Beyond A Wicked Kiss (19 page)

"You not only stick the point with a sure hand" he said dryly, "but you insist on twisting it."

This time she did not try to hide her cat-in-the-cream smile. "How is it that the four of you have remained friends for so long?"

West shrugged as if he had never given the matter any thought. "Similar interests, I imagine, and East, North, and South are often invited to the same affairs, so they are in one another's company whether they like it or not."

"And you?"

"They torture me by inveigling invitations on my behalf. Even among the
ton,
there are always those hostesses who are not squeamish about a bastard rounding out the numbers at the table."

"You cannot possibly respond to all the invitations that will come your way now. Your plate must already be full. You will be the guest of honor, I suspect, no longer the one assuring the numbers are even." Ria saw West shift as though discomfited, and she realized how slow her wits had become of late. "That is why you've come to Gillhollow, isn't it? It has little enough to do with your amusement and everything to do with your fear. You are running from the
ton."

"Hardly running."

"That is because you can afford a horse and carriage."

"True. There is something to what you say."

"You do not mean to deny it?"

"Why? I can freely admit that I would rather take my chances walking alone in Holbern late at night than sit through one of Lady Stafford's interminable musicales. I am not sure fear characterizes my feelings about the latter, but there is certainly a pronounced aversion to those affairs."

Ria tucked the rug around her legs where the carriage's jouncing had loosened it. "Well," she said with emphatic finality, "I do not care what has motivated you to come here—the fact that you are willing to assist me in finding Jane is enough."

West decided that nothing good could come of arguing the point regarding who was assisting whom. Ria had already demonstrated that she would fall in with his plans—for a price. He just had to make certain she did not bankrupt him in the process. It was difficult to imagine a more lowering circumstance than applying to her for an allowance.

Though she could not divine his thoughts, Ria saw that he was amused again. She was learning that while it took little enough to divert him, he was possessed of a most singular mind. "Why did you not want me to instruct Miss Taylor to give Mr. Lytton his marching orders? You know very well that he has not been helpful."

"He has had little enough to work with until now. It hardly seemed fair. He may prove his worth in London."

"I don't believe you, you know. There is something more."

West shrugged. "Certainly you must make up your own mind. I will not try to convince you of the truth of it."

"I should like to hear about that society you mentioned. I am here, after all, and you did agree to tell me if I accompanied you to Ambermede."

"I've not forgotten." He considered removing his feet from the opposite bench and sitting up, perhaps tipping his hat back into place, but then decided he would not surrender his comfort to the bishops, even to give them the consequence they were due. "For almost as long as there has been a Hambrick Hall, there has been the Society of Bishops. Like Amy and Jane, they have their blood oaths and secrets, though I believe considerably more than a single drop of blood is involved and their secrets largely remain just that." He held up one hand, forestalling the question he could see hovering on her lips. "Yes, I know some, and no, I will not speak of them."

Ria feigned indifference. "It does not matter. They are only boys—I have some idea of the mischief they get up to."

"No," West said. "You don't. There is very little in the way of mischief done by them and much in the way of cruelty. They are bullies and blighters. It may be that individually they would not provoke others, but as members of the Society they do not act alone. They hold themselves as superior to everyone outside of their circle and admit members only after they have proven their worth by some arbitrary standards."

"Your Grace is describing the
ton."

"Am I?" He reflected on his words and shook his head. "No, even I acquit the
ton
of the sort of organized viciousness the bishops promote."

Ria wondered if that were entirely true. He had never demonstrated any tolerance for the foibles and mores of the
ton.
It was most telling that while he found humor often in the unlikeliest of places, he never found it there. She suspected he would have to care much less in order to enjoy himself more.

"Did you never want to be a bishop?" Ria asked. Seeing his derisive expression, she defended her question. "It is a perfectly reasonable poser. You must allow that envy stirs some to hold others in contempt."

"Sour grapes, you mean?"

"Yes. Sour grapes."

"You must judge the truth of this for yourself—I never had the least desire to become one of them. Once they promised North he could join their Society if he would approach a certain fortuneteller performing at the local fair and ask to see her—"

Ria regarded him, curious that he broke off so abruptly and now looked discomfited. "Yes? See her what?"

"It would be deuced improper of me to say."

"Because you are my guardian?"

"Bloody hell, Miss Ashby. It is because you are a woman."

"Unless I have misunderstood, so was the fortuneteller."

His eyes narrowed, taking her measure. "No," he said finally. "You cannot provoke me. It was a good effort, though."

She sighed. "Not good enough. Will you not at least tell me what Lord Northam did?"

"Of course. He met the challenge and invited South, East, and me to share in the accomplishment. We reported our success to the bishops and they predictably reneged on their promise. In fact, they were furious that we had done what they could not. We were fortunate to escape. They sincerely meant to hurt us."

"I see." But she did not, not clearly. "It still seems rather more mischief than criminal."

"And it was... right up to the point when they came at us with slingshots and pellets."

"Oh."

"Indeed." He removed his hat and pointed to a spot in his hairline just above his right temple. "Do you see that dent, Miss Ashby? That was from a glassy blue-green cat's eye measuring one-half-inch in diameter."

She did not see the crease in his skull but she had no reason to doubt his word. "It is fortunate, then, that you are remarkably thickheaded, else you might have been killed."

It was not quite the sympathetic response he had hoped to elicit, but he supposed it would do for now. He chose to ignore her characterization of him as thickheaded and go on. "Then you fully comprehend the problem."

"They are complete ruffians."

He smiled faintly at this description. "That is still rather too kind, but it captures their essence. Barlough—he was the archbishop of the Society for most of the years the four of us were at Hambrick—took it upon himself to collect a tax from anyone who wanted to cross the courtyard or use the common areas. He seized whatever struck his fancy, and it was not the material things he craved, but the distress he caused by relieving others of their possessions. He demanded prized tin soldiers from the youngest boys, French postcards from the older ones, coin from those who had it, and sweets from Eastlyn."

"Sweets?"

"Iced cakes. Muffins. Tarts. That sort of thing. East had a fondness for them in those days and received a parcel almost every week from his mother. I can tell you, he parted with them most reluctantly." West did not return his hat to his head but placed it on the bench beside him. "The bishops' tribunal once forced South to steal the questions for a history examination and give them over. That caused quite a row when it was discovered."

Ria considered what she had been told. Absent from these descriptions was how the Compass Club retaliated, if indeed, they had. "I think you are not telling all. What response did you and your friends make?"

West grinned. "Something with wit attached. We threw peaches at the fellows with the slingshots, stole Barlough's chamber pot and named our own price for its return, and South, being South, did not steal the examination but committed it to memory, then recited his long-winded answers to the tribunal."

Ria's brow furrowed. "I'm afraid the wit escapes me."

"Perhaps if you were to hear it from the others," he said, shrugging. "I am not accounted to be the best storyteller, though if you apply to South for the particulars, you must be prepared to make a day of it."

She smiled, for there was no mistaking from his tone that he held his friend in high esteem. "You make me regret that my own education was confined to the schoolroom at the manor. It was all very dull. My tutors and governesses did not inspire me to make mischief. In any event, there was no one but the servants to bedevil, and that would have been unworthy of me."

"Tenley?"

"He was often away. I saw surprisingly little of him." Ria did not want to linger on the subject of Tenley. "While I found your discourse edifying, I fail to comprehend what the bishops of Hambrick Hall have to do with Miss Weaver's Academy. We have no society like them at the school. The girls form clutches and circles that sometimes exclude others, and while I discourage it, there seems not to be the same mean spiritedness as your bishops. At least, I hope not. I shall be very disappointed in them if you are about to tell me that you know it is otherwise."

"I have no knowledge of that."

"Then you do not suspect Jane's classmates of having a hand in her leaving the school."

"No." West could not miss her palpable relief. "I apologize. I did not realize your thinking had taken that turn."

"What have I misunderstood? I thought you were warning me about the girls by way of comparison to your Society of Bishops."

"Not at all. I was warning you about the Society."

"That is not helpful," she said in clipped accents. "What have boys from Hambrick Hall to do with my girls, and most particularly with Jane? Is one of them responsible for enticing her away? Is that the sort of vicious rite of passage they practice with their initiates?"

West leaned forward and took Ria's gloved hands in both of his. He held her glance and spoke softly, forcing her to ignore the continuous creaking and rumbling of the carriage, and concentrate on the sound of his voice. "I have gone about the thing badly," he said. "It was not my intention to advance either of the ideas you have mentioned because, in truth, I had not considered them. I assumed when Jane spoke of a proper gentleman, she was speaking of someone who had reached his age of majority, not a schoolboy. It bears thinking that you may have hit the mark closer than I."

Ria looked down at her hands, then back to him. "You are not quelling my fears. You know something that you have yet to say. I wish you would be out with it and—"

"Every member of your board of governors is a member of the Society of Bishops."

Ria blinked. Her mouth parted, closed, then parted again.

"You are gaping."

"I am incredulous," she said. "Gaping is required." Studying his fine, patrician features, seeing no hint of amusement in the curve of his mouth or any deepening of the faint lines at the corners of his eyes, Ria realized he was perfectly serious. She could not match his gravity either in tone or expression. "You are in earnest. I could not have imagined this is where you were leading me."

"You don't believe me?" He had not considered that she would doubt his word. He had not given her reason to think him a liar.

"No. No, that is not it at all. Of course I believe you. It is just that I do not attach any importance to it. You don't know these men. No matter what they might have done at Hambrick Hall, they are not those boys any longer. All of them have position in a society far removed from that Society of their youth."

Ria slipped her hands from between his, no longer in need of his steadying clasp, and waited for him to sit back. She noted that he did so slowly, as if not so certain as she that his intervention would not be required. "Can you not conceive," she asked, "that maturity and time would eventually influence the purpose of a group like the bishops? Look at the charitable work they have done on behalf of Miss Weaver's. Surely that speaks to a change in what is important to them. I would imagine their shared experience as bishops at Hambrick provides a lasting bond very much like the one you enjoy with your friends."

West said nothing for a long moment. "I regret, then, that I have alarmed you. My experience with the bishops is such that it is difficult not to be concerned when I discover them together, especially when their interests exclude outsiders. I have most likely made too much of their connection to your school. As you said, they are engaged in charitable work and should be commended for their effort on behalf of your students."

Ria said slowly, "It is probably only coincidence that they were once bishops."

"I'm sure you're right."

She was feeling less so by the moment. His immediate capitulation was unexpected. She had supposed he would expend some breath convincing her his suspicions were warranted. "These are not the same men you knew at Hambrick, are they? Didn't you say the bishops have a long tradition?"