Diamonds & Deceit (2 page)

“The Duke of Huntleigh,” announced the butler.

“My dear Alexander…” Rose’s stepmother swept forward to welcome him, her brightest smile vying with her diamonds to out-dazzle the sun.

“Huntleigh!” exclaimed a lady nearby, and she and her neighbor glanced at each other. “Trust the countess to capture the season’s roariest lion.”

Rustles of excited whispers ran through the crowd like a forest fire. Clearly the Duke of Huntleigh was another desirable prize for the season’s ladies to grapple over. Rose had met a few of these prizes—not for long, no one wanted to waste time on a former housemaid who did not even have a dowry to go with her new title—and had quickly decided that not even a hundred thousand a year could make up for a lifetime of having to make conversation with them over the tea table.

Rose glanced up at the Duke of Huntleigh again. He was just walking down the steps with the countess; his mouth curved into a small smile as he looked at the crowd. It wasn’t a smile of happiness. There was something contemptuous in the way he waved away the footman who stepped forward to offer him a glass of champagne.

Rose turned away. But no doubt everyone thinks his fortune makes up for his arrogance, she thought. Oh how I hate this world, where no one’s smile is real.

“Well!” Charlotte Templeton seated herself before the mirror, back straight and head held high. She removed the pins one by one from her hair and let the blond curls fall loose. “That was certainly eventful. How many more shocks to the system can this season stand, I wonder, Ward?”

Stella Ward, who was putting away the dress Charlotte had just stepped out of, didn’t answer immediately. The footman had overheard the engagement announcement—there were always eyes, always ears—and seen Charlotte’s expression. The rumor of Charlotte’s old involvement with Lord Fintan had caught like a badly banked fire. The whisper had leapt from tongue to tongue in the servants’ quarters and raced up the servants’ stairs just as a real fire would have done, to Stella’s bed-sitting room where she waited for her mistress to retire. Miss Templeton would be humiliated, Stella knew that. What she did not know was whether it was safe to talk about it. But since Charlotte had raised the matter herself…

“I’m very sorry, my lady,” she said. She knew that Charlotte, unlike her stepsisters, was a mere Miss, but sometimes it was tactful to make a little mistake. “If it’s any consolation, I’m sure he’ll regret his choice. He—”

“I beg your pardon?” Charlotte’s voice was cold as an iceberg, and Stella suddenly felt like the
Titanic
.

“That is—I thought—” She floundered. “Lord Fintan—” She saw Charlotte’s eyes in the mirror. They were blue as Arctic water.

“I was not referring to Lord Fintan,” said Charlotte, still watching Stella. “Why would you have imagined I was referring to Lord Fintan, Ward?”

Stella felt herself blushing with fear and anger. How could Miss Templeton be so hypocritical? Stella herself had arranged the assignation at Gravelley Park last season.

“I apologize, my lady. I must have made a mistake.”

“Yes,” Charlotte tilted her chin and removed her diamond earrings. She laid them in the silver tray, where they chinked against her other jewels. “You shouldn’t listen to servant-hall gossip, Ward. It’s not becoming.”

As if you didn’t wait greedily for me to bring you the latest scandal every night!
Stella thought. Now she was angry, more angry than afraid. So she was to tell tales when it suited Miss Templeton but keep silent as a dressmaker’s dummy when it didn’t? Well, perhaps she had her own ideas about that.

“You’re quite right, my lady. I do apologize again.” She kept her eyes down as she folded her mistress’s dress. The red silk rose that secured the shoulder was torn, she realized, and some petals were missing. She opened her mouth to mention it to her mistress, and then hesitated.

“I meant, of course,” Charlotte went on, “the return of the prodigal son. Alexander Ross.”

“The Duke of Huntleigh, miss?” Stella said. She carried the dress away to the wardrobe. Under cover of the shadows, she unpinned the rose and slipped it into her apron pocket.

“The much-hunted Duke of Huntleigh, yes.” Stella went back to her mistress, who was leisurely removing the rest of her jewels.

“I must say I’m surprised to see him back,” Charlotte continued. “We all thought he and his vast fortune had disappeared into Africa forever. It wouldn’t have surprised me. There was always some scandal he was running from, wasn’t there?”

Stella was not inclined to indulge her mistress; but on the other hand, it was not a good moment to annoy her. She took the silver-backed brushes and began to brush her mistress’s hair.

“There was indeed, miss. There was that episode with Lady Antonia Wood.…”

“Is it true, then, that Lord Arden threatened to horsewhip him on the steps of his club?” Charlotte giggled.

“Well, I heard it from His Lordship’s valet, who has no reason to lie, miss.” Stella giggled too. “Lady Antonia had a bet, apparently, on one of the horses at Goodwood, and she wanted to see her horse run, so he took her down there.”

“Out of school, wasn’t it?”

“I believe so. I hear they behaved quite scandalously. They stopped at Pickering Castle, which is her brother, Lord Arden’s, seat, and bribed the butler into giving them the keys to his cellar—”

“No! And Lord Arden is such a known collector of wines,” Charlotte exclaimed.

“Exactly, my lady. I hear the champagne was entirely gone through by the time they had finished. So of course when they arrived at Goodwood they were in quite a shocking state, and ended up somehow in the presence of royalty.…”

Charlotte laughed and laughed. “How on earth did he extricate himself from that one?”

“To tell the truth, miss, I don’t think he did. It was after that that his father—the late duke—sent him abroad.”

“Yes, it must have been the very last straw,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “Sebastian tells me that ever since getting sent down from Oxford, the duke had been running through his allowance at a terrible rate. But where has he
been
for two years?”

“Well, miss, rumor has it he was in Paris living with an artist’s model.”

“How thrillingly scandalous!”

“Even better, I’m assured that there was a quarrel and the…
lady
stabbed him.” Ward smirked.

“How exciting.” Charlotte fingered the ropes of pink pearls that hung from the jewelry stand. “My mother was disappointed he didn’t stay longer. I suppose he is still in mourning for his father.”

“I don’t think His Lordship pays much attention to convention,” Ward said.

“And do you think he has pawned the parure yet?” Charlotte asked casually, playing with the jewels that were scattered on the dressing table in front of her.

“Certainly no one has seen it for a long time. The duchess, his mother, was the last one to wear it; but of course she was not seen in society for a long time before her death.”

“So he is now the fifth duke and has the inheritance entirely in his hands?”

Stella nodded meaningfully.

Charlotte ran a finger through one of her blond curls and let it bounce up. “He always said he would never marry. But perhaps now that he is independent he has changed his mind.”

Stella caught her eye. “I’ve no doubt that you would be able to persuade him, miss.”

Charlotte smiled, or at least her mouth curved upward. “That will be all, Ward. You may go.”

Charlotte watched until the door had closed behind her lady’s maid and her pile of laundry. Then she ran her hands over her forehead, kneading the headache that lay there like a stone. But she couldn’t knead away the pain. She astonished herself by bursting into tears.

It was humiliating! That was the one, hateful fact that burned inside her. Not simply to be pushed aside—Laurence had never rejected her before, not in three seasons—but to have him declare he would marry that dull little gray-eyed bookworm right in front of her, and worst of all, for Ward to know and pity her!

“Oh, it’s unbearable!” she exclaimed, jumping up. She rubbed her hand fiercely across her face. Tears were not her style. Tears achieved nothing. The only thing that would erase the humiliation was revenge. And she had plenty of ammunition for that.

She sat down at her writing desk, took her writing case and pulled out a sheet of paper. She began writing with trembling fingers.

Dear Sir,

I think you will be interested to know the full details of Lady Ada Averley’s relationship with a young Indian student, Ravi Sundaresan, which began in the spring of 1912
.…

She stopped writing. No. She was moving too fast. She needed to think. This was too important to spoil for want of a little planning. It would certainly humiliate Laurence if she let everyone know about Ada’s affair with that Indian student, and she had no doubt that, once humiliated, he would come running back to her. She smiled slightly. He was very welcome to come running. She was determined not to be there when he arrived.

She lifted her gaze and considered herself in the glass. Doll-like features, rosebud lips, eyes a little too small but artfully colored. Certainly Alexander Ross hadn’t been immune to her charms two years ago. She remembered that Saturday-to-Monday at Gravelley Park very well, though he probably didn’t. The cad had been drunk practically the entire time. And if anything, two years had improved her. She had lost none of her looks and was infinitely more experienced—while he, romancing around Montmartre with his paintbrush and his cocotte, had no idea how society worked. She sniffed contemptuously. Stabbing, indeed—how middle class.

Behind her the candle flickered. This was her third season. She had to marry
someone
, and that someone had to be rich. Even better if it was the only man in her circle that Laurence truly hated.

She folded the letter she had begun and carefully slipped it into her writing case, a plan forming in her mind. She put the case back in her desk drawer and opened the drawer just below it. Inside was a sketchbook, the cover slightly yellowed with age. She hadn’t touched it for years, not since she had left the schoolroom, but as she flicked through the pages, she smiled. So the duke fancied himself an artist?

She always knew there had to be some point to those interminable drawing lessons.

Much as she longed to slam it, Stella closed Miss Templeton’s door softly behind her. Carrying the laundry and the mending, she walked down the corridor toward her own room. As she did so the door to Céline’s room opened and Céline came out, carrying a pile of clean shifts, and started down the corridor toward Lady Ada’s room. She was humming a soft melody under her breath, and she looked, irritatingly, far too bright and cheerful for three in the morning.

Stella’s grip on the laundry tightened, her nails digging in. The French maid was the last straw. She was paid more simply because she was French, and she had a pert, insolent air about her that Stella simply could not stand. How dare she hum at this time of night, as if she actually enjoyed sitting up?

Stella deliberately swerved as Céline passed her and knocked the shifts from her hands. At least, that was what she meant to do. Céline, annoyingly, clung on to them and instead of the shifts tumbling to the floor, there was a loud ripping sound as a seam gave.

Stella recovered herself first.

“You’ll have to sew that now,” she said in a low fierce whisper. “Hope you’re proud of yourself, working for a jumped-up housemaid.”

Céline drew herself up and met Stella’s eyes without the slightest sign of fear.

“At least I work for a
lady
,” she said. “Miss Templeton isn’t even that.”

“Lady!” Stella spat out a laugh. “I don’t think much of ladies that can be made that way. You can’t carve them out of soap.”

Céline shrugged indifferently. “All the nobility had to start somewhere,” she said.

It was simply infuriating, Stella thought. Nothing she did seemed to have an impact on that pert little smile.

“I bet Miss Charlotte will be curtsying to Lady Rose before long.”

Stella nearly choked. “Oh do you?” she managed. “Oh, do you indeed?”

“Oui,”
said Céline, with what seemed very close to a smirk. “I do. And now, if you’ll excuse me—I am late to undress my lady.”

She walked off down the corridor. There was the hint of a flounce in her walk as she opened the door to Lady Ada’s room, and the smile she cast over her shoulder in Stella’s direction could be called nothing but insolent.

“Oh!” Stella clenched her fists as the door closed, leaving her in the dimly lit corridor. She was furious, but there was nothing she could do but go on to her own room. The only thing that comforted her was the thought of the silk rose, still in her apron pocket. Those missing petals had to be somewhere.