Cupid's Dart (16 page)

Andrew followed these disclosures with some confusion. Lady Denham was experiencing a profound degree of emotion, and he failed to understand why. "And so? Where's the harm in that? Warwick's married to my cousin Catherine, as I recall. Which makes him and Georgie relatives of some sort, I think."

Lady Denham was glad to see that someone else was as ignorant of Lord Warwick's lurid history as she herself had been. "You poor boy! It is positively providential that we encountered you this morning!" Lady Denham proceeded to relate all the tidbits of gossip that had been presented her by her guests, while behind her Sarah-Louise fidgeted and blushed. "Warwick's wife disappeared while on an outing, or so the official explanation goes. Rumor has it that she ran away from home—he must have driven her to it, poor thing—and Warwick either tracked her down and shot her, or drowned her, or broke her neck himself upon learning she planned to elope. And then he hid her body so well that it has never been found!"

Lady Denham's disclosures were delivered with considerable relish. Some response was required. "Jupiter!" Andrew said.

If Lieutenant Halliday did not faint dead away upon receipt of her confidences, his startled reaction left Lady Denham not dissatisfied. "Your sister should not associate with such a reprobate! You will wish to tell her so. Now you must excuse me for a moment while I speak with an old friend. Sarah-Louise, do stop hovering, and sit down."

Obediently, Miss Inchquist perched in her aunt's abandoned chair, reached down to give Lump a pat. "I do not think the matter is so bad as my aunt imagines," she ventured. "She tends to exaggerate. Lady Georgiana appeared to be enjoying herself."

Lady Georgiana was having a prodigious good time of late, reflected her brother. He wondered which she liked better, waltzing with a murderer or sitting on a rakehell's lap. "My sister is a woman grown," he said, with no great conviction. "She must know what she's about."

Sarah-Louise hoped that Lieutenant Halliday was not mistaken. "Have you no family other than your sister?" she asked.

Andrew was still thinking of his sister and her queer behavior. That everything was to be laid at the hen-witted Marigold's doorstep, he made no doubt. "Our parents died in a carriage accident some years ago. There are an uncle and some cousins— my cousin Catherine's relations—but Georgie is estranged from them."

"And therefore so are you." Sarah-Louise admired this loyalty. However, mention of family had brought her own to mind. She glanced cautiously around for her aunt, and found that lady deep in conversation some distance away. "I am in a dreadful pucker," Miss Inchquist confessed. "My papa is coming to Brighton, and once he arrives, my aunt is bound to tell him that she has decided I would make Mr. Sutton a good wife."

Better Carlisle Sutton than Peregrine Teasdale, thought Andrew, but politely refrained from remark. Not that he had ever observed Mr. Sutton so much as talking to Sarah-Louise. "Does Mr. Sutton wish to marry you?" he asked.

"Whyever should he?" retorted Sarah-Louise. "I am hardly in his style. Not that either Papa or Aunt Amice will care for that. Sometimes I wonder if perhaps I was left on my papa's doorstep, because I cannot see any resemblance between myself and any other member of my family. They
take a notion in their heads, and nothing can stand in their way. I am instead a pudding-heart." She paused to contemplate that unhappy fact. "The only thing I can see for it is that Mr. Sutton should develop a preference for someone other than myself. Do you think—That is, I have noticed that Mr. Sutton seems to like your sister very well."

Was there a gentleman who
didn't
like his sister? While Andrew had been preoccupied with his own troubles, Georgie had apparently come out of her shell. "No!" he said, so sternly that Lump, thinking he had been spoken to, apologetically wagged his tail. "If Georgie wishes to cultivate Mr. Sutton, it will not be at my request."

Miss Inchquist wondered how she might persuade Lady Georgiana to cultivate Mr. Sutton. If only Sarah-Louise were not of too meek a nature to stand up to her father and her aunt. If only Peregrine were not pressing her to run off to Gretna Green. "I do not wish to elope," she said aloud. "I want a real church wedding. A very
grand
wedding. Perhaps even at St. George's, Hanover Square."

Miss Inchquist did not wish to marry Carlisle Sutton, yet it appeared she'd already made her bridal plans. Andrew despaired of ever understanding the gentler sex. Perhaps it was not Mr. Sutton that Sarah-Louise wished to greet her at the altar in Hanover Square. Andrew wondered what Mr. Teasdale might deem suitable attire for a wedding. The thought gave him a headache. As did the realization that his sister was not so up-to-snuff as he had thought her, as demonstrated by her recent shenanigans in gardens and on laps.

Why was it that the ladies seemed to have a susceptibility for gentlemen they should not? Damned if Georgie wasn't every bit as green as Sarah-Louise. Now Andrew must worry about them both. He almost wished that he might be in the Peninsula again, dealing with the bloody-minded French.

Chapter Twenty

Marigold had thought and thought, and couldn't think what she was to do. However could she come by twenty-five thousand pounds? If only she had something left to wager, she might win that amount at play, providing that she was very, very lucky, which she had not been yet. Marigold possessed little more than the clothes on her back—figuratively speaking, that was. As poor Janie could attest, Marigold's clothing filled to overflowing both a wardrobe and a portmanteau.

The clothes on Marigold's back, just then, were not what one might expect. Mrs. Smith wore no percale or spotted cambric, no embroidered mull or pique or gauze. Instead she was dressed in baggy breeches, a brown stuff jacket, less-than-pristine linen, scuffed shoes, and had a handkerchief tied round her neck. Her hair was tucked up beneath a felt cap. Although she looked well enough, Marigold enjoyed this garb no more now than when she had worn it onstage. To pass as a boy, her magnificence of figure necessitated the use of considerable camouflage. However, Marigold could hardly jaunter openly around Brighton making inquiries about a certain gentleman from India. Though she may have decided that it was necessary for her to speak with Mr. Sutton, she did not wish him to see her first.

Discovering the gentleman's lodging place was not an easy feat, and dusk had descended on the city by the time Marigold limped into the yard of The King's Hand, past a hay-strewn horse trough and several dilatory grooms. In her wake she had left numerous kitchen maids and potboys with the impression that a certain Indian gentleman was a three-tailed Bashaw, or alternately a Mugwump, guilty of some unnamed but hideous offense, and consequently a-hiding of hisself. None of those worthies questioned Marigold's identity. Her experience on the stage stood her in good stead, and she had liberally laced her vocabulary with such words as "Cricky!", "Hoi!", and "Adone-do!"

Luck continued to be with her now in the person of a little barmaid, who cheerfully confided that Mr. Sutton had a room on the second floor, and was even so helpful as to point out which window was his. Marigold eyed the window, and then a nearby tree.

The barmaid returned to her duties. Marigold glanced around, found herself unnoticed, and swung herself onto the lowest limb. Up the tree she scrambled, as if it were the rigging on a stage.

A breeze ruffled the white curtains at the open window. A pity Marigold lacked the wherewithal to gamble, so lucky was she this day. Now she could inspect Mr. Sutton's belongings before he returned home to find her awaiting him, at which time she would be reasonable, and hopefully so would he. In case he was not, Marigold had her little pistol tucked into her waistband.

It never occurred to Marigold that Mr. Sutton might be in his quarters. In Marigold's experience, gentlemen were never in their quarters at this time of day. She swung one leg over the windowsill and ducked into the room. The chamber was much as she had expected—narrow bed and wooden chair, small chest of drawers, water pitcher and bowl on a corner stand—save for the gentleman in the metal bath.

The bathtub was too small for him. His knees protruded through the soapy water like two islands in a sea. "Ah, Miss Macclesfield," he said. "You have recovered from your grief."

From her grief—which admittedly had centered more on her late husband's lack of foresight than the fact that he had shuffled off this mortal coil—Marigold may have recovered, but not from the circumstance of having interrupted a gentleman in his bath. This particular gentleman had the physique of a Greek statue. Marigold was not accustomed to gazing upon so splendid a masculine specimen, her husbands—with the exception of poor Leo—having been past their prime. She experienced a certain difficulty in tearing her gaze away from Mr. Sutton's splendidly bronzed and muscular chest. One would think he went about in the sun half-clothed. Or perhaps unclothed. "Um," she said.

His uncle's widow, decided Carlisle, was beginning to realize that she had met her match. "I am glad that you have seen the wisdom of coming to me. Allow me to make myself more presentable. Pray hand me that towel."

Heavens, was the man going to remove himself from the tub now? Not that he could stay in it indefinitely without shriveling like a prune. Though Marigold might long to drown Mr. Sutton for the trouble he had caused her, she did not wish for him to shrivel. She handed him a towel, and then turned her back, a movement that brought her face-to-face with the looking-glass atop the chest of drawers. The mirror afforded her an excellent view of Mr. Sutton as he removed himself from the tub. His lower half appeared every bit as excellent as his upper half had been. Perhaps more so. Marigold scrunched her eyes shut. The odious man had already made it very clear that he would not catch her if she swooned.

What a brazen wench she was, to climb right through his window. Carlisle wondered what she had thought she'd find. Not what she
had
found, he'd warrant. "All right. You can turn around."

Marigold did so, then stared. "Excuse me," she said politely. "I believe you've forgot your shirt."

Carlisle made no effort to retrieve the garment. "Surely a lady of your vast experience isn't going to turn missish at the sight of a man's chest. We are practically family, Miss Macclesfield. Besides, it's bloody hot."

Marigold would concede the weather. Sweat trickled down her neck, puddled between her tightly bound breasts. If only she could stop admiring Mr. Sutton's muscles. "I've come to talk to you about the Norwood Emerald. Perhaps this is not a good moment. I think that I should leave."

Having lured his quarry into his lair—although he was not sure how he had accomplished this, he would take the credit—Carlisle was not eager to let her depart. Even then she was en route to the window. He caught her by the waistband of her breeches, and tossed her onto the bed.

"Oof!" gasped Marigold, and scooted back against the pillows. "You are no gentleman!"

Admittedly Carlisle was no gentleman. His uninvited guest was even more hen-witted than he suspected if she thought he was. She was also extremely lovely, with her golden curls tumbling down around her shoulders. The felt cap had fallen off when he tossed her on the bed.

Carlisle would have also liked to divest his uncle's widow of the rest of her atrocious costume. The realization did not endear her to him. "I've no ambition to discuss my lack of manners. Have you brought me the emerald?"

Marigold reminded herself that she was going to be reasonable so that Mr. Sutton would respond likewise. She clasped her hands to her sadly diminished chest. "Pray try to enter into my feelings, sir. Put yourself in my place. There I was, a grieving widow, shocked to my soul by your uncle's demise—"

Carlisle closed the window, lest his visitor think she might still escape. "I don't know why you should have been surprised. You caused it," he remarked.

"I did not!" In her indignation, Marigold bounced on the bed. "Or if I did, I didn't mean to. I—"

"Miss Macclesfield," interrupted Carlisle. "You will catch cold at that. Even a birdbrain like yourself must know better than to ride an old gelding as if he were a colt. Not that I daresay my uncle minded. However, this is all beside the point. You were about to tell me why you have not brought me the emerald."

The man was an unfeeling bully. Marigold's blue eyes filled with tears. "I have come here to fling myself on your mercy!" she wailed. "How can you be so cruel?"

Perhaps he should not underestimate Miss Macclesfield, Carlisle reflected. The white Bengal tigers of India had blue eyes. And the female tiger was as dangerous as the male.

Carlisle sat down on the bed beside Marigold and grasped her arms. "Give me the emerald, or I shall reduce you to so wretched a state of poverty and hunger that you will be grateful to eat lowly kacchaguccha pods and cakes of wheat kernels and cow dung."

Marigold had never heard of a kacchaguccha pod, but she was fairly sure she wouldn't like cow dung any more than she liked cauliflower or peas. She might have reacted much more strongly to Mr. Carlisle's rudeness had it not been for the proximity of his naked, bronzed chest. As it was, she struggled with an inclination to reach out and trace those splendid muscles. "Cannot you satisfy yourself with the remainder of your uncle's estate? Which is not inconsiderable, and of which I will not see a farthing, since Sir Hubert was so inconsiderate as to not revise his will."

"Doubtless he was preoccupied with other matters." Carlisle was feeling a trifle preoccupied himself. "You have only yourself to blame."

"So you keep saying!" So potent was Mr. Sutton's presence that Marigold was having trouble concentrating her mind. "Anyone with a smidgen
of compassion would make some provision for his uncle's widow, seeing as she was left alone and penniless and dependent upon the charity of friends."

Carlisle doubted the widow would remain alone for long. He reached out and touched a finger to the pulse beating in her throat. Wide-eyed, she looked at him. "What are you doing?" she whispered.