How to Master Your Marquis (30 page)

“Did you know he was lying?”

Sir John looked up. His reading glasses perched precariously at the pink tip of his nose. “I beg your pardon?”

“Northcote. That he was guilty all along.”

Sir John sighed and took off his glasses.

“I see,” she said, and turned away.

“My dear Thomas,” said Sir John, “our duty is to secure for the prisoner the very best legal representation.”

“What about justice?”

“The British legal system is organized on the principle that justice is not perfect. That it’s better to let a guilty man go unpunished than to let an innocent man be convicted for a crime he did not commit.”

“I daresay Mrs. Hammond would beg to differ.” Despite the dank air inside the carriage, Stefanie was growing warm beneath her clothes.
Stay calm
, she told herself
. Steady your feelings.

“It’s not our business whether Northcote is guilty or not, Mr. Thomas. In the absence of competent legal defense for all, the highest and the lowest, impartial and without regard for politics and station and wealth, we leave ourselves vulnerable to tyranny. Would you like to see an innocent man hanged because he could not stand against the might of his accusers?”

“I don’t know how you can live with yourself,” she said. “How can you look at Mrs. Hammond’s face and live with yourself?”

With a desperate clatter of wheels against pavement, the carriage careered past a delivery van and around Hyde Park Corner. Sir John Worthington replaced his spectacles and turned back to his papers. “I begin to wonder, Mr. Thomas, if perhaps you might wish to reconsider your choice of profession.”

T
he entry of Mr. Nathaniel Wright into the hallowed precincts of the Sportsmen’s Club library on St. James, at a quarter past five in the afternoon, caused a ripple of shock to pass across the leather-scented membership.

I say
, someone muttered indignantly.

Hatherfield rose from his armchair and held out his hand. “Ah! Mr. Wright. Jolly obliging of you to meet me here this afternoon. All sorts of affairs vying for your attention, I’m sure. I hope the Stock Exchange hasn’t been set in a panic by your absence, or I should never forgive myself.” He indicated the neighboring chair.

Mr. Wright shook his hand briefly and sat in the offered seat. “Trading is now concluded for the day, Lord Hatherfield. Pray relieve your mind of the burden.” His eyes dropped to Hatherfield’s waistcoat.

“Do you like it?” Hatherfield spread the ends of his jacket farther apart. “Purple’s such a happy color, don’t you think?”

“Indeed. The floral motif is abundantly pastoral. But I shall not delay you. I understand you have a ball this evening, for which to ready yourself.”

“Why, yes! So I have. Clever chap. How did you know?”

“Because I shall be in attendance myself, of course.”

“Ah! The Duchess of Southam’s ball. What a delightful coincidence.” Hatherfield spotted a waiter and signaled. “What color mask will you be wearing?”

“Mask, sir?”

“Mask. For the mas-quer-ade.” Hatherfield said it slowly, for emphasis. “Traditional sort of nonsense, common among us vain aristocrats. Chases away the old ennui for a moment or two, I suppose. I’m thinking of wearing gold, myself. I do fancy a bit of sparkle.”

“I see. Is it quite necessary?”

“They do come in handy, from time to time.” Hatherfield winked.

“I suppose I’ll find something, then.” A waiter arrived, plunking two disdainful glasses of sherry between them. Wright picked up one of them and wet his lips with it. “Well, sir? I own myself curious. Why did the Marquess of Hatherfield invite me to his club this afternoon?”

“Oh yes. That. Had almost forgotten. This frivolous little noggin of mine. You see, Mr. Wright, the oddest thing happened to me yesterday”—good Lord, was it only yesterday?—“when I traveled to Hammersmith to inspect my little project.”

“Your cottages, I believe?”

“My cottages. Houses, really. A terrace of them, snug and well built and coming along nicely, the entire endeavor perfectly planned with funds to spare. So imagine my dismay—horror, even—when my building manager informed me that my financial credit has been maligned from Richmond Bridge to the Solent.”

“How unfortunate.”

“Yes, isn’t it? Credit is a delicate thing, as delicate as a lady’s reputation. The slightest hint from the wrong quarter, and—poof.” Hatherfield snapped his fingers.

“Poof, indeed.” A trace of weight on the
poof.

Hatherfield sat back in his seat and let his sherry glass dangle from his fingertips. He gazed at the famous carved Sportsmen’s Club marble work, twenty feet above. “One feels so wronged, when such a false report circulates. One feels an almost unnatural rage. As if one might be capable of violence.”

“I beg leave to point out that the Southam coffers are widely understood to be quite dry.”

“But the Southam coffers have nothing to do with my project. Except to be filled by the proceeds, in due course.”

Wright shrugged his shoulders. “As you said, credit is a delicate thing. Rumor runs rampant. Perhaps the report of an infusion of substantial funds might satisfy the nerves of your creditors.”

“My dear Mr. Wright, I have no creditors. Every vendor has been paid in full.”

“And the bank that holds the loan? You’re confident it will not be persuaded to call in its capital?” Wright sat perfectly still, thick arms crossed, sherry sitting untouched before him since that first polite sip. His dark eyes looked as if they were made of granite.

Hatherfield lifted his hand and drained his sherry. He set the empty glass on the table between them, right next to Wright’s full one, and rose to his feet. When he spoke, he pitched his voice low, without a trace of its customary negligent drawl.

“For a man who makes his living by judging the characters of others,” he said, “you seem to have underestimated mine to a remarkable degree. Until tonight, Mr. Wright.”

He turned and walked out the door, leaving Nathaniel Wright to face the curious hostility of the aristocratic Sportsmen’s Club library alone.

S
tefanie was standing next to the piano in the Cadogan Square music room, dressed in her formal starched black-and-white best, dragging her fingers over the sweep of ivory keys, when Lady Charlotte rushed through the doorway.

“There you are! Oh, Mr. Thomas! The most dreadful news!” Her eyes were wild and red rimmed. From one fist dangled a crumpled white paper.

Stefanie straightened. “Dear me. Has the ball been canceled?”

“Oh, don’t joke! It’s horrible!” She gazed up at the ceiling, her face wrenched in grief. She whispered, “It’s Hatherfield. He’s been killed.”

“What?” Stefanie grabbed the edge of the piano to keep herself from falling. She was suddenly conscious of the smell of Lady Charlotte’s hothouse flowers, sending off clouds of sickly sweetness from the crystal vase in the center of the gleaming black piano case. “No, it’s not true. It’s not.”

Tears rolled down Lady Charlotte’s pallid cheeks. She held up her hand, the hand with the paper. “It is! Would to God it weren’t. A delivery van in Piccadilly. He stepped right in front of it. Oh God!”

The room swayed. Tiny black dots appeared in the center of Stefanie’s vision. Impossible. She had just seen him. She had woken in his arms that morning; he had bathed her with his own hands. He had knotted her necktie and kissed her good-bye and ducked through her window.

“Dead!” moaned Lady Charlotte. She fell to her knees and put her face in her hands.

Stefanie’s legs crumpled beneath her. She caught herself just in time. “It’s not true,” she said again.

“It’s true, it’s true.”

Stefanie shut her eyes.

“You grieve?” whispered her ladyship.

Hatherfield dead. No. It couldn’t be.

She moved her lips. “I will grieve forever.”

She lowered herself onto the piano bench. She could not stop the whirling of blood in her ears, blocking her reason. She concentrated on her breathing, as Miss Dingleby had always instructed her to do in moments of shock: in, out.

In, out.

It couldn’t be true. Hatherfield dead. It couldn’t. Surely her own heart would have stopped beating, in the same instant.

Lady Charlotte whispered, “It’s true. You love him. It’s true.”

Stefanie opened her eyes. Lady Charlotte was staring at her with a strange expression, an odd feral look, her eyes so wide the whites showed all around her dark irises. She was resplendent in her ball gown, a frothy pink so pale it was almost white, and a circle of pearls gleamed richly from the base of her pale throat.

“I? No, no . . .”

Lady Charlotte scrambled to her feet. “What if I tell you that it isn’t true? That I made it all up?”

“What?”

“He lives. Hatherfield lives.”

“He lives!”

Lady Charlotte gestured to the paper. “He’s delayed, he’s going to meet us there. There was no accident.”

For a precarious second, her words dangled in the air.

There was no accident.

Hatherfield lives.

“Oh God! Oh, thank God!” The tears spilled without warning from Stefanie’s eyes; she stabbed at them furiously with her shaking fingers, trying to stem the tide of hysterical relief. “Thank God! Thank God!”

“You do, then. You do love him.”

Stefanie sprang to her feet. “How dare you! A trick, you tricked me, the basest trick . . .”

Lady Charlotte drew herself up. “
I
dare? You’re the one who dares, you wicked thing, corrupting his pure heart with your disgusting lust. After all we’ve done for you! Wicked, wicked man!”

“Give me that paper.”

Lady Charlotte pulled her arm away. “No!”

“Give me that paper!” Stefanie lunged forward and snatched it away from her.

“Wicked man. Don’t you know who your rival is? You can’t stand against me. You can’t stand against what is right and good.”

Stefanie turned her back and unfolded the crumpled paper.
Mr. Stephen Thomas
, it said, in Hatherfield’s bold hand, and then a broken wax seal.

“It was addressed to me,” Stefanie said. “You opened my note.”

“Wicked man.”

My dear, I’ve had a few unexpected matters encroach on my attention, and must beg you to travel to Belgrave Square with Sir J and Lady C instead. Will find you there and never leave your side. Last night was a miracle. Yours always, H.

“Yes, it’s true. I love him,” Stefanie whispered.

“You dare to admit it.”

Stefanie turned. “I dare. I love him. I love him beyond reason.”

“Oh, you wicked, wicked man,” whispered Lady Charlotte. “I will destroy you, do you understand me? You cannot take this away from me.”

Stefanie met her blazing eyes without flinching. “I don’t understand. Why do this? You’re happy, you’re powerful. You’re the child of good fortune, you have everything in this life.”

Sir John’s voice boomed through the doorway. “Charlotte, my dear! Mr. Thomas! The carriage is outside, for God’s sake. We shall be
late
!”

As he might say,
We shall be showered in dung!

Lady Charlotte’s gaze remained locked on Stefanie. “Do you hear that? We’re going to a duke’s house, Thomas. My friends, the Duke and Duchess of Southam, Hatherfield’s parents. They want me to marry him.”

“Hatherfield is his own agent.”

“There will be music and dancing. You will watch me dance with Hatherfield, you’ll see how beautiful we look together. Everyone will be looking at me, Thomas. At
me.
Because I am the daughter of an earl, and you are nothing. You are a clerk. You are the dust under my slippers.”

Stefanie took a single step closer. The faint smell of rose water caught the edge of her senses, drifting from Lady Charlotte’s flawless skin. “Am I, your ladyship?” she whispered. “Are you quite sure of that?”

“I will be celebrated, and you will not. I’ll be married to Hatherfield in a month’s time, and you will have nothing. Nothing, do you hear me?”

“Charlotte! Mr. Thomas!” Sir John burst through the door. “What the dev—What in heaven’s name is going on here?”

Charlotte turned. “Nothing, Sir John. Nothing at all. Mr. Thomas, are you quite ready?”

Stefanie returned to the piano. The air was a little cooler, so close to the window, and it soothed her burning cheeks. “Oh, the two of you go on without me. I find I have an unfinished task to perform, after all. Shall join you there shortly.”

“A task? What sort of task?”

Stefanie sat on the bench and drew her hands over the keys. How long had it been since she had last played? Three months? Four? She settled her fingers into the opening notes of the
Appassionata
.

Lady Charlotte laughed. “I suppose Mr. Thomas has simply lost his nerve for the occasion. Isn’t that right, Thomas?”

Sir John let out an exasperated sigh. “Regardless, we’ve got to leave at once. You’ll follow along later, Mr. Thomas?”

Stefanie went on playing.

“Rely upon it, Sir John.”

When the front door closed with a bang, Stefanie rose from the piano and lowered the cover over the keys. She put out the lamp and climbed the stairs, two at a time, to her room on the third floor.

A package sat unwrapped upon the bed, its brown paper spreading out in stiff folds from the silvery contents. Stefanie had discovered it upon her return home from court, right there in the center of the woolen blanket, with a card slipped beneath the string holding the parcel together.

Stefanie fingered the folded garments: chemise, corset, petticoats, stockings, a gown made of some silver gossamer that shimmered in the lamplight. A pair of dainty silver shoes. A spray of brilliants in a comb.

On top of it all, a silver mask.

She picked up the note and read it again.

A princess should always appear to her best advantage at a ball, even when hidden in disguise. Enjoy yourself this evening. D.

D
. Miss Dingleby. God bless her from head to toe.

TWENTY-TWO