His Dark Enchantress (Books We Love Regency Romance) (10 page)
Read His Dark Enchantress (Books We Love Regency Romance) Online
Authors: Victoria Chatham
“That is such an impossibly slim connection.” A worried expression crept in to Lady Caroline’s eyes. “We must find out more about her.”
“We?”
“Well, you.” Lady Caroline corrected herself. ”Juliana is your ward and it is therefore your responsibility to ensure she has a suitable circle of friends.”
“All I know is that the girl’s grandfather is Sir Miles Devereux who lives in South Devon. Do you know of him?”
A thoughtful frown creased Lady Caroline’s brow as she considered her brother’s query.
“The name does seem somewhat familiar, but I am not sure why. I could ask
Chulmleigh, for he has a greater knowledge than I of the personalities residing in our county.”
“Please do, Caro.” Lucius lapsed into silence until he realized that Caroline had
stood up. He went to her and took her arm to escort her to the door, but before they reached it she looked up at him, a pleading look on her face.
“Lucius, if you only would marry and set up your nursery mine would be a much lighter cross to bear.”
Lucius set his jaw. “You are not the only person who thinks I should wed, Caro, but I still have eight years of freedom. All in good time, I assure you.”
“It distresses me so to hear you have set time lines,” Lady Caroline almost wailed. “You, who have the advantage of marrying where you will, who could have taken your pick of any
debutante each Season since attaining your majority, still single.”
It was
a truth he could not deny. He leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on his sister’s cheek.
“I know you were not permitted to marry where you would, Caro, but your marriage is sound, is it not?”
Lady Caroline clutched at his hand and lowered her head.
“Much more so than I deserve, for
Chulmleigh knew full well where my heart lay when he married me. But he is a good, kind man to me and our daughters and for that I have come to love him.”
Lucius gave her hand a squeeze. “
Between our parents and you, Caro, I have learnt what marriage should be.”
“But if you don’t find your love, who is going to want you when you are forty?”
“Any mama with a
n eligible daughter,” Lucius said gruffly. “It is true now and it will be true in the future. Sometimes, Caro, I think people at our level of society are only bred to breed.”
“Lucius!” Surprised
at his cynicism, Caroline looked up at him. She drew back slightly as she surveyed him, detecting something different about him. Under his usual arrogance there was a distance in his eyes as if his mind wandered from its usual sharp delineation. Dare she venture a comment? She took a deep breath.
“I believe,” she continued softly, “that Lucinda Hawkes-Carradine has a lot to answer for. She hardened your heart and
so you avoid marriage and idle your time away on horses and such.”
At the mention of his first love Lucius drew a breath, surprised at his sister’s perception. The sting of betrayal, the sensation of having his heart ripped from his chest, still caught him unawares.
Was Caro right? Was his habitual boredom and free spending ways simply a reaction to not having
someone special in his life? To not daring to give his heart again?
“Perhaps,” he said after considering Caroline’s statement for a moment. “But at least our forebears had the extreme good sense to amass the fortune that now allows me to indulge myself.”
Lady Caroline reached up and patted his cheek, an endearment that she would not normally have dared to extend. As she left him, she made a mental note to visit again, soon.
Lucius returned to the fireplace and threw himself into one of the wing chairs flanking it. He would have to watch himself.
Cynicism, he realized, was an attitude in which he now frequently found himself. A light knock on the door disturbed his thoughts and he looked up to see his secretary enter the room.
“To what do I owe this honour, Edward?”
“There are some letters for you to sign, Sir, and a communication from your agent at Avondale Park.” Edward placed a ledger, a portfolio and a sheaf of papers on the table.
“Good Lord.” Lucius eyed
the pile of paperwork with distaste. “Do I pay you enough, Edward?”
“You pay me very well, Sir,” Edward said with a grin. “This is the communication from Mr. Porter and
two invitations for tomorrow evening. The Count and Countess Esterhazy are offering a musical extravaganza, and after the soiree Lady Darnley is hosting a dinner party.”
He handed the gilt edged invitation
from the Countess to his employer.
“Angelica Catalani, the soprano?” Lucius pursed his lips as he read the invitation for himself and whistled with surprise. “Now how do you suppose the Countess managed that?”
“As wife of the Austrian Ambassador she has her contacts, I am sure.”
“Contacts.” A sudden thought struck him. “Edward,
do you, by any chance, have such contacts at the War Office?”
“Not directly, Sir, but I do have a cousin who is a clerk to an under-secretary at Whitehall.”
Lucius tapped his fore finger against his lips, his eyes narrowing as a scheme began to form in his mind.
“That could be most fortuitous, as long as the under-secretary is not one James Horace.”
“If you wish, I could discover my cousin’s direction.”
“I do wish, Edward, and it must be done as discreetly as possible.
I also wish you to discover who else Lady Darnley has invited to dinner. Now, will I be signing my life away if I do not read these damnable letters?”
“You’ll never be sure, sir.” Edward handed him a freshly trimmed pen.
Lucius paused before taking the proffered pen and dipping it into his inkwell. Head bent over the papers on his desk he scrawled his signature across several pages.
“Is there anything more today?”
Before Edward could reply, Beamish joined them.
“Ah, Beamish, just the man I need.” Lucius waved a lazy hand to him. “I have a task for you.”
Edward bowed to Lucius, picked up his paperwork and left them, nodding to Beamish as he did so.
“Before you charge me with any tasks, Avondale, I beg a minute of your time. You see, I, well. .
I have something important . . . ”
“Whatever it is Beamish, it will have to wait.” Lucius stood up and
paced the floor. Sunshine poured through the tall window panes and cast his long shadow across the carpet each time he passed them. “I want you, my dear fellow, to spend some time with Juliana.”
“Oh, well, if that is all my task is to be it would be my pleasure because. . .
.” His words fell on deaf ears.
“I want you to try to determine from Juliana what she and Miss Devereux did at school. What pranks they might have played, what mischief they may have caused and why Miss Devereux left school before Juliana. I mean to get to the truth of this matter, Beamish, I really do.”
“Well, I promise I will do my best but why do you not ask Juliana yourself?”
Lucius gave him a look that would have crushed a lesser man.
“Ah, right,” Beamish blustered. “Got it. You’re her brother, not likely she’d give up any secrets to you.”
“Exactly so
.” Lucius stood with his back to the fire. “I told you when we first met Miss Devereux that our lives would never be the same again.”
The distant expression on his friend’s face suddenly struck Beamish. The reply he had been about to utter died on his lips to be replaced with a smile as he left the library.
Miss Devere
ux, it seemed, had made a conquest.
CHAPTER 8
Peregrine leaned back in his chair and surveyed his aunt from beneath lowered eyelids as she paced in front of the fireplace.
“You are robbing me blind, Peregrine, and you know it.”
Peregrine finally looked up. “You asked me to find out what I could about the Devereux girl. It takes money to find the right people and extract information from them. So, the question is how badly do you want this information?”
Lady Rosemary Darnley fixed him with a cold stare.
“Olivia needs to make a good marriage and I am determined that Avondale will fix his interest with her. But that is not going to happen with that girl around. There must be something in her background that I can use to discredit her.”
“From what I know of Avondale, he will never fix his interest with Olivia, that girl or not.” Peregrine made a great show of inspecting his fingernails before looking up at his aunt. “I have to tell you, ma’am, that your daughter is the most lack-lustre prospect in the current marriage market and would be extremely fortunate if anyone made an offer for her.”
“I do not need you, or anyone else, to point out Olivia’s short-comings.” Rosemary ceased her pacing and dropped onto a chair opposite Peregrine.
“
Give me one hundred guineas and I will begin to acquire the information you seek.”
“I do not have that kind of coin sitting around. I shall give you a bank draft.”
“No.” The word was hard and final between them. “No bank drafts, Aunt. We have discussed this before. I will return at ten thirty tomorrow morning. Please have the payment ready.”
Peregrine rose and left the room, leaving Rosemary to fume at his intransigence. He had no love or respect for her. Having married his uncle for his wealth and nothing more she was, he considered, a female version of himself. Having pockets to let most of the time, Peregrine simply saw her as a means to an end.
His own wealth at that moment was reduced to a few coins in his pocket, enough for a lamb pie and a tankard of ale at the Bunch of Grapes and perhaps a stake in a game of faro. That would at least see him through until the morning when he would visit his aunt again.
His natural inclination was to take the money she promised him and visit one of the gambling hells that still admitted him. As he ambled along the street he grudgingly admitted to himself that his aunt would expect results, so before he tried his luck at the tables he should first discover what he could about Miss Emmaline Devereux.
Observing Avondale’s party at Almack’s it was clear to him that she and the Clifton girl were confidantes. That Avondale himself was interested in her he was in no doubt. But where had she sprung from? The name was not familiar to him, and he always made it his business to know who was who in the upper echelons of the
ton
.
Servants, and especially under servants, were usually a fount of knowledge but he knew better than to approach anyone in Avondale’s household. His only option was to watch the comings and goings from Avondale House until he had the opportunity to follow his quarry and so determine her direction.
Too bad that Juliana Clifton would not give him the time of day. Trying to engage her in conversation anywhere they might meet was a lost cause at the outset.
With a start he realized that his idle footsteps had carried him into Berkeley Square. He strolled slowly past the great houses,
looking at their edifices as if he were admiring the architecture.
He passed Avondale’s house, remembering the massive brass lion’s head knocker that gleamed against the imposing black painted door. He had entered that house only once, on a weekend break from Oxford when Avondale had invited him, Beamish and a few others to a house party.
A wry grin twisted his mouth. He had never been invited again, nor would he be.
He was about to turn the corner when Avondale’s front door opened and William Beamish stepped out.
“What a fop,” Peregrine muttered, but slowed his pace and pretended interest in an ornamental railing. From the corner of his eye he saw Juliana Clifton step through doorway behind Beamish.
“We are riding at ten o’clock again tomorrow morning, William, so please do not be late,” she said. “It is going to be such fun.”
“If you say so,” Beamish grumbled. “Though why we can’t wait until later in the day, I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do, silly,” Juliana said with a laugh. “Emmaline loves to gallop and that is simply not possible at the fashionable hour.”
Beamish tapped the brim of his hat with his cane in a farewell salute and descended the steps to the pavement
, where he walked away in a leisurely stride. Peregrine hurried back to his aunt’s house on Queen Street.
“What are you doing here again?” Rosemary demanded before he had barely set foot in her salon.
“A small addition to tomorrow’s business,” Peregrine said. “I find myself in need of a horse.”
“I’m not buying you one.”
“Good Lord, Aunt, how tiresome would that be. Feed and shoes and stabling and all that.” Peregrine shook his head. “No, no. A note to your jobmaster is all I require so that I might hire a hack against your account.”
Rosemary glared at him, her eyes full of suspicion. “And why are you just now becoming interested in having a horse?”
“The better to observe a certain riding party,” Peregrine countered.
