The Countess (3 page)

Christiana merely grunted in agreement and jutted out her hip to help hold up her end as she reached out with one hand to quickly open the door. It was a very fast maneuver, even so the rug started to slip from her hip and she barely caught it in time to keep from dropping it. Sighing her relief, Christiana started out into the hall, only to come to an abrupt halt as she spotted Haversham approaching.

Unfortunately, Lisa and Suzette were not expecting her to stop so abruptly and there was a soft curse and a bit of stumbling about behind her that nearly jerked the rug out of her hands as the weight increased. Just managing to keep her hold, Christiana glanced over her shoulder to see that Lisa had lost her grip on the rug and it was sagging in the middle. Even as she saw that though, the younger woman quickly caught it up again.

Sighing, Christiana turned back and forced a smile for Haversham as he paused before her. She would say this for the man: he was well trained. The butler didn’t even bat an eyelash at the sight of the three women dragging a heavy rug about.

“Is there some way I may be of assistance, my lady?” the man asked politely.

“No, no,” she said quickly. “We’re just taking Dicky up to warm the rug. I mean we’re taking Dicky’s rug up to warm the room,” she corrected herself quickly in a strangled tone and then, because she couldn’t lie worth beans, babbled, “The guest room. The rose one that’s so chilly. Suzie will be staying there. In the room. And it’s chilly so we’re going to warm it with the rug. Dicky’s already warm. With a fever. He’s up in his room fevering so he won’t need his rug you see,” she ended almost desperately, unable to miss the exasperated sigh from behind her. Probably Suzette, she thought unhappily. It sounded like one of her “my sister is a big dolt” sighs. Christiana had suffered them often while growing up. But surely there should be an age limit to such obnoxious sounds? She felt certain they shouldn’t be allowed after a person had married.

“I see,” Haversham said slowly. “Would you like me to carry it up for you?”

“No!” The word exploded from her mouth like a ball from a cannon. Forcing herself to calm down, she added, “I need you to do something else.”

Haversham nodded politely, waited, and then prompted, “And that would be?”

“That would be what?” Christiana asked uncertainly.

“The something else you need me to do, my lady,” Haversham explained patiently. “That would be what?”

He was speaking slowly as if to a particularly dull child, but Christiana could hardly blame him for that when she had apparently turned into an idiot. She really had not been made for cloak-and-dagger activities, she decided wearily as she struggled for some errand to send the man on.

“I need you to send one of the servants out to buy a chicken,” she said at last.

Haversham’s eyebrows rose. “A chicken?”

“For Dicky. He’s sick,” she reminded him of the lie. “And they do say chicken soup is good for such things.”

“Yes, they do,” he agreed solemnly. “Should I go upstairs first and see if Lord Radnor desires my assistance undressing and getting himself into bed? I fear his valet is under the weather as well and incapable of aiding him.”

“Freddy is sick?” Christiana asked with surprise. That was a spot of good luck for them. It solved the problem of keeping the valet away from Dicky.

“Deathly ill. I shouldn’t be surprised if he is unavailable for days,” the butler said solemnly, and then added, “I, of course, will make myself available to Lord Radnor to fill in for Freddy in the meantime.”

“Oh no,” Christiana said at once. “I mean, ill as he is, my husband is not likely to need assistance dressing. He’ll no doubt rest abed until he is recovered. I’m sure he won’t need you.”

“Hmmm.” Haversham nodded. “Then I shall arrange for someone to go purchase a chicken and leave you ladies to your endeavors.”

“Yes, you do that,” Christiana said with relief. She waited until he disappeared through the door to the kitchen, and then muttered, “Let’s go,” and immediately started forward again.

“Thank God,” Suzette gasped as Christiana headed for the stairs at a hurried pace. “I thought he’d never leave. And really, Chrissy, you cannot lie at all.”

Christiana grimaced but could hardly argue the fact, so merely picked up the pace as much as she could, eager to unburden herself of her dead husband. By the time they reached the top of the stairs, they were also sweaty and exhausted, but continued forward without resting. They had reached the door to Dicky’s room and Christiana had just jutted out her hip and released one handhold on the rug to open the door when the next door down opened.

Christiana immediately glanced around with alarm. Unfortunately, the slight movement was enough to dislodge the bundle from her hip. She felt it slip off and drop toward the floor, but this time wasn’t quick enough to stop it. Worse yet, Suzette and Lisa were taken by surprise and lost their own holds on the rug. The whole length of it thudded to the floor and then unrolled, spilling a very dead Dicky at the feet of Christiana’s maid as the woman paused in the hall.

All four women stared down at the man and then Grace lifted her eyes to Christiana and murmured, “Finally killed him, did you? It’s about bloody time.”

Chapter Three

I
must say, Lady Radnor, while Suzette has your father’s dark hair, all three of you have your mother’s features. She would be proud at how lovely you all turned out.”

“Thank you, Lady Olivett,” Christiana said, a smile tugging her mouth wide and bringing on a small ache that merely made her beam. The ache was because she’d smiled so much this evening, something she hadn’t done much of this last year. She was enjoying the ache as a sign that things had changed for the better, and oh how they’d changed. She hadn’t enjoyed herself so much since . . . well, since she’d married.

Christiana had spent the last hour since arriving at the Landon ball enjoying her newfound freedom and chattering away with the other married women. She was doing her duty and gaining gossip about Suzette’s dance partners as expected, but that still left plenty of time to just converse and laugh and enjoy herself. It was lovely, and she vowed never to allow herself to be so controlled and beaten down by anyone ever again. Truly, she could hardly believe she had allowed Dicky to do so in the first place and supposed it was only because no one had ever treated her like that before, and she had never been without the support and love of her family prior to that either. The combination had worked against her, leaving her feeling alone and frightened. But that was before, now she was a widow, had her sisters back, and intended to enjoy every minute of it.

“The music is coming to an end. Who is Suzette’s next dance partner?” Lady Olivett asked curiously.

“Danvers, I think,” Christiana answered, smiling at the woman. Lady Olivett had been a dear friend of her mother’s while she lived and had immediately taken Christiana and her sisters under her wing when they arrived, which was very generous of her considering how shabbily Dicky had treated her, turning her away when she’d tried to visit Christiana and welcome her to London.

“Yes, I think you’re right. There he is approaching her and Willthrop,” Lady Olivett commented.

As Christiana turned to glance toward her sister, the lady continued, “Danvers isn’t a much better prospect than Willthrop, but at least he is young and good-looking. Still, caution her not to get too interested in him. He is in financial difficulties and a bit of a bounder to boot.”

“I will,” Christiana assured her, turning her gaze to search the other side of the dance floor where Lisa was ensconced amongst a giggling gaggle of single young ladies. Danvers was one of the names Lisa had been supposed to find information on. They had split the names on Suzette’s dance card in half, Christiana and Lisa each taking every other one, in the hopes of making it less obvious they were seeking information on the men. Now, she was curious to see which prearranged signals Lisa would give Suzette. However, her gaze never found her youngest sister. Instead, it halted abruptly on a man just entering the ballroom. After a year of marriage, she’d recognize the man anywhere. Dicky . . . alive and well, and looking very, very angry.

“Lord Radnor! Your wife said you were ailing and wouldn’t be able to come tonight, but you’ve made it after all.”

Richard Fairgrave, the Earl of Radnor, paused and turned, relaxing a little when he recognized his host, Lord Landon, approaching. But then the man’s words sank in.

“My wife?” he asked, his gaze sliding in question to his best friend and the man who’d saved his life and brought him here, Daniel, the Earl of Woodrow. Daniel merely shrugged helplessly.

“Yes,” Landon said cheerfully and glanced around. “She’s here somewhere. Lady Radnor and her sisters were among the first to arrive. There she is,” he said with triumph, pointing toward a small group of women gathered at the end of the ballroom.

Richard peered to where a petite blonde stood in a circle of several much older women. The older women were all chattering away while the woman who was apparently his wife listened, or didn’t listen. He couldn’t tell. Her eyes were locked on him with something like horror. He felt his eyebrows rise, but looked her over slowly, noting that she was overly thin, pale to the point of sickly, and not particularly pretty.

“As I say,” Landon continued, turning back to face him, “she told us you had taken to your bed with a malaise and wouldn’t be attending tonight. You look fine to me, though. Still, she does appear to be surprised to see you.”

“I’m sure she is,” Richard said quietly.

The jovial smile on the man’s face faded briefly and he said in more solemn tones, “I’m glad to see you here. You’ve kept too much to yourself since your brother’s death. It’s good to see you rejoining society. You were missed.”

“Thank you,” Richard murmured, oddly touched by the sentiment.

Nodding, Landon thumped him on the back in a manly manner, and then cleared his throat and glanced around. “Well, I suppose I should see to the rest of my guests. Go assure your wife you’re well. She must have thought you at death’s door to be so shocked now,” Landon said with a laugh. “I fear you must have overplayed it a bit, boy. Next time you want to slip out to see your mistress, just give a sniffle or two and a cough. There’s no need to act like you have the plague.” Laughing, Landon slapped him on the back again and then turned to disappear into the crowd.

“I had no idea,” Daniel assured him solemnly. “I was on my estate and out of the way of society and its gossip until your letter arrived, and then I was busy making arrangements to sail to America to hunt for you.”

Richard nodded silently, not taking his eyes off the blonde across the ballroom. She hadn’t moved but still stood, face pale and eyes and mouth round with horror, staring at him as if he were the devil himself.

“What do we do now?” Daniel asked grimly. “You can’t confront George for the greedy, murderous, bastard of an imposter he is if he isn’t here.”

Richard frowned as he realized the truth to those words.

“Worse yet,” Daniel continued. “You’ll have completely lost the advantage of surprise once he hears you were here at the ball. He’ll know you’re alive and take measures to try to stop you from taking back everything he stole. He—Where are you going? Richard?”

Richard was now crossing the ballroom to approach his “wife,” detouring only to collect a healthy glass of whiskey along the way. The depth of the woman’s horror, and the fact that she couldn’t seem to snap out of it, suggested to him that more was amiss here than even he knew about, and he wanted to know it all. Knowledge could be a deadly weapon in the right hands and Richard intended it to be in his.

“Why Christiana, I thought you said Dicky was sick,” one of the older women trilled as he reached the group.

“He looks hail and healthy to me,” the woman beside her said firmly, eyeing him with suspicion. No doubt because Christiana, as the woman had called her, was still gaping at him like a fish out of water.

Richard took a moment to glance at the gaggle of women about them, his look enough to make every last one of them mutter about seeking out refreshments or friends and move away. Once left alone, Richard turned back to Christiana. Her eyes had grown wider as he approached. Unattractively so, he decided as he took in the way they almost bulged out of her head, and the woman appeared to have lost her powers of speech. She simply stood staring at him looking so pale he feared her fainting or simply dropping dead on the spot.

Frowning, he held out the glass of whiskey. “You look quite overset, my lady. This should help you regain some color.”

He expected her to take a mere sip of the potent liquid so was rather startled when she took the glass he offered and tossed it back as if it were water. It certainly did the trick, however, just more so than he’d hoped. Her pallor washed away under a sudden rush of red that was really no more attractive than the pallor had been, and she gasped as if her breath had been taken with the pallor. She then bent forward hacking and coughing in a most violent manner.

Grimacing, Richard took the now empty glass with one hand and patted her back with the other. “I suppose I should have warned you to sip it.”

Either the words or the sound of his voice brought her upright and she suddenly shrank back from his touch as if he were some unclean beast.

“You’re alive,” she gasped, and the whiskey’s rasp in her voice did not hide her displeasure at the fact.

It seemed obvious the woman knew of her husband’s perfidy. Richard didn’t know why but he’d assumed that she would have been innocent in all this. However, it appeared she was aware of the fact that George, his younger twin by several minutes, had hired men to kill him in a bid to steal his identity, title and wealth. She obviously was not pleased to learn it had failed. For some reason the knowledge that the woman had known about it disappointed him.

“You could at least try to hide your horror at knowing I yet live,” Richard said coldly. “It will hardly do your case much good to show so openly how little my survival pleases you.”

“I—no, I—you—” she struggled briefly, and then took a deep breath and said, “It is a bit of a surprise, my lord. We were sure you were dead when we left the house tonight. You were so still and cold in the bed . . .”

Richard felt his eyebrows rise on his forehead as he realized that she couldn’t be talking about him. He had been nowhere near this woman earlier tonight. It couldn’t be he who had been still and cold in a bed. Was George—?

His thoughts died as a strangled gasp sounded to the side of them. Turning, he found himself staring at two younger versions of the woman who was supposed to be his wife; one blonde and one brunette. Both looked just as horrified to see him as “his wife” was.

“But you’re dead,” the younger blonde breathed with a horror that could not be feigned. Turning to Christiana, she added with confusion, “Wasn’t he dead, Chrissy? We packed ice around him and everything.”

“The ice must have revived his cold dead heart,” the brunette said grimly, apparently recovering more quickly than the other two. Richard’s eyebrows rose when she added grimly, “More’s the pity.”

“Suzette!” Christiana gasped. Glancing nervously at him, she moved closer to her sisters and murmured, “Perhaps we should go out for some air. Lisa looks ready to faint and you, Suzie, obviously need some time to cool yourself. Perhaps so much dancing has overheated you.”

“Allow me.”

Richard glanced to Daniel as he moved to step between his “wife’s” sisters and take each by an arm. The man had obviously followed him and he was grateful for it. It was now urgent that he speak to the woman who had thought she’d married the Earl of Radnor and find out whether his brother was dead or alive. Packed in ice? Dear God.

“I shall see the ladies outside so the two of you might talk.” Daniel turned Suzette and Lisa firmly away despite the fact that it was obvious neither was particularly amenable to the idea. He then glanced over his shoulder to suggest meaningfully, “You might consider somewhere more private for this discussion.”

Richard took a moment to note that while none of the other guests was presently near enough to hear properly, they were trying, and they were certainly watching. Mouth tightening, he took his wife by the arm and began to lead her in the opposite direction to the one Daniel was leading her sisters.

Christiana went no more willingly than her sisters had accompanied Daniel. However, where her sisters had seemed reluctant to cause a public spectacle, “his wife” apparently didn’t care. He’d barely dragged her half a dozen feet before she planted her feet firmly and yanked her arm from his hold in a way that anyone watching would have noticed. She also planted her hands firmly on her hips and glared at him in a way that almost dared him to try to force her from the room.

Richard glanced briefly around, frowning when he saw that they weren’t going without notice. Mouth tightening, he turned back to his “wife” and said firmly, “We need to go somewhere more private to talk.”

“No.”

His eyebrows rose in surprise at the blunt refusal. “No? But—”

“I have had quite enough of your ‘talk’ during this last year of marriage, my lord,” she said grimly. “And I have no intention of being the docile little wife I have been to now and follow you to some empty room so that you can berate and insult me. I also have no intention of leaving this,
the very first ball
I have ever attended.”

Richard tried his most charming smile, “I don’t intend to insult or berate you, and this can hardly be your first ball.”

“You know it is,” she said at once.

He shook his head, not believing her. “I’m sure you attended many during your season. You—”

“You know I had no season,” she interrupted, confusion flashing briefly across her face. It was quickly replaced with anger. “I do not know what game you now play, Dicky, but I have no intention of leaving this room with you.”

Richard hesitated briefly, wondering why she hadn’t had a season, and if that were the case how she had come to meet and marry his brother, but then decided that wasn’t important at the moment. He needed to know if his brother yet lived or not, and since she wouldn’t leave the room with him, he had to find another way to gain them some privacy. His gaze slid over the people milling about the ballroom and then he became aware that the strains of a waltz were starting. Nodding to himself, he glanced back to his “wife.” “Then perhaps you would do me the honor of dancing with me?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You don’t dance. That has always been one of your excuses for not attending the balls during the season. You would not even dance at our wedding.”