Descending from the carriage onto the drive with the assistance of her servant, as beautifully regal as ever, was Lady Katherine Blackwood—Serena’s sister-in-law and the wife of Wyn’s closest friend.
It required very few moments of confusion for Diantha’s nervous delight to transform into cold shock. A gasp escaped her, then a whimper of sheer, gut-deep hurt. When she finally looked at Wyn, his face revealed nothing.
“Go to the house, Diantha. I will see Lady Blackwood to the parlor. Please join us there when you are able.”
Though she understood little, only suspected, she went without speaking, because nothing she wished to say could be said without shouting. Or crying. And, just as with all of those who had hurt her in the past—the neighborhood children, her schoolmates, her mother—she would not cry in front of him.
Chapter 21
Wyn buttoned his coat and went onto the drive as Leam descended from the carriage after his wife. The Earl of Blackwood was a tall, loose-limbed man of considerable strength, the furrow in his brow forbidding.
“My lady.” Wyn accepted the countess’s outstretched hand. “How lovely you appear even after the discomforts of the road.”
“Not a terrible discomfort, as it happened. The carriage is delightfully well sprung.” She smiled, her dark gray eyes scanning him then darting to the house. “Where is she? Have we come in vain or have you managed to hold onto her for this long?”
Not long enough. “She is within. We were to depart today.”
“Then we have arrived just in time.” Kitty’s smile took him in entirely. “You look well, Wyn, and your house is sublime all tucked away in this valley like a monastery. What does Abbaty Fran Ddu mean?”
“Abbey of the Black Crows.”
The earl coughed.
Kitty knew about the Falcon Club, but she did not know all, like the code names the director had assigned the five agents years earlier. At the time, Wyn shared the information only with his great-aunt, and they laughed over the coincidence. It had seemed fitting. A destiny fulfilled.
He gestured to the front door. “Come inside and we will find you refreshment, albeit modest. The abbey is presently operating on a rather short staff.”
“Of course, the charade,” Kitty said. “You gentlemen spies will do what you must to pull the wool over a lady’s eyes.”
“Not spies,” her husband said. “Yale, what sort of trouble is this?”
“Pleasure to see you too, Blackwood. How I’ve missed your glowering. The white streak in your hair is wider than last we met. It must be all of that churlish indignation.”
“Constance said Gray sent you off for a horse over a month ago.” A hint of Scots colored his voice, marking his temper. “A damned horse?”
“Really, Leam, must you?” Kitty slipped her hand through her husband’s arm. “But truly, Wyn, I am as curious as a cat. Leam is too, or else he would not be here. You said so little in your note, which we received by the way the moment we opened the house in town. We only arrived there Wednesday.”
“Thank you for coming in such haste, my lady.” He glanced at Leam. “My lord.”
“Don’t you be giving me that arched brow—”
“If you call me ‘lad,’ I will draw on you, Leam.”
“You’re not carrying, Wyn.”
“Concealed. All about me. Knives. Pistols. What have you.”
“It is the what-have-you’s I am most concerned about.” Kitty’s eyes gleamed. “Of course we came in haste for Diantha’s sake, as you wished. Now do take us inside this lovely place. Fall blooming roses! Positively delightful. Why have you never invited us here before?”
Because since he’d known Kitty he hadn’t been here. And before that, during the years he worked with Leam for the Falcon Club, the house belonged to his great-aunt, the woman who had saved him, gave him a haven, a home, and taught him everything he cherished and valued. The woman who had taught him how to be the opposite of that which he despised in his father and brothers.
Mrs. Polley met them in the foyer.
“Lord and Lady Blackwood, may I introduce you to Mrs. Polley, currently in Miss Lucas’s service. She bakes an excellent oat biscuit. Mrs. Polley, would you be so kind as to bring refreshments to the parlor for his lord and ladyship?”
Mrs. Polley’s eyes bulged, but she curtsied and bustled away.
Leam glanced about as he entered the parlor. “I don’t think Mrs. Polley cares for you, Yale.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“I suspected as much.” The Scots burr was gone now, the Cambridge-and Edinburgh-educated lord again at the fore.
“What is the half of it, Wyn?” Kitty crossed to the window and glanced out.
Leam settled in a chair. “How long shall I wait before I must go searching out whiskey myself?”
“Indefinitely,” Wyn said. “I’m afraid there is none about the place. And, by the by, it’s only nine o’clock in the morning. Joints troubling you, old man?”
“Drink it all before I got here, Yale?”
Wyn turned to Kitty. “Couldn’t you have left him in London?”
She laughed. “He refused. He said that a maiden and a matron mustn’t be left to travel with only a Welsh spy all the way from the wilds of the west to London.”
“Many thanks for the vote of confidence, old friend.”
A gleam lit Leam’s eye. “No whiskey, hm?”
Kitty tilted her head. “Is she still a maiden, Wyn? Is it that sort of trouble from which you are wresting her, the sort that impetuous girls get themselves into upon occasion?”
Leam tapped his fingertips on the arm of his chair, his dark gaze thoughtful upon his wife.
“No,” Diantha said from the doorway. “It was not that sort of trouble.” She entered the room, went to Kitty and curtsied. “Good day, Lady Blackwood. My lord.”
“How many times must I entreat you to call me Kitty?” Kitty grasped Diantha’s hand. “We are family. But of course that is why Mr. Yale called on us for assistance.”
“I am sorry you have had to come all this distance on my account.” She spoke to Kitty, her shoulder to Wyn. The color had gone from her cheeks. “I have little luggage and am prepared to depart at any moment you wish, although I suppose you may like to rest from your journey.”
“In fact last night we stopped at an inn not three miles down the road and I slept wonderfully well.” Kitty’s gaze shifted to Wyn, then back to Diantha. “Why don’t we take some tea first?”
“As you wish, Kitty.” Her voice was subdued, but with a flicker of her lashes she darted him the swiftest glance then again lowered her eyes.
The countess took Diantha’s hand and slipped it through her arm. “But before that, you know, I would very much enjoy a stroll, if you will accompany me.”
“I will be happy to. The gardens have not been tended lately, but the path is largely free of debris.” She had entirely disappeared, the girl who had sat on her traveling trunk on the side of the road in the rain and defied him. In her place was a proper, ghostly lady.
“Gentlemen,” Kitty said, “we will return shortly.” They departed.
Leam scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “You’ve done it again, haven’t you?”
Wyn stared at the doorway. “Done what again?”
“Taken a girl’s heart and twined it around your little finger to achieve your goal.”
Slowly Wyn pivoted to him. “It astounds me that a man who spent years pretending to be a tragic widower—when he was nothing of the sort—in order to cozen females into trusting him, now seeks to criticize my actions with regard to the fairer sex.”
Leam’s brow creased, the white streak through his auburn hair more pronounced in the sunlight filtering through the windows.
“Wyn—”
“Leam, call me by my Christian name again and I will force-feed to you Mrs. Polley’s oats and buttermilk stew.”
The earl grinned but his dark eyes studied, years of compa
nionship and familiarity behind the regard. “Did you mislay your razor somewhere along the road?”
“Did you mislay your wisdom to ask me such a question?”
“A stranger stands before me, unshaven, without a neck cloth in sight or a bottle of whiskey in the house, and he speaks of wisdom.” His brow sat high. “What have you done?”
Wyn folded his hands behind his back. “Wish me happy, Blackwood.”
Leam’s gaze arrested. He did not immediately respond. “Interesting that she does not look happy about it.”
“She did not expect you here today, of course. She is disappointed in her plans.” He went toward the door. “Thank you for coming. She won’t evade Kitty.”
“Remarkable that she evaded you. Unprecedented, rather.”
“Isn’t it? She is resourceful and I was not at my best.” Now he could see this quite clearly. His friends had been right to worry; drink had gotten the best of him. That he had gone as long as he did without making more mistakes like Chloe Martin was a miracle. “I would not have sent for you otherwise.”
“How are you so certain she won’t evade us?”
It had been Wyn’s expertise to study others for years in order to anticipate their actions. He’d made mistakes with Diantha he had never made with a quarry before. But the bottle had muddled his reason, and he knew her now. She cared too much for the welfare of her family to distress them in the manner she would if she resisted.
He went to the window and looked out onto the garden. “I suspect you devised a story to explain to Lord Carlyle why you and Kitty will arrive in town with his stepdaughter?”
“Before we left town, Kitty sent a note to Lady Savege. Serena will tell Carlyle that she requested we make a detour on our journey to London to gather Miss Lucas at Brennon Manor and convey her with us, to save her father’s servants the journey.”
“Ah.”
“Kitty thought it best to tell Serena about her stepsister’s escapade, although apparently not her purpose for it. Serena’s history with Lady Carlyle is an unhappy one.”
“And the baron?” he asked.
“Carlyle is unlikely to notice anything odd,” Leam replied. “He is a negligent parent.”
“As soon as I have seen to matters here I will follow you to town.” Wyn left the house and went to the garden, where the ladies walked amid wandering vines, arms linked.
Diantha saw him and drew her hand away from Kitty’s. “I would like to speak privately with you, Mr. Yale.”
He bowed. “At your command.”
“I am eager to taste Mrs. Polley’s biscuits,” Kitty said, looking swiftly between them, assessing. “I will leave you two to chat.” She glided away.
“Kitty said that you sent for her more than a sennight ago.” Diantha’s voice was tight, her stance rigid in the dappled shadow of the great oak bowing over the yard.
“I posted a message to London the morning we left Knighton.”
“Knighton?” Her lashes beat. “All right. I understand.”
“Probably not entirely.”
“I know that Mr. Eads was truly following us. But it was no accident that we came here in particular, was it?”
“I needed to take you to someplace from which you would be unlikely to seek to escape and where we would not be recognized by other travelers. This seemed best.”
“You were never lost.”
“Five years ago before her death, my great-aunt bequeathed this estate to me. The abbey is mine.”
“Yours?” Her gaze seemed to seek purchase. “When Kitty and Lord Blackwood arrived, I guessed that you were familiar with this place. But . . .” She took a quick, hard breath, turning away from him upon the balls of her feet. “The villagers we encountered, they must know you.”
“Some, you might say, raised me. This house was my home for four months each summer from the time I was seven years old.”
“But they were all—”
“Instructed not to reveal to you the truth.”
The lapis pools swam. “Then everything I—” Her pale brow crinkled up. “The library . . . All those books I thought a lady wouldn’t read. And the Gentlemen’s Rules . . . ?”
“Dictated by my great-aunt and scribed by my boyish hand, for my benefit when I should someday grow to be a man. So, you see, my great-aunt was not as successful as she had hoped. I choose to apply them rather at whim.”
“Stop! You are twisting it.”
“Diantha, I told you I am not a good man.”
“Do you know what I think?” Her eyes flashed, sparkling. “I think you like to pretend the rules mean a lot to you so that you can justify living with dishonesty and secrets. But that is simply duplicitous. Those rules are about kindness and decency, but you don’t want to live with any rules—no more than I do—so you throw everything they mean to the wind and then feel justified calling yourself a bad man.” She shook her head. “My mother used to do that to my sisters and my brother, Tracy, and to me, taking good things and manipulating them until they were wrong.”
“Then why are you trying to rescue her?”
For an instant her face went blank. “Because she is in trouble.” Behind her blue eyes glimmered something Wyn had not seen before when she’d spoken to him, only to others. Dishonesty.
His thoughts came jerkily. She hid something from him. That this struck him only now proved his insanity with her. He had watched her invent stories to carefully dictate the actions of others, yet in his arrogance and desire for her he had not imagined she would do the same with him, not after that first day.
She hid something from him.
“Diantha, you—”
“I feel like such a fool.” She backed away. “All this time you knew I was a fool.”
“No. I did not think that.”
“To where were you going to take me today? Devon?”
Calais. “London.” Calais. He had lost all sense, all reason with her. Despite everything he knew about finding lost persons, he’d been about to take her to Calais to search for her mother upon her claim of evidence in an old letter. To Calais, because all he truly wished now was to be lost with her, to leave behind the life he’d led and begin afresh. Only the arrival of a carriage from London had jarred him back into reality, to the responsibility that had weighed upon him forever it seemed. “Your stepsister and Lord Savege are in town already, awaiting your arrival from Brennon Manor. Your stepfather as well.”
“How do you know that?”
“I sent a messenger to Devon.”
Her face paled entirely. “When?”
“Just after Mrs. Polley joined us.”
She seemed to struggle for breath. “And the fool just keeps feeling more foolish. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“When I told you I intended to escort you home, you ran away from me and stranded yourself upon the road with none but a dog to protect you. I could not allow that to happen again. But I came to suspect that you would not allow your family to suffer from your absence.”
“I understand.” Then her voice dipped to a whisper. “You should have told me when—” She looked away. “Days ago.”
He should have. He’d no clear idea why he hadn’t, except that perhaps he had feared to lose her when he was not well enough to pursue her. But it could not be undone now. She felt betrayed, and justifiably so.
“I have been absent from the abbey for some time and must see to several matters. I will follow you to London and call upon you as soon as I have spoken with your stepfather.”
“I suppose you haven’t any choice in the matter now,” she said with quiet firmness. “A gentleman would never renege on such a thing, no matter what the circumstances. You are rather more bound by your great-aunt’s rules than you seem to believe.”
“Rules have little to do with it now. On your part as well.”
“My part?” Her eyes flared. “Well, yes. If lust were all there was to marriage I would be glad to wed you because I do have that for you. But after
years of watching both my fathers with my mother I learned that marriage is a travesty without honesty and consideration.” Her voice broke. “How could you have lied to me for so many days? After—” She pivoted toward the house. Then she halted. “Why did you make love to me last night, after putting me off for so long?”
Because he wished to hold her and to breathe in her fresh beauty every day. “You know.”
She sucked in a hard breath. “Do you wish to know where I hid your pistol and bullets? In the drawer of the writing table in your bedchamber. You see? I trusted you more than you trusted yourself.” Shoulders back, she went quickly to the house.
Chapter 22
My dearest Lady Justice,
My admiration for you has grown such that I cannot hide the news: I have lost another member of the Falcon Club. Since you have become so adept at hounding down my fellow club members, I wonder if I could prevail upon you to search out this one and bring her back into the fold. She is difficult to miss: walks with a stoop, carries a cane, suffers from myopia. I haven’t an idea as to where she has gone. Perhaps your sleuthing skills will save the day.
With all my gratitude and
ever increasing affection,
Peregrine
Secretary, The Falcon Club
To Peregrine, at large:
You are a cabbage head. I hadn’t any idea that one of your members was a lady. I am not a nitwit, Mr. Bird Man. You chose to describe a woman of ill appearance to make my quest seem ridiculous. But your attempt at cleverness reveals you; you would not have mentioned a lady at all if there weren’t one in your club. No gentleman would have even paused to consider it.
Point goes to Lady Justice.
You are arrogant and bored, and thus seek to taunt me to amuse yourself. Idle wealth corrupts as swiftly as absolute power. You, Mr. Peregrine, are corrupted.
— Lady Justice
My dearest lady,
To be corrupted with you would be to live heaven upon earth. Name the day, the hour, the location. I will bring a single red rose and my ardor.
Yours entirely,
Peregrine
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