A Marquess, a Miss and a Mystery Page 14

  ‘That’s all very well,’ she said, ‘but... I had not a father or mother’s attention to gain. So I just sort of...hid inside my books rather than deal with the other girls.’

  He flung up his hands as though acknowledging a hit. ‘That’s true. I have always had my mother’s unconditional love. The trouble is,’ he said with a wry smile, ‘that she also loves my unlovely sisters with the same fervour, which just goes to prove she is no judge of character. Besides which, she behaves as scandalously as I ever did in my wildest days. Not that she’s a bad person,’ he said, rounding on Horatia. ‘I won’t have you thinking that.’

  ‘Er...no...’

  ‘It’s just that once my father died, she was like a great...puppy, suddenly let off the leash. And, not having any experience of society without him breathing down her neck the whole time, when he did let her out, which wasn’t all that often, she naturally tumbled from one scrape into another.’

  ‘I...I see. She certainly looked as though...that is, I saw her once, at one of the very few balls Aunt Matilda managed to get me an invitation for. She stood out from the other ladies of her age, who all looked disdainful, or bored. She looked so...jolly. As if she was determined to wring as much fun out of life as she possibly could.’

  ‘That is her in a nutshell. There is no real vice in her, but she’s so determined to make up for all the years of being married to a tyrant that money flows through her fingers like water...but anyway, that’s enough of my family,’ he said, giving the portrait one last look before leaning back against the stone window frame and adopting a casual pose. ‘This place clearly has a detrimental effect upon me,’ he said, rearranging his features into the mask she was more used to seeing him wear. As though he’d realised he’d shared far too much and had decided it was high time he closed himself off. ‘Instead of wasting time delving into our tragic pasts,’ he said in a sarcastic drawl, ‘we should be making the most of our chance to search through the rooms of the visiting gentlemen while they are still out shooting the Duke’s fish.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, noticing that he was attempting to use humour to brush through a situation that had drawn dangerously close to becoming a bit emotional. ‘And I will stand guard,’ she added, feeling a bit more confident about the role since she’d managed to brush through her first attempt earlier without exposing Lord Devizes to discovery. Even if the Duke now did suspect her of dragging his brother into alcoves upon the slightest pretext, while the chaplain would probably always start thinking of a certain revolting-sounding practice every time he clapped eyes on her.

  ‘And then this afternoon, while the ladies are outside playing pell-mell, we can search the ladies’ rooms.’

  Well, that would be a new experience. Essential attributes for anyone wanting to hunt down criminals, that was how she would have to look upon standing guard, or ransacking underwear drawers.

  ‘Any questions,’ he said, with a hint of impatience, ‘before we proceed?’

  ‘Um...just one.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘What, precisely, are we looking for that is so small it can be concealed in a lady’s underwear drawer?’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nick bit back his initial response, which would have been cutting. The girl was doing her best and so far she’d exceeded his expectations. Not that they’d been all that high. He’d never yet met a female upon whom he could rely. He’d learned very early on, from his own sisters, that they were frail, wayward creatures who could drift from mood to mood depending on the time of day, the weather, or a dozen other factors that bore no relevance to anything that really mattered. And as for his mother...

  ‘The code book, of course,’ he said, noting that in spite of attempting to be gentle with her, he had not been able to conceal his impatience altogether.

  ‘A code book?’ She looked at him as though he’d just told her they were hunting for a unicorn.

  ‘Yes, of course a code book. What did you think we would be searching for?’

  ‘Something suspicious. Something that shouldn’t be there. I don’t know, anything but a code book.’

  He found himself folding his arms across his chest as he strove to control his increasing irritation. ‘If we are going to find out who was writing the letters Herbert was so excited about those last few days,’ he said, ‘then the most obvious thing to do is to discover who is in possession of the code book that—’

  She gave a little scream. Raised her fists. Brought them swiftly down to her side. ‘We have wasted a whole day,’ she said, quivering with what looked like rage. ‘Because you...’ she advanced, uncurled her fists and jabbed him in the chest with one finger ‘...would not listen—’ jab ‘—to me. You—’

  As she went to jab him for the third time, he grabbed her hand, and then, since she raised it as though to attack him, the other one. ‘Calm down,’ he said.

  ‘Calm down! Calm down? You expect me to be calm when all this time we have been running all over this, this, warren, on a wild goose chase?’

  ‘I thought,’ he could not resist saying, although it was becoming clear that she was privy to some information she had not yet shared with him, ‘that we had been organising a treasure hunt for the children, not...’

  ‘The treasure hunt was a front,’ she cried. ‘As you very well know, you...you...’

  ‘Yes, but if you have information that is so crucial to the case that my ignorance of it has reduced you to this state, then you really must calm down, so that you can impart it to me.’

  ‘You...’ she breathed. Shook her hands free of his. Took a step back. ‘You have lied to me.’ She turned and wrapped her arms round her middle.

  ‘I have not...’

  ‘Well, you let me think you had come here because you knew what was in that last letter Herbert brought me, which you cannot possibly do, or you would not be searching for a non-existent code book.’

  ‘I spoke the truth that night. If you chose to believe something else...’

  She made a gesture with her hand that expressed her utter contempt of his prevarication. And he felt a dart of something that felt suspiciously like guilt. He had let her think he’d come here in pursuit of Herbert’s killer, once she’d hinted that was why she was here.

  ‘You heard me tell the Duke that it was going to give me more pleasure to be a thorn in his side, in person, than merely to express my dislike of him by staying away,’ he pointed out in self-defence. ‘You chose to interpret that as an excuse, and assumed I knew far more than I did. I never actually said...’

  ‘You let me believe you knew everything! When really you are a great, fat fraud!’

  ‘Not fat,’ he said, running his hand down the taut length of his stomach. ‘Acquit me of that, if nothing else.’

  ‘You...you...can you not take anything seriously? I trusted you! When you started telling me about your childhood and listened to my account of mine, I thought we were being open with each other. But all the time you were still hiding the truth from me.’

  She turned great wounded eyes to his. Eyes that were starting to fill with tears.

  Usually, the sight of feminine tears made him wish to run a mile. So he couldn’t understand why, today, he wanted instead to put his arms round her and tell her that she could trust him. Which wasn’t true. He wasn’t trustworthy, not when it came to women. Nor would it be true if he said he was going to make it all better. So why was he even thinking of saying it? Where had his sense gone? Apart from anything else, if he attempted even just to put his arms round her, in a brotherly fashion, the mood she was in, she’d probably slap him.

  ‘Look,’ he said, wishing he had pockets deep enough to shove his hands into. ‘I admit, at the time, I did want to...perhaps I did let you believe I knew more than I did...’

  ‘Perhaps?’

  ‘Very well, I did let you assume I knew at least as much as you.
’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘Because you cannot bear to think a woman can possibly have half a brain, you tried to fool me into thinking you knew twice as much.’

  ‘That is unfair. I only said at least as much, not twice as much.’

  ‘Stop splitting hairs! We don’t have the time...’ She whirled away from him. Raised a hand to her brow. ‘When I think of all the people already here and the dozens more expected over the next couple of days, and we’ve wasted one whole day.’ She turned and held up her palm to silence him before he could say anything. ‘And don’t quibble about what we have accomplished as regards clues for kings and stupid sheep wrapped in sable...’ She frowned. Made a slashing motion with her hand. ‘Forget about the sable and the sheep. They have nothing to do with...and this is not funny,’ she cried, when he couldn’t help smiling at her non-sequitur about sheep and sable.

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’ She seemed to shrink about an inch in stature. ‘How can you? When we are letting the chance to catch Herbert’s murderer slip through our fingers?’

  ‘I am all kinds of a villain,’ he calmly agreed.

  ‘Don’t try to get round me by agreeing with me,’ she snapped. ‘Do you take me for an idiot?’

  ‘No. An idiot is the last thing you are. However,’ he said, stepping across the corridor to stand toe to toe with her, ‘you are speaking far too loudly. I know, I know,’ he said, taking her hands when she would have struck him again. ‘I am being annoying, and villainous, and untruthful and anything else you like. But just remember that in spite of all my faults, I am your only ally.’

  She breathed in deeply a few times, as though struggling to hold back a few more pithy remarks.

  ‘That’s right,’ he crooned. ‘Now you can tell me what you should have told me from the beginning. Which I was too puffed up with my own masculine self-importance to hear from a lowly female.’

  ‘You...you...you have taken the words from my mouth,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Well, I thought it would save time.’

  ‘I...I...I need to scream again. Or break something.’

  He looked swiftly along the gallery. And then back at her. ‘I don’t think you really wish to gain a reputation for smashing ducal porcelain, do you? Besides, there is none to hand. You will just have to scream again. Or...’ A wild notion came into his head. ‘You could channel all your anger for me into a kiss.’

  ‘What?’

  Well, that had the desired effect. She looked about as shocked as though he had just dashed a jug of cold water in her face.

  She pulled away.

  ‘No kissing necessary. I can be calm.’ She tucked a stray curl behind her ear. Adjusted the position of her glasses. Lifted her chin. ‘I can speak to you in a rational manner, about...’ She looked from right to left, as though suspecting the portraits of his ancestors of eavesdropping.

  ‘Well done,’ he said. Trying and mostly succeeding in stifling the insulting implication that she regarded a kiss from him in the light of a threat. Then, catching sight of a movement out of the corner of his eye, he lay one finger lightly across her lips.

  Her eyes widened, but she did not smack his finger away. Which made him wonder if it had been hearing something, just now, that had made her look about so guiltily.

  He turned from her, as casually as he could, and, just where he’d seen the flicker of movement, he saw the sturdy figure of the Duke’s personal physician materialise.

  ‘I thought I heard a scream,’ said Dr Cochrane, ambling nearer. ‘Has there been some sort of...incident?’ The doctor looked from Nick to Horatia in the judgemental sort of way that people always looked at him when he was caught, alone, with a young lady.

  ‘I did upset Miss Carmichael,’ Nick said, with the smile he always used in such situations. The one that hinted he’d been wicked. And the doctor, like so many before him, chose to believe the worst.

  ‘Miss Carmichael,’ the doctor said, stepping closer and extending his arm. ‘I think you had better come with me.’

  ‘What?’ The dear girl looked the picture of confusion. ‘Why? Really,’ she said with a touch of impatience. ‘I have far too much to accomplish today to take a walk with you. If that is what you were wanting? Unless... Has Lady Tewkesbury taken a turn for the worse? And you cannot find Lady Elizabeth... That is, I mean her daughter.’ She stepped forward, her face creased with concern.

  ‘No, no, nothing of that nature. I just thought you might prefer not to have to stay here with this...young man,’ he said down his nose.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I believe,’ said Nick, ‘he thinks I have been importuning you. And that you screamed for help.’

  ‘Surely not,’ she said with a funny little tilt to her head. ‘He must be intelligent, or he could not have become a doctor. Unless he thinks I am such a ninny that I would stand still and allow you to importune me without kicking you in the shins and marching away?’ She turned to look at Dr Cochrane, with that nannyish expression.

  ‘But, then, why the scream?’

  ‘Oh, that,’ she said, making a dismissive motion with her hand. ‘Lord Devizes has already told you that he upset me. It was a scream of vexation that you heard. Over a...well, we were arguing about...if you can believe it,’ she said, a blush stealing to her cheeks, ‘the clues for the treasure hunt. I have been up half the night thinking up rhymes and he has been extremely rude about them.’

  If he thought Dr Cochrane had been looking down his nose before, it was as nothing to the way he was looking at Nick now. As though he was a worm.

  ‘A gentleman...’ he said.

  ‘Oh, pray do not read him a lecture. He was a friend of my brother’s, you see, and tends to treat me the way Herbert did. In a teasing fashion, that...well, sometimes drives me to distraction.’

  ‘Herbert? Your brother, yes... That is, I noticed your state of mourning, of course, but thought you intended to spend your time here quietly away from the vicinity where you could not help being reminded daily of your loss, not dashing about the corridors in a most unseemly fashion with a person whose reputation can only put yours in peril. And as for you...’ He turned to glare at Nick again. ‘Really, to tease a young lady who is clearly in mourning is not the act of a gentleman. To encourage her in pursuits which can only draw down censure upon her head, which may even put her in moral danger...’

  ‘I have never claimed to be much of a gentleman,’ said Nick, leaning back against the window embrasure and folding his arms across his chest.

  ‘No, but he has been trying, in his own fashion, to distract me, you know, Dr Cochrane,’ said Horatia. ‘And if you two wouldn’t mind, I think we really should be getting on with laying the trail of clues for the children. The library, I think you said was next, Nick?’

  Never slow to take a hint, Nick extended his arm to Horatia.

  ‘Yes, the library is one of the places I think would be a perfect place to plant a clue,’ he said as she took his arm.

  ‘You intend to persist with this...treasure hunt,’ said Dr Cochrane. ‘Miss Carmichael? In spite of my warnings?’

  ‘I cannot see what harm I can come to with Nick as my escort. You may not think he is much of a gentleman, but he was my brother’s closest friend.’ Her eyes looked suspiciously damp, behind those spectacles. ‘I trust him.’

  She trusted him. In spite of all the ways he’d already let her down.

  It made it hard for him to say anything, somehow, as they walked arm in arm to the staircase at the far end of the gallery from where Dr Cochrane still stood, glaring after them. Even if he hadn’t wanted to be sure the old quack couldn’t overhear, he had to marshal his thoughts. Quench the feelings that had gone tumbling through his mind when she’d spoken in his defence. Because it was true, what he’d told her. Nobody had ever trusted him, or defended him, apart from his flighty, feather-brained mother. A
nd Horatia was neither flighty nor feather-brained. Quite the contrary.

  ‘From what I have been able to learn in the few days since I’ve been here,’ he eventually managed to say, ‘hardly anybody ever goes in the library. And we need to find somewhere we can talk without being disturbed.’

  ‘And this time,’ she said, very strictly, ‘you are going to listen to me.’

  Yes, Nanny, he wanted to say. But settled for walking sedately down the stairs and along the short passage that led to the library. Opening the door for her and bowing her into the room which was, as he’d predicted, distinctly free of people.

  Apart from the two of them. If he’d been arranging an assignation, he could not have thought of a better place. Apart from the walls lined with shelves, stuffed full of books to deaden the sound, there was a very comfortable-looking leather sofa upon which he could have stretched out full length. He tore his eyes from it to find Miss Carmichael going to a table upon which several books were lying open, as though somebody had left off studying them only moments before.

  He walked to the fireplace, some distance from her table, leaned his shoulders upon it and folded his arms across his chest.

  ‘You have my full attention,’ he told her. And the depth of the table between them for good measure.

  Chapter Seventeen

  She eyed his deliberately casual pose with narrowed eyes, as though wondering whether to confide in him. Then, clasping her hands at her waist, she took a deep breath.

  ‘You know that in the last few days before he was murdered, Herbert had been very excited about a new lead he thought he’d stumbled across?’

  He nodded. ‘He told me that he’d found something new, yes, and that it might be a fresh way of discovering the head of the trail that ended up with our informant in France. That he just needed to crack a new code that the conspirators had started using.’