Heiress for Hire, page 17
“I am grateful that he did not have that chance. Relieved and grateful.”
“He didn’t have the chance because I found a way to leave him.”
“Was that when you came here?”
“I left before he died.” She lined up what she needed to explain, and what she might avoid. “I left Algernon and went to live on my own, with Beth and her son. He kept trying to force me back. He began some court proceeding that would obligate me to do so. I decided I could not accept that. So I found the information that would stop him.”
“You conducted an inquiry.”
“My first. Beth helped. Even Jeremy helped, boy though he was. We learned that Algernon was not always impotent. On occasion he could be most potent. With another woman, who played peculiar games with him.”
“Did that stop him?”
“He laughed at me when I threw it at him. He wasn’t even ashamed that his lover was a relative. An aunt, for goodness’ sake. A blood relative at that. So I arranged to catch them at it.”
“I trust you brought witnesses.”
“Of course. I found where they met. I waited until they were together, paid off the innkeeper, and up we went with the key. There they were, doing something he would not want described in a courtroom. He tried to bribe my witnesses on the spot, but they held firm for me. He agreed to a separation a week later. That helped, but not as much as I had hoped.”
“You are uncommonly brave, Minerva. Brave and resourceful and smarter than most men. I have never seen the likes of you.”
She would have given him a kiss if they were not in a public park. Admiration from this man counted for something.
She sensed more questions. He did not speak them, but his deep thought and the vague dismay shading his expression told her what they were.
“Yes,” she said. “What you are wondering. Yes. It all started with that, you see. His anger about his impotence is what turned violent first. Eventually nothing between us, no conversation or any connection, was not touched by violence. The only way to survive was to feel nothing at all.”
He closed his eyes. “If I had known I would have never—”
“You would have never kissed me or touched me.” She did kiss his cheek then. “And I would never have known that he had not completely ruined that part of me.”
He raised her hand and kissed it. “Let us spend the rest of the day doing better things than talking about this. We will go someplace where you can smile and laugh and be Minerva Hepplewhite. Only Minerva Hepplewhite.” He smiled. “I’ll even go shopping with you if you want.”
“I was planning to order a new ensemble. Perhaps you know of a good modiste.”
“I know of one or two, so that is what we will do.”
They strolled through the gardens and back to where he had left his horse. He hired a carriage and tethered the horse to it, then climbed in with her. She hoped that this modiste would take the commission based on her expectations. He appeared so pleased with his idea that she didn’t want to ruin it by being practical, however.
* * *
“It was an exorbitant self-indulgence.” Minerva voiced her thoughts while the carriage took them toward her house. The self-scold could not blight the fun of buying not one, but two ensembles. She smiled whenever she thought about it.
“It was not a self-indulgence at all,” he said. “The owner of Hepplewhite’s Office of Discreet Inquiries requires a suitable wardrobe. It was a pity you did not order that dinner dress as well.”
“It was too expensive.”
“You forget that you are an heiress now.”
“You should not have told Madame Tissot that. It was very bad of you.” The modiste had been merciless after learning that, tempting her with luxuries. Like that dinner dress.
She saw that dress in her mind. Raw silk with a subtle shimmer, the hue reminded her of primroses. Pearls bedecked the neckline and waist, and more discreetly studded the lower skirt’s floral embroidery. The cost of it all would have left her too dependent on her expectations, however, and for a dress she might never wear.
“The wool ensembles will be enough for now,” she said. Their purpose, and rationale, had her mind returning to her inquiries. She tucked away the one she had pursued today, and raised another.
“I never had a chance to tell you, but something was revealed to me at Melton Park by a servant,” she said.
She repeated what the servant Joan had said to her, about being on the roof and seeing and hearing someone. “She said she could not swear to it, but I think that was her way of trying to avoid ever being asked to.”
“It might have been another servant, of course.”
“It might have been, but I do not think it was. Do you?”
“I don’t know yet. Nor do you. It is one more piece of information that might one day form a link in a chain, however.”
“Something to note in your portfolio, you mean. To put on a list.”
“Yes. The possible evidence list, not the secure facts list.”
They had almost reached her house. He made the coachman stop two streets away. When he turned back to face her she knew they would no longer speak of investigations.
He reached over and lightly caressed her face. “I want you to come to me, Minerva. Send me a note first if you like, but pay a late call, or an early one, or anytime you want. We can sit and talk or go out about town again, if you like. We will do this however you want, darling, and at no time should you ever feel obligated, even by your own words or agreement.”
He told the coachman to move on. A few minutes later the coach stopped at her own door. He jumped out and turned to hand her down. She gazed at his face, and at that hand reaching toward her. She screwed up her courage and leaned out. Before stepping down she quickly kissed him.
He smiled and helped her down. “Beth is watching from the window.”
She looked past him and saw the bright white cap at the glass.
“Her son is watching from the garden alley.”
She noticed Jeremy’s blond hair amidst the shrubbery beyond the garden portal. “I suppose I may have some explaining to do.”
At the door she looked back to see him untying his horse from the carriage. She remained out there, watching, until he rode down the street and the carriage went on its own way. Then she went inside, to have what would probably be a long talk with the only two people she had dared trust for five years.
Chapter Sixteen
Foils whistled. Men lunged. From behind his mask Chase eyed his opponent. Dark eyes peered back.
They had been at this for close to an hour, both of them slashing and clashing out their individual angers. Thus far it had been an even match.
A lunge. A whip. A pause. Chase looked down to see the tip of a foil on his chest.
He pulled off the mask. “You have improved.”
“I took lessons from a master while in France,” Kevin said, removing his own mask. “This is an art there.”
They started unbuckling equipment. “If it had been sabers you would never have won,” Chase said.
“Only it wasn’t, so I did.” Kevin said. “I appreciated this match, but it is not your weapon.”
“It served its purpose.” The exertion had dulled his black mood to a dusky gray. He no longer wanted to go looking for a fight with his fists, the way he had at breakfast.
It had been two days since he had seen Minerva. No letter had come from her. He could not blame her, of course. Only the most conceited of men would.
He kept turning it all over in his mind, however, alternately trying to convince himself that he had handled the whole thing as well as any man could, and must reconcile himself to total retreat, and damning himself for being an ass.
He had half-heartedly read a few of the letters that had come this morning. A request from Nicholas to provide Miss Hepplewhite’s address so he might make good on his promise to have her dine with him got set aside for response. A long letter full of complaints from Aunt Dolores went to the stack he had no intention of answering soon.
A short missive arrived from Peel, asking for a preliminary report in the next week. Damnation to that. He and Kevin went to wash and dress. Chase noticed that Kevin’s attire appeared a bit unkempt, as if he had dressed himself and done it carelessly. “You weren’t at home last night?”
“What makes you ask that?” Kevin worked at a cravat that had already been tied twice too often.
Chase glanced pointedly at that neckpiece, and the wrinkled shirt.
Kevin shrugged. “I was out and about. Conducting inquiries, if you must know.”
“How so?”
“I saw your notices in the papers. Again. I don’t think you will find those women that way. So I’m looking for them, or rather the one who gets my enterprise.”
“In the brothels, you mean.”
Kevin fixed his cuffs and settled his coat on his shoulders. “I was serious when I said that was where they can be found.”
“The one I located was not in a brothel. Ever. Uncle Frederick paid well for those services. He would not feel the need to leave fat legacies for any of those women.”
“Then I am wasting my time. It is mine to squander, and I’ve quite a bit of it at my disposal right now.”
“Have you had any success?” If Kevin wanted to search in brothels, Chase wasn’t going to stop him. For one thing, his cousin knew those establishments and their owners far better than Chase did.
“I have discovered the annoying truth that some of them exercise extreme discretion where he is concerned.”
Chase led the way out. They walked around the edge of the main hall, past other fencing matches taking place. “Well, he was a duke. I expect he demanded discretion.”
“I can’t imagine why. Anyway, last night I tried a different path. I presented myself to the madam and informed her I was his nephew. I then said I would like to be introduced to his most recent favorite, so I might enjoy her favors as he did.”
Chase laughed. “A memorial fuck? It sounds almost sentimental.”
“I thought so. My thinking was that this favorite might know about prior favorites, and even their real names. They rarely use real names in those houses.”
“I am not green, Kevin. I do not visit brothels with your or Uncle’s regularity, but I know the basics.”
“Of course. So that was my thinking—to get into a room with his latest favorite, and get her talking.”
“Clever.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No, no. How did your plan fare?”
Kevin led the way out to the street. “The madam informed me that it would be most inappropriate if one of Uncle’s male relatives partook of the same wine he had recently drunk. Have you ever heard of such a thing? She was most severe too. I felt like I was being scolded by a vicar. She all but accused me of incest.”
They stopped at their horses, and Kevin’s frown suddenly cleared. “Damnation. I’ll wager he told them to say that, to refuse any of us his women. Don’t laugh. You know he could be selfish about some things. He didn’t always share nicely.”
“I am not laughing at you, or your idea. I think maybe you are right.”
Kevin untied his horse. “He probably did not want to be compared with anyone so close to home, as it were.”
Chase laughed again.
Kevin swung up. “I am going to Whiteford House to look around. Do you want to join me? We can drink some of the excellent wine Nicholas inherited.”
“I have another engagement, I’m sorry to say. Are you going to look for the mechanical butler?”
“That and other things. Our conversation about it conjured up many other memories.” He turned his horse west.
Chase mounted his own horse, but headed east instead.
* * *
Mr. Oliver was not a happy man. Round of face and body, sparse of hair, he kept looking at his wife with an expression of strained forbearance. Minerva sat with her across from him at the dining room table at their house, untying the thin package she had brought.
“Miss Hepplestone, my wife should have never wasted your time.”
“Hepplewhite. I think that in a few minutes you will be most grateful she did.”
“Unlikely. Women have no head for business nor any ability to conduct it. That is why I do not tolerate their interference.”
“It was not interference as such,” Mrs. Oliver said.
“What do you call it then?” he snapped.
“Your wife noticed something was amiss,” Minerva said. “She asked me as a friend to confirm what she suspected. I do not seek to interfere any more than she did. If you would prefer to be robbed and have your affairs compromised, just say so and I will take my leave.”
Robbed raised an expression of alarm in him. Compromised brought forth a deep frown. He did not tell her to leave.
She described what she had learned in Brighton. She laid out the lace cuffs she had bought from Mr. Seymour’s shop. She explained how she was told that they came from a town in the Loire Valley, and that the owner of the shop was well aware that he sold something that in the past had been available exclusively at a competitor.
“Quite smug he was,” she said. “Furthermore, he had already sold out his stock and was getting more.” She lifted one of the cuffs. “I arranged to be there when he did, and I saw your agent enter his building. A half hour later, I procured these cuffs. I thought this one unusually fine.”
He snatched it out of her hand. He put on his spectacles and bent low over it. “Hell and damnation.” He looked up with a chagrined smile. “My apologies. Only this is new. Not one of mine.”
“He was very proud of that one. He anticipated much profit from it.”
He rested back in his chair, fingering the cuff. “The thief,” he muttered. “Who knows what else he’s done.”
Minerva stood. “I will indeed take my leave now.”
“I will see you to the door,” Mrs. Oliver said.
At the door Mrs. Oliver leaned in and whispered. “Well done. Write and let me know what I owe you for today.”
“You owe nothing. This is part of my report.” She looked toward the dining room. “He is not the sort to somehow turn this around to blame you, is he?”
“In two days my role will be forgotten, and the entire discovery will be his doing.”
Of course. What other choice did he have? Admit that his wife had been right to involve herself?
* * *
“Hand delivery,” Beth called. “A big one.”
Minerva went to the stairs to see a large rectangular bundle hovering above the middle step. The package was too large for Beth to carry. It all but tipped her over, and obscured her sight. Minerva rushed down and helped her bring it up to her chamber.
Beth poked at the unbleached muslin and ribbon tie. “A gift?”
“I expect it is my new ensembles. They finished them very quickly.”
Minerva plucked at the ribbon and it fell to the sides. She unfolded the muslin. Her woolen ensembles were not inside. The luscious dinner dress, the one she had not bought, glimmered up at her.
Beth’s sharp intake of breath filled the chamber. “You said day ensembles. Not this.”
“A mistake has been made. The woman must have not heard me correctly.”
She lifted the dress. The simple raw silk far surpassed the more elaborate fabrics available. A subtle sheen rippled over it when she moved it in the light.
“What is this here?” Beth reached for the package and moved another piece of the muslin wrapper.
Minerva had been so distracted by admiring the dinner dress that she had not noticed something else had come with it. Beth lifted the garment high. An undressing gown unfolded and its hem dropped down. She had admired this at Madame Tissot’s too, and only declined it after much thought.
Beth peered around the white lace, suspiciously.
“I will send it back with the dress,” Minerva said.
Beth laid the undressing gown on the bed. “It is very pretty. The one you have has been mended five times over.”
“It is lovely, isn’t it?”
Beth ran her palm over the very fine lawn fabric. “Maybe it wasn’t a mistake. Perhaps that dressmaker just wanted you to have it.”
“Dressmakers do not make gifts of such as this, to patrons such as me. Pack it up and I’ll ask Jeremy to—”
“Could be that Mr. Radnor wanted you to have it, as compensation for all the help you have given him.”
If she had given him much help at all, she might convince herself of that. Still . . . She joined Beth in gazing at the garment. “If he did, it would be inappropriate for me to keep it.”
“Very inappropriate.” Beth fingered some lace, rubbing it. “I never thought to call such a thing delicious, but the word fits.”
Minerva marveled at the tiny pearl beads on the neckline of the dress. “Sad to return them, but I must.”
Beth gave a subtle shrug. “That all depends, doesn’t it? You listened to my long scold about having no more to do with him, and seemed to agree. But you didn’t actually do so, nor have you avoided him like you should.”
Minerva felt her face warming. She doubted her old friend would place a wager on how matters would develop with Chase. Minerva had no idea herself, especially now. Last night she debated at length with herself, weighing her ache for intimacy against all the reasons ever going to him would be a mistake. For both of them now.
“I don’t blame you,” Beth said. “I just wish he were a merchant or a fishmonger or doing anything other than these inquiries that seem to touch on you.”
“As do I, Beth. As do I.”
Beth lifted the undressing gown and carried it to the wardrobe. “Why not wait a few days, and see if that dressmaker writes to tell you they were sent by mistake. If she doesn’t, you can always send them back next week if you choose to.”
Chapter Seventeen
The letter from Chase contained one terse sentence. I demand that you explain why you had cause to inquire as to my cousin Kevin’s whereabouts last month. Nothing indicated when and how she was supposed to provide that explanation. By letter, presumably.
