A Scandalous Deception

by Lynn Messina

  “And being so clever, you will have no trouble figuring out how I may fit into this scheme,” she added.

  The duke’s right hand flew to his heart as if troubled by some sharp and unexpected pain. “Ah, now your compliments make sense. You are trying to manipulate me into allowing you to join my tour of Fazeley’s residence tomorrow. It strikes me as an unlikely path to success, but you are welcome to continue making the attempt if you believe it will bear fruit. So far you’ve praised my intelligence and the overwhelming sense of wonder my presence inspires in your breast. Next you might consider admiring my face, which I’ve been led to believe is pleasing, or my skill with horses, as I’m a notable whip. I’m also a deft boxer and can tie my own cravat in a pinch.”

  “Don’t forget your ego, which is the largest in London,” she said.

  “An accomplishment of which I’m particularly proud,” he replied, “as the competition among Corinthians is quite fierce. Ritterdale erected a statue of himself on his front lawn, which made me fear he might take the title, but fortunately, humbler heads prevailed and he decided to have it face away from the street.”

  “What an anxious few minutes for you,” she observed with an overabundance of sympathy, “and yet you speak of it with such equanimity. Truly, I am in awe of you.”

  “And still you try to flatter me into compliance,” he asked with a hint of wonder. “You are dogged, Miss Hyde-Clare, a trait that I must admit I find particularly attractive in a woman. So many females give up at the first sign of resistance or fail to make convincing arguments. See, there, now I’m trying to flatter you into accepting my refusal without further discussion. I expect it won’t work, which demonstrates with clarity how unequal flattery is to the task of persuasion. Perhaps we should both try another method, like threats or intimidation.”

  “What about rational discussion?” she suggested, her heart still beating just a little faster than normal at the thought of the Duke of Kesgrave finding something—anything—particularly attractive about her. Knowing it was a tactic curbed her pleasure but could not eradicate it entirely. “No tricks or diversions. Honest dealing on both sides. Like colleagues in the House of Lords coming up with solutions to policy issues.”

  He considered her proposal for a long moment, as if looking for a trick or a diversion, then, perhaps recognizing it as the very thing he himself had said when they were drawing up a list of suspects at Lakeview Hall, agreed. “Very well. I will go first. Your joining me on a tour of Fazeley’s residence is untenable, as there’s no way I could arrive with an eligible female in tow and not ruin both of us.”

  Bea thought of several responses she could make to this observation, such as pointing out the fact that, at six and twenty, she was not an eligible female or marveling at his obsession with his own ruination, which he had also displayed during their visit in the Lake District. But she wanted to respect the parameters of the discussion that she herself had set up, so she calmly addressed the cause of his concern. She started by acknowledging its validity. “It would be most unusual if the Duke of Kesgrave arrived to look at a house accompanied by a young, unmarried female. It would be assumed that I was either your mistress or your fiancée, both positions of which, as you yourself indicated, would be disastrous for me. There is no reason, however, why the Duke of Kesgrave cannot look at a house in the company of a young man.”

  “No,” he said.

  He could have at least considered it before rejecting the notion entirely out of hand. “Why not?”

  “You said a rational discussion,” he pointed out, aggrieved by the deception. “Your proposing to dress up as a man and accompany me to look at a house is not rational. It’s ludicrous.”

  “Why is it ludicrous?” she asked. “I think I would make a very convincing fellow. I have the shoulders for it. I know this because my aunt has lamented many times over the years that they’re too masculine.” She jumped to her feet and stood before him, throwing her shoulders back and demonstrating her stance. “See? Aren’t they manly? Aunt Vera says I should have a rapier in my hand, for I have the build of a fencing master.”

  Forced to his feet, Kesgrave stared at her as if she were mad. “Your shoulders aren’t manly. They’re lovely. Quite lovely.”

  Bea delighted at the praise—of course she did. She was human and female and twenty-six years old, and she had never had a beau and felt awkward around people and much preferred the company of books to the ton and nobody had ever complimented her on any aspect of her physical appearance before. That her shoulders could be quite lovely, that any part of her body might rise to the level of quite anything, was revelatory to her. Hearing the words repeat themselves in her head, she felt a sudden and inexplicable urge to throw herself into his arms.

  What an utter disaster, she thought, wondering if this was what a tendre felt like. She could not believe it was so and yet how wholly appropriate for the middling Beatrice Hyde-Clare to aim so comically high.

  Her mind raced, but her expression remained tranquil as she said calmly, deliberately, with precision and intention, “Now, come, your grace, we agreed to no more flattery.”

  He seemed surprised by her remark and started almost guiltily, as if caught in the act of doing something wrong. “We agreed to be rational,” he said stiffly.

  Bea took a deep breath and sat down again. “Rationally, then. There’s no rational reason why you can’t tour the residence tomorrow in the company of your steward. If you were truly intending to lease the property, you would probably bring him along to take notes and observe its condition. Additionally, there’s no rational reason for anyone to suspect I’m not who you say I am. You are the Duke of Kesgrave. No one would dare question what you say.”

  A fleeting smile appeared on his face as he rested his arm against the mantel. “Now who’s breaking the prohibition against flattery?”

  She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “I will look the part. My cousin Russell is taller than me, to be sure, but his build isn’t much different from mine and I’m confident his clothes will fit me well enough. And no one will even notice I’m gone because I’m being held prisoner. I’ve spent the past two days in my room reading, and the only person who has visited is Flora. And she did so only because Lady Abercrombie had visited to discuss my mentorship.”

  “Your mentorship?” he asked with such confusion the word sounded foreign.

  Bea shook her head, unwilling to allow such a deep and long digression. “I have the clothes. I have the opportunity. I have the interest. I have an astute mind that might notice something you miss, not because you aren’t observant but because two sets of eyes are better than one.”

  “I appreciate the argument, for I do think you’ve made it in good faith, but I cannot see my way toward encouraging such irresponsible behavior,” he said.

  Even before he said the words, she knew he remained firmly opposed and decided it was better to let the matter drop. Clearly, he would not be convinced and continuing to argue would serve only to antagonize him further. For what she had in mind—her alternative plan that would go into effect when he refused to be rational—relied to a certain extent on his goodwill. So pulled her face into a sharp scowl, as if angry at him and her own powerlessness, and then made an elaborate display of trying to talk about something else. She floundered for a topic, then realized Lady Abercrombie and her mission to make Bea the height of fashion was the ideal topic. She began the narrative as a distraction, but she quickly got carried away as she explained the beautiful widow’s plans and her aunt’s attempts to redirect her efforts to her own daughter, Flora. She had barely explained that she felt like a novel oddity to be shown off in public before Kesgrave called her Tilly’s new lion club.

  “Yes, precisely,” she said, smiling in perfect accord.

  They discussed the likelihood of her ladyship’s plan succeeding. Kesgrave thought it was high if the patronesses of Almack’s had already accepted her, and she rushed to explain that it was only Lady Cowp
er, who was known for being the kindest of the cohort, and Lady Sefton, who could not bring herself to revoke anyone’s vouchers for ill-considered behavior. The duke assured her Lady Jersey could not be far behind, and Bea grimaced in mock horror at such an august personage rendering judgment on her.

  “Not nearly as august as I,” he said, only half-teasing, “and you have yet to wither under my attentions, though I have made every effort.”

  Bea laughed at the slightly disgruntled note in his tone.

  Indeed, she laughed at everything he said and passed a remarkably pleasant hour in his company discussing Lady Abercrombie’s absurd scheme and her dazzling drawing room and Sir Isaac Newton’s telescope and how to optimize a seemingly weak pair of cards in vingt-et-un. At midnight, he announced his intent to leave and Bea nodded, for it seemed very late to her and she had no idea when her family would return. In an extremely and surprisingly charitable mood, she walked him to the door, thanked him for his visit and bid him good night. She did not, however, tell him she would see him tomorrow.

  But obviously there was no question that she would.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Having never assumed the identity of a steward before, Bea decided to adhere closely to the familiar—namely, Mr. Wright, her uncle’s steward for more than twenty-five years. He was a serious gentleman, diligent in his habits, respectful of the family, quiet and sincere. He wore his gray hair closely cropped, squinted behind a pair of spectacles and labored under a pronounced stoop made worse by years of crouching over a desk for hours at a time.

  Naturally, she could not adopt all his habits, as she had no inclination to turn her hair gray, nor any idea how to do it. Powder, she supposed, was the usual method, but that would make a mess and leave a trail everywhere she went. Achieving the hunched look, however, was easily accomplished by rounding her shoulders forward, an uncomfortable pose she would be able to hold for only a few minutes at a time. Locating a pair of spectacles was a slightly harder challenge, and after considering the problem from every angle, she had no choice but to borrow a pair from Mr. Wright’s office. If Dawson thought her appearance belowstairs was odd, he did not remark upon it to her.

  Hopefully, he would not remark upon it to anyone.

  He had, of course, mentioned the duke’s visit the night before to the various members of the household, but as none of them could wrap their head around the implausibility of the Duke of Kesgrave’s visiting plain and spinsterish Bea, they each assured him he had misidentified the caller. As much as Bea wanted to be insulted by their certainty, she was too grateful for their intransigence to take a pet. If they suspected Kesgrave’s interest, they would discover her secret activities and she would be sent to rusticate in the country once and for all.

  Having collected the spectacles and perfected her stoop, she turned her attention to depressing familial interest in her afternoon activities. Over breakfast, while Russell complained about the tedious opera the night before and Aunt Vera gushed about the wonderful time they all had, Bea made a great show of crying into her porridge. She was still incapable of producing tears on demand—and rather thought if she was going to continue down this route of deceit and investigation despite all her resolutions to deal honestly with the world, she might work harder to cultivate the skill—and had to settle for hiccoughing a great deal. But it was enough to convince her relatives she was deeply distressed about something and after a small bit of coaxing she revealed that Artaxerxes was Mr. Davies’s favorite opera.

  To their credit, the Hyde-Clares were a liberal family who readily accepted that a lowly law clerk from Cheapside had a sincere fondness for opera.

  Aunt Vera was delighted by her niece’s demonstration of grief, for it meant she was no longer denying her emotions and the depth to which Mr. Davies’s death had upset her. “You go rest in your room, my dear. Don’t exert yourself on our account.”

  Once in her room, Bea assembled the other aspects of her disguise and realized she had forgotten to steal footwear from Russell during her raid on his wardrobe the night before. She rather thought her uncle was closer in size to her than her cousin, but sneaking into her cousin’s rooms to take something carried less risk. While she was there, she helped herself to a bicorne hat.

  At one o’clock, she examined herself in the mirror to evaluate her appearance. The total effect could be better, she admitted, for her lack of side whiskers made her seem very young while her stoop and the awkward way she shuffled around in Russell’s overlarge shoes indicated great age. But she wore the clothes in a convincing manner, with her manly shoulders filling out the unadorned white shirt and her breasts flattened against her chest by a stiff cotton band. The light-colored breeches, which were snug on her cousin, were loose and long, which gave them the appearance of being handed down from an older brother, a condition that was in line with her career as a steward.

  Lastly, she inspected her face for signs of unwelcome femininity but saw only the same visage with little to distinguish it staring back at her. The only thing of note was the spray of freckles across her nose, but surely men were as subject to the effects of the sun as women.

  Satisfied, Bea cautiously opened the door to her room, peered into the hallway, confirmed it was empty and quickly dashed down to the ground floor. Unobserved, she raced through the corridor toward the front door, breezed through the entrance without anyone noticing and walked the several blocks to Chesterfield Street, where the earl had taken a house two doors down from his rival, Brummell. The ton speculated he had chosen the location so that he could observe the Beau daily and prepare remarks on the inadequacies of the other man’s sartorial choices. The earl, affronted by the conjecture, ardently denied such reports, insisting he had a natural talent for stinging set-downs and required no effort to issue one.

  Bea found number eight among the row of redbrick houses, assured herself all she needed to do to carry off the deception was exude confidence and marched up the steps. She knocked firmly on the door, which was opened several moments later by a dour-faced man who offered a fierce scowl in greeting. It required all her courage not to run away.

  “Good afternoon,” she said deeply, accomplishing a light tenor that was sufficiently unfemale, if not resoundingly male. “I am Mr. Wright, the Duke of Kesgrave’s steward, here to inspect the house for possible lease, per my conversation with the agent who manages the property.”

  Although the expression of the imposing butler’s face did not change, Bea felt his disapproval. “We were told to expect the duke.”

  “As you should!” she said with more force than was necessary. Did it make her sound defensive? Suspicious? Like a woman dressed in her cousin’s clothes pretending to be her uncle’s steward? Should she smile to soften the severity? Were ingratiating smiles of compensation an essentially female thing?

  The silence stretched as Bea considered her response. Lord Fazeley’s butler, who appeared to be the archetype of the intimidating London servant, stared at her.

  Finally, she said, “The duke will be along presently. I cannot claim to know the specifics of his schedule, nor can I hope to influence his movements. He will arrive when he arrives, and in the meantime he requested that I begin the inspection on my own, as I’m familiar enough with his likes and requirements to make an initial judgment as to the property’s viability. As you can imagine, the duke has standards of a very exacting nature that are difficult for most people or situations to meet.”

  “Exacting standards” was precisely the sort of thing the earl’s butler understood, and he smoothly stepped aside to allow Bea to enter. The hallway was narrow and elegant, with carved moldings and wide-plank floors. She pursed her lips, nodded thoughtfully and tilted her head forward as if examining a very small detail that only someone with her expertise would notice. She took out a notebook she’d brought with her and made a nonsensical note about the shape of the front door.

  As she recorded her observations, the butler hovered, and fearing he might hover for
the whole of her visit, she said, “I’ll just show myself around. If I have any questions, I will seek you out.”

  He opened his mouth as if to protest the arrangement, so she quickly added, “This will leave you free to listen for the duke’s arrival.”

  Although the grimace remained firmly affixed to his face, he agreed to this arrangement and even called it very good.

  Bea smiled in gratitude and then immediately worried that men did not engage in that kind of smiling either.

  “You will drive yourself mad,” she muttered, entering the drawing room, which, though elaborately styled, did not have the excesses one had come to associate with his lordship. As a renter, he was not free to redecorate the room to conform with his preferences, but she would expect a few elements of extravagance to make the room feel comfortable to him.

  She passed through the double doors into the dining room, which was also quite refined, with light colors and a long table that was either new or had been treated very well. Determined to appear interested even if the butler wasn’t keeping a close watch, she inspected the sideboard, looked under the duggard at the floor and sat at the seat at the head of the table to confirm its comfort.

  After checking the parlor, she stood at the bottom of the staircase and wondered what would be the logical next move for an actual steward in her circumstance: head upstairs to look at the bedrooms or go down to examine the kitchens and other servant offices?

  Deciding her employer’s creature comforts should come first, she climbed to the first floor and looked in the room at the front of the house. As she’d expected, it was the master suite, lavishly decorated and filled with compartments for storing private documents.

  Perfect, she thought.

  The bedchamber itself seemed the least likely place to find the contract or the manuscript, but it behooved her to be thorough, so she checked every drawer and cabinet. She discovered an unexpected number of literary works among his things and admired the care he took with his books. As well-read as they appeared, none had broken spines or bent pages.