The Diamond Key (15 page)

He told the footman to report his acceptance. The servant looked surprised that Wynn considered he had a choice, but he bowed and left.

Now all Wynn had to do was prepare himself to endure Marissa’s lectures, ignore her encroachments, and attire himself according to her exacting standards. Fortunately, the message to Lord Lynbrook’s former valet had brought immediate results: Edsall. The baron’s man was tall and thin, with skin so white he looked as if he had been interred in the crypt along with his deceased employer all these years. He smelled like it, too, as if he had been preserved in spirits. He stuttered and shook and would not meet Wynn’s eyes. How the deuce was Edsall supposed to shave him, Wynn wondered, if he wouldn’t look at him? Then he noticed the man’s knobby knees were knocking together. Confound it, the man was afraid of—Homer? No, the dog was wagging his tail and the valet was paying him no attention. Barrogi was not even around, nor had he left his stiletto in sight, so that left Wynn himself. The mawworm was afraid of him! Likely he’d spent the afternoon drinking, just to give himself courage enough to face Lynbrook’s killer. Thunderation.

Wynn sent Edsall away before the man fainted. He might have lowered himself to the milksop’s expectations by holding a gun to his head until Edsall tied a proper neckcloth, but the man might have done what Homer did when terrified. Besides, Wynn had taken precautions against just such an eventuality as finding himself with no valet, again or still. He’d had Madame Michaela fashion an elegant knot for him, one with tapes that would tie around his neck under his shirt collar.

It was up to Marissa’s standards.

It was easy enough for Wynn to attach by himself.

And it was in a hatbox in the corner—where Homer was making himself a comfortable nest of the snowy linen.

* * * *

“I see you are still as rackety as ever, Ingall,” was Marissa’s greeting when the butler showed Wynn into the drawing room.

It was his house. His butler. And his best attempt at an Oriental. Even if it looked like an Accidental, Marissa should not have said anything. Not that manners, breeding, or minding her own business had ever mattered to Wynn’s sister-in-law. It was she, more than anyone else, who thought his wild ways would reflect badly on his brother Roger’s political career. It was she who convinced Wynn’s father to ship him out of the country, rather than fight the charges and the slander.

“And a pleasant evening to you, also, Marissa. You are looking well.” She had never looked good, but now she had a certain matronly dignity about her. She wore black, although Roger had been dead for over a year, but tempered the mourning with white lace trim and a long string of—his mother’s—pearls. She still had a squint, which meant she was still too vain to wear spectacles.

Despite her poor vision, she obviously judged Wynn lacking. She sniffed, extended two bony fingers for his obligatory salute, and said, “I see I shall have to send Redding to you.”

Since Redding was Roger’s old valet, Wynn could forgive Marissa a great deal. He actually held her hand for longer than he would have held a dead trout. “I would be grateful,” he said in all honesty.

As soon as Roger’s widow had him settled on a crocodile-footed sofa in the Egyptian Room with a glass of wine, she wasted no time before cataloguing his sins, and enumerating her solutions. Wynn barely listened, too busy looking around. They had never had an Egyptian Room when he lived here. He doubted an Egyptian ever had a room quite like this, either, with jackal gods as table pedestals, hieroglyph-decorated pots of papyrus, and a sarcophagus propped in the corner against the green-painted wall.

Wynn was wondering how much this Nile-in-Mayfair had cost, who had paid for it, and why, when he was attacked by an asp. That is, Marissa had uttered the poisonous word he had been hearing all too often lately: marriage. Stung, Wynn forced himself to listen more closely.

Marissa, it seemed, considered matrimony the only way for Wynn to regain his respectability. No matter that he was not breeding like Rosie, nor considered fast and fallen like Bette, he was a disgrace, redeemable only by marriage to a woman above reproach. None of his harum-scarum harlots would do, Marissa insisted.

“And if you are thinking that flighty Keyes female will have you, save your breath. Duchamp does not need your money.”

Wynn frowned, although Marissa could not see it. Confound it, he thought, Torrie was not flighty. She would have had him, for she’d asked. And no matter what Marissa believed, he had more to offer the right woman than merely money.

What Marissa believed—aside from thinking this museum monstrosity of a room was in any way comfortable—was that her cousin Deanna would suit him to a cow’s thumb. Unless Marissa had the girl hidden in the sarcophagus, Wynn supposed he was expected to agree to the marriage sight unseen.

Deanna, Miss Herman, it appeared, was everything a man could wish for in a wife. “My cousin is well mannered and well favored, with no airs about her.”

Marissa had enough pretensions for any one family.

“Her background is exceptional, of course, with titles on both sides of the family tree.”

Wynn was reminded of Lord Duchamp’s Irish stud. And of the old adage that if one did not like the stable, one ought not buy the filly.

Marissa continued: “Deanna is familiar with the workings of your home and estate and would manage them admirably.”

What she meant was the girl had been living off his charity for years now, Wynn interpreted, and would continue to let Marissa rule the roost.

“She is a comfortable, conformable young woman who will not enact emotional scenes or interfere with your life in any way. She will ignore any, ah, little diversions in which you might indulge.”

“Do you mean she would not mind if I keep a mistress or two?” Wynn asked. “She would be a docile little spouse, content with keeping my house, raising my children, spending my money?”

“Precisely. I knew you would see reason.”

“I see a dismal future, madam. What makes you think I would want a wife who cared so little for me she would not mind sharing my affections or my bed?”

“Do not be vulgar, Ingall.”

Wynn ignored her. “Well, I would want her to mind. In fact, I would want her to kick up a vulgar, emotional dust at the very thought of my keeping a mistress—the same as I would if my wife decided to take a lover. I would want her to have emotions and. yes, to take part in every aspect of my life, including my bed. I’ll have no woman who does not welcome my lovemaking, nay, who is not eager for it.”

Marissa’s affronted gasp said much about her own marriage to Roger, the poor beggar.

Wynn concluded: “I refuse to countenance a marriage that is cold and merely courteous, no matter how convenient, no matter how respectable or
a la mode.”

Marissa squinted at him. “Heavens, I do believe you have given the matter some thought.”

Hell, he must have.

* * * *

The dinner was delicious.

Cousin Deanna was dutifully nondescript, her conversation dull.

And Wynn was dumbfounded. Could he really be considering ... ? Was he truly contemplating ... ?

Damn, he could not tie a proper neckcloth, much less that kind of knot.

Besides, he was still fodder for the gossips, still undecided about his future ... and Lady Torrie still looked like a princess to him, sitting in a theater box not far from theirs. She had her hair piled atop her head, held with a gold fillet except for a few wispy curls that trailed down her neck, embracing her ears, caressing her cheeks, leading the eye to her soft, rosy, kissable lips. Lud, he thought, this was going to be another long night, and the play had not even started.

He was not to be granted the refuge of the drama onstage, either, for Marissa kept up a monologue of her own. She could barely see the actors, Wynn guessed, but the opera glasses that were commonplace here permitted her to scrutinize her fellow theatergoers without revealing her poor eyesight. Lady Phillips looked a quiz in an orange turban; Susanna Loft’s escort was from a mere cadet branch of the Merrick clan; Sir Reginald was sharing his box with—

“Don’t look in that direction, Deanna,”

And on and on. Before the first intermission, Wynn had a précis of the pedigree of half the attendees, and a raging headache. Cousin Deanna looked worse.

“Are you feeling poorly?” he asked out of politeness, and a desire for an excuse to cut the evening short. Not that he had anything against the girl—except that he did not want her collapsing against him.

“I am just a trifle light-headed, my lord,” she replied. “I shall be fine.”

“Of course she will,” Marissa said, as if her declaration could make it so. “The air is so stuffy in these boxes, it is a wonder everyone is not dizzy. Take her out in the corridor for some fresh air, Ingall, and fetch back some lemonade. No, you are paying. Make that champagne.”

Wynn would have suspected a plot to throw him and Miss Herman together, except the girl truly did look ill, and she paced as far from him in the hallway as possible. When he would have taken her arm as the corridor became more crowded, she flinched away from him. Zeus, she wasn’t afraid of him, too, was she?

“Marissa has not convinced you that I am a rakeshame, has she, Cousin Deanna?”

“Gracious, no.” But she was clutching her shawl around her shoulders as if it were a shield.

“Have I offended you, then?”

She shook her head, biting her lip.

“You are not about to cast up your accounts, are you?”

She shook her head again.

Wynn looked around for the nearest exit, but all the stairwells and corridors were blocked with everyone else who sought to stretch their legs. He found a relatively empty space outside a vacant box and led her to it. “Then what is it? I cannot help if I do not know the problem.”

She stared at her toes, pulling the shawl closer, and whispered, “I do not wish to marry you, my lord.”

“That’s all?” he asked with a laugh. “You must be the only unattached woman in London who does not.”

“But Marissa says—

“A great deal more than she ought. Now, smile, lest the tabbies accuse me of insulting your tender sensibilities. You may rest assured that I have no intention of asking you to be my wife, no matter what Marissa decrees. She does not control my destiny, as I take it she controls yours.”

The girl accomplished a small smile, out of relief. “Oh, yes, I am completely dependent on her kindness.”

“Which is all to her own purpose, I do not doubt. Tell me, is there a gentleman you do wish to wed that my suit would prove so burdensome?”

Now she blushed, but her lips turned up in a genuine smile at the thought of her beau. “Howard.”

Wynn did not know any Howard, but he smiled back at how the chit went all starry-eyed at the mention of his name. She even began to look pretty. “Ah, Howard. I take it Howard does not find acceptance with my sister-in-law?”

The smile faded. “Howard is a mere curate, without a parish of his own. He cannot afford to take a wife, even if Marissa approved.”

“But he wishes to wed? I mean, he does want to marry you?”

“Of course. Howard loves me as much as I love him.”

Now there was a lucky fellow, Wynn thought, who knew what he wanted. A chosen vocation, a chosen woman. He simply had not yet attained any of his goals. Well, here was a nuptial problem that Wynn could resolve, finally. “I believe the Ingall viscountcy controls several livings. One or another is bound to be vacant because the churches are not in use, with the family never in residence. My man of affairs can look into it in the morning. We’ll have your Howard a position before the month is out, and you can be a June bride.”

“Truly? You’d do that, for me?”

“And to spite Marissa.” They laughed together. "I’ll even throw the wedding breakfast.”

“My cousin is wrong. You really are a true gentleman. If not for Howard, I believe I would set my cap for you after all.” She stood on tiptoe and quickly kissed his cheek.

Which was, of course, when Lady Victoria Keyes left her own box.

Torrie usually loved the theater, the spectacle, the excitement in the air, the noisy, cheerful crowds. Her aunt Ann hated everything about it except the action on the stage. She found the audience raucous and disrespectful, more interested in being seen themselves than seeing Mr. Shakespeare’s enduring art. Why, she said, half of them thought Hamlet was a small pig. Still, she had come this evening as Torrie’s companion. She would not, however, tolerate Torrie’s lovesick swains littering the box during the drama, so she had the Duchamp footman, Henry, stand guard outside, refusing entry to all who asked.

At the interval, however, Aunt Ann sent Henry to run down the stairs to fetch them cooling drinks. Lord Boyce, who had been awaiting his chance, popped his head into the box before any other of Lady Torrie’s suitors could reach it. He had a new plan, with the Scarecrow waiting outside the theater to carry it—and Lady Torrie—out. All he had to do was get the girl alone in the dark corridor for a minute. He could bash her on the head, claim she was ill, and have her down the stairs before the dragon of an aunt knew she was gone. He’d keep her, too, at the place the Scarecrow had found outside of London, until she agreed to marry him.

There were three problems with the plan: getting her to step outside the box with him, hitting her hard enough that she did not scream, and carrying her. Otherwise it was foolproof. He had chewed a hole in the knuckles of his evening gloves, waiting.

“Go walking in the hall with you, my lord?” Torrie asked, trying to keep her voice as low as possible and a polite smile on her face for those she knew were watching. “I do not think so. After your actions in the park, I am astounded you would ask.”

“But you see, that is why you must come, so I can make a proper apology.”

“Apologize for what?” Aunt Ann wanted to know, ready to do battle with Boyce.

Torrie did not want another scene. Neither did she want to lose sight of Wynn, who was leaving the Ingall family box with that cousin Lady Ingall was presenting this year. Torrie had been hoping he would pay a call on her and her aunt during the interval, but he had Miss Deanna Herman on his arm instead. Torrie thought perhaps she ought to go see how close the relationship was between those two, so she accepted Boyce’s escort—and practically walked into the other couple, embracing. Good grief, they were kissing cousins! She spun on her heels and sailed back to her own box, leaving Lord Boyce in her wake.