My Rogue to Ruin, page 13
Marjorie waited.
The butler tried again. “Who might I say is calling?”
“Oh! Right.” She fished inside her reticule. Tommy had offered a plethora of stolen calling cards to choose from—and matching costumes besides—but Marjorie preferred direct simplicity whenever possible. “Here you are. Miss Marjorie Wynchester, friend of Lord Adrian Webb.”
The card contained Adrian’s (forged) pencil scrawl: Iris, this is a friend of mine. Let her in.
The butler did not blink. He merely inclined his head and shut the door in Marjorie’s face, leaving her out on the front step to wait and wonder what would happen next.
At least she knew Lord Adrian’s father and older brother were not in residence. The marquess would have been equally unimpressed by the Wynchester name and his son’s signature beneath it. At best, his lordship would toss her out on her ear. At worst, he would attempt to banish her from Mayfair—or London—completely.
Lady Iris, on the other hand… She had welcomed her brother before and kept the secret from their father. But would that allegiance extend to a stranger?
The door swung back open.
“If you’ll follow me, miss.”
As Marjorie hurried to keep up with the butler, she craned her head to look at every corner of the fine interior. The painted ceiling, the gold-colored ormolu door furniture, the sash windows, the smooth oak floors. It was technically beautiful, yet devoid of the chaos and color of the Wynchester residence. The walls were closer, the rooms much smaller, the air beige and gray and flat and flavorless.
When they reached a mint-and-white parlor, a slender young woman with wavy brown hair leapt up from a chaise longue to greet her. Here, at last, was color. Lady Iris sparkled so bright, the bland elegance around her blurred into nothing.
“How do you do?” said Lady Iris, taking Marjorie in the way Marjorie had taken in the house. “It is an honor to meet you.”
“Is it?” Marjorie said dubiously. She was fairly certain she was supposed to be curtseying to Lady Iris, who significantly outranked her, but the young woman was already motioning Marjorie over to a half circle of chairs facing a small table.
“Of course it is. I’ve not met a friend of Adrian’s in years. Then again, I was too young to be allowed to speak to adults the last time he was home. Living here, I mean. Shall you stay for a few minutes? I took the liberty of ordering tea.”
“I like tea,” Marjorie managed.
Lady Iris was a whirlwind of pastels and fresh spring rain, as bright and cheery as her voice and manner. She seemed like exactly the sort of sister Marjorie would hope for Adrian to have. A man hiding such a deep well of sadness badly needed some happiness and light to balance out the darkness.
“I was just reading the latest Sir Gareth Jallow.” Lady Iris held up a thick volume. “Have you read these? Jallow is superb. His sublime, wrenching poetry is the key that opens every fluttering heart in Mayfair.”
“I’m not from Mayfair,” Marjorie said inanely. “My brother says Jallow’s poems are horrid.”
Good God, was that her best sally? She wasn’t here to insult the poor woman’s reading choices. Philippa would have Marjorie’s head. Any book a reader chose to invest time in was by definition a worthy book.
“Does he?” Lady Iris said in delight. “How contrarian! Is he the sort who loves to disagree with whatever everyone else is currently enjoying?”
“No, he’s…” Jealous. And a fellow poet. Neither answer was appropriate to share, and both made Marjorie feel disloyal for considering them. “He’s the sweetest man I’ve ever met,” she said instead. “To my knowledge, Jallow is the second-most thing he despises.”
Lady Iris leaned forward with interest. “What is the first thing?”
“People who mistreat animals,” Marjorie answered without hesitation. This was no secret. Rescuing animals from ugly situations was Jacob’s essence. “He could coax a lion to eat out of his hand like a kitten.”
“He sounds like a sweetheart. Nothing like my brother,” Lady Iris added with a laugh. “Although gossips used to claim Adrian had that effect on young ladies.” Her eyebrows snapped together and her eyes narrowed. “You and he aren’t…”
“No,” Marjorie said quickly. Possibly too quickly.
The fact that there had been a moment where Lord Adrian would have kissed her if she’d given him the slightest encouragement did not signify. The moment had passed. It was over. The kiss had vanished.
Mostly vanished. It still hung heavily in the corners of the workroom like the thick scent of fresh jasmine after a hard summer’s rain.
“I should have supposed not,” said Lady Iris. “Even Adrian would be unlikely to form an attachment with a Wynchester.”
Marjorie flinched. “Because we’re so far beneath his station?”
“Because you lot are too unpredictable to follow such an obvious path. I’ve no doubt that he has met his match with you, which tickles me to no end. Besides, Adrian gave up on his ‘station’ years ago when he set out for France.”
“Did he give it up?” Marjorie said with a surge of loyalty. “Or was it taken from him? Are you certain your brother left of his own volition, or did his own father cast his child out from the only home he’d ever known?”
Lady Iris reared back, shocked at such candor.
Marjorie immediately regretted her leap to Lord Adrian’s defense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You did mean,” said Lady Iris. “And it’s a good thing you did, because I think I needed to hear it.”
“He loves you. He said his heart feared he would never see you again.”
“So did mine,” Lady Iris admitted. “All this time, I’ve felt abandoned by him, when the truth is, he was abandoned, too. Not by me—I was in the schoolroom. But by our father, certainly, and our brother Herbert.”
“And the rest of ‘polite’ society,” Marjorie added.
“You’re right,” Lady Iris said in dawning realization. “I was so young when he left. No, as you said—when he was banished. I wasn’t part of society yet myself, so I had no notion of what it might be like to be expelled from it. Now that it’s as much a part of me as breathing, I can only imagine what it must have been like for Adrian.”
Two young maids entered the room with trays of tea and refreshments. Marjorie leaned back while they set the table.
Lady Iris thanked the girls, then leaned forward to pour the tea. “As interesting as you are, I cannot imagine Adrian sent you for a social call. Is there a reason he isn’t joining us?”
“Er,” said Marjorie. She hadn’t prepared for that question.
Or rather, she had prepared various plausible answers, but now that she’d met Lady Iris and taken her measure, Marjorie had no wish to lie unnecessarily. Nor could she break Lord Adrian’s confidence—or risk what was left of his reputation—by confessing the truth of the matter.
She decided to sidestep the question and barrel forth with the meat of her visit instead.
“I’ve come as a courier of sorts.” She pulled the sealed square of newspaper from her reticule. It was large and lumpy and felt as though something hard was lodged within the folded paper. “I’ve no idea what this is, but he wanted me to tell you that he wished he could have given it to you on your last meeting… and that, if anyone were to ask, he should be grateful if you were to intimate that that is exactly what occurred.”
Mystified, Lady Iris accepted the thick broadsheet square and slid her finger toward the seal.
“Oh! You mustn’t open it,” Marjorie said quickly. “That’s the most important part. He said it must remain sealed, unless you receive clear and direct authorization from him to do otherwise.”
Lady Iris lowered her finger from the seal and stared at the square in befuddlement. “But we don’t know why, or what it is?”
Marjorie nodded. “That’s the situation exactly.”
Perhaps what it said inside was, I knew you would break the seal and my confidence. Or perhaps it said nothing at all, and was an article on fashionable mantua-makers a dandy like Lord Adrian had determined to send to his sister.
She could not help but suspect that Lord Adrian’s nondisclosure of the newspaper’s purpose was partly a test. Of either Marjorie’s honor or Lady Iris’s.
Marjorie toyed with her cup of tea. What did it mean to not even trust one’s own sister? Did he trust anyone at all?
On the other hand, should he?
“I suppose it’s just like my brother,” said Lady Iris. She slipped the folded square of newspaper beneath the cover of Jallow’s latest works. “He does have a flair for the dramatic. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’s having a good laugh at my expense.”
“I’m certain he is not,” Marjorie replied hotly. “He’s not nearly the rogue that people like to—”
She broke off. Not out of embarrassment for her continued defense of Lord Adrian, but because if Marjorie was being honest… the current situation did not speak well to his honor. After years of forging artifacts and lying about their provenance, he was actively counterfeiting coins, knowing full well the harm it caused for all the innocents involved.
As for being a rakehell… well. Marjorie had no doubt how the gingham blanket in her picnic basket would have been used if she had accepted Lord Adrian’s offers for a mutually pleasurable tup.
No emotional attachment requested.
“All right, yes,” Marjorie forced herself to admit. “He’s a rogue and a cad and a libertine and a—”
“He’s my brother,” Lady Iris snapped, looking in great danger of throwing her steaming tea into Marjorie’s face. “Despite being six years older than me, he never once hesitated to sit cross-legged on the nursery room floor to play dolls and dress my hair. I used to think he was a nighttime nanny, because whenever he was home, he would fold himself into my bed and read fantastical tales to me. It is to him that I owe my love of reading. I had no sibling my own age, but I never noticed the lack until he was gone. He single-handedly made my childhood bearable.”
They stared at each other, then burst out laughing.
“Like I said.” Marjorie gave a crooked smile. “A shameless rogue, yet not nearly the caitiff people make him out to be.”
“He’s not perfect,” Lady Iris admitted, “though I believed him to be at the time. I looked up to him so much. Herbert had no time for me, and Father even less so. I was so hurt when Adrian left me behind. You can’t imagine…”
“I might be able to,” Marjorie said softly. Being left behind, or growing apart from her family, was one of her worst fears.
“Later, when I discovered my great and magnificent brother wasn’t infallible… I was so disillusioned to hear those rumors. It’s one thing for a heart to ache over the loss of someone splendid. To feel the same yearning, despite yourself, for someone who isn’t nearly as wonderful as you’d always believed him to be…”
Marjorie stirred her tea. “The thing about being idealistic is that ideals are fantasies. People aren’t good or bad. They’re good and bad.”
Lady Iris’s chin rose. “You’re suggesting we should all forgive him for the horrible things he did?”
“I cannot say what he did or didn’t do. What I do know is that’s not what forgiveness is. You forgive the person, not the deed. The act was bad. The person is your brother.”
Lady Iris picked at her tea cake. “I don’t know if I can do it. If I should do it.”
“I can’t answer that, either. Only you have the power to forgive or not. It’s not up to me or even your brother. It’s up to you. As everything that affects your life and your well-being ought to be.”
Lady Iris gave an abashed smile. “You seem like an excellent sister.”
Marjorie lifted a shoulder. “I’m good and bad, too. I just do my best to make my bad deeds cause good things.”
Lady Iris winced. “Some of my bad deeds are just… bad things. Mayhap it’s Adrian who would refuse to forgive me if he knew the hole that I’ve dug.”
Marjorie waited, but no more information was forthcoming. “No matter what it is, your brother loves you.”
“And you, too, I suspect,” Lady Iris murmured.
“What?” Marjorie reared back in her armchair. “He doesn’t love me. We cannot stand each other.”
“That can’t be true.” Lady Iris lifted the folded square of newspaper. “He trusts you.”
“If that bit of broadsheet is proof that he trusts me, then you must see that he trusts you, too.”
“He shouldn’t.” Lady Iris’s springtime scents and colors shimmered and seemed to fade.
Marjorie tilted her head in concern.
Lady Iris let out a heavy sigh. “Can you keep a secret?”
“From your brother?”
“From everyone.”
Marjorie inclined her head. “I’ve spent a lifetime keeping secrets.”
“I don’t doubt that’s true. Yet here I am, burdening you with mine.” Despite this speech, Lady Iris picked the raisins out of her cake for several moments without speaking. When she finally glanced back up at Marjorie, her expression was bleak. “Dun territory.”
Marjorie blinked. “Your father is living on credit?”
“Not him. Me. Father would kill me if he knew. He’s cut off my pin money, but the people I play with allow IOUs. I’ve given vowels to more people than I can ever repay, and yet I cannot stay away from the gaming table. If it’s that simple to lose, it must be that simple to gain. I’ve won before. I’ll win again. It’s just taking so blessed long, and the debts are piling up…” Lady Iris let out a quavering breath. “If word got out that I was gambling, that I’ve gambled away more than my dowry is even worth… I’ll be ruined.”
Dear Lord. Not a word of that was good news.
“You should tell your brother,” Marjorie said automatically. But what would Lord Adrian do? Mold buckets full of tin shillings and start handing them around Mayfair?
Lady Iris shook her head. “Not yet. With luck, not ever. It’s my muddle, and I want to solve it on my own. I’ve been the coddled baby for far too long. I’ve grown up and need to act like it. I want my brother to see me as an equal.”
“I understand that sentiment more than you might think,” Marjorie admitted. “It’s how I got myself into my current situation. But every puzzle can be solved. If you’d let me tell my siblings—”
Lady Iris gasped. “They’ll tell Adrian.”
“They’ve never even met him. If you say they’re not to breathe a word, not a syllable will be spoken.”
Lady Iris considered this, then shook her head. “I’ve another game coming up. I’m feeling lucky. Perhaps this is the one that will get me out of this scrape once and for all.”
A strained silence entered the parlor.
“And if it doesn’t?” Marjorie ventured.
Lady Iris’s shoulders stiffened. “If I fail to recoup my losses, I will take you up on your offer. But please, take no action until we know the results of the next game.”
To say Marjorie had misgivings about this plan would be vastly understating the matter. But she would take no action against Lady Iris’s express wishes.
“All right.” Marjorie sighed. “You have my word.”
19
By Monday morning, Marjorie was bursting to get back to Lord Adrian.
Er, Snowley’s fortress, that was. The mission. Not specifically a certain rakehell. Despite the wanton activities in last night’s dreams.
She had kept herself busy on her day away from the rookery.
For now, her girls and the Duke of Faircliffe were relegated to a single day of Marjorie’s tutoring. Between all that and the visit to Lady Iris, there had barely been any time left to break for a meal or two.
Though she had somehow found plenty of time to think about Lord Adrian, Marjorie was certain she didn’t miss him. How could anyone long for the presence of a self-admitted scoundrel? He was a heartache waiting to happen.
Lord Adrian must also be on tenterhooks to hear whether she had paid the call on Lady Iris, and whether Marjorie had been allowed in to pass along the message.
“You’re not here for Lord Adrian,” she muttered as she strode up the path to Snowley’s front door. “You’re here for Mrs. Lachlan, and all the women like her.”
A pair of starlings on the roof startled and flew off with a flutter.
The front door opened before Marjorie could knock. It was the same exhausted maid as before, but this time Ruby didn’t look surprised at Marjorie’s appearance. With little more than a grunt of greeting, Ruby stepped aside and allowed Marjorie through the door.
Grinders and Joey Box o’ Crumpets were deep in conversation. Their voices were low and their heads bent together at such an angle that Marjorie could not tell what they were talking about. She couldn’t even see the omnipresent hatpin hanging from Grinders’s mouth. Whatever it was smelled like soot and tasted like trouble.
She ground her teeth at her failure to eavesdrop. She was the principal on this mission. Only two-and-a-half weeks remained before Mrs. Lachlan was evicted. Everything was riding on Marjorie alone being just as effective as the entire team of Wynchester siblings and their spouses.
The guards were cagey enough not to disclose any confidential information, no matter how innocently Marjorie asked, but she was making headway with the maid who brought the daily repast to the workroom.
Marjorie doubted overworked Anna had been entrusted with a key to the treasure room, but even if the girl didn’t know its precise location, she might be able to identify all of the other rooms, leaving Marjorie to find her target using the process of elimination.
Joey and Grinders led her down a corridor she knew by heart and took their respective posts. Marjorie waited until they were only visible from the corners of her eyes before she pushed open the workroom door.
After a full day and two long nights, she wanted nothing to spoil her first glimpse of Lord Adrian.
He was leaning against the windowsill, looking positively splendid. Clean and freshly shaved, with his brown—all right, bronze—hair in careful disarray.
