“No trouble at all, miss. If anything happened to you, the ladies would skin me alive. I should set one of my men to guarding you.”
“Entirely unnecessary, Mr. Renquist,” she said. The last thing she needed was to have some strange man following her or waiting outside Aunt Grace’s for her to leave. How would she ever explain that to Dianthe?
“If you should change your mind, miss, just let me know. Best to be safe, eh?”
“I am always cautious, Mr. Renquist.”
He stared at her for a moment and then laughed. “That’s a good one, miss. You almost had me there.”
“Oh, Madame Zoe, you must tell me what to do! I am so confused, and time is of the essence. I shall go mad trying to figure it out myself.” The stunning blonde finished shuffling the tarot cards and slid the deck across the table to Afton.
Miss Barlow had been inconsiderately late. A quick glance at the clock displayed the hour. Half past six! Beneath the veils that hid her identity, Afton suppressed a twinge of anxiety. She should have sent the woman away to make another appointment. What demon had possessed her to agree to see Miss Barlow so late in the day? Afton would scarce have time to bathe before dressing for the evening out.
It wasn’t that she suspected Miss Barlow of having anything to do with her aunt’s death. No, it was money. Filthy lucre. Bit o’ the ready. Dianthe’s new gown. That’s what. And Beatrice Barlow deserved her money’s worth. That was only fair. “I must ’ave more information, chérie,” she said in the affected French accent. “’Ow can I ’elp if I do not know the problem?”
Miss Barlow blanched at the suggestion. “I dare not breathe another word! The entire ton says you are the absolute best! Surely you can help me without knowing the particulars.”
“Hmm,” Afton stalled deliberately. In truth, she was learning more than she cared to know about what went on behind society’s closed doors. But drawing on that knowledge did her little good. She knew nothing about Miss Beatrice Barlow other than that she had made an advantageous match and would wed soon. Whatever was troubling her would have to be solved quickly.
“Very well, chérie. You understand that it is not for the cards to make the decision, eh? That belongs to you. The cards are only a guide, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.”
Afton dealt the cards, deciding upon a horseshoe pattern, the quickest of the tarot spreads.
Miss Barlow twisted her handkerchief and chewed her full lower lip. “Tell me everything, Madame Zoe.”
“Your first card tells past influences,” she said. She tapped the figure of an upside-down man in a belled cap. “You must guard against impetuosity, chérie, or face disaster.” Innocuous enough, and good advice under any circumstances.
“I have not been impetuous in the least. But I must be certain, and that is why I have come to you for guidance.”
“Oui. I can see that this is the critical matter.” Afton turned up the next card. “Là! The magician! You ’ave the decision to make. You must remain clear-headed, n’est-ce pas?”
“Clear-headed?” Miss Barlow appeared to be baffled.
“Oui. Do not ’urry to judgment. ’Ow you Anglaise say— ‘Act in ’aste, repent at leisure’?”
“Oh, piffle! I haven’t the time to mull things over, madame. I must decide what to do very soon.”
Another glance at the clock showed the relentless march of time. Feeling a fair amount of urgency herself, Afton turned the third card up. “The lovers! Ah, this explains everything.”
“The lovers!” Miss Barlow exclaimed, leaning forward. “Oh, I knew it! Tell me more, madame. What do you see for us?”
“He is…’andsome. ’Is coloring is—”
“Dark! Oh, yes! The most handsome of men! You are so terribly clever, madame. Tell me, is it true love?”
“The card foretells love, and a choice to be made, chérie. Between the flesh and the spirit. Not the same things, eh?”
“No!” Miss Barlow agreed. “My flesh—my heart—tells me one thing, and my spirit and good sense tell me another.”
Afton turned up another card. The moon. The card called for use of the nonrational—instinct and intuition—over rational reasoning, a poor prospect where Miss Barlow was concerned. Nevertheless, it was her fortune. “Use your instincts, chérie. Your ’eart tells you what is best.”
Miss Barlow winced. “If only I could be certain.”
Afton turned up the next card and was surprised at the way the cards were reinforcing one another. It was almost enough to make her believe in the tarot. Almost. “This—” she tapped the card with her finger “—is the chariot, chérie, and foretells travel or distance. Per’aps emotional, per’aps physical.”
“Travel! Oh, yes, madame! I shall travel, indeed. Oh, this is what I have been searching for. Now I know what I must do,” Miss Barlow resolved firmly as Afton nearly pushed her through the door of the small salon. “I shall follow my heart.”
Chapter Five
Standing near the fireplace in the Spencer ballroom, Rob watched Miss Lovejoy dance a quadrille with Seymour. She was stunning in a willow-green gown trimmed at the bodice and hem with embroidered pink rosebuds. Her hair was secured at the crown with green satin ribbons and then fell in a shining, pale copper riot of curls to her nape. Had she splurged on ribbons for her own hair as well as her sister’s? Money well spent, he observed.
He was still disturbed by his response to her in the tearoom. When she had savored her sponge cake with a little moan and then licked the cream from her lips, she’d been completely irresistible. He’d wondered what it would be like to have Afton moan like that for him. Rob had been seized with such a strong physical response that he’d been afraid he would fall upon her like a ravenous wolf. It would seem he was inching nearer the proverbial edge.
“Lord Glenross?”
He turned to find Mrs. Forbush at his elbow. She wore a gown of silver-gray trimmed in lavender, which displayed her sultry elegance to dazzling advantage. “How are you this evening, Mrs. Forbush?”
“Quite well, thank you. I saw you standing here and thought to take this opportunity to invite you to attend my salon next Friday.”
An invitation to Mrs. Forbush’s much-vaunted and exclusive “Friday salon” was an unexpected compliment, but… “Christmas?”
“I have a number of unattached friends in London for the holiday. I thought we could make our own little family. If you’ll come ’round after church, we shall have a merry celebration. Your brother is welcome, too.”
“Douglas has accepted an invitation from his fiancée’s family,” Rob said. He suspected he would find congenial company at Mrs. Forbush’s gathering—a gathering of strays, orphans and wanderers. And Afton Lovejoy. “I, however, shall be pleased to accept,” he said, watching Miss Lovejoy curtsy to Seymour.
Mrs. Forbush followed his glance. “I’ve invited Sir Martin, as well. Do you think he is interested in my niece?”
“Miss Dianthe?”
“Miss Afton,” she said.
Rob felt a nasty flash of annoyance. “Would his interest be reciprocated?”
Mrs. Forbush smiled. “Afton is a paradox, Lord Glenross. She is uncommonly intelligent, and she can appear so worldly and wise, yet she is really quite innocent. At the moment, she is focused on family matters and does not realize the interest in her. I do not know if she would welcome attention from that quarter. I just pray she will not drift into the wrong relationship.”
“Wrong?” When the implication sank in, he turned away from the dance floor to look into Mrs. Forbush’s deep brown eyes. “Do you think Seymour is the wrong sort? Or me?”
She smiled again, an enigmatic expression rife with hidden meaning. “Oh, heavens! I would never say that Sir Martin is not the right sort. I just meant that perhaps he was…well, not the right match for Afton.”
Rob frowned. Surely Mrs. Forbush couldn’t be matchmaking. “What—who—would be the right match?” he asked.
“Someone strong enough to protect her. Someone who has the necessary depth of character to appreciate her. Someone who has a capacity for deep and abiding love. A man of honor.”
“Ah, then you cannot mean me,” he muttered, startled by the slightest twinge of disappointment. After all, it wasn’t as if he wanted to make a match.
Grace laughed. “Which of those things disqualifies you, Glenross?”
“All of them, I regret to say.” And if I had any intentions toward your niece, Mrs. Forbush, they would definitely not be honorable.
“I confess I have misread you, Glenross. I thought your interest in Afton was, perhaps, more than merely superficial. So then, what does account for your interest in her, my lord?”
He watched Seymour lift Afton’s hand to pass her beneath his arm. The willow-green fabric smoothed over her décolletage and caused the soft flesh to swell and strain against the row of rosebuds. Oh, what honeyed heaven did those rosebuds guard? He cleared his throat. “Can one not simply enjoy the scenery?”
“Indeed. As long as one does not mind a locked gate between himself and the scenery.”
“A locked gate?”
“Shortly, by virtue of the interest she is attracting, that particular scenery will belong to someone else, and trespassers will be shot.”
He studied Mrs. Forbush’s bland smile. Was she issuing a warning?
“Ah well, ’tis not of a pressing nature, my lord.” She waved her gray silk fan in a languorous arc. “I am certain you will have entire hours, perhaps even a day or two, to think on the matter.”
Entire hours? Was Seymour’s proposal that imminent? Odd how thinking of Afton as someone else’s exclusive provenance could cause Rob no little amount of irritation.
“Mmm,” he answered in a noncommittal undertone as the dance ended and Seymour began escorting Miss Lovejoy back to her aunt. “I am relieved I have entire hours to contemplate my future.”
Mrs. Forbush laughed, the sound warm, bubbling and entirely unconcerned, as if she already knew the outcome.
“There’s the McHugh with your aunt,” Sir Martin said, “looking ever so fierce and forbidding.”
Afton smiled. “Fierce and forbidding are quite ordinary for Lord Glenross,” she observed.
“Do you suppose he is wooing her? She’s quite delectable, is she not?” He gave Afton a sideways glance, as if measuring her response to his comment.
Bemused by that notion, Afton tilted her head to one side and studied the casual posture of Glenross and her aunt. She’d have thought it congenial, but not romantical. And yes, Grace Forbush was “delectable.” The number of men who sent her flowers, paid calls upon her and fought over invitations to her Friday salons would attest to that. But McHugh? She couldn’t picture them together—Grace with her cool elegance and McHugh with his seething, rough-edged masculinity. A poor match, that.
She repeated Sir Martin’s word. “Wooing? Do you suppose Glenross knows how to accomplish such a task?”
“May not,” Sir Martin agreed. “Maeve was given to him like a parcel wrapped with a bow. Their families betrothed them when they were still in the nursery. He never had to woo or win her. She was always…his.”
His. Afton sighed, wondering what it would be like to be his. So, they had loved each other since childhood? What sort of woman had won and kept the love and devotion of a man like McHugh, even after death? A small flash of jealousy shot through her. “You knew her? Glenross’s wife?”
“Aye. We grew up together, an unmanageable threesome if ever there was one. Willing partners in one debacle after another until we reached adolescence.”
Afton was charmed by a sudden vision of three barefoot children roaming the Scottish countryside, causing havoc. “Indeed?”
“Aye. McHugh was our ringleader. He knew every hiding place and every forbidden door in the county, and he could pick any lock known to mankind.”
Afton met McHugh’s gaze across the distance. A provocative smile curved his lips and a thrill of excitement warmed her. “He was mischievous?”
“Larcenous.” Sir Martin grinned.
She laughed. She had always suspected McHugh would not let mere rules stand between him and a goal.
Sir Martin slowed his pace and leaned near her ear to whisper, “So, if not your aunt, Miss Lovejoy, who do you suppose the McHugh is waiting for? Your sister?”
Afton shrugged. “I promised him another waltz earlier today. Perhaps he has come to collect.”
“It would have been better if he was interested in your aunt. Since she is a widow, she is free to engage in a discreet alliance. You see, I know for a certainty that McHugh is not interested in marriage. Maeve ruined him for anyone else.”
Afton was not surprised. She had suspected as much all along. “I shall warn my sister,” she murmured.
“And you, Miss Lovejoy?”
“Me?”
“Did you have any hopes in that direction?”
Afton was startled by the question—both that Sir Martin had asked it, and that she had never contemplated it. Oh, she’d thought of McHugh often enough, but only to wonder what it would be like to kiss him, and if hands gentle enough to replace her hood and wipe away a tear would be likewise gentle in an embrace. She felt the heat of a blush creep into her cheeks at those possibilities.
But hope that he might make an offer for her? Absurd. Aside from the fact that he was still in love with his dead wife, he was far too…intense. There was an impalpable darkness that hovered about him, as if he knew that darkness intimately. As if he cherished it. Courted it.
“Miss Lovejoy?” Sir Martin repeated.
Afton shook her head to clear it of the troubling thoughts. “Hopes, Sir Martin? Nay. I am not that foolish.”
Rob wondered what the hell Seymour had said to elicit Miss Lovejoy’s delicate blush. It was all he could do to maintain his self-control as he waited for his friend to deliver her back to her aunt. Patience was not Rob’s strong point. And neither, it would seem, was sharing.
He took a deep breath and relaxed his tense muscles. What had gotten into him? He had better claim the waltz she had promised this afternoon and then be on his way. Miss Lovejoy was not for him. Too sweet. Too innocent. Too damn tempting.
“Ah, Glenross.” Miss Lovejoy offered her hand the moment Seymour released it. “Have you come to collect my debt?”
“What debt?” Seymour asked, his eyes narrowing.
“His lordship rescued me from the weather today.” Miss Lovejoy answered for him. “We waited out a fresh snowfall at Twickford’s Tearoom until duty called his lordship away. He was kind enough to order me tea and allow me time to warm up.”
Rob felt slightly smug at Seymour’s look of surprise. “Careful, Miss Lovejoy. Such reckless talk could ruin my reputation. You’ll have people thinking I am a gentleman.”
She laughed. “I shall be more circumspect in the future.”
The orchestra began the first notes of the next dance. “As fate would have it, I have come to collect. A waltz, was it not?” Without further ado, Rob whisked his partner onto the dance floor and into his arms.
“I must admit that I am a little surprised,” Miss Lovejoy began. “I feared, when you departed so abruptly this afternoon, that I had done something to incur your displeasure.”
He gave her a wry smile. He could never admit that, amidst the pots of jam and sponge cake, he’d been about to bend her over the little table and take her then and there. Or how he’d fantasized about being the one to lick the cream from her lips while she moaned, “heavenly.” Maeve had been right about that much at least. He was an animal. “To the contrary, Miss Lovejoy, I did not find you displeasing in the least. I simply had…ah, urgent business.”
His downward glance snagged on the row of rosebuds at her décolletage. Thankfully, Miss Lovejoy did not notice, her attention drawn to the sidelines where a murmur was growing to a buzz. “I wonder what could be amiss,” she mused.
Ethan Travis, Rob�
�s old partner, was standing in a group of colleagues and turned to look at them. With a quick jerk of his head, he signaled them to the sidelines. Rob guided his partner off the floor.
“McHugh, did you hear? James Livingston was found murdered in a back street behind the Pultney Hotel. Is that not where you are staying?” Travis asked.
“Jamie Livingston?” Rob went still. “Shocking” news rarely affected him, but this was extraordinary. He had run into Livingston after leaving Twickford’s mere hours ago. It was no secret he and Livingston had not been on good terms since Rob had found him pulling Maeve into a night-dark garden many years ago, but he certainly would not have wished such a fate on the man. “Did they catch the murderer?”
“No. He’d been dead a few hours before he was found. The bastard took a knife to him, Rob.”
A soft intake of breath demanded his attention and reminded him that Miss Lovejoy was a witness to this unpleasantness. He looked down at her pale complexion and horrified expression. “Are you all right, Miss Lovejoy?”
“Yes.” She nodded, her eyes wide. “Please do not worry about me.”
He gave her a distracted smile and turned back to Ethan. “Are there any clues?”
“The watchman said he was clutching a button of some kind. Had a raven on it. Jamie must have grabbed for his attacker as he went down.”
A button? A dim memory tweaked the back of Rob’s mind.
“H-how very awful for you, to lose a friend in such a manner,” Miss Lovejoy gasped.
She looked so distressed that Rob felt the need to reassure her. Forgetting Travis in his concern, he led her toward a vacant grouping of chairs near the punch bowl. He seated her and quickly fetched a cup of punch laced with a touch of brandy.
He knelt by her chair and offered the cup. “Drink this, Miss Lovejoy. You’ll be fit as a fiddle in no time.”
She drank deeply and returned the cup with a sad smile. “Thank you, Glenross. Really, I am quite all right. ’Tis just that I lost someone dear to me in much the same manner. It is dreadful, is it not?”
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