The Deception of the Emerald Ring pc-3

by Лорен Уиллиг

  Miles led the way unerringly down a series of corridors, away from the madding crowd in the eception rooms. It didn't escape Letty's attention that both Mr. Dorrington and Lady Henrietta appeared to know her new home far better than she did. Or that they referred to Lord Pinchingdale familiarly and fondly as "Geoff."

  "After you." Miles wrenched open a door to a small, booklined room, and set about lighting candles to alleviate the evening gloom, while Henrietta solicitously settled Letty into a large leather chair. The pale gauze overlay of Letty's hastily refurbished dress contrasted incongruously with the dark leather of the chair, a feminine intrusion into a masculine stronghold.

  There was something rather unsettling about being in a room so clearly marked by her new husband's presence. His papers and books dominated the desk, all squared into tidy piles with the edges all lined neatly into place. The bindings on the books were as well-worn as her father's, if their placement more orderly, in a staggering array of subjects and languages. Letty made out the ornate, curled letters of the German presses, thin pamphlets in French, heavy treatises in English, and curious, narrow little books with Greek letters incised into the spine, the gilt letters glowing uncannily in the candlelight, like the aftermath of a wizard's spell.

  Magic, indeed! Letty squirmed upright against the slick leather of the chair, determined not to fall prey to fancies. There was nothing at all magical about Lord Pinchingdale's departure—just something craven. Had he been planning, all along, to flee as soon as the vows were said? The study showed no signs of disarray; every drawer was neatly closed, every book in its place. Beneath a layer of indignation and champagne, Letty felt another emotion stir, an emotion that felt curiously like disappointment.

  She would have thought Lord Pinchingdale many things, but not a coward.

  "How long ago did he leave?" asked Letty, more sharply than she had intended.

  "Half an hour. Maybe more," said Miles curtly.

  Casting a reproachful look at her husband, Henrietta moved to stand protectively behind Letty.

  Letty stared at the clasped hands in her lap, and rethought her question. "Why did he leave?" she asked.

  Over her head, Miles and Henrietta exchanged a long look.

  "He didn't even give an excuse, did he?" said Letty disgustedly.

  "He doesn't really owe you one, does he?" said Miles, folding his arms across his chest like a Roman gladiator staring down a particularly uppity lion. "Not after the trick you played on him."

  Letty grasped the arms of the chair and hauled herself upright. "The trick I played on him?"

  "That's right," said Miles, nodding. "He told me all about it."

  "What trick?"

  "Oh, so you deny it."

  "How can I deny it if I don't even know what I'm denying?" Letty paused and frowned, running back over the words in her head. There was something wrong with the sentence, but there was so much wrong in general that syntax and the possible odd double negative were the least of her worries.

  "You mean to say that you didn't arrange for Geoff to be—" Miles paused in his role of Grand Inquisitor to cast a quizzical glance in the direction of his wife. "Dash it, Hen, what's the male equivalent of 'compromised'?"

  "You think I compromised Lord Pinchingdale?" Letty's champagne-soaked brain boggled at the image.

  Miles shrugged uncomfortably. "Something like that. So you can't blame old Geoff for haring off first chance he got."

  "Why would I…but how would I…?" Letty broke off and tried again. "But I didn't even know about the elopement until five minutes before!"

  "I told you so," said Henrietta smugly, coming around to perch on the arm of Letty's chair.

  "Told him what?" asked Letty anxiously.

  "That you weren't a scheming adventuress," explained Henrietta.

  "You all thought…think…I'm an adventuress? Me?" It was quite as absurd as her being perceived as a fallen woman, so miserably inapt that all Letty could do was gape.

  "It did seem a little unlikely," Miles admitted, scuffing one booted foot against the red-figured Oriental rug.

  Henrietta sent him a repressive look. "Not that you couldn't be a brilliant adventuress if you wanted to be," she said soothingly.

  Miles rolled his eyes to the study ceiling at the vagaries of women, and went to uncork the brandy decanter. Laying the crystal stopper to the side, he poured amber liquid into a round-bottomed glass.

  "I thought—" After the past few minutes, it was hard to remember what she had thought, or that she was capable of thought at all. Letty shook her head to clear it, and continued, "I thought Lord Pinchingdale was sulking because I'd gotten in the way of his elopement. Because I had interfered with his plans."

  She straightened and squinted a bit as Miles pressed a glass into her hand.

  "Brandy," explained Miles. "You look like you need it."

  Letty didn't entirely agree, but she took the glass anyway, curving her hand around the rounded bowl to keep it steady. Whether it was her hand or her glass she was attempting to keep from shaking, she couldn't quite say.

  "How could he have thought I planned this? It doesn't make any sense."

  "It made sense when Geoff explained it," muttered Miles, making a second trip to the brandy decanter.

  "Men!" declared Lady Henrietta, swinging a slippered foot back and forth as she perched on the edge of Letty's chair. "Incapable of adding two and two, the lot of them."

  "I say, Hen, that is harsh."

  "It's no more than you deserve for leaping to conclusions," said Henrietta, entirely undermining her stern words by throwing a kiss.

  Letty hastily looked away. She took a tentative sip from the glass Miles had handed her. Being of a lamentably healthy disposition, she had never had the opportunity to taste brandy before. Letty made a face as the first drops hit her tongue. It didn't taste nearly as pretty as it looked in the glass. It tasted almost salty. Letty took another small, diagnostic sip, and decided it wasn't nearly as bad the second time. A third sip rendered it almost pleasant, although she still couldn't understand why gentlemen seemed quite so enamored of it. But then, gentlemen were enamored of the oddest things. Cards, for example, and curricles, and punching one another for recreational purposes.

  "Now that we've got all that straightened out," Henrietta continued, although Letty couldn't see that anything was straightened out at all, not even the chair, which persisted in swaying in a most alarming way, "where on earth is Geoff off to?"

  Miles propped himself against the edge of Lord Pinchingdale's desk and took a fortifying gulp from his glass before venturing to respond.

  "It was something to do with a horse."

  Letty lifted the glass in her own hand so that the candlelight struck gold sparks off the pale liquid, and announced, "I don't think I've imbibed enough to believe that."

  Miles grinned at her, a grin that both approved the sentiment and tried to make up for earlier mistrust. Letty appreciated the gesture, even if she did still feel as though someone had hit her repeatedly with a very large mallet. "Then you clearly need some more."

  "What we all need," said Henrietta, protectively resting a hand on Letty's shoulder as Miles sauntered over with the decanter to top off Letty's glass, "are some explanations. Miles? Or did Geoff not bother to provide those?"

  "Oh, he did. You know Geoff, thorough to a fault." Miles surrendered the decanter, stretched out his booted legs in front of him, and said apologetically, "It really was about a horse. A very special horse," he added hastily, as though that might mitigate the blow to Letty's pride. It wasn't very heartening to take second place to a horse, even a very special one. What horse could possibly be that special? It only reinforced Letty's conviction that his real motive had been to avoid her.

  "I still don't see why he had to go tonight," mused Henrietta, giving voice to Letty's thoughts. "It could have waited till morning."

  "No, I really don't think it could," said Miles, and there was a quelling note in his voi
ce that Letty didn't quite comprehend. "This was a very elusive sort of animal."

  "Ah," said Henrietta.

  "Ah," agreed Miles.

  "I don't understand at all," protested Letty.

  "Have some more brandy," said Miles.

  "To aid the understanding?" Letty wrinkled her nose in disbelief.

  "No, to dull it. Trust me, it works," said Miles.

  It wasn't working well enough. Letty's mind insisted on circling back over that awful scene in her parents' foyer—her mother had congratulated her on being compromised! Hugged her and praised her. And she, what had she done? Letty struggled to remember. She thought she had protested. She thought she had made clear that the match wasn't any more to her liking than his. But had she? Or had it all been said later, in private, with her father? That was the problem with memory, thought Letty despairingly. One knew what one had said—or thought, or felt—so one assumed that everyone else knew it, too.

  Images, out of order, flashed through Letty's brain. Martin Frobisher, talking about snares. Mary, looking guileless in white at the head of the stairs. Lord Pinchingdale, barely meeting her eyes at the altar that morning, brushing a kiss across the air above her hand as though he could barely stand to be near her. And there was Martin Frobisher again, always there just when one didn't want him, talking about bagging a catch. Of course, Letty had known she hadn't planned any such thing, but to Lord Pinchingdale…Suddenly, a great many things made a good deal more sense, and Letty rather wished they didn't.

  No wonder he had gone to Ireland. It was only amazing he hadn't chosen Australia.

  Letty buried her head in her hands and groaned.

  "Letty?" Henrietta's hand closed around her shoulder and gave a gentle shake. "Letty, dear?"

  "Yes?" croaked Letty, without looking up.

  "Your hair is in your brandy."

  "Oh!" Sure enough, one long lock had straggled out of her coiffure and found its way into her glass.

  Letty peered owlishly at the soggy tress. "How did it do that?"

  Henrietta exchanged a long, worried look with her husband. At least, Henrietta looked worried. Miles merely looked intrigued by the absorbent properties of hair.

  "Letty, dear." Henrietta hunkered down next to her chair. "Would you like to come to us tonight? Rather than staying here on your own?"

  "No." Letty shook her head determinedly. The word sounded good, so she said it again. "No. I'll be…" Drat, she knew there was a phrase for such things. Where had it gone? "I'll be all right. I'll be quite all right."

  Ha! That was it. Letty felt as though she had accomplished something quite monumental; if only the floor would stay in one place. Funny, she had never noticed before how pretty the pink ribbons on her slippers were. Pretty, pretty pink ribbons. Pretty pink ribbons for a wedding that wasn't a real wedding. Letty felt tears welling up beneath her lower lids and closed her eyes hard, to keep the moisture where it belonged. It seemed to work. When she opened her eyes again, the room had a hazy glow, like peering into a lit room through a frosted window on a winter's afternoon, but the tears had gone.

  Over her head, the Dorringtons were speaking softly, so softly that Letty only caught bits and snippets.

  "…nothing to be done now…" That from Miles.

  "…can't leave her…" said Henrietta.

  The large form of Mr. Dorrington, effectively blotting out the candlelight, moved in front of her, and looked down at her with a practiced eye.

  "You, Lady Pinchingdale," said Miles, not unkindly, "are going to have a hell of a head in the morning."

  Letty latched on to the only relevant part of the sentence.

  "I'm not really Lady Pinchingdale," Letty hastened to correct him. "It's all…" She meant to say "a mistake," but the words wouldn't come out right, so after three tries she substituted, "…wrong. It's all wrong."

  Henrietta's hand gently touched her hair. To her husband, she said, "I may have to murder Geoff when he gets back."

  "Don't joke, Hen," said Miles, sotto voce, but not quite so sotto that Letty couldn't hear him. "Someone else may do it for you first. You know he didn't have any choice."

  "Not in that," Henrietta said, sounding immeasurably frustrated, "but he did in this."

  Miles put his arm around his wife's shoulder in a way that made Letty suddenly feel very cold, despite the flames of the tapers in the candelabrum next to her and the brandy inside her. "It's a damnable situation all around, Hen, but it is what it is. I'm sure Geoff will sort it out when he gets back."

  "I suppose," sighed Lady Henrietta.

  "Please." Letty grabbed Henrietta's hand, struck by a sudden thought. "Could you…Could you not tell anyone he's gone?"

  Henrietta didn't ask for any explanations. She cocked her head and thought for a moment. "We can tell everyone you've both already gone upstairs and don't want to be disturbed. That should give all the gossips something else to talk about," she concluded triumphantly, looking immensely pleased with herself.

  "What about tomorrow," asked Miles, "when they see that she's here but Geoff's not?"

  "Blast," said Lady Henrietta, looking less pleased. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to come to us? We could hide you…."

  "For two months?" interrupted Miles skeptically.

  "Two months?" repeated Letty, wondering why her tongue suddenly felt far too thick for her mouth. "You think Lord Pinchingdale will be gone that long?"

  "At least."

  "It's only three days to Dublin," argued Henrietta.

  "In good weather," countered her husband. "Besides, the, er, horse may take some finding."

  "Is the horse missing?" asked Letty confusedly, still not entirely convinced there was a horse. It was very nice of them to try to pretend that Lord Pinchingdale wasn't just avoiding her, but this really was outside of absurd.

  "It's a very dark horse," supplied Henrietta, with a very uncharacteristic curl to her lip.

  Since it wasn't polite to ask too many questions when people were trying to do one a kindness, Letty removed a floating hair from her brandy, regarded the liquid philosophically, and finished the glass.

  "Oh, dear," said Lady Henrietta, belatedly removing the glass from Letty's hand. "You're quite sure you'll be all right?"

  Letty nodded, and the room nodded with her.

  "I'll call on you tomorrow," said Henrietta, "and we'll think of some story to tell. Just remember, you're not alone in this. Right, Miles?"

  "Absolutely!" said all three of Henrietta's husbands in unison.

  "Thank you," whispered Letty, but the door was already closing, leaving her alone with the shadows in the recesses between her husband's books. There was a bust in a corner of the room, clearly a Roman, although Letty didn't know her Romans well enough to discern which Roman he might be. An eminent one, no doubt. Were there any noneminent Romans? There must have been, but nobody bothered to carve statues of them.

  Taking up a candle, Letty made her way very carefully over to the marble head, holding on to the edge of the bookshelves for balance. Her pink slippers were terribly pretty, but they seemed to have grown harder to walk in. Letty paused in front of the statue, swaying slightly, and shone the light in his big, empty marble eyes.

  "Well, what do you think I should do?" she asked, since it seemed a logical thing to do.

  The Roman simply regarded her with a supercilious expression that reminded her uncannily of her husband. Funny, there was something familiar about that long, thin-bridged nose, too.

  "Can't stay here," muttered Letty, shaking her head at the statue, who very kindly shook his head back. If she did, oh, how the Mrs. Ponsonbys would gloat! Poor Letty Alsworthy only married a day, and her husband already left her. Haven't you heard, my dear, he fled the country—yes, the country—just because he couldn't face the thought of spending a moment longer in her company. And who could blame him, such a mouse, you know? Not such a mouse, the way she tricked him—didn't you hear how she tricked him? My dear, why, everybody knows! No
wonder he left!

  "But I didn't," Letty protested, pressing her hands against her ears to blot out the whisperings of malicious voices. "I didn't."

  She had to find some way to tell him the truth, right away, before all the malicious voices got to him. She had to convince him, convince him beyond a shred of suspicion that it had all just been a hideous accident, and that she was as much a victim of circumstance as he. That was all it had been. A hideous accident. Surely he would believe her if she could only just tell him….

  Letty stared at her new friend, the Roman bust, for a long, wide-eyed moment. That was it! The answer to all her problems.

  Immeasurably cheered, Letty gave the startled head of Cicero an impulsive hug, not even wincing as his stone nose mashed into her ribs. It was quite the best idea she had had in a long time, an idea as brilliant as the shiny pink ribbons on her slippers.

  If she could only manage to find the door…

  * * *

  A goblin with a saw was scraping away at Letty's head. She could hear the rhythmic scratch of it, directly against her skull. Screech, scratch, screech, scratch. She begged it to stop, but it only laughed and started rocking her back and forth, faster and faster, until Letty knew she was going to be ill, but she couldn't allow the demon the satisfaction of it. Her gorge rose and the room swayed and Letty moaned, burying her face into something that crackled and scratched. Letty paused, frowning in her sleep. A pillow. There was a hard surface beneath her, and a blanket scratching the underside of her chin. Letty's breath went out in a long sigh of pure relief. She was sleeping, of course, dreaming, in her own bed, and any moment now the maid was going to come to tell her she had overslept and hurry her downstairs to breakfast. Only the thought of breakfast made Letty's stomach lurch, and for all that she pressed herself as close as she could to the bed, the room persisted in swaying slowly from side to side, again and again, in a rhythmic rocking motion.

  Letty's curiously swollen fingers began an exploratory expedition along the edge of the sheet. The weave was coarse, the edges frayed. Letty ran her fuzzy tongue over her chapped lips, not liking what she was feeling. She couldn't remember having been ill. She didn't remember much of anything at all, and the attempt made her head hurt. With a monumental effort, she pried open her crusted eyes. All she could see was a stretch of wooden wall, unpainted, unpapered, and marred with knots and wormholes.