Twice Tempted (2 page)

The silence was shattered by an explosive laugh. Alex turned to see Chuffy bright-eyed and chortling. “Beg pardon,” he apologized with a wave of his hand. “Hilarious. Saintly family and all. Leyburn title is as straight-laced as Prinny’s parlor. Chock-full of pirates and brigands. Pater told me so.”

“Fribble,” the marquess spat. “Your father must despair of you.”

Chuffy’s smile only grew. “Does. Have a question, though. He’ll want to know. Ferguson’s exonerated. Why ignore the girls now? Bad form and all.”

“He is still a spy,” the marquess snapped. “No
gentleman
,” he said, glaring at Alex, “lowers himself to such behavior. As for his sisters…” He shrugged. “They are probably already back on the streets from which they came. I have found another heir. You may tell them. What those Fergusons do now is not my concern.”

Alex blocked his way. “Four years ago, at
your
behest, I brought your granddaughters to you. How can you just throw them out like this?”

“They survived just fine before, and they should have no trouble surviving now. The skills that kept them clothed and fed before I found them are never forgotten by women like that.”

Alex went cold. He had met Fiona only twice, but each time he had come away respecting her more. What kind of monster could look into those glorious blue eyes and not see the bone-deep honor there?

“Exactly what do you mean, sir?” he asked, his voice dangerously quiet.

The marquess’s smile was sour. “Come now, Whitmore. How do you think those two ate when they were living on the streets of Edinburgh? Kind Scottish fairies did not drop apples in their laps.”

Alex struggled to breathe. “They were no older than fourteen when Ian found them and got them into Miss Chase’s Academy.”

The marquess sneered. “Plenty old enough for that business, sir. And don’t think I am being dramatic. That she-wolf pulled a knife on me once, did you know that? She carries it in her garter. My secretary once forgot himself enough to challenge her to a shooting contest. He lost. He was lucky I didn’t dismiss him on the spot.
She
was lucky I didn’t toss her out onto the moors. And I haven’t even had the nerve to find out what other ‘talents’ she possesses. Well, no more. I will not feel threatened in my own home.”

Chuffy was shaking his head. “Won’t keep Ferguson away. He’ll find out. Wouldn’t be here when he comes, I were you. Bit protective and all.”

The marquess glared. “I don’t care if your father was my friend. Get out.”

Chuffy blinked. “Not without the ladies.”

“I told you. They’re not here.”

“Got to be somewhere.”

Somewhere.
Christ
, Alex thought. How would he possibly find them? It had been four weeks.

“If we don’t find those women,” he promised the old man, “Chuffy and I, along with every one of our associates, will spend every day and every farthing we possess between us ensuring that the
ton
knows exactly what happened here. You will be more vilified than Princess Caroline, and twice as unwelcome. I also wouldn’t count on supplanting Ian in the succession. He has friends, too.”

Alex saw the threat reach the marquess. The old man paled; his eyes narrowed. Fortunately for him, the old man refrained from delivering another opinion. With no more than a jerky wave of his hand, he stalked up the stairs.

“Don’t know about you,” Chuffy said, pushing his glasses up his nose, “but I think it’s time to talk to people who really know what goes on.”

*  *  *

They spent the next four hours interviewing the staff and came away with no more than outrage, grief, and carefully couched fury at their employer. Fiona’s abigail sobbed, chef all but shattered his chopping block as he slammed down his butcher knife on unsuspecting mutton, and the butler, a stiff-rumped old tartar with a profile like a penguin, methodically tore apart the linen handkerchief he had been folding. Alex had a feeling that if a vote were held, every person on that estate would have walked over a burning marquess to hand Lady Fiona a glass of water.

It didn’t help him find her.

“Tha’ll bring them safe home,” the housekeeper begged, fierce brown eyes awash in tears. “Won’t ’ee?”

Alex lied, unable to admit to either of them how slim his chances were. “I will. Do you have any idea where they went after they left here?”

“Coachie took girls to Black Swan in Leyburn.”

“And from there?”

She could only shrug, looking even more lost. “Stage goes all over, think on.”

No one else could offer more. So Alex and Chuffy began at the Black Swan, a gray coursed rubble stone building that anchored the market square of Leyburn. The proprietor, a thin, rather somnolent man of a height too great to fit beneath his own doors, remembered helping the women onto the London coach. Beyond that, he could say nothing certain, except that Lady Mairead had been sore distressed and Miss Fiona quiet, as usual.

With night coming on, the men had no choice but to secure rooms and repair to the taproom, where they were served full mugs of ale and a serviceable game pie. They spent dinner at a scarred oak table by a desultory fire trying to decide how to proceed.

“No friends to go to?” Chuffy asked, his attention on his food. “Your sister heard from her? School chums and all.”

“No. Pip would have alerted me. Especially if she learned that they’d been evicted from their home. Pip has a finely honed sense of justice.”

The first time he’d met Fiona had been in response to his sister’s sense of justice.

Chuffy grinned. “Little spitfire, Pip,” he said, pushing at his sliding glasses. “Popped me in the nose once for insulting the Ripton chit.” He rubbed at that appendage. “Not intentional, o’ course. Had no idea she was so shy. Never forget now.”

Alex was nodding, but he really wasn’t paying attention. He was remembering the first time he’d seen Fiona Ferguson four years ago. She had been sixteen and running away from the school her brother had put her in. Alex, hung over and surly from too much brandy the night before, had gone after her at Pip’s insistence.

And then, chasing down the coach he thought might be carrying her, he had seen Fiona lean out the window. Tall, stately, with a square face, high cheekbones, and startling blue eyes. A mature beauty on a deceptively fragile girl. And the most glorious red-gold hair he’d ever seen, gleaming even in the rain like precious metal. She had been as bold as brass, fearless, focused on finding her sister, whom she thought was in some kind of trouble. She had fit that glorious hair to a farthing.

But when he’d seen her four weeks ago, she had changed. Quieter, tidier, as if she were a foot squeezed into a too-small shoe. That barely tamed light he had unconsciously sought in her stunning blue eyes had been gone, replaced by a disturbing placidity. She had been expensively clad and shod in Indian muslin and kidskin, groomed to a fare-thee-well. And oddly pallid.

What had happened in the last four years to douse that ineffable spirit? A spirit that had survived a childhood of hardship, upheaval, and death, all by her sixteenth birthday.

Why had Alex not realized that Fiona’s promising future had gone wrong? Had she even had a season? Suddenly he couldn’t remember. Certainly not when his sister Pip came out. The year after? He had been on the continent through much of that season, interceding between Wellington’s paymaster and the Rothschilds.

He was furious, suddenly. At the marquess, at the vagaries of life. Mostly, at himself. At his assumption that the only thing Ian’s sisters had needed four years ago had been warmth and a full belly. That when he had brought Fiona to that great house in the Yorkshire dales to meet her grandfather, he had delivered her to paradise.

After all, she and her sister had spent their lives scraping by, alone except for a brother who was never there. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a family again?

But he had judged her family against his own, and he knew perfectly well how unfair that was. He had the love not only of his mother and sisters, but a stepfather who had taught Alex most of what he knew about being a gentleman. To Alex, the greatest gift a person could be given was a family. He’d forgotten that not all families were worth coming home to.

It was Chuffy’s portentous throat-clearing that yanked Alex back from his thoughts. He looked up to discover a middle-aged man standing at their table, his curly brimmed beaver clutched in his hands.

“Lord Whitmore?” the man asked. At Alex’s nod, he smiled. “Oh, thank heavens. I was afraid I’d missed you.”

Alex and Chuffy both stood to receive the unprepossessing gentleman, Chuffy’s napkin still tucked into his neckcloth.

“Can we help you?” Alex asked.

The man put out his hand. “Gilbert Bryce-Jones. The marquess’s secretary. I just returned to find the marquess ready to lop off heads and the staff all in a fuss. Seems a pair of gentlemen called his lordship to task for failing his responsibilities.”

Hands were shaken, names exchanged, and outerwear removed. Reclaiming his seat, Alex took a draught of his ale and evaluated the newcomer, who seemed interchangeable with most other secretaries he’d met. Trim and tidy, with unremarkable features and neatly cut, mouse-brown hair, as if seeking anonymity.

“Bryce-Jones?” Chuffy asked, fork and knife back in hand. “Know your family. Good
ton
, no luck with money.”

Bryce-Jones chuckled, but Alex caught a glint of discomfort in his gray eyes. “You’re absolutely correct, my lord,” the secretary said, his right hand brushing against his marcello waistcoat, as if expecting to find something there. “I am fortunate that my cousin the marquess was kind enough to give me a position.”

Chuffy shook his head. “Not kind at all. Cheese-paring old misery guts. Must be sharp in the brain box.”

Obviously uncertain how to react to Chuffy, Bryce-Jones turned to Alex. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you came. Although I doubt I could have been more help.”

Alex waited for the innkeeper to bend like a slow crane to deposit Bryce-Jones’s ale on the table and leave before answering. “You truly have no idea where the women went?”

“No.” Bryce-Jones picked up his mug, but didn’t drink. “I can’t begin to tell you how worried I am about them. If it were in my power, I would have sent Bow Street after them. If only I’d been here…”

“You weren’t?” Alex asked.

Another sorrowful shake. Another quick swipe at his vest. “In London for the marquess. I came home to find Ladies Fiona and Mairead gone and the staff inconsolable.” He leaned in as if sharing a secret. “They were greatly loved.”

“Even Lady Mairead?” Alex asked. “I’ve heard she can be…difficult.”

“You don’t know her?”

“We’ve never met. I was looking forward to it.”

Bryce-Jones smiled, his expression almost paternal. “Lady Mairead is…special. I worry about her, though. She doesn’t do well when she is forbidden her routine.”

As if in response, Chuffy began scratching the side of his nose. Alex paid attention. Usually when Chuffy started worrying at his face, something bothered him.

“Mrs. Weller said the marquess’s grandson is alive and vindicated,” Bryce-Jones said. “That is wonderful. When should we expect to see the viscount?”

It took Alex a moment to realize that the man was speaking of Ian Ferguson. When Alex had been introduced to him, the Scot had been no more than a lucky street gypsy from Edinburgh who had chivvied and lied his way into a commission in the Black Watch. Even when Ferguson had learned that, far from being a bastard he was the heir to a marquessate, he had never thrown his position around.

“I don’t know when he’ll be released to return home,” Alex said.

Bryce-Jones nodded. “Of course. I hope then the marquess can make his peace.”

“Can’t ’til we find the girls,” Chuffy said, pulling off his glasses and wiping them with his handkerchief.

“I don’t know if this will help,” Bryce-Jones said, reaching into his jacket, “but they had quite a correspondence.”

Alex’s head snapped up. “Who?” he asked. “The twins?”

Bryce-Jones pulled out a packet of letters and handed them over. “Some odd characters, from all over. No one we ever met, of course. Could they have sought refuge with one of their correspondents?”

Alex picked up the packet and began to riffle through it. There were about eight envelopes in all, a few from foreign countries. Alex recognized a few names and frowned.

“Have you read these?” he asked, looking up.

The secretary smiled. “The ones in English. They’re fascinating, aren’t they?”

Alex nodded, his focus on a return address in Slough that belonged to a familiar name. Caroline Herschel. The letter was in German. More important, it seemed filled with complex mathematical equations.

“Well,” he said, checking a few more addresses. “It’s a place to start.”

“Please keep me apprised.” Bryce-Jones frowned. “I realize the marquess seems intractable, but he’ll want to know.”

“If you’d like,” Alex said, his attention now on a letter from Pierre LaPlace, who was saying something about black holes. “I’ll give you my card…oh, no, wait. They’re up in my room.” Scraping his chair back, he stood. “Chuff?”

Chuffy’s head snapped up and he blinked. “Keep you company, Bryce-Jones.”

Alex took all the time he could. It was an old tactic. If Chuffy gave the signal, it usually meant he needed some time alone with the person they were interviewing. He rarely failed to learn something interesting. It was amazing what people told Chuffy.

By the time Alex got back, Bryce-Jones was sitting back in his seat, his ale mug in his hand, smiling. Chuffy was checking his pocket watch, which he’d pulled from a plum-and-silver-striped waistcoat.

“No, no,” he was saying. “Appreciate the offer. Late. Need to be up early.”

“Here’s my card,” Alex said without sitting.

Bryce-Jones was forced to stand to accept it, and Chuffy followed suit. After that it took only five more minutes to get the secretary out the door, after which Alex and Chuffy secured a bottle of brandy and glasses to take upstairs.

“What did you find out?” Alex asked as he followed Chuffy into his room and shut the door.