth were told? Royce Hall and all of its inhabitants would be burned to the ground, aye, and this house with it. The countess would be tarred with the same brush of witchcraft and devil’s work. Perhaps that was why she left my father. He never said. But I will not bring another Royce male into this world, to suffer the way we have.”
Daniel pushed his plate away. “Well, I still say it was a good idea.”
“Then why don’t you wed her?”
“Me? A onetime junior officer, a country nobody? What good would that do the female? I’ve got a tidy manor house and the farm, but that’s all. No title, no fortune, no influence anywhere. No fit lodgings here in town, no invites to fancy parties. I doubt I’ll be permitted back into Dirty Sal’s. I don’t have your pretty face, what once was, anyway. I’ll wed when I’m ready—promised my mother, don’t you know—to a plainspoken lass from the country who won’t think I’m a great hulking looby like the London twits do. Your Miss Carville needs someone who can help her cause, not stumble over it.”
“She’s not my Miss Carville.”
Then why, Rex wondered, was he so relieved when Daniel refused to marry her?
Nanny Brown had magic in her long bony fingers along with the arthritis.
Amanda felt almost alive the next morning after the old woman was finished with her. She was still slightly feverish and weak and weepy when she awoke, but Nanny would not permit her to feel sorry for herself.
“And what else should you be but blue-deviled, what with the sights and suffering you’ve seen?” Nanny asked. “But a bit of prettying up will make you feel more the thing, I swear.”
The bath was heavenly, the shampoo sublime, and the sweet scented oils Nanny rubbed into Amanda’s skin divine. What most made Amanda feel better, though, was the pampering. No one had paid her this much attention since her mother’s death. She and Elaine shared a maid, but the servant knew who was favored in the house, and did as little for the poor relation as possible.
“A woman always feels better with clean hair and fresh underthings, I always say,” Nanny told her, laying out Amanda’s own silk petticoat and lace-edged chemise.
Someone, most likely Lord Rexford, Amanda thought, had sent for her clothes at Sir Frederick’s. The single trunk could not have contained her entire wardrobe, and the surly maid might have run off with the rest, but Amanda was grateful to see some of her own things, especially her mother’s pearls. Just knowing she would not have to face her future in rags or borrowed apparel raised her spirits another notch.
She chose her favorite gown for the interview with Lord Rexford, a rose-colored muslin with tiny flowers embroidered at the hem and the neck. As it happened, her wardrobe was now far more fashionable than in previous years, for she had been escorting her seventeen-year-old stepsister on Elaine’s come-out Season. Sir Frederick had been determined to snare a well-born beau for his daughter, and needed Amanda’s connection to Lady Royce to procure vouchers and invitations. He could not let the beau monde see Amanda in faded frocks or mended gloves or styles of five years ago, lest they label him a pinchpenny, which would ruin his daughter’s chance of marrying a title. So for once he gave Amanda a generous clothing allowance, likely from her own funds.
Amanda had had plans to catch a husband of her own this Season now that Elaine was old enough to wed. With freedom from Sir Frederick in her mind, she’d selected her new gowns with an eye to style and color instead of the serviceable fabrics and modest gowns she’d chosen in the past, knowing they had to last. Her new clothes were in the latest mode, with a graceful, airy look that became her slight figure and made the most of her rounded bosom, which, the modiste assured her, was more liable to attract a gentleman’s eye than all of Elaine’s frills and furbelows. Elaine’s gowns were white and the palest pastels; Amanda’s were in brighter, more vibrant tones.
Nanny shook out the deep pink gown to check for creases. “This will put roses in your cheeks for sure.”
And the face powder Nanny borrowed from the countess’s vanity would hide the bruises on her skin and the shadows under her eyes.
Nanny trimmed her hair, too, tsking over the uneven lengths. “Looks like goats have been nipping at it.” She and her sister mixed eggs and ale and lemons into a frothy shampoo, then twisted the short locks around their fingers into tiny ringlets. They fed her and dressed her and put her mother’s pearls around her neck, before seating her on the chaise longue in the countess’s sitting room near the fireplace, with a blanket across her knees.
Despite the blanket, Amanda started shivering.
Nanny added more coal to the fire. “Maybe we did too much. I worried that we should have waited another day.”
“No, Nanny, you did wonders. And you were right, I do feel human again, simply being clean and neat.”
“Neat and clean? Why, I swear you look like a princess, only prettier. No one could suspect you of an evil thought, not with that sweet smile, much less murdering anyone.”
“Thank you, for what you have done and for what you believe.” She held the old woman’s hand and started weeping again. “You—you have been so kind.”
“Go on with you, lass,” Nanny said, dabbing at her own eyes with her apron. “Now I’ll just change the bed linen so it will be ready for you as soon as the gentlemen have the information they need.”
Alone, Amanda thought that although she felt better and looked better, her prospects were just as dim. She did not know what Lady Royce’s son could do, if anything, but no one else would try. If Lord Rexford did not believe her, her chances were nonexistent.
Amanda twisted her hands in the blanket, afraid he would not accept her word of what happened. What if his reputation for brutality was valid? She would not think of that.
He had been kind and sober. Maybe he only turned savage with the drink in him. Like last night and the barroom brawl. She could not think so badly of the man who had carried her on his horse, put ointment on her cuts. Oh heaven, she so wanted to believe he was a gentleman, but perhaps a barbarian could do more for her.
She blotted her eyes with her own handkerchief, one she had embroidered herself, and straightened her spine. She looked like a lady and smelled like a lady. She was determined to act like one, too, not fall to weeping and wailing as she waited for two of the most dreaded men in the King’s army, the Inquisitors.
Rex was speechless. The reclining woman could not be Miss Amanda Carville, accused murderess. She was an angel, all tousled blond curls and big brown eyes. She was a raspberry pastry in deep pink. She was a china figurine, so still and perfect. She was spun-sugar delicate and gossamer soft and, hell, her breasts were larger than he remembered, overflowing the bodice of her gown. She was—waiting for him to introduce his cousin, who nudged him in the back.
Rex bowed and stepped farther into the room. At least he must have, because he had her hand in his, and was raising it to his lips. “I am delighted to see you looking better,” he said, in what had to be one of the world’s greatest understatements. She looked like—No, he could not fall into that abyss again. He was a soldier, not a poet. “May I present my cousin, Mr. Daniel Stamfield?”
Daniel shoved him aside, which reminded Rex to relinquish her hand, so small, so fine-boned that it got lost in Daniel’s huge paw. “I promise he is a gentle fellow, for all his great size.” His scowl said it better be so.
&nb
sp; Daniel made a proper bow and said, “I am at your service, miss.”
Mr. Stamfield’s breadth and bulk were intimidating, Amanda decided, but his smile was genuinely friendly, unlike Lord Rexford, who did not smile at all, but glared at her and his cousin and the very room as if he hated being there. He was looking as cross as a bear with a sore foot, which she supposed was understandable, with his nose all red and swollen. He might have the headache, too. Sir Frederick often had, after a night of overindulgence.
Despite his frown and his spotless uniform, Captain Lord Rexford still appeared the buffoon. His cousin wore the clothes of a clown. And these were the army’s invincible interrogators? For that matter, these were her only hope of rescue?
She turned her attention back to Mr. Stamfield, who politely raised her hand, and said, “Anything you need, I shall see that Rex provides.”
She did not laugh at the teasing. “You are too kind.”
“Any friend of my aunt’s is my friend,” he insisted, lowering his body carefully into a chintz-covered chair. Lord Rexford chose to stand near the hearth.
“Then you believe me innocent?” Amanda asked.
“I did not say that. Some of my best friends are scoundrels, and my own aunt is not above blackmailing a chap to get her own way. Not that I am saying you aren’t innocent. That’s what we’re here to find out. Then we can decide the proper course to take.”
Now Lord Rexford stepped closer. Amanda could see the strain in his blue eyes, and the scar showing white against his tanned skin. “I suppose you have heard of our reputation?”
She would not flinch. “That you get the truth any way that you can?”
He was the one who winced at the bald statement. “You need not be afraid. Just answer our questions honestly, that is all I ask. As I promised, I will still help you no matter what you tell me, even if you say you have been planning to murder your stepfather for months and do not regret it now.”
“I have told the truth to everyone,” Amanda said, hating the catch in her voice and the dampness in her eyes. “I never attempted to lie about anything. No one listened to me. Now you tell me to speak honestly. Why should I think that you will believe what I say?”
Rex brushed his thumb across her cheek, catching the tear that fell. “Because I know it will be the truth.”
Chapter Nine
I do not understand.”
“No, I cannot suppose you do.”
Amanda waited for an explanation that never came. Instead Lord Rexford seemed to grow angry again. “It is irrelevant, and we are wasting time. Sir Nigel Turlowe wants a conviction, damn his black heart to hell. Begging your pardon.”
Amanda nodded, wishing she could curse, too.
Lord Rexford had turned from gentle shepherd to the wolf that ate the sheep. He started pacing, while his dog watched from beside Daniel’s chair. “The trial is set for almost a month away, but every day that passes makes the task of an acquittal more difficult.”
“I . . . I see.” Amanda saw the hangman’s noose, the crowds coming to watch, the thick rope dangling, waiting. She clutched the blanket again.
“Stop, Rex, can’t you see you are frightening the poor woman?”
He was frightening himself, too, to have her very life depending on him. “I apologize once more, Miss Carville.”
“There is no need. I am aware of my dire straits and your uncomfortable position in assisting me.”
“But you might not be aware that Sir Nigel despises my father and wishes to discredit him further for some reason. Embarrassing Lady Royce would suffice, I suppose, or dragging me into his vendetta.”
“Then I am a mere pawn in his grudge? I would not be in this fix if two men were not feuding?”
“Sir Nigel did not put the gun in your hand, did he?”
“No, I did that.”
“Very well. Let us begin there. The weapon was in your hand. Sir Frederick was shot. Did you shoot him? This is a simple question, answerable with no roundaboutation, if you please.”
“No. I wished him dead many times, but I did not kill him. I did not!”
Rex looked toward his cousin who held his hands up, palms out. “No rash.”
Rex nodded. “True-blue,” was all he said. Everyone was silent for a minute, thinking.
Amanda was thinking that her saviors were crazy.
Finally the viscount said, “In a way it would have been easier if you had shot the lowlife.”
“How could that be better for me?”
“Because then we could have pled self-defense, a threat to your life, extenuating circumstances. You might have thought he was a burglar. Anything. We might manage to have you sentenced to parole, perhaps in Lady Royce’s care, or sent out of the country for your lifetime.”
“Botany Bay?” she asked with a gasp. “Few men live through the voyage there, fewer women.”
“No, I meant India or the colonies. Or even one of my father’s outflung properties.”
“But I could not live as your family’s pensioner. Or subject your mother to social death here in London.” She turned toward Daniel. “You saw what happened over your little faux pas. Lady Royce would be ostracized if she harbored a confessed killer.” She raised her chin. “I am not guilty. I shall not confess.”
“Very well. If you are not guilty, who is? Do you know?”
“No. I have been racking my brains, and I cannot think of a single person. I did not know my stepfather’s associates. He seldom entertained at home, and whatever business he conducted would have been at his clubs. “
“What about the butler?” Daniel wanted to know. “It’s always the butler, isn’t it, except when it is a jealous spouse.”
“Hareston is a fussy, sneaky sort, who would never have left the gun on the floor.”
“Perhaps you surprised him and he panicked.”
“But why would he shoot his employer, putting himself out of work?”
“Why indeed?” Rex asked, searching in the countess’s escritoire for a pencil and paper. He ignored the small packet of letters tied with a blue ribbon in one of the upper drawers. They looked suspiciously like the twice yearly letters of obligation he had sent in reply to birthday and Christmas gifts. He slammed that drawer shut and found what he wanted in a lower one. “And we can leave your stepsister and her aunt off the list because I understand they stayed on at Almack’s until someone sent for them, after the Watch arrived. Odd.”
“No, I doubt they noticed I was gone.”
“That caring of you, eh?” Daniel wanted to know, looking like thunderclouds. He would not have let his sister out of his sight in London.
“My stepsister was too excited about her first evening at Almack’s, and her aunt, Miss Hermione Hawley, Sir Frederick’s sister, was sitting with the chaperones, scrutinizing the eligible bachelors. Elaine cares for me.”
“Yet she did not help you when you were arrested.” That was a statement from Lord Rexford, not another question.
Amanda glared at him. “She is seventeen. What should she have done? And her father was dead, horribly. I think someone told me that she and Miss Hawley left London the next day, conveying the baronet’s body to his family’s cemetery in Hampshire.”
“Very well, they are not suspects or witnesses. Why do you not start in the beginning.”
“But I have told my story over and over again. Surely you have heard all the details from the newspaper and the servants and town gossip.”
Daniel was nodding, but Rexford did not pay attention, making notations on his pad. “I need to hear it from your own mouth because proving innocence in this case is going to be far harder than proving guilt.”
“But I did not commit the crime!”
“I know.” He touched her hand, then jerked his away, as if he had not meant to touch her. “But think on this. What, say, if your pearls were in question? You can prove you have a set by the necklace itself, or a bill of sale.”
“They were my mother’s.”
“I do not. Sir Frederick sold it and my mother’s other jewelry, to pay for her doctors, he claimed.”
“Ah, but you could have sold the necklace, or tossed it in the dustbin. Then it would be your word against the prosecutor’s case.”
Amanda fingered the pearls at her throat. “I see.”
He nodded. “The negative is far harder to prove, but it is not impossible. Now start at the beginning of the unfortunate events. No, start with your life with Sir Frederick and his household.”
So Amanda told him about her mother’s marriage, her fading away, and Sir Frederick’s anger. She told about his misappropriating of her inheritance and stealing her dowry, and how she was relegated to a poor companion in the house.
Daniel asked, “Why did you not leave? My aunt would have taken you in.”
“And left little Elaine to face her father’s rages, his skimping on her clothes and education and even simple entertainments? I could not abandon her when she was so young.”
“Admirable, I am sure,” Lord Rexford said, “but then she grew up enough to enter the Marriage Mart.”
“Yes, her father wanted her to marry a title. She liked the idea of becoming a marchioness or a duchess.”
“Not likely, a filly coming from that stable.”
Rex frowned at his cousin’s interruption. “Go on.”
“With Elaine grown and her father attending to her future, I hoped to marry myself. Sir Frederick swore none of my suitors was good enough. In fact, that very afternoon he admitted that he would never part with my dowry. I was not of age yet, and he would see it diminished to nothing by my twenty-fifth birthday. My inheritance was already gone, he said, for my upkeep.” She ignored Daniel Stamfield’s angry mutterings and watched Lord Rexford add another note to his list. When he looked up, she continued. “I thought a particular gentleman of my acquaintance would not care about the money. He was well-off, and had expressed his interest.”
Truly Yours Page 8
