A Gentleman's Guide to Scandal (4 page)

She drew herself up as he approached, interposing herself between Lord Farleigh and Phoebe. But he never glanced at his sister. He halted directly in front of her and fixed her with his other
look
, one she had a far more intimate acquaintance with—the ever-so-slightly upturned chin, the downward angle of his gaze (and few men could manage to look
down
at Elinor Hargrove). A familiar quiver started up in the vicinity of her stomach, and she suddenly felt very much like the thirteen-year-old girl who had gotten mud on his favorite jacket.

“What,” he said, slowly and deliberately, “have you dragged my sister into?”

Colin folded his hands behind his back and waited for Elinor to speak. She stared at him, silent, lips slightly parted. Five years of training had taught him to ignore the coral shade of her lips, the faint sprinkling of freckles across her nose that he knew she hated, and the stray curl of rich auburn hair that hung beside her slender neck. If he lingered on any of these things for long, his gaze inevitably found its way to the graceful bend of her shoulders, the swell of her bosom, the feminine flare of her hips. And then he might overcorrect, and sweep his eyes back up to hers, and find himself caught there.

They were nothing remarkable, really. Dark brown eyes, one with a golden fleck just below the pupil. The dark sweep of her lashes framed them in such a way that made them appear impossibly deep, but it was not their beauty that concerned him. It was that every time he met her eyes, he had the uncomfortable feeling that she saw him, saw him stripped of title and fashion and arrogance and pretense—and found him deeply wanting.

So he looked at none of these things. He focused instead on what he considered her least becoming feature: her left earlobe. It had a mole just along its edge that rather ruined her symmetry.

She still had not spoken.

“Well?” he prompted.

“I beg your pardon, Lord Farleigh,” she said. “I had thought to give you the opportunity to rephrase your question in a more civil manner.”

He blinked. Had it been that bad? Certainly not how he would speak to a stranger, but this was Elinor. She was used to him. “I see,” he said. “Perhaps you can understand my distress in learning that my youngest sibling had undertaken to visit a part of the city that normally requires armed escort.”

“You exaggerate,” Elinor said. “We have yet to be accosted by anything more dangerous than a six-year-old in need of a bath. And as for our purpose, we were seeking diversion.”

“It was my idea,” Phoebe said. She tilted her chin up, trying, he imagined, to look imperious. The effect was somewhat spoiled by her need to squint. He really would have to convince her to start wearing her spectacles in public; she was going to squint her way in front of a carriage someday.

“I am well aware that it was your idea,” Colin said. It always was. “But you ought to have had more sense than to allow it,” he continued, returning his scrutiny to Elinor.

“As if she could stop me,” Phoebe said with a toss of her head. “We were having a bit of fun.”

“Honestly, Lady Elinor,” he continued. “You are the sensible sort. You are not
fun
.”

Her eyebrow arched. “Is that so?”

Upon review, he entirely regretted his choice of words. Another man might have stammered a retraction, but Colin could never stand moving backward in a conversation. He was done with being a leaf buffeted by the wind of this woman's every action, after all. Done watching her movements and straining to catch every word that she spoke.

“I've always thought of you as entirely reliable,” he said. Forward momentum, that was the thing. “And I regret being disappointed in this instance. Now, what
were
you doing here?” He looked up at the sign hanging above the door. “Is this some sort of palm reader?”

“It is unimportant,” Elinor said. “As we were on our way home.” Her voice was cold.

He looked between the two of them. Phoebe studiously avoided his gaze, choosing instead to inspect the ground. Elinor's expression shifted swiftly from icy displeasure into a bland combination of annoyance and resignation, a clear symptom of overlong acquaintance and his complete failure to charm her. It was this benign expression she wore whenever they were part of the same group. She spoke warmly enough of him to others. But he wished she would go back to anger. At least that communicated something other than indifference.

“Hmm,” he said. “It would seem I have encountered a conspiracy of silence. If I were to ask”—he glanced at the sign—“Madame Vesta what you discussed, would I learn something interesting?”

“I wished to contact Marie,” Phoebe said softly.

It was like a physical blow. His mouth went dry. Phoebe had not spoken Marie's name in years. Nor had he, to anyone but his closest friends. Marie's death was a toxin in their family's blood. A foul air that he breathed every day, but could do nothing to banish. They did not speak of it. He had tried very hard not to think of her at all.

“Can you blame me?” Phoebe asked. She lifted her eyes to his; it seemed to take a great effort. “When we act as if she never existed? I had to search for answers somewhere.”

“There are no answers,” Colin said. “She's gone.”

“For some more than others,” Phoebe said. He accepted the accusation with only a slight nod. He knew the depth of his own grief. He didn't need to prove it.

“I trust that you will return to the house promptly,” he said. “I have an errand to run, but afterward I expect to see you there. And I beg you, no more diversions like this one. We do have a family name to uphold.”

Phoebe rolled her eyes, back to impetuous in a blink. She wafted by without another word, angling for the carriage, and Colin was left with only Elinor before him.

“There is something troubling you, lately,” Elinor said, startling him.

“Nothing more than the usual,” he said.
Apart from you.

Her head tilted slightly to the side, and he was treated to the slow, layer-by-layer dissection that he had watched her engage in countless times before. He swallowed, and did his best to close his expression. He did not need her scrutiny. He certainly did not need her reporting any findings of distress to her brother. Martin would have no choice but to ask him about it, and what could he say?
Oh, I've only been in love with your sister for half a decade. Nothing to fret about.

He shuddered at the thought.

Apparently his engagement had not made him immune to her. Damn it. The announcement, that was it. The trouble was that he was the only one who
knew
he was engaged. Once it was public, surely his mind would be able to focus on something other than the way her eyes met his or the way her lips pursed ever so slightly as she considered him.

“You shouldn't be so hard on Phoebe,” she said at last. “She's at a difficult age.”

“She has been at a difficult age since she learned to grab at whatever was dangled in front of her,” he said. “She has never been anything
but
difficult.”

“I wonder where she learned that from,” Elinor said distantly, and he almost thought he detected a smile at the corner of her mouth. Which he was not supposed to be looking at, damn it. And no, he saw, it wasn't a smile. It was definitely a frown, albeit a well-concealed one. “I'll see you at the house, then,” she said.

“Yes. Right. The house,” he agreed. She turned from him, and he allowed himself to relax, just a fraction.

If the announcement didn't cure him of this, he was going to have to flee the bloody country.

*   *   *

It was clear to Elinor that Lord Farleigh had no intention of telling her what was troubling him. She was not certain what had possessed her to ask. Farleigh might be honest to the
point of bluntness when it came to his opinions of others, but he used that bluntness to hide his own feelings adroitly. She abandoned the effort with relief and made her way swiftly to the carriage. The truth was, she did not wish to know what occupied Lord Farleigh's thoughts. He disoriented her. He made her feel dull, and she was accustomed to being the most clever person in the room. Her lack of humility in that regard was, she knew, a failing. But with so little else to cling to that was her own, her wit was a treasure she did not enjoy being tarnished.

She did her best to maintain a dignified gait back to the carriage, where Phoebe was waiting. She felt his eyes on her all the way. Her cheeks were hot by the time the driver handed her up into the carriage, and when she caught Lord Farleigh still standing, watching her, she looked away quickly.

Honestly. If he were not her brother's dearest and oldest friend, if she did not have such habitual affection for him herself, she would find him entirely unlikeable. She could not believe there were so many women who
enjoyed
this feeling of being knocked off-center. Or perhaps he had a different effect on the girls who flocked to him. She'd asked Marie about it once, actually, but his sister had been as mystified as she was.

Whatever you do, marry a man who's
nice
to you
, Marie had told her once, when they had been speculating on the matter. Shortly thereafter, she followed her own advice. She might not have loved Lord Hayes, but he had offered kindness and affection enough to entice her to India, and away from her family. Permanently, as it turned out.

“Are you quite all right?” Phoebe asked. Elinor shot her a glare. The girl sat back in her seat. “It's only, you're a bit red,” she said, voice trailing off.

Elinor drew a deep breath through her nose and set her shoulders. “Your brother is occasionally impossible,” she said.

“Isn't he just?” Phoebe said. “But you should have seen him when I put a toad under his sheets. It makes it harder to take his whole
oh, look, I'm so tall and intimidating and marquess-ish
act quite so seriously.”

“You were such a handful as a child,” Elinor said.

“As a child?” Phoebe said. “That was two months ago.”

“Phoebe.”

“He squawked like a chicken getting its tail feathers tugged,” Phoebe said solemnly, her eyes sparkling.

Elinor shook her head. She had a hard time imagining that. She didn't care to, either; she wanted to put Lord Farleigh as thoroughly out of her head as she could manage. And there was another Spenser she was far more interested in at the moment.

The carriage had started forward. When she was certain that the noise of their passage was enough to conceal their conversation from the driver's ears, she leaned forward. “You are keeping something from me,” she said.

Phoebe immediately looked guilty. It was a wonder she ever got away with anything.

“Edward Foyle,” Elinor said. “Who is he? And what does he have to do with Marie?”

Phoebe rolled her lips between her teeth.

“Come on, now. You trusted me enough to bring me along. You can trust me enough to tell me outright,” Elinor said, trying to conceal the sting she felt. However graciously she'd been welcomed into their home, however close she and Marie had been, she was not quite family. That had been made all the clearer when Marie died, and Elinor was shut out of their grieving entirely. It was a private thing, that grief, and she did not rate high enough to share in it. Martin, her brother, hadn't known Marie well at all—hadn't known how much she'd meant to Elinor, when he was away. And so she hadn't tried to explain.

Phoebe let out a soft sigh. “The fact is, Marie remarried after Lord Hayes's death.”

Elinor stared. “What?” No. Marie would have written to her. She'd written every week before Lord Hayes died, though the letters took months to arrive. After his death she'd only written once—but the letter had made no mention of a suitor, much less a husband.

“We only found out when we learned of her death,” Phoebe said.

“Why wouldn't you tell me?” Elinor asked, numbness creeping through her limbs.

“It was a family matter,” Phoebe said. “We told no one. They were only married for a few months, you see.”

“They who? This Edward Foyle?” Elinor asked.

“Yes,” Phoebe confirmed.

“She never said anything about him,” Elinor said. The name had no meaning to her.

“He's Lady Copeland's cousin,” Phoebe explained. “And Lord Copeland was Lord Hayes's partner in the mines.”

Elinor frowned. The diamond mines had been Marie's idea, and they had proved extremely successful—but after Marie's death, Elinor had heard nothing more of them. She hadn't realized that Lord Copeland was involved.

“Lord Hayes owned the bulk of the shares in the mines,” Phoebe said, nodding. “When he died, Marie got the shares. She was thrilled.”

“I remember,” Elinor said. Lord Copeland and his diamonds . . . She blinked. “Wait. Were these
the
diamonds?” London had been abuzz two years ago with the news that Lady Copeland's famous diamonds had been stolen.

“Three invaluable diamonds were mined and cut. Lord Hayes presented them to Marie on her birthday,” Phoebe said. “The next time we heard of or saw them, they were hanging around Lady Copeland's neck. Apparently after Foyle married Marie, he sold the mines and the diamonds to Lord Copeland. For a pittance.”

“Then Lady Copeland's diamonds belonged to Marie?” Elinor said, eyebrows raised. “I suppose I don't feel so bad that they were stolen, then.”

“Do thank your sister-in-law for us,” Phoebe said with a glint in her eye.