Dangerous Deceptions (20 page)

“I try to. If nothing else, it keeps things simpler, given that my most innocent transgressions might well turn up in the papers.”

“Then perhaps you are a better person than I am,” said Molly. “Or perhaps your beau has less pride to injure.” My first impulse was to leap to Matthew’s defense, but I held myself admirably in check. “I know only that John is in straits and I can help him.” She looked at me, and I saw all her familiar strength had returned. “But I can’t go to Mrs. Egan myself. Someone might see. Will you help me, Peggy?”

“You know that I will.” Hope and guilt warred in me, because my friend’s cry for help meant I might impose upon her for my own business. “But I need your help as well. I may need to get away from the palace for a few hours tomorrow.”

Molly pulled back. “Tomorrow? To do what?”

“It’s a private family matter.” Molly nodded as if she understood. Exactly what she thought she understood, I could not say and did not ask. “Mary’s planning to be back tomorrow, isn’t she? You can tell Her Royal Highness I’ve caught Mary’s cold and am lying down.”

“Very well, if Mary’s back, and if you’re in place by evening. Any more untoward gossip, and Her Royal Highness might decide to make some changes in her household.”

“I know it. Now, we can be going just as soon as I write this one last letter.”

There was a groan from my closet that made it sound suspiciously as if Libby had overheard these words. I ignored it as I hurried to my desk and pulled out another sheet of paper.

This time, I wrote to Olivia.

Be at my rooms tonight at half past six. It’s time for our plan.

P.

EIGHTEEN

So it was that I found myself hurrying away from the Tuesday afternoon party of coffee and cards to meet Matthew. I could not decide whether I should be ready with apologies, insouciant explanations, or arguments. None of these options felt right, and I was left with the understanding that I simply wanted to see him. I felt at my wits’ end. Precious days had passed. I’d found no way to stall Sebastian and his ridiculous deadline, and no way out of the risks of delving into whatever secrets my uncle held. I needed Matthew’s warmth, his solid intelligence, his embrace. I had then to find some way to achieve that meeting of hearts in tender reconciliation as was appropriate between lovers who have quarreled. This all must be done before Olivia arrived at half six to help plot our infiltration of her father’s innermost secrets.

My life, it seemed, was not destined to become any simpler.

When I opened the door to my rooms, however, it was not Matthew who was waiting for me.

“Hello, Peggy,” said Olivia from where she sat beside the hearth. “I’m a bit early, I know. Princess Anne has caught cold, and I had to submit my report on Guinevere’s progress by written note.”

My response to this friendly greeting and explanation did not rise to the heights of affection I normally reserved for my beloved cousin. “Olivia! You can’t be here yet!”

“Why on earth not?”

“Hello, Peggy,” said Matthew from the corridor behind me. “And hello, Olivia.” That both unease and suspicion entered into his voice at this moment can perhaps be readily understood. It also probably should not have been the cause of as much exasperation as I then felt.

“One moment, please, Matthew. Olivia was just leaving.”

“Why was I?” inquired Olivia without so much as lifting her feet from my stool. “Hello, Matthew. Peggy’s told you what’s happening, then?”

“No.” Matthew was looking at me. I could feel it. “She hasn’t told me anything.”

“Go away, Olivia. You’re not needed yet. Matthew, close the door,” I added. “And, I promise, I did not ask Sebastian to Her Royal Highness’s card party.”

“Oh!” The light had clearly dawned within Olivia, but it did not seem to be causing her to move one inch closer to the door. “This is about that bit in the paper?
Lud,
Matthew, you cannot possibly be upset over that!”

“Go away, Olivia,” said Matthew as he stepped through the doorway. “I need to speak with Peggy.”

“I am not going anywhere,” my beloved cousin replied, with a calm as unreasonable and unwarranted as it was unshakeable. “The two of you won’t speak a word of sense if I’m not here. Libby, make us some of that tea, would you?”

Libby looked at me. I looked at Matthew. “She’s not going,” I said to him.

“I see that,” he replied.

“I wasn’t the one who brought Sebastian to the princess’s party,” I said again. “And you can’t really think I flirted all night with him . . . can you?”

Matthew frowned, and my heart dropped into my slippers as if its strings had been cut. “I can’t believe you’re even asking that question. I thought you had a better opinion of me.”

“She does—that’s why she’s so worried,” said Olivia, with every intention of being helpful. My response at that moment, however, may have appeared somewhat less than grateful.

“Will you for once keep quiet!”

I would like to believe it was deep sympathy for my current plight that caused Olivia to fall silent. I suspect, however, it had more to do with the fact that I hadn’t shouted at her since we were both nine and she’d gotten us lost during a wholly unauthorized expedition to the market.

When I turned back to Matthew, it was to see that he had grown grave. This threatened to cause me severe internal disarray, and, worst of all, a humiliating burst of tears.

“It was an awful risk, Peggy,” he said. “And you’d agreed I should be there when he came near you. I wasn’t jealous. I was frightened.”

“And angry that without you there, she might do something foolish,” prompted Olivia.

“Olivia wants to be a playwright,” I reminded Matthew. “She tends to practice at inconvenient moments.”

“Am I mistaken in some particular?” asked my cousin.

What could I do but sigh? “You are not.” I said this for Olivia, but I was looking at Matthew. After an anxious moment, one corner of his mouth turned up in a soft smile, and all the breath rushed out of me.

“Well, there we are, then,” Olivia announced loftily. “Now you, Peggy, can forgive Matthew for being worried about your being reported as swanning about the room with Sebastian Sandford. And you, Matthew, can forgive Peggy for said swanning, as it was not really her idea.”

“I was not swanning!”

“Of course not,” she said in those soothing tones that never actually impart any soothing feelings. “You only swan in a strictly professional capacity.”

Matthew and I both glared at her. In response to this dread admonishment, Olivia rolled her eyes. “You may not believe it, but I do know I’m a nuisance and unwanted. You, however, must realize that we simply do not have
time
for a lovers’ quarrel.”

“She could be right,” said Matthew to me.

I sighed. “It has happened before.”

“We will talk more about this.”

“I know it.” I pressed Matthew’s hand. “I’m sorry. It was Sophy again, being Sophy.”

“Which makes far more sense than anything written in that article.”

“
Now
are we friends?” asked Olivia in a tone indicating the extremes to which we had driven her patience.

Matthew did not look away from me, even for an instant. “I will always be your friend.”

My heart tipped over, and it took all my discipline not to kiss him there and then. I could only hope Matthew saw in my eyes that I meant to remedy this neglect as soon as we had a single instant alone.

“The tea’s ready,” announced Libby.

“Thank you, Libby. And you might go and see if Norris was able to deliver that other letter.”

Libby hesitated, clearly torn between the desire to hear what might be said next and the desire to snatch a few moments alone with her Norris. In the end, personal desire won out, and she curtsied and left us.

I poured the tea, and we all took a cup. Matthew sniffed, and sipped, and looked startled and took a larger sip. I rolled my eyes. Another convert.

While we drank, I narrated for Matthew and Olivia the gist of my conversation with Sebastian. I made sure to include his promise of assistance in return for my finding him a post at court, and the deadline he gave.

“This would be so much easier if Sebastian were actually stupid,” muttered Olivia.

“He’s stupid enough to think threatening Peggy will get him what he wants.” There was a darkness under Matthew’s words that reminded me murder had already been done in my name, and I wished I had not heard it.

“But he’s smart enough to get Sophy Howe on his side,” she countered. “How neatly it all works out. Now if Peggy can’t get Sebastian what he wants, the Howe will, if only to spite Peggy.”

Which was not something I’d considered. I’d been too busy watching the pair of them be professionally charming at each other. Admiration for Sebastian’s cleverness left a strong and terrible taste in my mouth, and I needed a large gulp of tea to wash it away.

“Which may be clever, but doesn’t give her any way to get free of him,” said Matthew.

I opened my mouth. I was going to have to say it. I was going to have to tell Olivia I might be an heiress. I was going to have to go back into my uncle’s house, to risk arrest, shame, and the loss of the life I’d only just gained.

“What I want to know is, how does a man afford forty pounds’ worth of tea in a gilded jar when his family has lost its last penny?” asked Olivia blandly. “Someone is lying through his teeth about something, and it’s probably Sebastian. Probably this whole business of needing a post to make his own way in the world is made up entirely.”

I looked at the pale brown liquid in my cup, grateful that she had not decided I was the liar. At the same time, an absurdly mathematical part of my brain was attempting to calculate the cost per cup of the gift. “I can’t see how he thought lying about his family’s circumstances would get me to help him.”

“Perhaps he thought you’d feel sorry for him.” In response, I choked on nothing but air. “I didn’t say it was a good thought, did I?” Olivia waved her cup. “Just that it was Sebastian’s.”

“You will make an excellent playwright,” said Matthew.

Olivia blushed and made a great show of dropping her gaze. “You flatter me, Mr. Reade.”

“Unfortunately, my uncle is hardly likely to care that Sebastian’s a liar and an opportunist.”

Neither of them attempted to challenge this assertion.

“I’m not sure it matters anyway,” Matthew went on. “As long as he’s your guardian, Sir Oliver can still come for you at any time. He can even arrange another marriage if this one doesn’t take.”

I had been trying very hard not to think of that. “But it will delay him.” I took Matthew’s hand. “Remember, my father might still be alive. Mr. Tinderflint’s looking for him now.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Tinderflint.” Matthew did not bother to hide his bitterness. “Because he’s always been so concerned for your welfare, he’s left you in a nest of snakes without bothering to tell you which ones are the actual vipers.”

“He saved Peggy’s life,” retorted Olivia.

They bantered back and forth, debating my patron’s merits and detractions. I stared at my tea. There was another possibility, one I had not considered until this moment. It was genuine, it was sound, and it would save me from having to confess to Olivia any hint of a chance I might be an heiress until I had some kind of proof in my hands.

“This is about money,” I said. “The only question is
whose
money?”

“What are you talking about?” asked Olivia.

“You asked the question, Olivia. If Uncle Pierpont truly wants this marriage to happen, why hasn’t he simply published the banns and packed me up?”

Matthew looked at Olivia, and Olivia looked at Matthew.

“We’ve been assuming it’s the Sandfords who are in straits financially. But what if Uncle Pierpont is in trouble?” I met Olivia’s gaze apologetically.

“If you get married, and Father can’t live up to whatever settlement is in the contract, it will raise questions,” said Olivia slowly. “People will start to wonder if the bank’s on a sound footing. If he just calls it off, people will wonder anyway.”

I watched the light begin to dawn in Matthew’s gray eyes. “So he’s got to come up with some reason to break the betrothal that doesn’t have anything to do with money. Something to do with the Sandfords, or with Peggy herself.”

“Or convince the Sandfords to call it all off for some reason other than money,” I added.

Matthew nodded. “At the very least he needs to stall matters until he can get the capital together to pay off whatever he’s promised to the Sandfords.”

Olivia was quiet for a long time, her hands wrapped tightly around her cup. I understood. Smugglers, highwaymen, illicit marriage, treachery and treason, these were all fine dramas. But bankruptcy and arrest presented a far different picture.

“I’ll ask him,” she said. “I’ll demand an answer.”

“Olivia, do you really think he’d tell you the truth?”

She set her cup down. “Then what? We’ve been sitting here talking round and round. It might be this, it might be that, but we don’t
know
anything.”

I felt as though we’d switched places, my dramatic cousin and I. At that moment, it was not a feeling I relished.

“We stay with our first plan,” I told Olivia, and Matthew frowned in silent inquiry. I took a deep breath. As firmly as I could manage, I said, “If there’s any record of Uncle’s doings, he’ll keep it at the bank.”
And if that record holds bad news about the stability of the House of Pierpont, I can use it against my uncle to break the betrothal, and just maybe to force him to tell me about any inheritance, and never have to break into the book room at all.
“I have to find a way into the bank.”

“And
we
do have a way,” said Olivia, sounding piqued that I’d gotten the pronoun wrong. “We have you, Matthew.”

Carefully, Matthew set his cup down. “I may be an insufferable coward, but I do not like the sound of this.”