Unmasked by the Marquess

by Cat Sebastian

  “The late marquess was, if you recall, not present in England at the time. He left in 1798.” He shuffled through the sheaf of paper he had on his lap. “Here is a letter in his own hand from November of 1799 written in Padua, directed to my office. Here is another in December of that same year from Milan. And several written in the first part of the year 1800, all from various parts of Italy.”

  And all undoubtedly requesting funds. The solicitor’s recitation of dates meant something, but try as he might Alistair couldn’t grasp the point. The meaning eluded him.

  Nivins placed the letters on Alistair’s desk with an unsteady hand. “As you no doubt recall, he did not return to England until the autumn of that year.”

  Of course Alistair recalled. He had been in his first year of Oxford and utterly mortified to learn that his father had established a household with the mistress and infant he had brought back from Italy. Mrs. Allenby and Amelia, of course.

  Nivins blinked a few times, obviously hoping Alistair would speak and spare him the trouble of saying whatever words were on his tongue. “He could not, therefore, have been Miss Selby’s godfather,” the solicitor finally said.

  Only decades of self-control and finely honed aristocratic restraint prevented Alistair from gasping. How could he not have realized this? Robin—goddammit, Robin—had told him his sister’s age. Why had Alistair not gone to the trouble of subtracting one sum from the other and arriving at the essential impossibility of the situation?

  Robin had lied to him.

  “I see,” Alistair said, his voice sounding as if it came from a great distance. “I daresay the Selbys were mistaken about the nature of their father’s connection with the late marquess. Thank you kindly for drawing my attention to the matter.”

  Nivins patted the stack of papers he left on Alistair’s desk. “I’ll leave your father’s letters with you in case you wish to check for yourself—”

  “No!” Alistair barked. “Take them with you.” He forced his voice into a cooler register. “As you said, I recall the events myself.”

  Robin had lied. He was no better than any of the beggars and cheats who attempted to wring money and favors from the estate.

  And Alistair should have known, he ought to have figured it out for himself. But he had been too caught up in their friendship—ha!—to apply rational thought to the matter.

  There was, however faint, still the possibility that what he told Nivins was actually true. Perhaps Robin and his sister had been misled by their father.

  He dismissed Nivins and called for a footman. “Get me Selby,” he said. “Bring him to me. Tell him it’s urgent.”

  Charity ran nearly all the way, straining to keep up with the stride of the much taller footman. Had Pembroke taken ill? Why would the footman not tell her what was the matter? At Pembroke House, she slipped past the butler and ran up the stairs. He’d be in the library. He always was.

  She found him, his back against the fireplace.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, out of breath. “Your footman said . . .” Her voice trailed off as she saw his face. He was furious, the kind of fury that was all the more terrifying for how tightly leashed it was. His fists were clenched, his jaw was tight. And his eyes—she had never seen them so cold, not even that first time she had been in this room. “No, I can tell things aren’t all right.” She took a step towards him. “Can I help?” Dare she hope that he had sent for her for the same reason she had come here the other night? For comfort, for friendship?

  His icy glare checked her progress and she froze in place.

  “My father was not your sister’s godfather, was he? You lied, did you not?”

  She was momentarily stunned. Of all the lies she had told, it was bitterly absurd for that to be the one to cause her trouble. Charity had dim, childish memories of the late marquess visiting old Mr. Selby, even after Mr. Selby’s days of hunting and riding were long over. The marquess would sit at Mr. Selby’s bedside and play cards for farthing stakes. He had sent a ham after the funeral. Charity remembered slicing it while wearing a black armband, and giving the choicest bits to a teary Louisa. Saying that the marquess had been Louisa’s godfather was such a minor stretch of the truth as to hardly matter, at least in comparison to all the much greater and more dangerous lies she told.

  She gripped the back of the nearest chair, if for no other reason than to give her something to do with her shaking hands.

  “I lied,” she whispered. “Your father was not Louisa’s godfather.” She watched as his expression slipped momentarily from fury to sorrow, and then just as quickly back to fury.

  “So. What was it you wanted from me?” His words were clipped and frigid monosyllables. “I assume you planned to blackmail me with the events of the other night?”

  “No!” She had to gasp for air.

  “How much do you want? Let us dispense with the preliminaries and proceed to that stage of the transaction.” His voice was a cold, sharp knife. “How can I buy your silence, Mr. Selby? And your future absence, I need not add.”

  “It’s not like that,” she protested. “I would never blackmail you.” How could he think she had kissed him for such a purpose? She couldn’t bear to know that he thought of her in such a way.

  “Do forgive me if I find it hard to trust your word. In my experience, liars lie. They lie about big things, they lie about little things. They lie even when there’s nothing to lie about. And you, Mr. Selby, are a liar. I have no doubt that you are also a blackmailer.”

  “No,” she whispered, but even that was a lie. She had indeed gotten used to lying. Every day when she got dressed, when she left a calling card, when she let everyone around her believe she was someone she was not. It didn’t matter that she was coming to believe that the lie was more real than the truth.

  Pembroke’s mouth was a rigid line. “You will have a draft on my bank for a thousand pounds. That ought to be enough to rid me of the pair of you.”

  “I won’t take your money.” She couldn’t let him think she had set out to hurt him. The lie about his father being Louisa’s godfather was harmless. All her lies were harmless, unless you counted Maurice Clifton, and she would set that right as soon as she had a chance. “Everything that happened between us—I meant it all in earnest.” Without intending to, she darted a glance at the sofa.

  His lip curled in revulsion. “Spare me the protests, Mr. Selby.”

  He didn’t call her Robin. She felt that her heart would split in two. Behind his icy anger she could hear the pain in his voice and knew she had put it there. She had made him doubt their friendship. She couldn’t stand it.

  But there was something she could do. There was one way she could convince him that she had not intended to blackmail him, at least.

  She spoke before she even drew another breath. “I’m not Robert Selby. That was a lie too. My name is Charity Church.”

  His expression was totally blank and his silence stretched out so long that Charity wasn’t sure he had understood her. “But that’s a woman’s name,” he said finally.

  “I’m a woman.” This, the miserable fact of the matter, felt more dishonest than anything she had thus far told him. “A foundling. I went to live with the Selbys as a housemaid. When Robbie died, Louisa would have had nothing because the estate was entailed.” And because nothing had been set aside for her, but she wasn’t going to speak ill of Robbie. “So I pretended to be Robbie. For Louisa.” The explanation was so shabby, so inadequate, when put so baldly.

  “You are a woman.” He stared at her, plainly incredulous. “You are a woman.” He ran his eyes over her body, so slowly and searchingly that she could not hold back the blush. “Why are you telling me this? Can you possibly think that my knowing of this additional—and far greater—deceit will absolve you of the lesser one?”

  “No,” she protested, her hands gripping the back of the chair so hard she could barely feel her fingers anymore. “I wanted you to know that I meant you no har
m, never intended to harm you. I’m a woman,” she explained, the words sounding pathetically feeble, “so there could be nothing to blackmail you about, you see.”

  “Nothing to blackmail me about? You see nothing in this situation that might reflect poorly on me? Nothing that might bring me shame? Good God. Your sister—” He shook his head rapidly. “Not your sister. Miss Selby, I mean. She had to know of this deception.”

  He meant to destroy Louisa. “She was only a child when it started,” she said hurriedly. “I went to Cambridge instead of Robbie when he and I were only eighteen, and Louisa had nothing to do with it. She’s blameless, I promise you that.”

  “Oh, and I’m quite confident that your word is very valuable, Mr.—” He let loose a single bitter laugh. “Miss Church. You say you went to Cambridge under the name of your master when he was still alive.”

  To hear Robbie referred to as her master was enough to force tears into her eyes, but she would not cry, she would do nothing that would seem to ask for this man’s pity. “Robbie was never interested in book learning, so we agreed—” But Pembroke didn’t give a damn how they had come to the arrangement. He only wanted to know the extent of her deceit. She lifted her chin, forcing herself to meet his glare. “Yes, I lied to everyone at Cambridge as well.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You must have been . . . close . . . to your employer.”

  That was meant to be an insinuation, but whatever he was insinuating was nowhere near as complicated as the truth. “It was Northumberland,” she answered. “Very close to Scotland,” she added, irrelevantly. “Servants often play alongside their employers’ children.”

  “Next you will tell me that stealing the name and fortune of one’s dead employer is also an ancient Northumbrian tradition.”

  He was mocking her now. She resolved to get through this with all the dignity she could muster, then somehow, later, figure out the rest of her life. For now, she simply would not cry. “We were friends.”

  “I should damned well think you were.”

  More mockery, then. She would force herself to bear it. “I look on Louisa as a sister. She is my only family.” She would tell the truth even though he could never understand.

  “Miss Church.” His voice was so venomous as to practically be a hiss. “But you are not Miss Selby’s only family. She has, I recall, a cousin. Mr. Clifton. Am I correct that he was Robert Selby’s heir?”

  For a moment, Charity thought she might actually faint. Oh, why did today have to be the day she finally developed feminine sensibilities? She should not have told him about her masquerade. She saw that now, but it was too late. Now he would destroy her and Louisa too. Louisa would have nothing—no reputation, no friends, no money. She’d be in a worse position than if they had simply let Mr. Clifton inherit, and it was all Charity’s fault.

  “Well?” His voice was a poisonous drawl.

  She watched the firelight flicker off the signet ring he always wore. He was a marquess, a peer of the realm, and he could ruin her and Louisa with scarcely any effort. Oh, why had she not taken his offer of a thousand pounds? That would have padded Louisa’s dowry and funded Charity’s disappearance. How very stupid she had been to confess to this powerful man, and for no better reason than because she was too fond of him.

  “Yes.” She met his icy gaze. “He ought to have inherited Fenshawe. And he will, once we stop.”

  “Once you stop? Good God. Let me tell you, Miss Church, that I’ve had the misfortune to deal with all manner of confidence artists and swindlers since my father died and left me to pick up the pieces of the estate. But never once have I met one as hardened and shameless as you.” He shook his head, as if in disbelief. “I have not decided what I’ll do with you. For now, be gone.”

  At least she reached the street before the tears came.

  Chapter Seven

  Alistair had never been in such sympathy with his father. He would have liked nothing more than to follow the late marquess’s example and get mightily drunk, run off to some Mediterranean idyll, and proceed to thoroughly abandon his responsibilities. He settled on a few glasses of brandy, which did nothing to improve his outlook and only solidified his gloom into a hard ball of anger that seemed to settle in his stomach.

  He couldn’t take comfort in any of his usual pursuits. He could not ride his horse in the park or seek solace at his club lest he run into Selby. And the reason Selby—Miss Church, rather—might be in those places was that Alistair himself had put him—her—there in the first place. Alistair had practically rolled out a red carpet to make his new friend at home in this world. He had been so charmed and blinded that he had failed to protect himself.

  Nor could he flee to the country, because—mortification of mortifications—he realized that he would have to go through with his blasted ball. The invitations had long since been sent out, and even now the house was swarming with servants, polishing and preparing for a ball there now was no point in holding.

  The only way out would be to feign grave illness, but the hint of fraudulence reminded him a bit too much of Selby. Miss Church, he reminded himself very firmly, although it was impossible to think of him—her—as such. There was nothing for it but to stand his ground, survive the next few days, and then retreat to the country as soon as the last guest had left the ball.

  He considered rescinding the Selbys’ invitations, but that would look very strange indeed after he had gone out of his way to take them under his wing. Perhaps Miss Church would behave like a gentleman—oh dear, the irony—and decline to attend. He could tolerate Miss Selby as long as he didn’t ever have to look upon Robin again.

  Robin. Oh God.

  Of course, he could tell the truth, make a frightful scandal, and have Miss Selby and The Impostor cast out of decent society as pariahs. That would be their just deserts, after all. But he would look so foolish. Alistair had too much pride to let himself become the butt of any jokes. He had too much respect for the name and title he had salvaged from the last generation’s misdeeds to cast it back into the trash heap of ruined reputations. He had been so blinded by his affection for this deceitful conniver that he had nearly destroyed all his work. He was furious with Miss Church and he was furious with himself.

  He needed air, though. There had to be a way to exercise himself without encountering another human being. He could pace through the gardens, perhaps. Decided, he flung open the library doors and descended the stairs, causing duster-wielding housemaids to scatter like bats. His servants were all even more timid and apologetic than usual. It was never a good sign when the master of the house holed himself up for days on end. Some of these servants had served the family long enough to know precisely how bad it could get. Well, then, he would show his face among them for long enough to make it clear that at least this Marquess of Pembroke was sane and sober.

  He cast his mind around, looking for something to say that would reassure them. “The . . . ah . . . carpets look very well beaten,” he tried.

  Wide eyes, hasty curtsies, a flurry of milords, and he was in the garden. He took a deep breath, the first fresh air he’d had in days. There was nothing much in the garden yet, it being only April. And he’d be well out of here by the time the place was properly in bloom. He’d be in Kent, or perhaps Shropshire, where he’d stay until he could trust himself to behave reasonably.

  Charity Church. He kicked some gravel off the path. Why even bother naming a child if that was the best one could come up with? She had been a foundling, she said. Presumably one found at the door of a church and committed to the charity of that institution. Charity Church, indeed. Not that he could manage to wrap his mind around the idea that his Robin was in fact this stranger with the dreary name.

  A part of him, the part he had failed to silence with brandy and righteous anger, shouted that he’d be willing to call this person by any name he or she wanted as long as he got to hear that laughter, see that welter of freckles.

  But no. His mind was playing tric
ks on him, as surely as it had when he let himself overlook the impossibility of his father’s attending Miss Selby’s christening. He was . . . bewitched. There was no other word for it, even though the unreason behind the sentiment was something he’d expect from his father or Gilbert or the madwoman who told fortunes at the Crown and Lion. He held himself to a higher standard, but he had let himself be brought to the edge of madness—for what was it but madness to overlook facts that ought to have been as plain as day? Enchanted by their friendship and intoxicated by an attraction that seemed to be mutual, he had managed not to notice that the person in question was not what he seemed to be.

  He found that he didn’t care terribly much whether Robin was a man or a woman. That was quite secondary, compared to the fact that Robin was a fraud and a cheat.

  Surely the fact that he didn’t care spoke badly of his faculties. There were men who preferred other men, and kept damned quiet about it, and there were men who preferred women. To not take a stand one way or the other seemed wanton. Greedy. Not at all like the sober, measured gentleman Alistair wanted to be.

  He kicked the gravel again, only to realize that this would likely cast the undergardeners into frenzies of confusion. In preparation for the damned ball, they had raked the gravel so evenly that the tiny stones looked like butter neatly spread on scones.

  Kneeling, he tried to smooth the surface. But he didn’t have the knack of the thing. No matter what he did, he kept exposing patches of soil, bald and forlorn. A gentleman’s hands were not meant for setting such earthy things right.

  “No need for that, my lord,” said a voice behind him. It was the gardener.

  Alistair was mortified to have been caught, although he wasn’t sure what his infraction was. Kicking the gravel in the first place, demeaning himself by attempting to remedy the situation, or having made such a poor job of it?

  “Ah, yes,” he said, as if he had behaved quite normally, in a manner befitting a marquess. “Thank you, Grimes.”