The Perfect Princess (28 page)

It helped, of course, that the duke had already smoothed things over for Harper by talking to the prime minister. Not only that, but Harper was also to get a share of the reward for his part in rescuing Rosamund! So poor Digby and Whorsley had left Twickenham House gnashing their teeth.

Harper had told the story with great relish, but
Richard was still wary. He didn’t think this was the last they’d see of Digby. If the man had only been as intelligent as he was tenacious, he, Richard, wouldn’t be hanging around Twickenham House.

And he was still burning to know how Digby found out about Dunsmoor.

There was nothing to keep him at Twickenham now. It was time to move on, time to begin the task of clearing his name. But he didn’t want to slip away without saying good-bye to Rosamund. After all she’d done for him, she deserved better than that. She deserved the best.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard footsteps climbing the outside iron stairs. He automatically reached for his tricorne hat with the pistol concealed inside it.

There was a knock on the door. “Doyle, are you there?”

Turner’s voice. Richard put his hat down and went to open the door. “Yes, Mr. Turner,” he said respectfully. “What can I do for you?”

His respect for the groom of the chambers came more easily now. Harper hadn’t exaggerated when he said that life in service was just like life in the army, and in this army, Turner was the general. Very little missed his eagle eye, and he’d had his eagle eye on Richard for some time.

But there was something different about Turner today. The eagle eyes were softer, as were the thin lips, and there was an air of suppressed excitement about him.

“Come out into the light,” Turner said, “so I can get a better look at you.”

Mystified and wary at the same time, Richard did as he was told. The groom of the chambers looked him up and down, made him turn around, and examined him from every side.

“You’re not as handsome as some, but you’ll do,” he said.

“Do for what?” Richard was baffled.

“A footman. We’re short-staffed for the ball, so present yourself at five o’clock in the footmen’s powder room, and we’ll get you all rigged out.”

“All rigged out? What does that mean?”

“Servants are to be issued with new livery,” replied Turner. “His Grace told me not an hour ago. We’ve been saving that livery for a long, long time, and now it seems it’s finally happened.” When Richard stared at him blankly, Turner slowly elaborated, “The announcement of Lady Rosamund’s engagement.”

Richard felt as though someone had punched him in the stomach. It took him a moment or two to remember to breathe. “That can’t be true,” he said.

Turner’s thin lips actually turned up in a smile. “Haven’t you heard? Lady Rosamund has leased a house in Bloomsbury. Now, why would she do that if she were not thinking of getting married?” All traces of good humor vanished and it was back to business. “Five o’clock in the servants’ powder room, mind, and not a minute before or a minute after.”

Richard watched the groom of the chambers as he walked with a jaunty step back to the house, then he stalked into his office and shut the door with a bang.

Lord Caspar delivered his passengers to Callie’s house in Manchester Square, then, after promising to return for them in an hour or two, he drove off. Rosamund was glad to see him go, because whenever Caspar was around, her companion, Miss Dryden, would lapse into self-conscious silences. It was obvious to Rosamund that poor Prudence was in love with Caspar. And it just wouldn’t do. Caspar had an eye for the ladies, all right, but marriage was the furthest thing from his mind. He wasn’t interested in nice girls, only fast ones.

There was another reason she was glad to see Caspar
go. She had something special she wanted to tell Callie, and a man would only be in the way. She had finally done it. She was starting over in a house she had leased just off Bloomsbury.

Though her brothers had supported her in her resolve to establish her own household, in private they teased her unmercifully. They were her brothers, of course, so that was to be expected, but Rosamund had long since decided that men were not comfortable with the idea of women managing their own affairs.

Richard Maitland, of course, was the exception.

As she had done countless times in the last week when her thoughts drifted to Richard—and when did they not?—she banished him to the farthest corner of her mind and thought of something else.

There was a curricle and four in the square just outside Callie’s house, with a boy in black-and-silver livery, holding the lead horses’ heads. She didn’t recognize the livery, but she thought it became the boy very well. In fact, it was the boy who first drew her eyes, not the curricle itself or the four stamping white horses.

Beneath his cap, dark curls framed a face with dark eyes and finely chiseled bones that made her think of the Greek boy warriors she’d seen in Lord Elgin’s marbles. She judged him to be about fourteen years old. Tigers, these boys were called—she had no idea why—and they were all handsome or distinguished in some way. As far as she could tell, their real purpose was decorative, the finishing touch to a fashionable gentleman’s equipage.

Prudence whispered, “He looks Italian.”

“Let’s find out.”

When they drew abreast of him, Rosamund said, “We’ve been admiring your horses. I say they’re English, but my friend says they’re Arabians.”

The boy respectfully touched his cap. “I don’t know nozing about zat,” he said, in the most fraudulent
French accent Rosamund had ever heard. “You will ’ave to ask my master, Monsoor Withers.”

“Thank you,” said Rosamund.

A few steps farther on, she and Prudence exchanged a quick smile.

Prudence said, “I think that’s carrying affectation too far.”

Rosamund wasn’t really interested in the owner of the curricle. She thought that he might be one of Charles Tracey’s friends, or perhaps a visitor who’d dropped in to see Callie. It was Callie she was looking forward to seeing. Since her “rescue,” they’d met twice, but both times at Twickenham House, when they were surrounded by people, and could not speak freely. They’d promised each other to have a heart-to-heart talk the first chance they got, and this was the chance she had been waiting for.

When they were announced and shown into the drawing room, they found that Callie wasn’t alone. Two gentlemen, with their backs to the window, had risen at her entrance. Aunt Fran was there, too, but she seemed to be dozing in a chair in front of the fire.

Callie came forward to meet them. “Rosamund!” she said. “Isn’t this your birthday? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for the ball this evening?”

“There’s nothing to do,” said Rosamund, masking her disappointment behind a smile. She had hoped to find Callie alone. “We’re just in the way, so Prudence and I thought we’d make ourselves scarce. So here we are.”

Callie laughed. “Many happy returns,” she said. “Now let me introduce you to my guests. I don’t think you’ve met Mr. Withers.”

“Lady Rosamund,” said that gentleman, bowing. “May I, too, wish you many happy returns?”

Rosamund felt her heart skip a beat, and she hazarded a guess that Mr. Withers had this effect on many ladies. He was in his early forties, by her reckoning, but
he had the vitality of a much younger man. She thought he had a beautiful smile.

“Thank you. And this is my friend, Miss Dryden,” she said.

“Charmed,” said Mr. Withers, and Rosamund knew that he meant it. So, by the look of her, did Prudence. She forgot to curtsy.

“And,” said Callie, “Major Digby of the Horse Guards. But you’ve met already, I believe.”

Rosamund’s heart skipped another beat, but for a different reason. Major Digby had questioned her long and hard about her abduction and what she’d gleaned about Richard Maitland in the week she was with him. She regarded Digby as a very dangerous man.

The first few minutes were spent in small talk, and Mr. Withers did most of the talking. He was English born, he said, but had spent most of his life in and around Charles Town in South Carolina, and that’s where he would be returning as soon as his business in England was concluded. He was here to buy thoroughbreds for his stables and look up old friends.

“It will be a wrench to leave,” he said. “I’d forgotten how beautiful England can be, and how lovely its ladies.”

He smiles too much
, thought Rosamund, and there flashed into her mind a picture of Richard with one of his rare, quick grins.

She wanted to smack herself for the errant thought.

Major Digby said, “What will you do with your tiger when you leave England? I ask because I know a number of gentlemen who would give their eyeteeth to have him.”

“Oh, I’ll be taking Roland with me. You might say we’ve become attached to each other.”

And just when Rosamund thought things were going smoothly, Callie jumped in, as was her way, and gave them a stir. “We were just talking about you, Rosamund,” she said, “before you arrived. Major Digby tells me that you’re convinced Maitland is innocent, but I wouldn’t believe him.”

Her father had warned her to use extreme caution when Richard’s name came up. They didn’t want anyone thinking that the Deveres were too friendly with a fugitive of the law, or they might take a closer look at Twickenham House. So Rosamund chose her words with care.

“I don’t remember saying that.”

Digby gave a small, mirthless smile. “Not those words exactly,” he said, “but it was very evident to me that you were—are—on his side.”

Withers chuckled. “Charming brute, was he? I’ve known men like that. You think they’re your best friends, and all the time they’re robbing you blind.”

Rosamund felt a slur on her intelligence and was stung into a reply. “I would never call Mr. Maitland charming. What I will say is that I think the authorities decided he was guilty right from the beginning and did not push themselves to discover the truth.”

Digby bristled. “And why do you think that was, Lady Rosamund?”

“I think he’d made powerful enemies. I think they were glad to see him take a fall.”

“Nonsense,” retorted Digby, visibly checking his anger. “The evidence against Maitland was incontrovertible. Anyway, the military wasn’t involved at that point. If you have any complaints, take them to the civil authorities. The magistrates at the Bow Street Office handled the case. My people came into it only after Maitland escaped from Newgate.”

His sneer, his supercilious manner, irritated Rosamund, and she forgot to be cautious. “That won’t help. What’s needed here is to start over. If we work on the assumption that Colonel Maitland is innocent, as your people should have done from the beginning, all sorts of questions will arise.”

“Such as?”

“Such as who hated him enough to engineer his
downfall? Who were Lucy Rider’s friends, besides the people she worked with? How can two people, a man and a boy, disappear from the scene of a crime with no one the wiser, when there were so many people about?”

Digby’s face was twisted with fury. “The question I’m asking myself is, why did you go to Newgate, Lady Rosamund? Was it a coincidence or were you perhaps there by design? Mmm?”

Callie was on her feet. “Major Digby, you forget yourself! Lady Rosamund went to Newgate at my invitation. Ask my brother-in-law. Charles will tell you, as will Aunt Fran. It was my idea. How could we possibly have known that Maitland would try to escape?”

It was Prudence, painfully shy Prudence, who deliberately drew the fire to herself. “My brother thinks Mr. Maitland is innocent, too.”

Digby turned his head slowly and stared at Miss Dryden as though she’d suddenly become visible. “And who might your brother be?” he asked with a faint sneer.

“Peter Dryden,” she answered pleasantly.

Mr. Withers said, “Is that Peter Dryden the banker?”

“No. He’s a vicar.”

“Ah. Then I don’t know him.”

Rosamund was glad of the interruption. This small aside had brought the temperature down by several degrees. She was afraid she’d said too much. The last thing she wanted was for Digby to suspect she was aiding and abetting Richard.

In a voice that was considerably more subdued, she said, “If he is a murderer, why didn’t he kill me? He had nothing to lose. That’s what makes me doubt that he murdered Miss Rider.”

Digby shook his head. His voice was more subdued as well. “You are Romsey’s daughter, Lady Rosamund,” he said. “Lucy Rider was a nobody. Maitland is no fool. Your father would never rest until he had avenged your death. Who is there to avenge Miss Rider’s death?”

Richard!
she wanted to shout.
Richard will avenge her death
. But she dropped her eyes and said on a sigh, “That’s what my father says.”

Major Digby relaxed a little. “Your father is right.”

Not long after, Mr. Withers got up and said that he’d left his horses standing too long and it was time to go. He looked at Digby. “If you’re going to the Horse Guards, it’s on my way. I’ll drive you there.”

They left together and Rosamund was in no doubt that Mr. Withers had offered to take Digby with him so that she would be spared further badgering. He really was a gentlemanly sort of man.