Her Secret Fantasy (10 page)

God.
She shifted in her chair and passed the tip of her tongue across her lips. This would not do! She really wished she were better than this.

“What is your opinion on the matter, my dear Miss Balfour?”

Lily snapped back to attention, clearing her throat guiltily. “Pardon?”

“Ah, what’s this?” Mrs. Lundy teased. “Was our young lady lost in some romantic fancy, hm?”

“Oh—I am sorry.”

“Mrs. Lundy asked if you prefer the fife and drums or the brass band for the midday entertainment.”

“Whatever you decide will be best, I am sure, ma’am.” Lily forced a hapless smile. “Perhaps we should ask Edward which he’d rather.”

“So, that’s what you were daydreaming about, or should I say whom!” Mrs. Lundy beamed at having discovered Lily’s presumed distraction over her big, strapping son. “Where is that boy, anyway? He should come and see you! It really is too rude!”

“Oh, I don’t wish to interrupt him—”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Lundy rang the silver servant bell beside her. “He is probably caught up in his ledgers. Perhaps he needs reminding that you’re here.”

In short order, a burly footman trudged into the great hall in answer to the summons. Lily could not figure out why all of Edward’s servants looked like pugilists, but Mrs. Lundy did not shrink from ordering the formidable fellow around.

“Would you please tell my son to come and pay his respects to the ladies? They cannot be expected to wait around for his lazy bottom all day!”

“Yes, ma’am,” the footman grunted while Mrs. Clearwell turned discreetly to Lily with a wide-eyed look over the woman’s choice of words. Lily stifled a polite cough into her white-gloved fist.

“Well! We shall see him soon, I’m very sure,” Mrs. Lundy said brightly.

Just then, a carriage came rolling up the drive, past the menacing stone lions that crouched by the gated entrance to Edward’s estate. All three of the ladies glanced out the window; the sun glinted off the spotless coach as it clattered to a halt in the courtyard just outside the mullioned windows.

“I wonder who that is,” Mrs. Clearwell murmured.

The footman’s return interrupted them, his clomping steps echoing under the great hall’s vaulted ceiling.

He stopped and clasped his hands behind his back. “The master wishes me to say he’s about to go into a meetin’ with an associate, madam. He gives his apologies and says he’ll come as soon as possible. He told me to say that it shouldn’t take long, but he does not wish to inconvenience the ladies.”

“Bring us refreshments,” Mrs. Lundy ordered the brawler. “Tea, biscuits. Chocolate, ladies? Lemonade? Something stronger? Fortunately for my son, we still have a few more details to iron out about the party. Tell him to hurry,” she commanded her servant. “He’s welcome to bring his ‘associate’ to take tea with us, as well. As long as the person’s respectable, of course,” she amended hastily.

“Aye, mum.”

Mrs. Clearwell arched a discreet brow at Lily that seemed to inquire whether Edward actually knew anyone respectable other than the two of them.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lundy had turned toward the window. “Oh! Oh, my. My goodness,” she murmured admiringly.

Lily looked at her hostess in question, but now Mrs. Clearwell had also turned toward the window. Her eyes were wide.

“Heavens,” her chaperone breathed, “if I weren’t thirty years younger!”

“My word, that’s a lovely piece of man-flesh if I ever saw one,” Mrs. Lundy agreed with a lusty grin.

Astonished by their reaction, Lily looked at both women in shocked hilarity, then glanced out the window to see this “lovely piece of man-flesh” for herself.

The second she clapped eyes on him, she nearly shrieked and fell out of her chair—except that she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t even blink.

Derek Knight.

All color drained from her face.

Oh, good heavenly God, what could he possibly be doing here?

Sixteen different explanations barreled through her mind. Few made sense, and one was even more dire than the next. Her heart was pounding, her face had gone ashen, and the only clear words that kept tumbling through her brain were,
Oh, no. Oh, no! Why is he here? I’m doomed!

He was in civilian clothes and ten times still more handsome than she remembered from last night, but as many times as she blinked, willing this certain hallucination to disperse, it proved to be no illusion.

It really was he; he was here, and she was doomed.

Obviously, her transgression had been found out. But how? How was it possibly—possible?

If his arrival wasn’t bad enough, her terror turned to pure dread when, beyond the window, she saw Edward walking out warily to meet him.

Neither man smiled; they did not shake hands.

Good God! she thought. They can’t resort to violence!

There was no question in her mind who would win that fight if they engaged in base dueling, but she needed Edward alive! He was no good to her dead!

Oh, this was terrible.

They walked away together, their faces inscrutable. They headed toward the stables, leaving Lily to try to decipher what was going on. Her overactive mind wasted no time in offering up a few choice, dreadful notions. Someone must have seen them together last night and told Edward. Maybe the other lady who had come to meet with Derek in the garden had witnessed the kiss and told others what she had seen. What if Edward had summoned Derek here to punish each of them separately—or, wait!

Something worse.

Far worse.

They both had spent time in India. What if they already knew each other from there—Derek and Edward? What if the major’s light blue eyes and angel face hid the soul of a demon? What if he and Edward were in league?

Maybe Edward had put Derek up to it…to test her. She wouldn’t put it past her erstwhile Minotaur. He had that ruthless streak. Maybe Edward could sense that she really wasn’t quite as pure and proper as she seemed.

Oh, God.

She’d have walked right into a trap.

Lily sat frozen in petrified silence, completely at a loss, while the Lundys’ servant wheeled in the tea cart with their refreshments.

I’m dead,
she concluded, stunned. She felt paralyzed. Trapped. Strangely helpless before fate. Like one of those poor French nobles waiting in a line of wretched prisoners for his turn at the guillotine.
It’s all over now. I am disgraced.
There was nothing left to do but wait and watch it all unravel.

She might as well have a spot of Darjeeling and try to calm down, she thought half-hysterically, though she still sat ramrod straight, masking her distress. What else could she do? Run away? What was the point, if her wanton nature had been found out?

The scandalous truth would only follow her.

That was why she had hidden at Balfour Manor all these years, why Grandfather had left the house to her—one safe place for her to hide the next time her world came crashing down.

She had not expected that day to come so soon.

For the moment, however, she could do nothing but try to recover her courage. Her heart pounded. In odd detachment, she watched Mrs. Lundy pour the tea.

But when Lily accepted a cup and lifted it to her lips, she nearly spilled it with the trembling of her hands.

CHAPTER

         
SIX
         

“M
ajor,” Lundy greeted him, gravel crunching under his boots as he crossed the courtyard to receive him. “Good of you to come.”

“I didn’t know I had a choice.” Derek slammed the carriage door behind him and took a wary glance around at the landscape and the house.

With a hard look, Lundy nodded toward the stables. “Let’s walk.”

They did. As they approached the barn, the sound of vicious barking filled the air.

“Guard dog?”

“Monster,” Lundy grunted. “Don’t worry, he’s caged. Did you have a nice visit with the chairman?” he muttered, keeping his stare fixed on the wide-open door to the stable ahead.

Derek glanced at him in surprise. “You know about that?”

“Of course. I’ve been ordered to befriend you.”

“Really? Why is that?”

Lundy sent him a dry look askance and nodded in shrewd cynicism. “Hold on. Can’t hear myself think. Maguire! Shut that dog up!” he ordered a groom as they walked into the stable.

The young laborer blanched. “Sir, all due respect, I ain’t going near that thing.”

“Oh, aren’t you?” Lundy boomed. “Lucky I don’t feed you to ’im. Where’s Jones, then?”

Derek raised an eyebrow as he looked from the cowering groom to Lundy, surprised that he would accept the servant’s refusal of an order.

“He’s gone into the carriage house. Shall I get him?”

“Never mind. Dog only listens to me, anyway. Maguire,” Lundy added in amusement, nodding toward Derek, “show the major what Brutus did to your hand.”

The groom shifted the pitchfork he was holding to his left hand, and then held up his right, from which most of two fingers were missing.

Lundy sent Derek a matter-of-fact grin. “Come have a look.”

Walking down the center aisle of the luxurious stable, Derek was secretly agog at his host’s kingly collection of horses. Whoever was choosing Lundy’s horses for him, the man knew what he was doing. There must have been two dozen of the finest warm-bloods that Derek had ever seen: Arabians, thoroughbreds, Hanoverians, Irish hunters.

Jealousy was extremely rare in Derek’s nature, but as a cavalry man, horses were his passion, and looking around, it was depressing to see that this clod Lundy had already attained what
he
most wanted out of life. The lout probably couldn’t even ride.

Well, I could sell my soul, too, and take a tidy office post with the Company.
But then, who would keep his men safe out there in the field and see that they were properly trained for battle?

Still, he was only human.

Ah, damn.
With naught but a sigh for what he couldn’t have yet, Derek shrugged off envy and followed his host to the open doorway at the far end of the stable.

“Brutus! Shut up!” Lundy roared at the big, black dog penned in a large steel cage. Then he noticed a quartet of his thuggish henchmen loitering in the shade, smoking and dealing cards for an impromptu game. “You lot, back to work!” the boss bellowed. “How many times have I told you no smoking near my bloody stable?”

“Sorry, sir. Sorry.” The cards were swept into somebody’s pocket, the cheroots quickly doused in a nearby horse trough.

“Don’t sorry me! You’re goin’ to burn the bloody place down one day and then I’ll have you hanged!”

Lundy’s rough-looking hirelings scattered, but their employer merely slapped Derek on the back. “Now, then! I believe we’ve got some business to discuss.”

“Right,” Derek said warily.

As they went back into the stable, his host couldn’t seem to keep from gloating as he showed off all his pampered beauties, announcing how much each horse had cost him. Beyond that, Lundy didn’t seem to know a lot about his bloodstock, but Derek kept his mouth shut.

The nabob was obviously hell-bent on impressing him—or torturing him—and if he wanted answers, then the most sensible thing to do was oblige the man and act impressed.

It wasn’t hard.

The horses were outrageous. They stopped at the stall of a gorgeous dapple-gray Arabian. The mare nibbled at Derek’s coat pocket, searching for a carrot. He stroked the horse’s neck and cautiously steered their conversation back to the business at hand. “So, you’ve been ordered to befriend me. By whom?”

“Who do you think?” Lundy retorted.

“Lord Sinclair.”

“Right-o. Tuppence for the gentleman.”

“I paid him a call before your man brought me here. He was having some sort of meeting.”

“I know. I was there myself earlier this morning.”

“Ah. So, why does he want you to befriend me?”

“To keep you out of trouble, of course. Keep you busy and stop you from finding out about the committee’s little predicament.”

“Predicament?” Derek prompted.

Lundy stared at him. “They think I’m a fool. But they’re not going to pin this on me. I had nothing to do with it. I don’t care what they say.”

“Pin what on you, exactly?”

Lundy searched his face with searing intensity, then looked away, still playing his cards close to the chest. “Sinclair is hoping you will be content to amuse yourself in Town in a rip-roaring drunken haze, Major. That you’ll use your time in London chasing skirts and raising hell like the typical cavalryman on leave.”

“Is that what you think, too?”

“No. But it is useful to let Sinclair think so.”

“Right,” Derek agreed, though he was not yet sure where all of this was going.

Lundy leaned a meaty forearm against the horse’s stall. “You see, I know firsthand the loyalty among fighting men, Major. I saw that loyalty yesterday in your impassioned speeches accounting all the army’s needs. Very stirring. Makes me remember my own army days. The men in my unit…. I served in India, too, though it was only the Company’s forces.” He paused, a glint of the old rivalry between their two armies gleaming in his eyes.

The proud Regulars, commissioned by the Crown, had always been the envy of the East India Company’s private security forces, which had been established to protect the Company’s trading caravans in India. Whenever their day-to-day security tasks flared up into outright war, the Regulars were called in to lead and assist. The Crown’s forces were assumed by all—especially themselves—to be the superior army, the elite. In war, the Regulars mingled with the Company’s hired troops, usually in command positions. Of course they had better discipline, but in Derek’s view the main difference was one of esprit de corps.

For the Regulars like Derek and Gabriel, the vocation of warrior was for honor, King, and country, while for soldiers of the Company like Ed Lundy, it was mostly just a job. Thus, while the Regulars tended to look down on the Company’s troops, they, in turn, regarded the glamorous Regulars with a mix of resentment and begrudging admiration. Both emotions were visible in Lundy’s gaze now.

“I know your kind,” he continued, taking Derek’s measure with a guarded glance. “In India, men don’t last unless they’re bold enough to take the initiative. A man learns how to think on his feet or he dies. So, no, I don’t think you’re going to sit around and do nothing but drink and woo the ladies while you wait for word from Lord Sinclair. But His Lordship certainly hopes that’s what you’ll do.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

Lundy smiled at him, savoring his information.

“Tell me!”

“Now, now, Major, this isn’t India. You’re in no position to be givin’ me orders.”

Derek narrowed his eyes at the man. “Stop wasting my time. There’s some sort of problem with the money, isn’t there?”

Lundy glanced over his shoulder. “After the vote last night, the committee met to review the books and close out the fund to be handed over to the army. But when we went over the numbers, we found three hundred thousand missing from the fund.”

Derek stared at him in shock. “Three hundred thousand…?”

“That’s right. Somebody on the committee’s been skimming off the cream. That’s what Lord Sinclair doesn’t want you to know.”

Derek’s mind reeled at the betrayal of their men out on the front lines, but he struggled to shake off his astonishment. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re going to help me find out which of the others took that blunt.”

“Oh, I am? Why?”

“Because we both care about the same thing, Major—the men. Besides, I know where I stand on that committee,” Lundy said with a brooding look. “I’m the newest member and I’m an outsider. I’ve never been one of
them.
One of the highborn. They think I’ve no right to be there. They hate me for what I’ve accomplished in life, the fortune I’ve built. Oh, yes, I know it well. I know the way of the world. Whoever’s done this is going to try to pin it on me. I can feel it in me bones. They’ll gladly make the lowborn fellow the scapegoat if it will protect another of their class. I need you to help me find the truth.”

“What exactly are you proposing?”

“An investigation, combining our efforts. They don’t trust either of us entirely. We’re both outsiders in this town. But if we play along with their misconceptions about us and meanwhile work together, then we may actually get to the bottom of this and find out where that money went.”

“An investigation.”

“Yes. They told me to manage you, keep you out of the way. We’ll let ’em think that’s exactly what I’m doing. Meanwhile, I’ll be picking up whatever information I can on my end of it and passing it on to you so you can look into it more closely. But I don’t want to be directly involved. It would arouse their suspicions, and I can do more good from the inside.”

“Right,” Derek murmured, scrutinizing him.

“If we can track down some hard evidence, then they can’t unjustly pin this on me, and whoever took the money will have to put it back. That gold was earmarked for the men. The sooner we find it, the sooner we can get the money to them.”

“Well, you’re damned right about one thing,” Derek said grimly. “I’m sure as hell not going to sit around and do nothing.”

“I thought not. You’d better be careful, though,” Lundy warned. “They’re not taking any chances with you. They’ll push back hard if they realize the two of us are working to expose the real embezzler.”

Derek folded his arms across his chest and debated with himself, studying the man.

“You’re very quiet, Major. Surely I haven’t misjudged you?”

“No,” he said tersely, sending Lundy a warning look, but he did not see fit to tell the man about Lord Sinclair’s veiled threat a short while ago with the permanent loss of his command. Damned right he wanted to get to the truth, but he had a lot to lose.

More than Lundy knew.

Derek was silent, weighing his words. “How do I know it wasn’t you who took the money?”

“You’re welcome to review my personal accounts any time. Talk to my banker if you like. I’ve got nothing to hide. We’ll see if the others can say the same.” Lundy paused. “I heard the Marathas nearly killed your brother.”

Derek looked at him in guarded surprise, but of course, the story had circulated in Society.

“You know damned well we can whip those bastards, provided our army has what it needs to march and fight,” Lundy said. “So, do you want us to beat the Marathas or not?”

Derek glared at him. Of course he wanted to beat the Marathas, but he did not appreciate Lundy’s efforts to manipulate him.

“Ahem! Sir?”

They both looked over at the footman who had entered the stable.

“What is it?” Lundy demanded.

“Sir, Mrs. Lundy asks if you and the other gentleman would like to come and take refreshments now.”

Lundy rolled his eyes. “God.”

“I didn’t know you were married,” Derek remarked.

“He means my mother.”

“Mrs. Lundy bade me say Miss Balfour and her chaperone have errands they must run. The ladies cannot stay more than another quarter hour, if you wish to see them, sir.”

“All right, I’ll be right there!” Lundy grumbled, then he turned to Derek with a long-suffering look. “Refreshments, Major?”

Derek arched an eyebrow and shrugged. “Why not?”

“This way.” As they left the stable and walked across the graveled courtyard toward the house, Derek continued mulling over Lundy’s proposed investigation.