The Marquess (41 page)

“Yes, I suppose he is. I’ve always considered
the heroes of legends quite foolish. Just think of Lancelot, Tristan, Hamlet,
any of them. They died for naught. Even had they lived and triumphed, their
ladies would no doubt have turned into fat, overbearing harpies in time.
Heroism simply isn’t worth the effort,” Dillian stated flatly,
sitting stiff and straight against the seat. “If you really intend for us
to circle the city forever, I would like some nuncheon soon.”

Michael laughed, then laughed some more when he saw her
stony face with the tear streak down it. “You’re good, She-devil,”
he spluttered, gasping for breath, then laughing again. “You’ve
very good. Harpies, indeed! Quite definitely harpies.” He chortled,
holding his side from the effort of containing himself.

Dillian fought back a smile at his foolishness. She
hadn’t thought she liked the mock Irishman, but she was coming to
understand him a little better. Of course, she would no doubt like anyone who
defended Gavin. That thought frightened her just a little.

“Nuncheon?” she asked, arching her eyebrows.

Moderating his laughter to a broad, admiring smile, Michael
nodded at the window. “Would you care to share it?”

Dillian glanced out to see they had stopped in a tangle of
carriages before White’s. Just as she was about to admonish him for the
impropriety of thinking she could dine there, her gaze fell on the two
gentlemen in serious discussion outside those famous bay windows. The Marquess
of Effingham and Lieutenant Reardon.

* * * *

Blanche stood in the doorway to the dining room and watched
her silverware disappear up Michael’s coat sleeves, reappear from his
pockets, and waft through the air, while he contemplated the mural of the
goddess Diana hunting a stag on the wall. He knew she was there. He just
didn’t see fit to acknowledge her. That fact and the disappearing
silverware told her something troubled him. He had an odd way of concentrating
on problems.

“Did you find the journals?” she finally
demanded.

A silver candlestick joined the forks and knives. “Are
all the patients in Bedlam lunatics?” he asked enigmatically, still not
looking at her.

“It’s better to ask if all lunatics are in
Bedlam. The answer is no. Will you at least tell me what is happening? Dillian
isn’t speaking to anyone since you brought her home.”

The first part of her reply brought a smile to his lips, and
the candlestick reappeared on the sideboard. One by one, the number of pieces
circling in the air dwindled. “You should thank me for that. I’m
certain Gavin would, should he deign to make an appearance. Somehow, we have to
bring those two together. Gavin needs a woman in his life.”

“Dillian would tell you quite unequivocally that she
doesn’t need a man in hers. I am beginning to understand her decision. If
you don’t put those silly toys down and tell me what happened today, I
shall go to Winfrey and demand he release those journals at once.”

Michael’s smile turned sad as the last fork
disappeared, whether into his pockets or coat sleeves or the sideboard remained
unclear. “Too late, my lady. It seems your solicitor suffered a small
loss this evening when his office went up in flames. I understand they’re
blaming someone with a smoldering cigar.”

Blanche gasped and lowered herself into the nearest chair.
She stared at him in mixed perplexity and horror. “That can’t be
true. Neville wouldn’t do that. All our papers are in that office.”
As she realized what she’d just said, she fell silent, her mind quickly
darting to all the legal documents that encompassed: wills, deeds, powers of
attorney, everything that governed her life and Neville’s. She stirred
uneasily and glanced to Michael, who still studied the mural. “What will
that do to the estate?”

“I’d ask Gavin if he would put in an appearance.
He’s not studied much British law, but he has a fine grasp of the legal
system. Perhaps duplicates are filed elsewhere.”

Blanche nodded uncertainly. “Surely, they must. I
believe I’ve heard wills are filed with some court for public record.
I’m certain I’ve seen copies of some deeds...”

At Anglesey, in Neville’s possession. She closed her
eyes and swore to herself. Dillian was right. She was much too trusting. Her
eyes flew open again as she frantically tried to remember where she’d put
the deed to the Grange. Surely, she hadn’t …. She almost certainly
had. She kept the papers to her mother’s property with her in the house
that had burned. She had counted on Winfrey keeping copies.

Crushed, more depressed than she wished to let anyone see,
she rose from her chair and started out of the room.

“They’ll think they’re safe now,”
Michael called softly from behind her.

Blanche hesitated, then shook her head. “No, they
won’t. They didn’t go after Dillian to get the journals. They went
after Dillian because they thought she knew what was in the journals.”

That evening, Gavin didn’t lurk in shadows but strode
up to the front door of Blanche’s town house and pounded his fist against
the panels. The lady hadn’t hung out the knocker to announce her presence.
To hell with London society. To hell with the Duke of Anglesey. He’d had
enough playing games. The time had come for direct action.

Michael appeared more promptly than expected, this time
dressed as himself instead of one of his more disreputable characters. Gavin
recognized the glare in his brother’s eyes and ignored it, pushing past
him toward the stairs.

“She locked herself in hours ago,” Michael
called after him. “And she has a gun.”

Why didn’t that surprise him? Gavin didn’t lose
a step as he took the stairs two at a time. He’d had a bloody awful day
hanging around the rarefied atmosphere of London’s gentlemen’s
clubs. He was in no mood to tolerate defiance now.

As he approached Dillian’s room in this richly
carpeted, elegantly furnished home, Gavin knew a moment’s hesitation.
Perhaps he had stayed too long from civilization, after all. He had no right
whatsoever to storm through someone else’s home as if he belonged there.
Nor did he have any right to demand entrance to a lady’s bedchamber.

True, the four of them had dispensed with formality while
hiding in the upper floors of Arinmede, but that didn’t mean the rules of
civilized behavior no longer applied. If he walked in there now, he branded
Dillian his mistress for all to see.

It wasn’t lack of civilization that drove him. It was
a burning need to see Dillian. Shocked at this discovery, Gavin halted halfway
down the carpeted hall. Most of the grand chambers in his ruin of a home had
never seen carpeting. Apparently, even the humble halls in this house sported
them. What in hell was he thinking of coming here like this?

As he hesitated, Blanche slipped from the room he knew as
Dillian’s. She glanced at him uncertainly, then looked back at the door
behind her. Apparently reaching some decision, she closed the door without
warning the room’s occupant of his presence. Gavin wondered what that
signified, but he thought the lady might tell him as she drifted in his direction.

She didn’t wear her scarves or veils in candlelight,
and in the flickering light of the wall sconces, he could readily see the raw
burns healing on her cheeks. She had discarded the bandages on her hands, but
the damage was still too severe to irritate with gloves. He imagined she must suffer
a great deal of pain, but the relief of her returning sight kept her brave
enough to ignore her other injuries. For now.

“I don’t think she’s in a humor for
listening to reason,” Blanche stated bluntly when she stood before him. “Dillian
is usually the most rational of creatures, but she’s up in the boughs
now. I don’t know what is between the two of you to make her so, but I
would not think it wise to go in there.”

“Even with a chaperon?” Gavin asked wryly.

“I don’t think a chaperon is much protection for
either of you. I suppose I ought to be shocked at the idea of sending you in
there at all, but somehow, in relation to other events, it seems rather
insignificant in the scheme of things. Talking reason to her appears more
important.”

“She’s on a real tear, then?”

Blanche nodded. “I gave her all my jewels to take to
the cent-per-centers in the morning. She has decided you are no longer
trustworthy.”

Gavin gave a vivid curse that caused his hostess to wince,
but he didn’t linger to hear her admonishments. He strode down the hall
and slammed open the door Blanche had left unlocked.

Dillian started up from her packing with a surprised jerk
that quickly became ire when she saw him. “We no longer have need of your
services, my lord,” she informed him coldly. “Therefore, you no
longer have any right to mine.”

Gavin slammed the door closed and stalked across the room. “Services?
Is that what you call them? When I put my tongue in your mouth and you melt in
my hands, that’s a service? When I lay you down in my bed and you shiver
with desire, that’s a service? Don’t lie to yourself any more than
that, Miss Whitnell. Did I want your ‘services’ right now, I could
have them, and you would have no more right to complain than I.”

“You arrogant, conceited oaf!” Dillian flung the
flimsy muslin gown she held at his head. “Do you think you need only
crook your finger, and I will fall at your feet?”

Gavin swiped the flimsy cloth from his face and threw it on
the floor. “I’m not so foolish as that. You have the will of a
stubborn mule. I would have to do far more than crook my finger, and falling at
my feet is not the result I would want in return. But since we cannot have what
we both want with your cousin waiting in the hall and my brother, no doubt,
clinging to the ledge outside your window, we shall have to settle for
something a little more rational than our own physical desires.”

He watched with curiosity as the anger went out of her like
air from a deflated balloon. A more experienced woman would have accepted the
challenge, played the seductress, then walked out, leaving him cold and aching.
But Dillian was too new to her sexuality to know her own powers, and too honest
to deny the blunt truth of his words. For a moment Gavin’s hopes soared
at this unspoken admission of desire. Then he remembered himself, and returned
to his mission.

His gaze fell on the trunk she packed, and Blanche’s
warning came back to him. “You’re planning on going somewhere?”

“We’re leaving. Blanche’s injuries will
heal soon enough. I think we can conceal her until she’s twenty-one. Then
she can hire another solicitor, take control of her funds, and do as she likes.”

“With Winfrey’s office destroyed, Neville can
wreak havoc in the courts in those six months. He could have himself named
Blanche’s guardian, declare her incompetent, claim he’s discovered
a new will, any number of things, and the courts will quite willingly accept
the word of a duke over a mere woman.”

Dillian stared at him through eyes grown wide with horror.
Gavin regretted terrorizing her, but he had no intention of letting her out of
his sight. He feared the duke was the very least of their worries.

When she didn’t say a word, he continued, “You’ll
have to trust me. I have nothing to gain from any of this.”

“Nothing besides a rich heiress or the influence of a
powerful duke,” she replied bitterly. “You need only turn us over
to Neville to win a friend for life and all the cash reward you could ask.
Blanche and I can offer you nothing until year’s end.”

Gavin scowled, struggled with his suffocating cravat, and
took the wing chair beside the fireplace, completely ignoring the fact that he
crushed the tails of his evening coat. “I suppose you have no reason to
trust me over anyone else. What must I do to convince you that I have no
interest in anything but your safety?”

She regarded him with scorn. “Go back to complaining
of what a nuisance we are and return to your Gothic ruin.”

Well, he couldn’t ask for a more honest reply. With a
sigh of exasperation, he studied her. She wore a dreary brown gown designed to
deflect the eye from all her most estimable physical assets, diminishing her
worth to spinster companion again. Unable to agree to her wishes, having no
ready solution to the problem, he diverted the subject.

“I like that gown on you. It keeps anyone else from
the pleasure of knowing your loveliness but me.”

She scowled and turned her back on him as she pulled another
dowdy creation from the wardrobe. “That ploy won’t work. I’ll
not don a fancy gown just to spite you. I’m Blanche’s companion,
and I dress the part.”

“Well, I need the aid of the dashing Miss Whitnell to
solve our problem. The dull Miss Reynolds won’t do.”

“I went to Dismouth’s as Miss Reynolds,”
she reminded him, folding the gown. “Miss Whitnell is far more likely to
carry pistols and curse like a trooper.”

“Even better.” He smiled with delight at the
image. “I don’t suppose you had the modiste make one of those
military riding habits for you? The ones with all the buttons and the shakos to
match?”

“They went out of style two years ago,” she said
scornfully. “Blanche has one she scarcely ever wore. She looked
ridiculous in it.”

Gavin noticed she was watching him out of the corner of her
eye now, so he’d finally captured her interest. Settling in the chair, he
realized that he’d not once concerned himself with the effect of his
appearance on the general populace since he’d become involved with
solving this mystery earlier in the day. Thoughts of Dillian and her danger had
erased any trace of his self-consciousness.

He was setting himself up for a tumble, but he enjoyed a
sense of purpose for a change. He felt alive again, not some rattled ghost
hiding in shadows.

“Pity,” he commented. “It would look good
on you. I don’t suppose you could do some female magic on it and make it
fit you by tomorrow, could you?”