The Marquess (33 page)

“You won’t,” Dillian said steadfastly. “You
will be fine as fivepence in no time. That is neither here nor there. I believe
he is thoroughly in Neville’s employ. You must find a solicitor of your
own.”

Blanche looked doubtful. “Mr. Winfrey has never given
me reason to distrust him. He just has my best interests at heart. I should go
in and show him I’m alive.”

“Looking like that?” Dillian asked skeptically. “He’ll
have you committed to Bedlam. The marquess ought to commit that brother of his
to Bedlam. I can’t believe he talked you into that hideous disguise.”

Blanche shrugged, in a careless gesture much like one
Michael used. “If I cannot go about as myself, I must go about as
somebody. If no one sees my hair or scars and I hide behind spectacles,
they’ll never recognize me. People only see the outer trappings.”

“That sounds suspiciously like O’Toole talking,
but for once, he is right. People are idiots.” Dillian lapsed into a
sullen silence.

“Do we see Neville now?” Blanche asked with
curiosity.

Dillian sent her a sharp look. “Why bother? He will no
doubt tear the door down as soon as he hears I’m in town. I give Winfrey
three hours to locate him. Shall we go shopping and leave him to tear the house
apart alone?”

Blanche considered their options. “I think that might
be best. Neville has a terrible temper when roused. We’ll give him time
to cool off. Perhaps O’Toole can pour some brandy down him until we
return.”

Dillian looked delighted for the first time that day. “I
knew you had a brain behind that pretty face, my lady. Shall we stop at
Gunter’s first? I think a celebratory ice is in order.”

* * * *

Dressed again in a black wig, hunched back, and carrying a
gnarled walking stick, O’Toole answered the furious pounding on the door.
Deliberately opening the well-oiled door as if it weighed two tons, he had time
for a good look at the unwanted visitor.

The young duke had the look of a harried man. His elegant
gray frock coat had come unbuttoned at top, and his cravat had a wrinkle in it.
He had one hand fisted about his expensive beaver hat, and the other clenched
in his trouser pocket, throwing the tailored lines into disarray. He glared at
the footman answering the door.

“I’ve come to see Lady Blanche,” he
announced, shoving the door open wider when Michael made no effort to do so.

“What’s that you say?” O’Toole
cried, cupping a hand around his ear.

“I’ve come to see Lady Blanche!” Neville
shouted back, shoving his way into the entry.

“Baby Ann? Ain’t no Baby Ann here. You’ve
got the wrong door. No knocker up, if you look rightly. Don’t know why
you’d be calling for a baby, anyhow. Screaming damp critters they are.”
O’Toole hobbled behind the duke as Neville ignored his ramblings and
headed for the stairs to the private floors.

“Blanche!” Neville shouted into the echoing
emptiness of the household.

Wide-eyed, the caretaker’s wife scurried out of his
way as he stormed down the main hall, O’Toole tottering as fast as he
could after him.

“Which is Lady Blanche’s room?” Neville
demanded, suddenly swinging on the servant behind him.

“Doom? We’ll all meet our doom, right enough,”
O’Toole nodded sagely. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, that’s
the way it is. Can’t say that you’re old enough for that, though,”
he looked at the duke doubtfully.

Uttering a curse, Neville swung around and threw open the
nearest door. He proceeded down the hallway, flinging open doors on unused
chambers still in dustcovers until he came upon one littered in a chaos of
gowns and petticoats, bolts of cloth, and sewing implements. Striding in, he
began tossing things about in an apparent search for something.

“Here, now! You can’t go doing that to the
lady’s things! I’ll have the watch down on you now if you keep that
up! Looka there, now! It’ll take the maids days to clean through that.
Out with you, now, you young scamp. There ain’t no Baby Ann here.”
O’Toole swung his gnarled stick ineffectually at the young lord, beating
him about the knees.

Neville kicked at the stick as if it were a pesky kitten and
continued working his way through the room, ravaging the antique secretary
thoroughly, no longer attempting to communicate with the obviously deaf
footman.

“Damn her! There has to be some clue as to where
she’s gone. They have to communicate somehow.” Slamming a desk door
shut, Neville waded through the debris to the bedchamber next to the sitting
room.

“Call the watch!” the doddering butler shrieked
behind him. “Call the guards! The devil’s in the lady’s
chamber! I’ll lay him low, I will! Just fetch the watch, you layabouts!”

The stick beat about Neville’s shoulders now as he
sent perfume bottles and cosmetic cases tumbling from the dressing table with
each jerk of a drawer. With another curse, he reached behind him to grab the
stick and fling it across the room. “Get lost, old man. I’m looking
for my cousin.”

“Cookin’ for a dozen! Bedlam, that’s where
you belong, sir! Bedlam! Be gone with ye now. Out! Out!” O’Toole
grabbed a candlestick and flourished it like a sword in the duke’s face.

Racing to the doorway at the sounds of shouts as they
entered the front hall, Dillian nearly collapsed with laughter at the tableau
she discovered upon reaching her bedchamber. O’Toole pranced and danced
like some demented puppet, flourishing his candle sword, screeching at the top
of his lungs, while the noble duke just looked ill-tempered and impatient.

“I think I just may keep you around as court jester.”
Dillian laughed at her ranting footman as she strolled into the chaos that had
been her bedroom. “Hello, dear Neville. How are you doing today? Would
you like me to show you how to use that powder duster? Just a little to your
cheeks to take away that furious red might do the trick.”

The hunchbacked footman leapt and wailed a little longer,
but at a brisk gesture from Dillian, he hastily departed.

Neville glared and started to follow the servant, but
Dillian blithely blocked his path. “She’s not here, your noble
grace. She’s not anywhere you can find her. She’s somewhere safe
and happy.” Wickedly, she added, “And a romance just might lurk in
the offing. Wouldn’t that be lovely, now? We couldn’t have a June
wedding, of course. She’ll want time for the burns to heal. But July,
perhaps. Don’t you think July a nice month for a wedding?”

Neville looked as if he might throttle her. Dillian had some
difficulty standing still before the awful murder in his eyes, but she had to
give O’Toole time to spirit Blanche to safety. She refused to retreat.

“Oh, by the way, would you happen to have the papers
Blanche stored for me in the vault?” she asked casually. “They
belonged to my father. I thought I might write his memoirs now that Blanche may
safely be married in a few months.”

“I don’t know anything about your bloody papers,
Miss Reynolds. You’re her damned companion! Why aren’t you with
her? Do you work with this villainous lover to see her reputation ruined beyond
repair? How much does he pay you to stay away? I’ll double it. Just tell
me where the hell she is!”

“My, my. A little testy, are we? You may pay me anything
you like, but the only thing that will get me out of here and back to Blanche
is those papers. Your nasty-minded solicitor won’t give me the books that
Blanche left with him, and someone has stolen the papers from the vault. That
does not look very good, now, does it?”

Dillian omitted the fact that she and Blanche couldn’t
open the vault if they wanted to but their eccentric footman had fingered it
open easily. As he’d said, the only contents were a few of
Blanche’s baubles.

“What does not look very good is your blackmailing me
to obtain them. I know nothing about your bloody papers, but I’d like to
know who you really are, Miss Dillian Reynolds. Just exactly what connection is
it you have to Blanche?”

Dillian batted her eyelashes. “Why, the very best, to
be sure. Now, if you will excuse me, a lady must keep her reputation, you know.
Entertaining you like this in my boudoir could lead to all sorts of improper
speculation. You wouldn’t wish to be shackled to a penniless female, now,
would you?”

She stepped into the hallway, giving Neville room to pass.
At the far end of the hall, O’Toole waited to guide their visitor out.

“Now, remember, Your Grace,” Dillian called
after the cursing noble as he strode down the hall. “Find those papers,
and we’ll talk!”

“I’m going straight to Bow Street!” he
yelled back. “You can’t kidnap an heiress in this country and get
away with it.”

Well, actually, they could, Dillian thought as she waited
for the sound of Neville departing. It would be extremely easy to spirit
Blanche out of Neville’s incompetent hands for as long as they liked. The
problem lay in the fact that without access to Blanche’s funds, they
would run out of money before they could go far.

“Tell me again why I’m doing this,”
Dillian muttered as Blanche stuck still another ribbon into Dillian’s
unruly curls in a vain attempt at creating a sophisticated coiffeur. Still
fearful of encountering one of the myriad pins that had adorned her bodice just
hours before, she scarcely dared breathe.

From the doorway, O’Toole answered, “Because if
you don’t, his noble lordship will storm through the crowd like a
vengeful god breathing fire and smoke and will terrify everyone into fleeing
before we find out anything.”

Both women turned to glare at the man lounging—
uninvited—against the door jamb. Blanche responded first. “You have
no business in here, Mr. Lawrence. Go on with you, now.”

O’Toole crossed his arms over his chest and smiled. “I
like it when you call me that. It makes me sound respectable.” Since he
still wore the hideous black wig and servants’ clothes, he looked a great
deal less than respectable.

Dillian didn’t bother looking at either of them. They
quarreled and spat like children, and she didn’t have the patience for it
tonight. “Expecting me to stop his lordship from storming through society
is a little like asking me to halt Napoleon’s army. Just exactly what am
I supposed to do: trip him up? Shoot him down? Grab his finger and bite it?
Will he even wear proper attire or will he appear shoeless and in a cloak?”

“He had shoes made,” Michael responded brightly.

Dillian groaned and rolled her eyes heavenward. “That
means he’s wearing that shapeless American coat and trousers,
doesn’t it? And the cloak, too?”

Michael shrugged. “He threw me out. I can’t say.”
He sent Dillian a shrewd look. “It’s not his clothes he’s
worried about.”

With a gesture of impatience, Dillian brushed Blanche away
from her hair. She glared at Verity to keep the maid at a distance. “I
know, but I have no intention of telling your lordly brother that the ladies
swoon at his feet for reasons other than the scars. I should think his good
looks have spoiled him enough.”

Michael chuckled and relaxed again. “Keep that up, and
I might grow to like you. It’s wounded vanity that makes him bark and
growl.”

At the remark about vanity, he sent Blanche a speculative
look. In the privacy of Dillian’s chamber, she had removed her concealing
headdress. In the mirror Dillian could see the raw red of her cousin’s
injuries, but they seemed to heal well. Blanche appeared oblivious to their
observation. She merely patted Dillian’s curls one more time and stepped
back to admire her handiwork.

Dillian spoke where her cousin didn’t. “Blanche
has no vanity. She barks at you because you’re annoying.”

The person in question looked up in surprise at finding
herself the topic of conversation. “What did I say? When did I ever bark?”

Dillian grinned at the confusion suddenly marring
O’Toole’s arrogant features. She patted Blanche’s hand
reassuringly. “It’s quite all right, cuz. You may test your
growling abilities on O’Toole all you like. I don’t like leaving
you here with him. I want you to lock your door, keep Verity at your side, and
not come out until I am home.”

Blanche looked startled, then colored along her hairline as
she glanced at the man in the doorway. He whistled innocently, but Dillian had
begun to understand the enigmatic Lawrences a little too well. This one might
claim no relationship, but the dangerous gleam in his eye had a very familiar quality
to it.

“Mr. Lawrence won’t harm me,” Blanche
answered, still with an air of uncertainty. “You told me he’s the
marquess’s brother, didn’t you?”

“She lies, I lie, he lies. Who’s to say who or
what I am?” Michael answered airily. “But I swear upon the golden
chalice, my lady, that I have never harmed a female in all my life. You are
safe with me.” He made a gallant bow accenting his words.

“The carriage’s come!” the caretaker
called up the stairs.

Michael frowned. “Your servants need training, my
lady. I’ll take care of it.”

He vanished from the doorway. Dillian listened for his
departure, but he moved on soundless feet. No wonder he succeeded in
disappearing without notice. She wondered how he learned the trick.

“Hurry, now. You can’t keep Lady Darley waiting.
Let me see how you look.” Blanche adjusted the wide blue sash beneath
Dillian bodice’s, pulled the ivory lace overskirt out slightly to the
side so it fell over the ruffled hem, and nodded. “You look absolutely
grand, Dillian! I knew you would if I could ever dress you in a decent gown.
You’ll have all the gentlemen swooning.”

“Who would want a gentleman who swoons?” Dillian
grumbled, catching up her skirt and heading for the hall. “I would still
prefer a sword if my task is to keep the marquess from beheading half the
guests. At least I would stand a chance, then.”

“Your task is to introduce him to the proper people,
and you know it, Dillian,” Blanche said as she followed her to the hall. “You
may only pretend to be my companion, but you know everybody I know.”