Danger Wears White (27 page)

“As it should be.” Gently, Julius swung his leg, which he’d crossed over the other. The facets of his cut-steel buckles flashed when they caught the beam of sunlight coming through the wide windows. Muffled sounds of passing traffic filtered through from the street below—horses clopping, the wheels of carriages trundling, street sellers shouting their wares. Everything normal, in fact. “I will gladly relinquish my care of her person. If you wish, I can send you some likely men.”

Imogen tapped her tea dish with her spoon. “Excuse me, I am here.”

He’d wondered when she’d say something. He exchanged a smile with her. “I know. And you shall have control of it. Except you must give me an opportunity to care for you, for if I don’t, I’ll likely run mad.”

He made the statement light, but he wasn’t joking. The imperative to take care of her, to ensure she came to no harm, thrummed powerfully in his blood. He needed to do it.

She nodded. “But I’m tired of people doing things and knowing things about me that I don’t. That they’re not thinking to tell me or share their knowledge with me. I want to know.” She turned to Julius. “Tony has told me that I could be a daughter of the Old Pretender and a woman called Maria Rubiero. Is this true?”

Julius nodded. “Did he explain the circumstances?”

“Yes.” She took a sip of tea, but the dish quivered with a sharp
chink
when she returned it to the saucer. She wasn’t as calm as she appeared.

Julius would have noticed her nervousness, but he wouldn’t say anything. Julius never missed a thing. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know if it was true, even though you have a resemblance to the Old Pretender and his sons. The full lips, the dark hair and eyes, they are present in you as they were in your ancestors. Maria Rubiero, now, I have found a picture of her. I employed someone to sketch the likeness.” From his side he picked up a paper and handed it to them.

Tony leaned over to see when Imogen took the copy. Maria had been a beautiful woman, with perfect oval face and sparkling eyes. The sketch wasn’t in color, so only the tone was visible. Dark. And her hair, richly curly, but lighter than he’d expected. Imogen must get that rich dark brown from her father’s side. But the resemblance was there in the shape of the face, the sharp little nose, and the lush mouth. “How tall was she?”

Julius laughed. “How should I know? I’m still trying to discover details about her. Her family, her origins, those details. What do you wish to know?”

Imogen had gone pale. “Everything. Is this certain? I mean that I’m their daughter?”

“Nothing is certain until we find material proof and preferably someone who knows more. Who was there.” He waited, and while Tony realized his meaning at once, he waited for Imogen.

“My mother.” She shook her head. “The woman I believed to be my mother for all these years.” Clasping the arm of the sofa, she moved forward. “She said she was leaving today.”

“She is not. I ensured she couldn’t and threw petty details in her way. A horse threw a shoe, her maid didn’t pack properly. She’s out shopping at the moment, as I suggested she might like to go out one more time.”

“She’s leaving to avoid me, and because you have returned.” Imogen’s voice sounded so tight Tony wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms. But he would not, because such intimacy before others was new to her.

Instead, he stretched out his hand, relieved when she took it and gave him a tiny smile before turning back to Julius.

“At our wedding, she hardly approached me. She only said what she had to, and that grudgingly. She sent me a note saying she would take her leave.”

“I see.” Julius saw a great deal, and he would know what her statement meant. Her mother was avoiding her.

“She was never fond, never demonstrative,” Imogen continued. “But recently she’s withdrawn even more. She was pleased to come to London, always hated the country and our quiet life there. If she loved the city and fashion so much, why not stay in Rome with my father? She gave up her chance of an heir. My father visited infrequently, so that I hardly knew him at all. When he came, I was usually set extra lessons.” She shook her head, her mouth flat, not a trace of tears. How much had she gone through before she reached that state of resigned acceptance? The people she considered her parents didn’t want to see her at all, so they virtually ignored her presence. That would never happen again, not to her, and not to their children, if they were fortunate enough to have any.

“I believe your real mother thought a lot of you, so much that she sent you out of danger. It must have been a wrench for her to do it, but she did it not only to you, but your siblings. You have realized that you have brothers and sisters, haven’t you?”

Biting her lips, Imogen nodded. “I still can’t believe it. They seem shadowy, of no substance.”

“I can introduce you to one,” he said gently. “You have already met her. She’s the daughter of the Pretender, but not of Maria Rubiero, so she is only a half-sister.”

Imogen gasped. Uncaring now of appearances, Tony hauled her close and dragged her into his arms. She came unresisting. He kissed her forehead and held her close while they listened to Julius.

He showed no reaction to Tony’s action, apart from a slight relaxation of his lips. “It’s by no means certain that any of this is true. It’s all speculation. I’ve taken the liberty of requesting your mother’s presence here when she returns. You may go or leave. Whichever you choose, be sure I will keep you informed of everything that takes place.”

“Do you think you will get the truth out of her easier with me here, or do you think she’ll be more resistant?” Imogen asked. She still hadn’t shed a tear. She’d probably shed them all before.

“It makes little difference,” Julius said. “I will have the truth. I warn you, that if I have to, I will not hesitate to use all the methods at my command, barring actual physical violence. I won’t be easy with her, with or without you present. I also want to lead this. If you think you can get the truth from her, you are welcome to try, but once I take over, I want a free hand.”

He gave no quarter, but Imogen nodded. “I want the truth, too, however we have to get it. I take it you discovered nothing definite at Thane Hall?”

“Nothing. Except that the estate is excellently managed. Your managers, by the way, are utterly loyal to you. It took me a day to persuade them that I was acting on your instructions, and I had to talk with them until I was blue in the face.”

“I’d like to have seen that,” Tony said appreciatively.

“I daresay,” Julius responded dryly. “The Georges, old and young, were particularly recalcitrant. I’m not sure how they will react to the news of your marriage and the transfer of the property.”

“There is no transfer,” Tony told him. “I have set up a new trust for Thane Hall on the same conditions as the original.”

“That was well done.” Julius smiled, the first he’d given for some time. “You have your own property. You should become the Earl of Hollinhead in due course. If you wish it?”

Tony shrugged. “It’s immaterial to me. The rank I earned in the army means more, but my wife would appreciate the opportunity to redeem her family name.”

Imogen nodded, her curls already bouncing free from the artful knot her maid had pinned them into. Today she wore the frivolous scrap of lace society deemed a cap, not the heavy linen one she’d worn as the housekeeper of Thane Hall. No barrier to her delightful curls, which seemed to have wills of their own. He loved winding them around her fingers, using them to pull her to him for a kiss.

He wanted to kiss her now. Her soft body, warm against his, reminded him forcibly of their condition only a few hours ago. He’d never tire of sharing a bed with her, of making love with her. He knew that now.

In deference to Julius, who might not appreciate witnessing the intimacy, he forced himself to wait. When the front door slammed below them, he eased her away, in preparation for her mother’s entrance.

In fact, the fresh tea Julius rang for arrived before Mrs. Thane, who came in fifteen minutes later. In the interim, they’d talked of other things, all appreciating the break from the intensity of emotion to come.

Mrs. Thane greeted the woman she’d acknowledged as her daughter with heartbreaking coolness, touching her hand before serving the tea and sitting down in a chair that Julius drew up for her. She gave him a gracious smile. Julius returned it, although frostily, and took his seat on the sofa, lifting the file that had lain under the portrait of Maria Rubiero.

“I trust this will not take too long?” Mrs. Thane said. “I have ordered my luggage stowed on the carriage, and I would appreciate taking my leave before the day is advanced too much further.” She nodded at Imogen. “You do not need me any further, and I am tired of town. I want to go home.”

Julius glanced at Imogen, tacitly asking her permission to begin. Imogen hesitated, and then nodded. A wise decision. Julius had interrogated others in the past, although Tony wished Imogen didn’t have to be here for this part. He would have offered to take her home if he’d thought she’d accept it.

“Mrs. Thane, I believe you are about to become Lady Hollinhead again,” he said. “The King is willing to offer the title to Tony as the Earl of Hollinhead of the second creation. Of course you are still not legally entitled to call yourself such, but that will not concern you, I am sure.”

Mrs. Thane inclined her head. “Since I married the Earl of Hollinhead, I never thought of myself as anything else. I take it I am to live at Thane Hall?”

Every cell in Tony’s body repelled that notion. The last thing he wanted was his putative mother-in-law on the premises. She had the power to stir all manner of trouble, and if she’d spent the last twenty and more years complaining, he had no doubt she’d continue the way she started. “I believe you were not entirely happy there. I have other properties that you are welcome to occupy, if you find them more to your taste.” Perhaps she’d like a villa by the Thames. He’d buy one tomorrow if that would keep her away from his beloved wife.

She seemed surprised, her brows rising and her eyes opening wider. She had pale blue eyes, as unlike Imogen’s as they were possible to be. Her face was narrower and her complexion deathly pale, instead of Imogen’s creamy lushness. “I had thought you would live in one of your grander houses.”

“Thane Hall suits me well. If you want grand houses, refer to my cousin Maximilian, or Julius.”

“Or my father,” Julius said with a wry twist to his mouth. As a duke, Julius’s father owned some of the grandest estates and houses in the land. Tony had no desire to find himself in that situation, and wished him joy of it.

“You must please yourself, madam.” He wished he could cross his fingers for luck as he said that.

Mrs. Thane inclined her head as graciously as any duchess.

“You were born in England, ma’am?” Julius asked her, approaching the subject gently.

“I was, sir. But my parents went abroad to Rome, to be with the—” she broke off. “The Pretender,” she finished, but no sign of discomfort crossed her face when she said the name.

“You supported the Cause?”

“My parents did.”

“How do you feel about the Stuarts?”

She paused, stared at him, her eyes watchful and alert. “What do you mean? I was a dutiful daughter. Then I was married to Lord Hollinhead.” She had avoided the question.

“Pray continue. You intrigue me, ma’am.”

“When Imogen was born, my husband took steps to safeguard her. So the house was put aside for her, and I brought her home.”

“Even though you had made no heir to the title?”

“He lost that soon enough.” Now she sounded bitter. That came as no surprise, since she had always demonstrated her reluctance to give up using the title. “But we still saw each other. He visited.”

“Clandestinely.”

She nodded. She hadn’t touched her tea, but kept her hands tightly folded in her lap. “He’s dead now, so what does it matter? And we didn’t conceive an heir.”

“Except for Imogen.”

She jerked a nod. “As you say.”

“Except Imogen isn’t yours, is she?”

The sound of the carriages outside increased as dead silence fell in the room. Everyone sat completely still, not even the rustle of silk disturbing the fraught atmosphere. “Whatever do you mean?” Mrs. Thane’s voice lifted in pitch. She cleared her throat.

Tony watched, Julius questioned. They’d played this game before, but never with such intensity. The result of this conversation meant the difference between Imogen’s knowing the facts of her birth or remaining forever in limbo—not knowing.

“Of course she’s mine! How could you think such a thing?”

“She was given to you, for sure. But she is not of your get. You have never borne a child, have you?” Julius was relentless, but he knew the power of silence and waiting for an answer as much as any army interrogator.

“She is mine. I gave birth to her. She is my daughter.” She lifted her chin, glaring at Julius defiantly.

Julius swung his foot and smiled. “I think not,” he said. “Before I left town on my errand to Thane Hall, I set a few other enquiries into motion, and one of them bore fruit.” He stirred the papers in the file, leafed through them, and came up with another. “I traced one of your maids, one who has since left your service. Do you recall Susan Prentice?”

Mrs. Thane went very still. “No.”

“Come now, I feel sure that you do.” He flicked a piece of paper.

“You would trust the word of a servant girl against mine?” she said, disdain dripping in every syllable.

“Yes.”

She glared at Julius and then got to her feet, clearly intending to leave the room.

“I must insist that you stay, madam, else face the consequences.”

“Better men than you have tried to best me.”

Imogen’s mother’s face was reddened, her eyes glittering with pure fury.

Julius remained calm, his foot still swinging gently. “Please sit down. I believe there may be more tea in the pot. Imogen, would you be so kind?”

As she moved to fulfil his request, Tony exchanged a glance with Julius and froze. He knew that look. Julius had more to say, and a sudden realization made him deny the understanding that sprang into his mind.