His Improper Lady--A Historical Romance

by Candace Camp

  “No. He’s not going to do anything to me. He’s angry because he found out Falk hired me. I told him about the ring and my father. He knows that trying to do anything to me will mean a scandal for his precious Morelands.” Her voice was bitter; she could deal with the man’s anger, but the contempt in Quick’s eyes burned her.

  “Will it?” Brock asked. “Mean a scandal?”

  “No! How could you ask that? I don’t have any desire to do anything to the Morelands.”

  “What is it you do want, Dez?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied candidly. “I just... I don’t know anything. About them. About him. I never knew him, never knew my mother.”

  “You were only a baby when they left.”

  “I don’t even know what she looked like. I mean, Bruna told me when I asked her, but you know how Bruna was—it was ‘blond hair, blue eyes’ and a shrug.”

  His mouth twitched up on one side. “Bruna was never one for words.”

  “Tell me about our mother, Brock. You knew her. You can remember. What was she like?”

  Brock sighed. “Let’s go to my study.”

  They walked down the hall to Brock’s study, and Desiree sat down in one of the wingback chairs grouped before the fireplace. Brock went over to a cabinet and poured himself a glass of whiskey.

  “Bit early for that, isn’t it?” Desiree teased. “It’s not quite noon.”

  “Somehow I think this conversation deserves it.” Brock sat down with her and took a sip. “Very well. Our mother—I don’t remember a lot. I was only six when Stella left. She was blonde and blue eyed, as Bruna said. Her hair was lighter than yours, more the color you and Wells had when you were little, almost golden. She was very pretty, but when she smiled, she was absolutely stunning. That was her nature, too—bright, sunny. She was...fun.

  “I remember her teaching me to tumble—not the very first lessons, because I must have started when I was two or so, but later, around the time when she put me in her act.” He glanced at his sister, explaining, “I did the same sort of thing you and Wells did at first—Stella dressed me up as a cherub with a little harp. My halo happened to fall off, and I chased it as it rolled across the stage. The audience roared, so she incorporated it into the act. I don’t really remember that. She told me about it so many times, though, it seems as if I knew it.”

  “I remember doing that act,” Desiree told him. “Wells would pull my hair or untie my sash, and I’d chase him about trying to hit him, and we’d do flips and cartwheels and all that.” Desiree stopped abruptly, remembering the young Brock, sitting apart, watching them, no longer a part of the act. “I’m sorry. I—maybe you’d rather not talk about the act.”

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t bother me. That was long ago. And accidents happen.”

  “But it didn’t have to,” she said hotly. “They should have checked that rope. You wouldn’t have fallen. If we had been in London, they could have found a better doctor. He could have set your leg straighter.”

  “And we should have listened to you. It was just that you were so young and no one knew about your gift. But I think you feel worse about it than I do.” Brock smiled faintly. “It wasn’t the end of the world. I was able to do other things around the circus. A little limp has never stopped me from doing what I wanted. The acrobatics didn’t mean that much to me. I was never as good at it as you and Wells. Besides, I would have grown out of acrobatics. Sooner or later, I’d have been too big. Now, as I remember, you wanted to talk about Stella...”

  “Yes. Go on.” Desiree wasn’t sure how much she believed her brother’s denial, but it would serve no purpose to pursue the issue. “You were telling me about her teaching you to tumble.”

  “Stella was patient, a good teacher—not as good as Bruna was. Stella was too easygoing. She let mistakes slip by without saying anything. But we laughed a lot in my lessons, and afterward, we’d have milk and biscuits. And she sang. I remember her singing me lullabies at night. She had a lovely voice. We had this little one-room place—I only vaguely remember it—but it was cozy. Then she met your father, and everything changed.”

  “What do you remember about him?”

  “Even less. He was tall and slender. He looked a bit like Wells, now that I think about it. Not his coloring. His hair was dark. I don’t remember the color of his eyes—something light, I think. But his face, his body had something of Wells in them.”

  “Do you remember anything else? Anything about him?”

  “I’m sorry. I know how much you want to know about your father. But it was so very long ago, and I was a child. Children look at things differently. Mostly what I recall is that everything was different after that. We moved into a bigger house, where I had my own bedroom. There was all this space. I remember liking to run up and down the stairs. But suddenly everything revolved around him. Stella was with him or she was thinking about him. Buying his preferred wine, keeping the humidor filled with his favorite cigars, preparing the dishes he liked. And crying when he didn’t come for dinner as he’d said he would.”

  “She was unhappy?”

  “More often than she had been before he came along. She was giddy with happiness when he was there, when she was getting ready for his visit, but he was only there sometimes. A few hours here or there. No doubt he had a wife and another family. Legitimate children. I think she cried as much as she laughed. She was besotted with him. It shouldn’t have been any surprise when she ran away with him.”

  “You disliked him.”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “I don’t know. I’m not sure how much of my opinion of the man was colored by the fact that he took Stella away from us, that he left us behind like old luggage. There was no reason for him to care about me, but you and Wells were his children. So, it’s hard for me to remember exactly how I felt before that happened. I’m not sure if I disliked him. But I didn’t like him, either.”

  “Was he mean to you?”

  “No, not at all. Whatever else I think about him, he was obviously mad for Stella. He wouldn’t have done anything that would make her unhappy. He tried to win me over. That’s why he gave me that ring you set such store by. He was trying to please Stella. I knew it was only a bribe.”

  “You kept it all these years,” she pointed out. “Through everything that’s happened.”

  “I kept it for Wells. It’s his heritage.”

  “Yet you’ve never given the ring to Wells.”

  He glanced at her sharply, but he didn’t speak, only stood up and went to pour himself another drink.

  “Did I hear someone take my name in vain?”

  Desiree and Brock turned to see Wells standing in the doorway. His tone was light and unemotional, but Desiree noticed that his hair was uncharacteristically mussed and his color high, his posture not as languid as usual. She wondered what he’d been up to, but she knew she’d never find out.

  “Dez thinks I should have given you your ring,” Brock told him, pouring his brother a drink.

  “My ring? That’s your ring, old chum...although it seems that our Dizzy has quite an interest in it, too. Well, you two will have to sort it out. I have no interest in it. I don’t fancy jewelry.”

  “Mm,” Brock said noncommittally and handed Wells the glass. “At least nothing that’s identifiable.”

  Wells crooked an eyebrow at him, but said only, “Now...why are you discussing this ring?”

  “Brock was telling me what he remembers about our parents.”

  “Which is damned little,” Brock added.

  “I take you’re still intent on finding out who sired us,” Wells said to Desiree.

  “Yes.” She turned to Brock. “What did people call him? Surely someone must have said his name.”

  “My lord—that’s what the servants called him. Stella...” Brock looked off into space. “She called him ‘my love
’ and ‘darling.’ She’d say to me, ‘His lordship is here, and he has a headache, so you must be quiet, love.’”

  “Wasn’t anyone else ever there? A friend?”

  “There was a man.” Brock frowned. “I don’t recall his name. He visited sometimes. He seemed to be his friend, but...he’d visited us before then, too.”

  “You mean, he was an admirer of Stella’s, too?” Wells asked.

  “I don’t know—I wouldn’t think a former admirer would still visit after your father had set Stella up as his mistress, would you? And your father was quite friendly with him, as I remember. Perhaps he was merely a friend of both. He was a jolly sort of fellow. I liked him better than ‘his lordship.’ He used to give me candies.”

  “Was he—Do you think he might have been your father?” Desiree asked.

  “Anything is possible.” Brock shrugged. “But no one ever said anything like that. Stella told me my father was a hero, a commander in the navy who was lost at sea. Obviously that was a fantasy, but I’ve no clue who the man really was. I don’t really care.”

  Desiree sighed. “I’ve no idea how to find out any more about him. I could go to the duke, I suppose.”

  “And get shown the door immediately,” Brock said. “Probably by the butler. I don’t think dukes are easy to meet.”

  “What about Sid Upton?” Wells asked. “He was Bruna’s husband. Even if she wouldn’t tell us, she might have told him.”

  “No. I’ve asked him before,” Desiree said. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “But you have something now that you didn’t have before—a name. If you asked him if he’d ever heard of a Moreland in connection with our mother, it might jog his memory.”

  “Old people love to talk about the past,” Brock put in, interested despite his resistance. “And now that he’s retired, he has plenty of time to think and remember. If nothing else, he’d enjoy a visit from you.”

  “Did you ever show Sid that ring?” Wells asked.

  “No,” Desiree admitted. “I didn’t know that it was important.”

  “That’s it,” Wells told her. “You have to know what to ask when you’re questioning someone. Show him the ring. Give him the name. Tell him about this chap that Brock remembers. He might know who that friend was.”

  “You’re right.” Hope began to rise in her. “All I ever asked him was what Bruna had told him about our father.”

  “They all worked in the same music halls even though they were in separate acts,” Wells pointed out. “He could have seen your father waiting for Stella outside the stage door. Or he could know some other performer or friend. And surely they came to visit her at the house after Stella stopped working. After all, they were good enough friends to our mother that they took in her children after Stella left. One doesn’t take on a six-year-old and a pair of infants for a casual acquaintance.”

  “Not many would have done that even for a close friend,” Brock said. “They were kind people.”

  “Yes, they were,” Wells agreed. “They were our parents, really.”

  “It was a good life,” Desiree agreed. “I enjoyed it—the tricks, the traveling.”

  “Bruna the Italian Angel and the Magnificent Malones!” Brock raised his glass in a toast, smiling in reminiscence. “It was grand rolling into town in the wagons. All the people turning out, following us to the edge of town.”

  “The horses with the plumes on their heads, the harnesses shined, the wagons all decorated,” Desiree added.

  “You remember you and Wells sitting on the lead horses?” Brock said. “And they’d have me dressed like the ringmaster in the driver’s seat, holding the reins. It made everyone laugh.”

  “And gasp when you pretended to fall out the side, then scrambled back in.” Desiree laughed. “Wells loved the parades.”

  “I did,” he agreed with a smile. “I loved everything to do with the horses. You, as I remember, were scared of them.”

  “I was. I had no desire to learn the riding tricks with you.”

  “Wells has always been a bit mad,” Brock said. “My heart used to be in my throat, watching you ride around the ring, Wells, standing on the horse’s back. You were so little up there. And absolutely fearless.”

  “Oh, I had plenty of fear. I’d fallen off enough times—once the horse almost kicked me in the head when I tumbled off.”

  “The best trick was when you’d jump off the horse onto the platform and somersault off, then run around and back up the steps and jump onto Bonnie’s back again as she ran by.”

  “More like trotted by,” Wells told her. “The timing was everything there. But it wasn’t that dangerous. Not like you walking across the tightrope.”

  “I always had a net.” Desiree leaned her head back against the chair, remembering. She could almost smell the sawdust and feel the rope beneath her feet. The gasps of the audience as she flew through the air from her trapeze into Sid’s hands, the breathless silence as she walked across the rope, the thunderous applause. “It was fun.”

  “Most of the time,” Brock agreed. “Of course, there was also the time when the circus disbanded in the Cotswolds and we had to make our way back to London on our own.”

  “True. As I remember, Sid kept to the city and the music halls after that,” Wells said.

  “The Royal Aquarium. The Golden Palace. I thought they were so glamorous.”

  “And we could nab food from the vendors.” Wells grinned.

  Brock let out a little huff of a laugh. “True. It was a good life.” His face darkened. “Until the fire.”

  Wells nodded. “Until Falk.”

  The conversation died after that, and Desiree left her brothers, going up to her room. Her anger at Tom Quick hadn’t died, just simmered beneath the surface during her talk with her brothers, and she could feel it bubbling up again as she climbed the stairs.

  She didn’t fault him for being upset that she had broken into his office; it was a violation—even though one would think it might have counted for something that she hadn’t stolen anything and had taken care not to damage the place in her search. Annoyance, even anger, was understandable, especially given the fact that she’d slipped out of his grasp twice.

  But last night he had seemed more frustrated and chagrined at being bested than anything else. Today, it had been fury that shone from his eyes. Obviously, he hated Falk; that was understandable, too. But why had he lit up like a Roman candle when she’d said she was a Moreland?

  Desiree remembered the way he’d looked at her, the utter contempt in his eyes. She, obviously, was a nobody, someone who would stain the entire family just by existing. As if she was the one who had done something wrong, not the man who’d indiscriminately spread his seed around. A Moreland, apparently, could do no wrong in Tom Quick’s eyes.

  She snorted, thinking of his claim that all the Morelands were utterly faithful to their wives. You’d think they were a family of saints, the way he talked. He couldn’t possibly be that naive. What business was it of his, anyway? It wasn’t as if she was threatening Tom in any way.

  He wasn’t a Moreland—well, perhaps that wasn’t the case. Desiree rethought the matter. He could be related—a different last name didn’t mean anything. His mother could be a Moreland or perhaps he was another illegitimate child. It gave her a faintly queasy feeling to think that there might be a chance he was related to her, even distantly. She’d been attracted to the man.

  It was humiliating to think how very much she had been attracted to him. She’d initiated a conversation with him, flirted with him, made it obvious that she was interested in him. That was something she never did. There had been other men whose smiles had beckoned her or whose faces and forms drew her eye. She wouldn’t deny that she had flirted with men now and again. After all, what fun was life if one went through it like a wooden statue?

  B
ut she never made the first move. In all things, just as in the games, Desiree played her hand coolly. She took her time and never betrayed her interest. Her head ruled her senses and emotions. Perhaps, as Brock said, she was too daring for her own good, but she was not that way when it came to men. She had her mother as an example of what not to do with her life.

  But when she saw Tom, all that careful reason had vanished. Something about him had lit her up inside. She’d let him know; she’d made it clear. She’d been a perfect mark. And Tom had played his part perfectly. The way he had talked to her, the way he had looked at her, the way he had moved closer, his head bending toward her.

  How could she have been so mistaken? Knowing people was her specialty, for pity’s sake! It was infuriating.

  In her bedroom, Desiree quickly divested herself of her clothes and pulled on the garments she had worn to enter Quick’s office. Over that, she threw on her cloak and put on her flat, flexible slippers. Going down the back steps, she slipped out into the alley behind the elegant houses.

  A row of mews sat across from the houses. She walked past the one directly behind their house, where their own carriage and horses were kept, going farther down to one that had once belonged to another house. Brock had bought it from the family, who had given up keeping a town carriage, and he’d had it outfitted for Desiree and Wells.

  Unlocking the door, Desiree stepped inside and closed the door after her. The interior of the former mews had been stripped and rebuilt. Where horses and carriage had once been, now there was a single large empty room. Arrangements of bars and ropes were placed around the room, and one wall was inset with various outcroppings and handholds to facilitate climbing. A ladder led to a rope stretched between two poles, and next to the tightrope were other stands where trapezes hung. In the center, a climbing rope dangled from the ceiling.

  Brock had dubbed it Desiree’s and Wells’s playroom. Here, she knew, she could get rid of her anger and ease her mind; it never failed her. Taking off her cloak, she stretched, loosening her muscles, then ran through a few cartwheels and flips before beginning the more difficult tasks of climbing the wall and the rope and swinging from bar to bar.