Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (12 page)

Or—what would make a woman so eager that she was so completely wrong about a man's true feelings?

All he could do was shake his head again. As Chatfield had said earlier, the answers weren't important; only the questions. These things had happened. It was enough to wonder why, for the
why
meant that these things were wrong, that they should not have taken place. There would likely never be an answering
because
.

“Tell me, what do you think of her?” the marquess asked.

Joss arched a brow. “My answer doesn't matter, does it?”

“Indulge me. Abandon diplomacy.”

The resonant voice was impossible to gainsay a second time, and a great bitterness rose up in Joss: a bitterness scraped together from tiny fires and hoarded pence and tea leaves used twice, thrice, until there was no flavor left. And of a woman who owned furs and silks and walked out with no cloak, so certain was she that someone would take care of her, that the world would not let her be cold.

And she was right. He wouldn't; he couldn't.

How could she wish to be someone else?

Though she had sworn she was still cold. Always cold. Maybe she wasn't testing the world's regard; maybe she simply didn't care what became of her.

“I think she is unappreciative.” Joss paused. “But intelligent. And, of course, pretty.”

“You are right on all counts.” The marquess smiled, a quick flash of approval. “Is it fair to fault her for being unable to count her blessings? She has lived among them too long to see them as abnormal. She is far too occupied with counting coin or counting the steps in a dance.”

“Or counting the callers who fawn over Mrs. Flowers.”

“Yes, though I can't imagine she feels much triumph in that. Since, as you say, they are really Mrs. Flowers's men.”

The way Chatfield
knew
things
was beginning to seem a little terrifying. Still, Joss insisted, “Mrs. Flowers and Miss Meredith are the same person.”

“Not quite. But I'm not sure where the difference lies. What do you think?”

A few days ago, an aeon ago, she had described her false self to Joss.
She
has
more
possibilities
open
to
her
than
I
do.

But that wasn't enough of an explanation. It didn't capture the difference in her voice, her laugh; the quick, darting way she looked at people, then pretended she hadn't. It was all done by the same person, though, one person making decisions as though she were two beings.

Joss shook his head. “I can't answer that.”

“The answer doesn't matter as much as the question. And I think you won't forget the question.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Joss bit the words off crisply. Too many questions; not enough answers. “Excuse me, please. If we've concluded our business, I must go.”

“No, you mustn't,” Chatfield said. “You're staying alone in an attic room, and every minute you remain with me is a minute less of coal you must scrounge. Stay a bit longer. Hear me out. Or let me hear you out, if you prefer.”

This was how the marquess knew things, Joss thought. He learned enough about a person's wishes and dreams to make himself dangerous, to insinuate himself wherever he wanted to be. And right now, he knew that the promise of savings—of another brief while that Joss didn't have to be in a chilly dark room alone—was dreadfully tempting against the late winter night.

Before he could profess his agreement or withhold it, Chatfield observed, “You are unappreciative too.”

Joss's head snapped back, and he glared at the older man. A complacent wide oval of a face, a damnably calm expression. And why was he in the bath for so long?

This meeting had been a foolish idea. “I do not think you are correct, my lord,” Joss shot back. “I support myself, and it is done with some difficulty.”

“Hmm.” Chatfield leaned forward, stirring the water with one hand, and the scent of sandalwood grew stronger. “Do you work in a mine or somewhere that places you in daily peril? Did you hunger for education but had no opportunity to gain it?” He paused. “Are you an unmarried female who must be accompanied everywhere by a servant, lest her reputation—her future—be destroyed?”

Joss narrowed his eyes until Chatfield was nothing but blurs.

“You dislike what I say,” said the marquess. “You think your birth and straitened upbringing has given you a right to feel wronged. I can't say as it hasn't, but I also can't see what good the resentment does you.”

“I beg your pardon, my lord.” Joss set his teeth. “But I cannot imagine what someone in your position would know about feeling wronged. Or about wishing for anything that cannot be gained.”

“You cannot,” the older man said mildly. “I suppose that makes sense. Well, before you leave, help me to rise, Everett. There are towels against the wall, if you wouldn't mind fetching one.”

Still cross, Joss picked up one of the soft cloths and approached the tub for the first time. He caught the marquess's wool-clad forearms, but the man didn't rise in one smooth motion. Instead, he shifted, a low sound of a heavy body dragging against stone as he got his legs under him.

Pulling heavily against Joss's weight, he hoisted himself out of the water. And at once, Joss recognized his error, and the reason for Chatfield's great effort: his right leg was missing below the knee.

Oh.

Oh.

Chagrin locked his tongue for a few dreadful seconds, then he managed, “I'm so sorry, my lord. I didn't realize.”

“What, that a horse fell on my leg when I was a reckless-riding boy? That a surgeon set the break incorrectly? That I traded the leg for my life?” The marquess's voice came with effort as he struggled to stand and balance. “Of course you didn't realize. But if you had, I presume you'd have acted no differently just now. Surely you wouldn't have left a marquess to flounder in his own filth.”

“Scented by sandalwood?” Joss braced the older man around his shoulders, helping him seat himself on the broad edge of the tub. He then sat at the marquess's side, facing away from the water. “You and I have a different idea of filth, my lord.”

“I'm not sure we
do
have a different idea of it.” Chatfield's left leg and foot dabbled in the hot mineral water. “And it's no bad thing to be underestimated, Everett. No bad thing at all. Keep that in mind when you start to feel wronged again.”

“No bad thing,” Joss replied, “as long as the underestimation doesn't limit one.”

They sat side by side in silence, while Joss's thoughts rippled and heated like the water at his back. Everyone had something to grieve, did they not? A leg, a parent, an inconstant lover. There was always something more that could be lost.

Which meant there was always something for which to be grateful.

Chatfield was the first to break the silence. “Here is my fee for helping you. If I find Sutcliffe's blackmailer and you get what you want, you must come and work for me.”

For the second time in a few minutes, words escaped Joss. “I must—what? Why?”

The heavy body breathed a great sigh. “A man cannot live on the interest of a few hundred pounds, or whatever you hope to extract from Lord Sutcliffe as his penance. You must plan to seek a new position. I shall provide it, at double your present salary.”

“Why?” Joss asked again.

The marquess turned to look Joss in the face. Seated side by side as they were, the direct gaze was uncomfortably close. In the low glow of the lamps, his eyes glinted as dark as Joss's own. “Because,” he answered, “you didn't trust me at once. And because to find me, you accepted help from a woman. In the business of collecting information, there is no budget for foolishness and there is no time for senseless pride.”

“I'll think on it.” This might be a lie. It might be true. Joss shook his head, then sprung to his feet. “Truly, I must leave now, my lord. Can I assist you in any other way before I depart?”

Chatfield smiled again, an indulgent twist of lips. “Just think on it. That's all I ask right now.”

***

Taking the long way back to Trim Street, through steeply inclined city streets and around the pie-shaped road of the Circus, Joss thought about it. Step after step, he thought about money and pride, and which was worth more.

He took a break from this musing only to think about another idea Chatfield had planted.
Here
I
am, walking alone at night without fear
. It had never occurred to him to be grateful for the simple state of being male. Healthy. Sufficiently tall and fit—and insufficiently wealthy-looking—to be a target for thieves. Even on a night such as this, when the moon was nothing but a sliver and the sky was like spilled ink.

So long, he had been pinched and lonely and impatient, but he had never really been afraid. Instead, he had assumed there was nothing worthwhile that could be taken from him. But perhaps he was not correct about that.

Hmm, as Chatfield would have said. Hmm.

Yet there was no denying he had never fit into the polite world. Though his blood was too blue and his speech too crisp to place him among servants, his dark skin marked him indelibly as
not
one
of
you
. But he knew little of India beyond the plants once cultivated in the Sutcliffe Hall conservatory, or the black-bound book left behind by his grandmother. All that was left now was
somalata,
the moon plant, which ruled Sutcliffe's every waking hour.

Maybe it was for this reason that he wanted Augusta's secrets. Her trust. Her kisses too, if he were honest.

Neither of them fit tidily into society; neither was quite what the
ton
expected. Not that this meant they had anything in common.

And yet.

A version of himself
with
more
possibilities
open.
Wasn't that everything he wanted too?

Augusta hoped a noisy, luxurious evening at the theater would distract her. She needed distraction badly—not only from the memory of a private conversation with Joss that probably shouldn't have happened, but also from a kiss that
certainly
shouldn't have happened.

And from the realization that she dwelled on both without ever quite getting around to regretting either.

Her gown of blush-colored silk trimmed with glass beads and blond lace had once seemed the height of elegance, yet tonight she recalled how Joss had kissed her when she wore wrinkled cotton. And unfortunately, the performance they attended was
She
Stoops
to
Conquer
. Augusta was not quite in the mood to enjoy a comedy in which the heroine took on a false identity and pretended to be poor, all to win over the heart of the skittish hero.

Not that such a story had anything to do with Augusta. First, because she didn't want to win anyone's heart. And second, because Joss Everett was no more skittish than Augusta was…well, than she was content to sit in a plush seat in Emily's theater box, exchanging whispered inanities with a Mr. Hereford, who had now called twice and who seemed enamored with Mrs. Flowers.

Oh. And third, because Joss was not her hero.

Though he had called her
worthy
. As she lay sleepless that night, balled up under her heavy coverlet, the word echoed within her so often, so long, that she realized how hollow she had let herself become.

***

Having fallen into a restless sleep at an aggravatingly late hour, Augusta pled for a quiet morning at home, and Emily's lady's maid again accompanied the countess to the Pump Room. Augusta preferred to remain alone in the drawing room of their rented house, curled on a settee and idly flipping the pages of one of Emily's fashion periodicals, until she could remove the haggard shadows from beneath her eyes and expunge her most troublesome thoughts.

Mrs. Flowers could not be seen without a smile, for she could not afford even the most solicitous of questions. This was another way Mrs. Flowers failed to serve as the escape Augusta desired: never before had she been unable to afford what she wished.

And as long as she was thinking of questions—what might Joss and Chatfield have said to one another? What would each of them have asked and told?

She snapped the illustrated pages shut, and Emily's plans for a spring wardrobe tumbled to the thick carpet of the drawing room.

Joss and Chatfield had not met for the purpose of discussing Augusta, but surely her name would have come up. Neither man was the type to shy from a subject, especially not one so obvious as
who
helped
us
communicate
with
one
another?

Somehow, she did not like the idea of two men who knew her—the
real
her—talking about her. It took away the control she coveted, that she wanted so desperately to retain.

That afternoon, then, Augusta decided to learn what had happened. If Chatfield and Joss could, as she had put it,
know
things
, surely she could too.

While Emily rested, Augusta sneaked a plain wool cloak from one of the servants, then escaped through the kitchen and darted through the rain-dampened streets. Drizzle was turning to sleet, and though she stayed on the pavement whenever she could, her boots soon became mud-caked and her wool cloak clammy. She clutched the hood tightly beneath her chin, hurrying.

The Bath chair–dragging urchin who had once carried messages to and from Joss had told Augusta where “the dark gov'nuh” kept a room. Trim Street soon stretched before her, narrow and walled in by rows of neat houses. Scraping her boots before she knocked at the one where Joss lodged, she appeared reasonably presentable when the door opened. She handed coins to every servant who spoke to her, and within a few minutes, she was permitted up the stairs.

When she reached the door of the attic room, she hesitated.
Coward.
Her hand rapped at the door.

Footsteps creaked on bare boards, and a familiar low voice called, “A moment, please.” Some thirty seconds later, Joss opened the door, patting his face with a small towel.

“Mmm.” Augusta couldn't hold in her surprised hum—because the Joss before her was stripped down and informal, unlike any man she had ever seen.

With his coat removed, his shirtsleeves were rolled back, exposing corded forearms. His hair was damp, and the short black locks had sprung into an unruly wave. Cravat undone, a bead of water slid down the line of his throat to rest in the hollow of his collarbone.

The towel fell from his hands. “Augusta. Good lord.” He stared at her, then fumbled for the ends of his cravat. “I'm—sorry about this. I thought you must be Sutcliffe.”

“I hear that all the time.” Her voice sounded too high. Awkward. She cleared her throat, then tried again. “You were expecting Sutcliffe?”

“Where Sutcliffe is concerned, I expect anything and everything.” He took hold of her shoulder with his free hand, pressing her back; then he shook his head and tugged her forward instead. “Come in, come in. Only give me a moment to put myself to rights before we speak.”

“That's not necessary.”
Damn.
She hoped her cloak would hide her blush. “I mean, it's not necessary that we speak in private.”

“Are you sure that's what you meant?”

His knowing smile made her want to shake him. Oh, how she could imagine it: grabbing those barely clad shoulders in her fingers and tugging at him as hard as she could. Yanking him roughly close, forceful enough that he knew how in earnest she was, and pressing him against the full length of her body…

Damn again. That wasn't shaking she was thinking of. Clearly the night of poor sleep and the chilly walk had addled her wits.

“Never mind,” she replied. “If it means so much to you, I'll come inside.”

His lips still in a wicked twist, he stood back to give her room to enter the chamber. Before she did, she stalled for a moment, swooping to pick up the fallen towel.
You
shouldn't have come
, snarled the weeds of her darkest thoughts.
What
could
you
possibly
gain? You'll only make things worse for everyone.

Maybe so. But at least she would do so as herself, not Mrs. Flowers.

Joss paused once inside the room. “Have a seat at—ah, the desk, I suppose.”

Against the room's west wall, a writing desk sat beneath the window. Joss pulled forth a plain wooden chair, the only seat in the chamber. Augusta sat, then averted her eyes from the flurry of movement at the other side of the room—Joss, tying his cravat and shrugging back into his coat. Atop the desk, a stack of letters and thin old ledgers, a blotter, and writing implements had been shoved to one side to make room for a stoneware basin and shaving kit. This explained the damp hair, the towel to his face. The rolled-up sleeves and the forbidden sight of olive skin.

Sleet tapped at the small glass panes of the window. Outside, the sky was a silvery gray. Pushing back the hood of her cloak, Augusta breathed in deeply, settling herself.

Sandalwood.
The scent caught her unawares, making her fingers tingle. “Earlier today, I wrote to the Meredith Beauty trustees about a new scented oil taking hold in fashionable circles,” she babbled. “The idea was inspired by you. By the—your—I noticed that—well. If one of our translucent soaps was imbued with sandalwood, surely men would use it. Not all soaps need smell like flowers.”

“So says Mrs. Flowers?” Joss spoke up from behind her. “I do agree about the raw masculinity of sandalwood oil. It is an irresistible scent. Whenever I wear a bit of it on my person, people of all classes flock to do my bidding.”

His voice leaped lightly over the words—yet when he said
do
my
bidding
, heat squeezed Augusta's belly.

“I had just finished shaving when you called,” Joss explained. “If Sutcliffe did not call upon me this afternoon, I planned to visit him after dinner.”

“Most of the men I know take pride in having a manservant shave them.”

“Well, now you know a different sort of man. I neither take nor give pride, but keep it all for myself.”

“Yes,” she said. “Your damnable pride; so you've told me. I meant it only as an observation, not a criticism.” Of course he kept no manservant. Not if he stayed in quarters like this. Which meant he was alone, daily and nightly.

The idea of such solitude was startling. She turned it over, savoring it as one might a boiled sweet. Would it become lonely? Or was it a relief to drop all pretense?

Both, she thought. Almost certainly both.

“Is it too much to hope you meant it as praise?” he asked. “Remember, I possess sandalwood oil, which makes me a paragon of masculinity. And certainly a paragon can shave his own jaw.”

“A paragon can do whatever he likes, can he not?”

“Can he?” His sardonic brow lifted.
Whatever
he
likes
. Did his thoughts turn, as did hers, to their desperate kiss? To what might come next, should they kiss again?

Her breasts felt sensitive, full and eager for touch within her frail pink bodice. She drew in a deep breath which did nothing to calm her, then turned away. Eyes alighting on the basin atop the desk, she asked, “Have you finished with this water?”

When he answered in the affirmative, she stretched forward to tip the basin's contents out the window, imagining that her fluttering uncertainty sluiced down to earth with the water. She then handed Joss the broad stoneware bowl. Eyeing the ceiling, he carried the basin to a particular spot and set it on the floor.

“The ceiling sometimes drips at this spot,” he explained. “The basin will catch it.” When he faced her again, he added, “I do apologize for my unruly appearance when I greeted you.”

“It was an unexpected eyeful, but you carried it off well. As you and I both know, you are a paragon of masculinity.” She paused but could not suppress her smile. “You have now apologized twice for your state at the time of my unexpected arrival, which is more my fault than yours. I am beginning to wonder, Joss, if a guilty conscience plagues you.”

“Many things plague me, my dear fake widow. But a guilty conscience is not generally one of them.”

She had just spoken his name, and suddenly she wanted him to call her by nothing but her own. “Please don't call me that anymore.”

“What? ‘My dear fake widow'?”

“Yes. If you say it again, I shall throw you out the window after your shaving water.”

Drawing close to her, he looked down at her with a smile. Oh, she had kissed those incorrigible lips, had kissed them as though he held all the air she needed, all the warmth she craved. “You don't believe me?” she said, a bit breathless. “I will. I'm horribly strong.”

“Oh, I know you are. You've grabbed at me more than once, you wicked woman. I was just getting a look at the dimensions of the window. It's rather small; I don't think you'll be able to stuff me through the frame. So sorry.”

He remained near her, fingertips resting lightly on the edge of the desk. His nails were short and blunt, his hands darkly tanned. When he stood this close, she could breathe in his sandalwood again; just a hint of it made her skin tingle, wanting more of his kisses. Anywhere. Everywhere.

Which made her heart pound with fear.
You
are
so
close
to
losing
yourself
.

Augusta wasn't sure where to look. Her eyes fastened on the window muntins, but then she didn't want to seem as though she was self-consciously avoiding the sight of Joss, so she looked at the grate of the fireplace tucked near one corner. Coals had fallen low, casting little warmth and light. Across the room, a large trunk had been shoved against the wall. Joss had left the shaving kit atop it, a hint of unexpected intimacy. Above the trunk, a glass in a tarnished silver frame hung on the wall. No doubt it had once been lovely, but it was now cracked horizontally, fragmenting anything reflected in its depths.

Besides this, there was only a bed stretched against the wall opposite the door. And near her stood Joss, his head almost touching the sloping ceiling. Looking down at her as though waiting for a verdict.

“Do sit,” she said.

One of his black brows arched. “I presume you do not intend for me to drop into your lap. Will you be scandalized if I sit on the bed?” When she shook her head, he seated himself on the jewel-blue quilt. Boots braced on the floor, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on the hard line of his thighs. “I realize this room is not as lovely as your lodgings in Queen Square. I will do you the credit of assuming you realize that too.”

“It's not the same sort of space. But—I like it. Everything in this room serves a purpose.”

Coffee-dark eyes studied her. “If you say so. To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”

“I wondered how your meeting with Lord Chatfield went. I came to see if all was well.”

“We talked about you a great deal, if that's what you want to know.”

This surprised a laugh from her. “Yes. That's what I was wondering.”

Does
he
blame
me or think me foolish or wrong? Do you? What do you think of me?
Her lips parted, but the questions died unspoken. Good or bad, she was not ready for the answers.

It's not the answer that matters, only the question.
Sitting in the corner of her father's study with a bit of pencil and paper and ears open for knowledge, she had so often heard the marquess speak those words. Her father always laughed his big laugh and told Chatfield the answer mattered plenty if it could be turned to a profit. And often it could: a sweet-scented profit in rose extracts and spices and the smooth oil from sheep's wool.