Barbara Metzger (13 page)

“What, now it is my fault that you betrayed my authority, and that of Viscount Rensdale, who entrusted me with the care of his ward? Humph. That is just like a woman, to cast aspersions, rather than admit her failings.”

“I admit many foolish traits, but loose conduct is not one of them.”

“Yet you landed here, at the home of a known rake.”

“Through no fault of my own, as even you must admit. Or do you think I planned my brother’s injury so that I might bring myself to Lord Marden’s attention, where I might join him in crude and lewd orgies, or whatever it is rakes do?”

“Never crude, my dear,” the earl said from the doorway, strolling into the room. His clenched fists betrayed his anger as he bowed toward Miss Renslow, turning his back on the dastard who dared to shout at her in Ian’s own drawing room. “A successful rake never gives offense.”

Athena was mortified that his lordship had seen—or heard—her arguing like a fishwife. Her cheeks bloomed scarlet that she had called him a rake. “I beg your pardon, my lord. I should never have spoken so rudely.”

“No, you should not be expected to know about rakes and orgies, thank heavens. Is there a problem?”

“
Humph.
I say there is a problem. Miss Renslow has shown herself to be less than honorable.”

Ian turned to look at Wiggs, who had taken to snorting instead of clucking. Ian tugged on the ribbon of his quizzing glass and brought the lens to his eye. He slowly inspected the tutor from his center-parted hair, to his dusty footwear.
Wiggs shifted his lean weight from foot to foot under the scrutiny. Without saying a word, Ian made his point: a female under his roof, under his protection, was above suspicion—certainly above accusations from such a lowly specimen of humanity. “I have found Miss Renslow to be admirable in every aspect, from her devotion to her brother to her courtesy to my staff. A lady in such circumstances should not be chastised for following her own moral principles.” Especially not in his house, the earl’s raised eyebrow emphasized.

“Even—
humph
—if they take to lying? What is next, stealing?”

“I shall have to set a guard on the family silver, I suppose.”

“You might laugh now, my lord, but will you think it amusing when the polite world turns its back on Miss Renslow? As her family’s spiritual advisor, I feel it necessary to point out the error of her ways.”

“Which you have done, at great length and volume. Miss Renslow is not now and never shall be the butt of Society’s ridicule.”

“What, protected by the presence of some woman no one ever heard of? Lady Throckmorton-Jones? Humph. For all I know, she is made up of whole cloth, like the captain’s presence in London.”

“I assure you, the lady is quite real. And my mother will be here as soon as possible.”

“Then where is this connection of the captain’s now? If she is so careful of Miss Renslow’s reputation, I say she should be here, in this very room.”

“What, when Miss Renslow entertains her family’s—what did you term it?—spiritual advisor?”

“When she is alone in the house with a known—” Wiggs stopped one word short of insult. “Just what kind of chaperone have you provided, anyway?”

One unlike any Mr. Wiggs had encountered, that was for certain. “An acceptable duenna, who knows her charge is safe from any dishonor in my home.”

“I should like to meet this woman for myself, so I might assure Lord Rensdale that his sister has not fallen into infamy.”

Athena stepped between the two men. “You are the one who is being rude now, Mr. Wiggs. My host has gone out of his way to ensure my comfort. You must not harbor such vile suspicions. Perhaps my untruths concerning Uncle Barnaby have led you to mistrust me, but I assure you, his lordship does not deserve your lack of confidence.”

Ian stepped toward the door, not so subtly indicating that Wiggs should precede him out of the room. “My dear Miss Renslow, thank you for the valiant effort, but I can fight my own battles.” He winked at her and whispered, “And yours, too.”

Wiggs
humphed,
but held his ground. “You have not answered my question. Where is Lady Throckmorton-Jones? I should pay my respects.”

“She is resting, after spending hours at young Renslow’s bedside, which, I make note, you have not volunteered to do. Be sure to put that in your message to Viscount Rensdale, Wiggs.”

Wiggs snorted and sputtered, but he did offer, belatedly, to visit with his charge in the sickroom. As Ian led him toward the stairs, after suggesting Miss Renslow join her chaperone in a nap—“No, I do not mean you should join the woman in her chamber, by George! Just that you should rest, yourself”—he wondered out loud why small minds were so quick to see something suspicious in the slightest irregular situation. “Why do some people delight in destroying another’s reputation?”

“I am not delighted, I assure you,” Wiggs said, and Ian did believe him. After all, a dowry and a living were at stake, to say nothing of Athena herself, not that this chawbacon in collars deserved such a wife.

Wiggs was out of breath, winded by the pace his lordship set going up the marble steps. Between gasps he went on: “Nor is my own reputation so spotty that single females cannot be in my presence without suffering blemishes on their good names. However, I find Miss Renslow has lied in the past. What am I supposed to think?”

“Why, you are supposed to think of divine salvation, doing good works, bringing religion to the heathens. That is what I supposed a churchman did, not harangue innocent women.”

And boys.

Ian declared Troy too weak to listen to more than three sentences of Wiggy’s diatribe against telling untruths. The boy groaned a few times, smiled weakly in thanks, and let his eyes slowly close. Then as soon as they were out the door, he went back to studying the book on horse racing that Mr. Carswell had brought.

Athena had waited in the drawing room for his lordship’s return, to ask his intentions. Not
those
intentions, which she knew to be nonexistent, but what he meant to do about Mr. Wiggs. She would have admitted the deceit and been done with it: that she was alone in a libertine’s den with naught but a sick boy and a scamp in skirts. The earl had winked at her again, though, and piled fibs upon taradiddles for Wiggy’s benefit. She waited to find out what rig he was running now, as the grooms would say, and what was her part in it. She heard the butler tell Mr. Wiggs good day, but Lord Marden never came. He’d left by the garden gate, in a hurry to find a horse, then find Carswell.

Ian tracked his friend to White’s. “Is it cold in here, do you think?” he asked as he sat beside Carswell in a leather armchair, a wine glass in his hand.

Carswell offered him a cigar, which he refused. “Cold? No, not at all.”

“Then hell must be freezing over. I just invited that maggot Mr. Wiggs to dinner.”

“Good grief, why?”

“Because he came within an inch of accusing me of seducing Miss Renslow. He’ll make sure she is ruined if I cannot convince him otherwise. I need to hold the dinner so he sees she is not compromised.”

Carswell blew a smoke ring over Ian’s head. “Which you intend to do by…?”

“Sacrificing my bays.”

“Ah. But you say the servants know.”

“Christmas is coming early at Maddox House this year.”

“Blackmail, my, my.”

“No, this is merely a reward for all the extra effort they are expending, with the extra guests. Attending the sickroom is an onerous task, far above the call of duty.”

“And your staff is so shorthanded and overworked.”

Ian was known to have twice as many servants as necessary, just so they might have jobs. “Precisely. If one treats one’s retainers well one gets better service.”

“And loyalty.”

“Lud, I hope so.”

*

Athena was not certain why they were going through this effort. Mr. Wiggs was sure to discover the sham sooner or later. Sooner, he would be angry; later, he would be beside himself. If the servants did not give them away, Lady Throckmorton-Jones might curse or belch or bow instead of curtsying. Heavens, she might forget to shave again.

“Where is your gambling instinct, Miss Renslow? There is a chance Wiggy might never see through the pretense,” Ian explained. “And we are reprising the performance so that when my mother finally arrives, he will not dare kick up a fuss.”

“And because you should have gone to a hotel the moment Miss Renslow crossed your threshold, but you did not,” Carswell added. Tonight he wore lime green satin with a matching turban that had false curls affixed in front, and a huge, also false, diamond brooch in the middle. The paste pin had formerly seen duty as a shoe buckle. The delicate shoes he wore had formerly belonged to Ian’s sister, and pinched unmercifully, so Lady Throckmorton-Jones was in an irritable mood.

“But it is Lord Marden’s house,” Athena said, “and he was immeasurable help with my brother.”

“And he was as blind as a bat,” Carswell muttered.

No one could mistake Athena for a child tonight. The new maid assigned to help her had ambitions of becoming a lady’s maid, so she was practicing her arts on Miss Renslow. Athena’s blond hair was piled high on her head, braided through with a strand of pearls. Her loose ivory gown had been altered so that it hugged her slender figure. The gown’s neckline was lowered, some of the lace edging removed to show more skin and less frill. When Athena worried about the immodesty, the girl assured her that a bit of bosom was all the rage. Athena felt she only had a bit of bosom, and most of it was on view. She also worried that Mr. Wiggs would assume she had joined the demimonde in such a dashing style. Then again, he already assumed the worst of her, and why should she not look her best at the earl’s table?

Lord Marden was certainly looking his finest, Hopkins having made an extra effort to see his master turned out in style. Ian’s dark curls were carefully tamed and his neckcloth was tied in an Oriental knot. Athena had to force herself not to stare at his broad shoulders or, worse, at his well-muscled thighs in the tight-fitting trousers. She licked her suddenly dry lips.

Ian groaned. Blind? He must have been deaf and dumb besides, not to recognize that little Attie Renslow was all woman. She might not be aware of her potent charms, but any man with blood pulsing through his veins was more than aware. Ian could feel every drop of his own blood coursing where it had no business going, and he was aggravated with himself. This was not how he should be thinking of the woman whose reputation and innocence he was determined to protect and preserve! He should not even be looking at those creamy mounds above the scant bodice of her gown. Or her tongue, darting out to lick her soft lips. Or the golden curl left to trail along her cheek. He groaned again.

Where his eyes focused or her eyes flitted made no difference. What mattered was where Mr. Wiggs’s eyes went. He came into the drawing room where the others were waiting before dinner, bowed to his host and his erstwhile intended, then glared at the fluttering eyelashes and bead-bedecked bosom of Lady Throckmorton-Jones.

Athena and Ian exchanged glances, ready to admit defeat, ready for the coming explosion. Then Wiggs turned his back on the turbaned matron. He faced Ian, his eyes narrowed, his jaw jutting forward. Even the straight part down the center of his scalp seemed to point the finger of guilt at the earl. “I do not know what rig you are running, sir, or what you hope to accomplish by making me the butt of your humor, but you shall not succeed.”

“I—”

Wiggs did not permit Lord Marden to continue. He jerked his thumb at Athena’s purported chaperone and snapped, “By Heaven, there is no Lady Throckmorton-Jones. There is no Throckmorton-Jones peerage in all of England, not listed in Debrett’s, not known at the College of Arms. Is this female one of your mistresses, or a mere actress you have hired to perpetrate this fraud?”

“His mistress?” Athena asked, covering a startled giggle with her handkerchief.

“A mere actress?” Carswell demanded. “There is nothing mere about my performance.”

But Ian held his hand up. “You have found us out, sir.” He was about to take all the blame, make a full confession, but Athena’s giggle stopped him. She was a game one, all right. And she would be ruined. So he layered flummery upon falsehood, and hoped for the best. “You are correct, and too clever by half, to discover our little deception.”

Wiggs did not know whether to preen or to prate about the “little” ruse. He settled on a
humph,
so Ian went on.

“You see, I invented Lady Throckmorton-Jones to protect her identity.”

“You did?” Athena asked.

Ian faced her and said, “I am sorry we could not tell you, either, my dear, but Her Highness worried you would show too much obeisance to her if you knew.”

“Her Highness?” Mr. Wiggs’s eyes bulged and his heavy jaw hung open.

“Her Highness?” Athena blinked.

“Her—?” Carswell began until Ian stepped on his already sore toes. “That is, you swore not to tell.”

“But who can we trust if not Mr. Wiggs, a man of the cloth?”

“Who, indeed?” Lady Throckmorton-Jones asked with a high-pitched titter. “I suppose you may as well tell him the rest now. I am sure you have whetted his curiosity enough.” He murmured, “Mine, too,” in an undertone meant only for Ian’s ears.

The earl frowned, but bowed, low enough for royalty. “Miss Renslow, Mr. Wiggs, it is my great pleasure to make you known to Her Highness, Princess Hedwig of Ziftsweig, Austria. She is traveling incognita in England on a secret mission for her brother, who is deliberating his principality’s allegiance during the confrontation with the Corsican. If word of her unofficial visit gets out, who knows what damage will be done to the foreign policies of both her country and ours.”

“
Ach, Liebchen,
do not tell them more. It
ist
too dangerous for them to know.”

Athena coughed, and Princess Hedwig slapped her on the back.
“Wunderbar,
yes?”

“
W-wunderbar.
Yes.” Athena made a deep curtsy.

Wiggs made a hasty leg, then reached for the back of a chair to steady himself. “Do you mean that…that Miss Renslow’s companion is a spy?”