"John Bolton, Earl of Cambert. He is a little older than I am, but I have been acquainted with him anytime these dozen years."
Her eyes must have revealed her lingering doubt, because he sat up suddenly and grinned at her.
"You still don't believe me, do you?" Letting down his window, he yelled something at the driver. Moments later the carriage swung over into another lane of traffic and turned left.
"What are you doing?" Something about his air of smug satisfaction alarmed her.
"Taking you to see my man of business. I was going to be a gentleman and drop you off at the hotel first so that you could rest while I dealt with the hard, cold realities of life, like procuring funds so that we could eat, but I've changed my mind. Prepare to dine on crow, my darling."
Susannah frowned. "It is not that I don't believe you, precisely, but . . ."
"Oh, yes, it is. Precisely. I can't tell you how your lack of faith has wounded me, either. I'll have you know that I have never told a lie in my life."
"Pooh!"
Ian cast his eyes heavenward. "See? She doesn't believe me!" he said plaintively, as if to a higher power. Susannah had to laugh.
"Well, if you are really a marquis . . ."
"I am."
". . . and rich as Croesus . . ."
"I am that, too. Or, rather, I was. The situation is complicated here, but I am hoping that my mother, who has a great dislike of scandal and an even greater regard for her own skin, has left my money intact. She was after the title, after all, for my brother. I rather suspect that, until she has conclusive proof of my death, she will move rather slowly against my possessions and—other things."
"That is the thing I find hardest of all to believe—that your own mother, and brother, could wish you dead, and even connive at your death."
The humor vanished from his face, to be replaced by something implacably bleak and hard. "I told you, my mother is as different from you as night is from day. She has never cared for me. Nor has my brother. She has quite poisoned Edward against me."
"What of your father?"
If anything, Ian's face grew more shuttered. "My father suffered a hunting accident when I was nine. More properly, half his skull was blown away by a misfired shotgun. But he survives. At least, his body survives. He has not been in his right mind for these twenty-two years."
"How dreadful!" Susannah's heart wept for him and, with a rustle of skirts—her best black poplin, now rather the worse for wear—she moved to sit beside him and slide her arms around his neck.
"Never mind, my dear," she whispered, kissing the side of his jaw. "There is truth to the saying that those who have a trying childhood progress to a particularly satisfying old age."
"I hope so," Ian said, a touch of humor returning to his voice. One hand came up to cup the back of her head, and his lips found her mouth.
The carriage rocked to a halt.
"Damn!" Ian muttered. "Though it's just as well, I suspect. You would not like to call on Mr. Dumboldt looking as if you'd just arisen from a toss in the hay—or, in this case, the carriage."
"No," Susannah said, brushing her hand across the back of her mouth to wipe away the last traces of his kiss and lifting a hand to her hair. "I should not. Ian, perhaps you had best take me to the hotel after all."
He grinned at her, perfectly restored to himself now. "Not a chance, my darling. I want to get this straight between us once and for all."
The driver opened the door, and Ian stepped out, then turned to hand Susannah down. The building they stopped in front of was the typical tall, narrow brick row house, with a neatly lettered sign affixed to the facade that read "M. Dumboldt and sons, Esquires" in sober black letters on a gray ground.
"But how do you know he is in?" Susannah faltered.
"Dumboldt is always in," Ian said imperturbably, and, ushering Susannah ahead of him, he walked up the steps and inside without even bothering to knock. Two men were in the cluttered office off the hallway as they entered. The younger one, fully dressed except for his hat, was seated at a large desk, arguing spiritedly with the older, shirtsleeved gentleman. From the identical profiles, it would be hard to judge the pair as anything save father and son.
"Good morning, Dumboldt. Good morning, Tony," Ian said affably as he shepherded Susannah into the room. Both men jumped as if they'd been shot, their eyes riveted to Ian and bulging. The younger one, Tony, Susannah assumed, leaped up from his desk. The older man had to be Mr. Dumboldt.
"Derne!" Dumboldt gasped.
"By God!" Tony cried.
"I have some business to conduct with you, Dumboldt. If it is perfectly convenient, perhaps we could retire to your private office." Ian was polite, but it was clear to the meanest intelligence—and Susannah's wasn't stupid— that, despite his shabby attire and the slight limpness of his neckcloth, Ian was a man the others sought to please.
"We thought—that is, we were told—uh, it had been suggested to us that you might be—uh . . ." Dumboldt broke off as his face reddened.
"We were told that you were dead," his son said bluntly.
Ian shook his head. "Obviously, I am not. Though not from want of trying, I might add. I shall tell you the whole story, if we may be private, and ask you to make a note of it too, in case the person responsible should try again to rid the world of me. But first, I should like to make you known to my wife. Susannah, Mr. Dumboldt and Mr. Tony Dumboldt."
"H-how do you do?" Susannah's slight verbal stumble occurred because she could not like being introduced as his wife, when she was in truth no such thing. But as Ian had said, the alternative was worse, so, whether she liked it or not, she supposed she must accede to the lie.
"My lady." Both men bowed deeply. Susannah's eyes widened as she glanced at Ian over their bent heads. He grinned at her triumphantly.
"Ah—just so that we may have things perfectly clear, Dumboldt, who am I?"
"What, my lord?"
"What is my name, man, my name!" Ian sounded impatient, so Dumboldt made haste to oblige him, though he clearly considered the question peculiar in the extreme.
"Why, Ian Charles Michael George Henry Connelly, my lord."
"And my title?" His gray eyes held Susannah's. She already knew what she would hear before Dumboldt said a word.
"Marquis of Derne, Baron of Speare, Lord of . . ."
"That's enough, Dumboldt, thank you very much." He quizzed Susannah with his eyes, then turned to Dumboldt again. "Now, if we may be private . . ."
"Certainly, my lord. Certainly." The older man ushered them into his office, his manner almost obsequious. Susannah, rather dazed, listened as Ian gave a concise account of what had befallen him—leaving out such choice bits as the beatings he had endured—and whom he held responsible. It seemed that everything was true that he had been telling her over the past six weeks, from the trumped-up charge—as he was not allowed to speak at the trial, his true identity was never brought out—to the murderer who had followed him to the Carolinas.
Now it seemed that Ian Charles Michael George Henry Connelly, Marquis of Derne, lately the bound servant of Miss Susannah Redmon of Beaufort in the Carolinas, was back to exact revenge.
As they were leaving, with Dumboldt vigorously assuring them that he would take steps to see that Lord Derne did not suffer a repeat of this dastardly business, Ian turned at the door to ask, almost offhandedly, "And how is my father faring? Have you heard?"
"As to that, my lord, except for news of your supposed death I have had little contact with your family. But if anything untoward were to have befallen His Grace the Duke, I am sure I would have been informed.
"Yes." Ian set the rather shabby tricorne on his head and drew Susannah's hand through his elbow. "I suppose they did not dare do anything to him until they were certain I was dead."
"No, my lord. That is my supposition as well." Dumboldt sounded sad. "Tony has a cab waiting, I believe."
"Thank you, Dumboldt."
"It has been my
pleasure, my lord, as always."
When they were once again in a carriage headed toward a hotel, Ian fixed Susannah with a wicked grin.
"Well?"
Susannah had the grace to Hush. "I was mistaken in you. You have my sincerest apologies."
He laughed. "Not near good enough, my girl. Come here and start trying to make amends. I warn you that it may take some considerable time, as my feelings were considerably lacerated. Weeks, maybe. Months. Years." He opened his arms to her. Susannah, after fixing him with an admonishing look, grimaced her acceptance of the terms he exacted and moved into his arms.
There were worse punishments than kissing Ian, after all.
39
The hotel where they were established, the Crillon, was the most luxurious establishment Susannah had ever been inside in her life. The floors were of marble, the ceilings of gilt, and the walls painted with murals of woody glens and limpid blue pools and cherubs. The chamber she shared with Ian was magnificent. From the huge, intricately carved canopy bed, to the mahogany wardrobe and mirrored dressing table, to the cheval glass that was long enough to permit her to see her entire reflection, to the thick Persian carpet on the floor, everything was of the finest. Finer than anything Susannah had ever seen.
Her awe must have shown in her face, because Ian laughed and kissed her. Later, after demonstrating the thorough superiority of that particular mattress over any others they had shared, he ordered an enormous luncheon sent up and appeared to derive a vast amount of enjoyment from watching her sample the strange dishes. Susannah found most of them rather flavorless, but to please Ian she exclaimed as though it were a feast worthy of a king.
The next order of business was obtaining wardrobes for them both, he decreed. Susannah found nothing to protest in this. She was growing heartily sick of her black dress.
When Ian, driving a smart carriage he had hired from the hotel, showed her into an exclusive little establishment called Madame de Vangrisse's, Susannah almost had second thoughts. The outside was discreet enough, with a single shop window that displayed a truly lovely golden dress of lustrous satin. But once Ian opened the door, Susannah could scarcely contain a gasp. Bolts of rich fabric were tossed carelessly over plump sofas and divans in a large, plushly carpeted room. More fabric in vibrant hues spilled from niches set into one wall. Tall mirrors were everywhere, and before them postured some of the most elegantly beautiful women Susannah had ever seen. Equally elegant gentlemen lounged in chairs and on the sofas that were not covered with fabric, watching the ladies parading new gowns.
"I can't go in there!" Had Ian not been right behind her, Susannah would have backed right out the door. Such exquisite decadence was not for the likes of her! But with a wicked grin and a hand in the small of her back, Ian urged her onward.
"Of course you can. Don't be ridiculous! I've been wanting to see you in some proper gowns ever since I first laid eyes on you. Don't think I didn't notice that, while you were making Mandy and Sarah Jane and Em things, you rarely fashioned yourself new clothes."
"That's because I didn't need any."
That this conversation was conducted in whispers didn't detract from its urgency, at least on Susannah's part. She felt increasingly uncomfortable as a few of the ladies turned to glance at the new arrivals, ran their eyes over her, then dismissed her with an obviously contemptuous shrug. Ian came in for rather a longer look, but, as his attention was all for Susannah and his clothes proclaimed him the country bumpkin, he was soon ignored, too.
"You need some now. Don't let them intimidate you. You're worth more than the whole lot of them thrown together. Helen Dutton, over there"—he nodded toward a tall, serenely beautiful blonde—"may be the Countess of Blakely, but she is also one of the most notorious light- skirts in London. They call her children the Baddington miscellany, because all of them were sired by different fathers. She has seven."
He went on, murmuring naughty stories in her ear about the beautiful women, until Susannah had to laugh at the sheer preposterousness of pairing such lovely faces with such bawdy tales. She suspected that he made most of it up to set her at ease, but when she turned to tax him with it she found a shopgirl regarding them with a most supercilious pair of raised brows.
"May I be of assistance, ma'am? sir?" The girl asked frigidly. It was obvious that Susannah's attire, which had been dowdy in Beaufort and was a thousand times more so in this fashionable capital, found no favor in her eyes.
Susannah drew herself up, not liking to be addressed in such a manner.
"As you can see, I require a gown," she said firmly. The girl's manner altered slightly at this pronouncement, which was delivered in Susannah's best imperial manner despite the fact that the girl was some inches taller than she.
"You may tell Madame that Derne is here," Ian told the girl, a grin lurking around his mouth.
"Yes, sir," she said, obsequious now despite their shabby garb, and hurried off. Moments later a tiny woman with hair of an improbable shade of red approached. For an instant she peered suspiciously at Ian, and then, with a cry, she threw herself into his arms.
"It's good to see you, Bridget." Grinning, Ian returned the woman's hug with interest.
"Mon cherDerne!" Susannah's back grew rigid as she watched obviously rouged lips plant a kiss on Ian's mouth. "It is so good to see you again! Where have you been keeping yourself? Away from London, yes? And you have brought me a new customer?" She withdrew from Ian's arms to run her eyes over Susannah, who was regarding her in much the same way she had looked at the snippy shop girl. "A relative, perhaps?"
The implication that Susannah was not the sort of female who would be with Ian if she were not a cousin of some sort was plain, at least to Susannah, but it appeared to sail right over Ian's head.
"Susannah is my marchioness," he said, giving her chin an affectionate pinch. "She's from the Colonies, and she needs to be brought up to snuff, as you can see. I want her to have a complete wardrobe, everything new from the skin out. And we need it within a week. With one or two dresses to take with us today."
"One or two today, and the rest within a week!Alors, my friend, you ask much! It will be expensive, as I am sure you realize—but it can be done." Bridget turned bright black eyes on Susannah, running them assessingly over her figure. "Bah, I can tell nothing through that—that gown! We will have it off you, my lady, and then we shall see."
Bridget started off, beckoning Susannah to follow. Susannah cast a nervous look back at Ian, who grinned at her.
"Go on," he said. "She won't eat you. And I'll be right here. I'm not about to let you pick out your gowns by yourself. We'll be back to sackcloth and ashes again if I do, I know."
"Madame la Marquise,s'il vous plaît,we must hasten!" Bridget called over her shoulder at Susannah. Instantly the head of nearly every lady in the shop swiveled and a dozen pairs of eyes fixed on her. A low buzz of conversation followed her as she crossed the room. Susannah held her head high, though she could not help the color that rose to her cheeks at the whispered comments.
"Did you hear who she is? Derne's marchioness!"
"Nonsense! A marquis would not marry a mouse!"
"She is that, isn't she? Well, Derne has looks enough for the both of them. Oh, look, he's here with her! I must just go and say hello. I haven't seen him this age. I wonder if he's been out of the country?"
The chatter continued, but by then Susannah had reached the sanctuary of the dressing room. Her cheeks burned, and her head was high. A mouse, indeed!
"If you will stand still, my lady, I will help you with your dress."
Susannah was scarcely aware of being undressed down to the skin. Bridget's eyes widened as she took in the curves and hollows of Susannah's body without the concealing dress.
"Sacrebleu, it is a crime against nature to hide such a shape in this rag of a dress!" Bridget gave Susannah's old dress, which was flung over her arm, a disgusted look and consigned it to an assistant to be taken away. Susannah had the feeli
ng that she would never see her best Sunday black again, and she was suddenly, fiercely glad. If she could not be beautiful, at least she need not be a dowd! It occurred to her to wonder why all of a sudden she was concerned with her appearance when it had never bothered her before. But then, without even having to think about it, the answer popped into her head—Ian. She wanted to look attractive for Ian.
"You have a beautiful figure, my lady. I make you my compliments on it."
A beautiful figure? Susannah looked in the mirror, blushed at the naked reflection that she saw there, and hastily averted her eyes. But still the comment stayed with her and provided some balm for the wounding appellation of mouse.
"And a hairdresser, hmmm?" Bridget asked as she brought stacks of fine silk underwear for Susannah's inspection. "Lisette, send Clothilde to me, at once! And bring me the gold dress from the window!"
Silk underwear! Susannah thought as she consented to have a delicately embroidered chemise put on over her head. How Mandy would love that! At the thought, Susannah felt a sudden pang for her sister. All her sisters. And Pa. Much as she loved Ian, she was starting to miss her family.
Susannah was laced into a whalebone bodice of brocaded satin that pushed her breasts up to the point of indecency and made her small waist seem even tinier, had silk stockings rolled onto her legs and secured with ribbon garters, and struggled into petticoats and panniers and gold satin slippers with silk flowers and heels three inches high (they were a trifle large, but Bridget stuffed the toes with cotton and assured her they would do). She was growing more than a trifle weary of high fashion. Only the thought of being called a mouse kept her from calling a halt.
Nobody's Angel Page 30
