Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress (3 page)

“You trust me to toss you into the bed of someone you hardly know?”

“You mistake the matter. I simply ask you to share any relevant information you learn. If there is to be any throwing of my person into a bed, I shall do it.”

He blinked. “Had I to guess what, of all the sentences in the world, you might utter next, I confess that is not the sentence I would have selected.”

“Ah. So I surprise you?”

“My dear fake widow—I mean, Augusta—after years in the employment of Lord Sutcliffe, it takes a great deal to surprise me.” He raised his brows. “But yes, you do.”

“And you surprise me, Joss. No,
don't
say I honor you, because I'm not sure I do. Though I do think you're unusual.”

“You are right about that.” Leaning his head against the wall, he looked up at the great crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. “I wonder how many of those crystals and candles would equal my annual salary.”

“I…ah.” Some reply seemed necessary, but Augusta had no idea what it might be. She was unaccustomed to thinking in terms of
salary
or
how
many
. With a fortune as vast as hers, sums were meaningless. One simply bought and owned.

“Very well, Augusta. I shall tell you my business.” He opened his eyes again, leaving his gaze fixed upon the tiny relentless suns of the chandelier. “Someone in Bath possesses information he ought not. For this information, he requires payment.”

She understood at once. “You're being blackmailed.”

“Not I, but my employer. I cannot be specific about the reason; you must see that.”

Curiosity burned within her, but she managed to sound calm. “Of course.”

“My employer has insufficient funds to pay off the blackmailer. To raise the money, I must sell an interest in the coal lands he owns in northern Somersetshire. Bath's foundries need fuel, so he hopes I shall find a buyer here. And I retain the fantasy that I shall find the blackmailer, somehow, and make such a payment unnecessary.”

“I had no idea men of business handled such tasks.”

“They do not, usually. I believe I am unique. Perhaps because I'm family of a sort.” His brow furrowed. “Or because Lord Sutcliffe is not a typical employer. I assure you, I also carry out the usual sort of interference in his correspondence and engagements.”

Joss pushed himself to his feet, then extended a hand to Augusta. “I shall not tell your secret, you know. Your business in Bath is your own, whether you choose to help me or not.”

“I—” She cut herself off, not quite believing him, not knowing how to say so. She had not been well served in the past for her faith in a handsome young man.

“Not certain how to reply? You could say, ‘Thank you, Joss. How very kind you are.'”

She muttered something profane.

“Dear me. That did
not
sound like ‘Thank you, Joss. How very—'”

“Stop.” She stood facing him, letting the crowd in the Octagon Room flow past in all directions. “Joss. Mr. Everett. In Bath, as Mrs. Flowers, I cannot use Miss Meredith's money or knowledge. At least let me share the latter with you. I cannot trust you without some collateral.”

“You don't believe I shall hold my tongue? That's all right. It's not the worst thing that has ever been believed of me.” His mouth made the shape of a smile, but there was nothing of humor in it.

It was an expression she knew well: a mind trying to ignore the tangle of its own thoughts, a face trying to hide what was on its mind.

Surely she could do business with a man whose face took on such an expression. She could trust him as much—or as little—as she trusted herself.

“Then we have a bargain?” Augusta folded her arms, cold again. “Joss.”

“Yes, I suppose we do.”

The Assembly Rooms closed at the early hour of eleven o'clock; even so, Augusta expected to find the rented house in Queen Square all but bedded down for the night. Lady Tallant, Augusta's hostess and friend, had been instructed by physicians in both London and Bath to take a great deal of rest.

Lady Tallant rarely did as ordered.

Thus, when Augusta bade the servants close up the house for the night, then tiptoed up the stairs to her bedchamber—
damn
, she had forgotten that the third step creaked—she found the young countess stretched out on a settee, pretending to read.

“Lady Tallant. Emily.” Augusta stopped short, then glanced around to make certain she had entered the correct room of the rented house. Yes, this was her chamber: dark brown wallpaper printed with trellises, and an equally dark flowered carpet stretching across the floor. Emily's room was done in shades of blue. “You ought to be asleep; you should not have waited up for me. Or did I wake you when I returned home?”

“Of course you didn't wake me.” Without even glancing at her book, the countess shut it and let it fall to the carpet with a muffled thump. “In London, this is practically midafternoon. I should be finishing my tea right now and thinking about which dress I'd like to wear for dinner.”

Augusta said nothing. She simply raised an eyebrow, a trick she'd recently seen Joss Everett put to good use.

“You're trying to intimidate me. It can't be done, I'm sorry to tell you.” Emily subsided against the settee, clutching her peach-colored dressing gown more tightly around her form. The lamplight gilded her brown hair and hid the too-pale cast of her complexion, though there was no disguising the shadows under her eyes. “I'm a countess and an invalid, and therefore, I can do whatever I wish. Besides, this was your first Bath assembly and I must hear all about it.”

“You'll go to bed right away afterward?”

“I will if what you tell me is boring. If it's extremely boring, maybe I'll go to sleep right here.”

Augusta relented with a smile and seated herself in a slipper chair facing Lady Tallant. About five years Augusta's senior, the countess had befriended her in London the previous season. Their polite chatter at a ball had turned into an invitation to call, and another, and another. That had been around the same time Augusta had first met Josiah Everett. Joss. A man of nicknames and unreadable, dark eyes and acid humor.

A man of kind hands and unexpected honor.

Augusta cleared her throat. “The rooms were crowded. I joined in several country dances.”

Emily faked a snore.

“And,” Augusta added, “I met an acquaintance of ours.”

Emily's green eyes grew wide. “Indeed? Was it a handsome male bachelor sort of acquaintance?”

“Not exactly.” The fire had been built high for Emily's comfort; Augusta stretched her slippered feet toward it with feigned nonchalance. “I mean—yes, he was a bachelor male. And some might think him handsome, too. Mr. Josiah Everett.”

“
Some
might think him handsome? I suppose some might, at that. You offer no opinion on the matter, I note.” Emily's lips pressed together with suspicious humor. “He has black hair, which is a point in his favor.”

Emily's husband, Lord Tallant, was also dark-haired. Their marriage was a happy one, though the earl and the couple's two young sons had remained in London during Emily's convalescence.

Shrewd eyes met Augusta's. “And did he have the good sense to dance with you?”

“Yes, but only because I forced him to. And that was only because he was at hand when I needed not to dance with someone else.”

“So neither of you wanted to dance together, yet you accomplished the matter all the same. Well done, my dear.” Emily beamed, and the shadows under her eyes seemed less dark for a moment. “Mr. Everett enjoys a bit of intellectual sparring, if I recall correctly.”

“About that.” Augusta began tugging at the fingertips of her gloves. “I have a confession to make.”

Emily raised herself to one elbow. “That you're pretending to be a widow named Mrs. Flowers? Or is there something else you wish to confess?”

A glove shook free and fluttered to the floor. “Uh. I. Yes, that's—that's basically all.”

“Basically all,” Emily repeated. “All right. I can be satisfied with that.”

“How did you know?”

The countess gave an airy wave. “I bestirred myself to the Pump Room this morning to try the famous mineral water and thought I'd sign the guest book while I was there. The master of ceremonies informed me that my young friend had already seen to the matter and showed me the entry.” She frowned. “The water is quite nasty, by the by. It looks like old milk and smells like old eggs. I must assume something so foul is doing my health some good.”

“Yes,” Augusta said vaguely. Anything she said might be too much, now that Emily knew Augusta had taken advantage of the countess's benevolence.

“Shall I ask why you are passing under a false name?” Emily's light eyes caught Augusta's for just a moment before Augusta bent, scrabbling for her fallen glove.
Coward
. “No, I shan't press you. We all need to flee ourselves sometimes. Though if you wish to tell me what has caused your flight, I shall be glad to hear it.”

The second unexpected kindness of the evening, following Joss Everett's insistence that he would keep her secret. Which was, apparently, not nearly so much of a secret as it ought to have been.

Now, and many a time before, the countess would have been within her rights to cut Augusta's acquaintance. But Emily's goodwill was unstinting.

“Thank you, ma'am. I suppose I did need to flee myself, and becoming a widow seemed as good a way as any to do that.” Augusta straightened, glove in hand, and blurted, “Do you ever regret marrying Lord Tallant?”

The young countess leaned back against the settee again, her gaze drifting to the plaster roundel on the ceiling, then to the fireplace. “I don't think,” she began slowly, “there's an honest woman alive who doesn't sometimes regret her marriage. Human beings can be so irritating, and when both spouses are irritating at once—well.” She smiled. “But I am fortunate not to be troubled, as so many are, by financial worries or by mistrust of my husband. So the irritating moments pass, and we are still married, and I am glad of it. The permanence of marriage is one of its finest qualities, if one is married to a good man.”

And
if
one
was
not…
marrying a bad man would make a prison of each day. How could a woman ever know? A man could fake a smile indefinitely, unless some accident forced him to show his true face.

It was better to leave marriage to women with less money and more power. A false widowhood was quite enough for Augusta.

“Ought I to worry about you? Are you troubled by regrets?” Emily's voice was quiet.

“No more than usual.” Augusta made herself smile, meeting her friend's eye. A quick image of Joss flashed into her mind, how he had appeared regretful as he declined her offer. She was unsuited to a dishonorable liaison, he thought.

Yet once Colin Hawford had thought her unsuited to an honorable one. So really, she was suited for…nothing. Always, she had been in between. Caught between trade and society, between the life she'd been born to and the one her parents wanted her to have.

We
all
need
to
flee
ourselves
sometimes
, said Emily. Yet Joss had insisted there was no way to do so; that Augusta was still herself, no matter how she might pretend to be a merry widow. And if he was right, there was nowhere she could go to get away. No name she might adopt that would let her be free.

Enough. Enough. She had dwelled on this enough for today.

“Shall I read to you, Emily?” she offered, noticing the weariness that tugged at the countess's lids.

“That would be lovely,” her friend replied, shutting her eyes.

Augusta rose, picked up the volume Emily had dropped, and settled herself on the floor next to the settee. “It's William Blake. Is that all right?”

Emily nodded, a sliver of movement. “Read ‘Infant Joy.'”

Augusta turned the pages until she found the correct poem. This edition reproduced Blake's paintings, and the words were tucked within an illustration of a fire-red flower cradling a mother and infant, a haloed angel blessing them.

“
I
have
no
name
,” she read.

“I am but two days old.

What shall I call thee?

I happy am,

Joy is my name.

Sweet joy befall thee!”

“Stop,” said Emily. “Stop. Stop reading.”

Augusta looked up from the small volume. Emily's eyes were still closed, but a tear had trickled beneath her lid, tracing the hollow of her cheek.

“I think I ought to go to bed.” The countess's voice was choked and flat. “I shouldn't have waited up so late.”

To repay her friend's kindness, Augusta refrained from saying
I
told
you
so
. Instead, she helped Emily to rise to her feet; she pretended not to notice the second tear that followed the first, or the ones that came afterward.

Emily's much-wanted daughter had no name, had never drawn a breath. And just as Augusta had held Emily's hand after the terrible loss a month earlier, she held it again now, leading her down the corridor and settling Emily into her own night-blue room.

Augusta helped the countess climb the steps to the bed, then drew the counterpane up to her thin shoulders. “I'm here, Emily. If you wish to talk, I shall be glad to hear it.”

The echo of Emily's own offer seemed to rouse the countess. “You know why I asked you to accompany me to Bath, Augusta?”

“Yes.” Augusta sat on the edge of the bed. “You wanted company during your recovery.”

A pause followed, though the room was too dark for Augusta to read her friend's expression. “I did want company. But were it only that, I could have traveled here with my husband and sons. Though I now I miss them terribly, I never considered bringing them along.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they remind me of what I've lost.” Emily raised herself onto her elbows and stared at the glowing coal fire. “Of all the friends I could have invited, you were the one whose companionship I wanted. Because you understand what loss means.”

Oh.
“Yes,” Augusta said again. Though this fire, like the one in her own room, was built up high, her fingers had gone numb. Her feet, her toes. The stone of her heart.

“You know,” Emily said, “how loss can make a person feel mad. Or how it can show her sides of herself she never knew she possessed.”

Augusta felt Emily's words not as a reprimand, but as a plea for understanding. “Loss can make a person reckless.”

Loss could slash a person with a grief so deep, she might throw away all the good she possessed and let it burn. Not caring. Not wanting to care. Not wanting to feel anything; willing to pursue any promise of oblivion.

Yet that promise, along with so many others, had been broken. Oblivion had never yet been hers.

“You should go to sleep now,” Augusta said, and Emily lay down again without a word of argument.

Simply revealing
what
brought them here had been difficult enough. Neither of them was ready to talk about
why
yet, or
how
they would move beyond this house, this time away from the world they knew.

As Augusta crept from the room and back down the silent corridor to her own chamber, the sardonic face of Joss Everett came to mind. He had named himself her ally, yet he had picked at her character. Taunted her, even. Why? What did it serve? Maybe he felt she had taunted him first by implying he wasn't trustworthy.

She should have told him that no one was trustworthy. No one but Lady Tallant. And once upon a time, Augusta's parents, lost so suddenly.

Certainly not Augusta herself.

Handsome and unpredictable as he was, the idea of taking Joss Everett as a lover had a sort of brute appeal. But it terrified Augusta as much as it enticed her. He would not be satisfied to take her body and leave the rest of her alone.

It was better that he had said no. For his sake…and for hers.

***

He couldn't believe he had declined Augusta Meredith's offer.

Joss regarded himself in the cracked glass over his battered trunk, tugging his cravat free with careful fingers. He hadn't the linens to spare for spoiled neckcloths, nor the coin for unnecessary starching and laundering. As deliberately as he had knotted the cloth earlier, so did he now coax free its folds and lay it flat.

His lodging was like his dress: outwardly adequate, secretly scrimping. He had taken a room on respectable Trim Street—but in the top story of the building, a narrow chamber to the side of the house. The walls and ceiling sloped beneath the mansard roof, and the plaster walls were unpapered, the floor of bare wood. Mildew had made a spot on the ceiling, and the room smelled faintly of damp during the near-ceaseless drizzle. Had this building belonged to a single family, Joss's room would be in the servants' quarters.

Well. That was what he was, wasn't he? For now. Maybe not for much longer, if he had his way.

If
he
had
his
way.
He turned aside from the glass, disgusted with the blurred, cracked surface that made a horror of his face. Only too much would he like to have his way with Augusta Meredith. She wore costly bespoke silks as carelessly as other women might pin on a nosegay. She moved with determination, yet possessed a heartbreaking uncertainty. She was ripe for seduction; she
asked
to be seduced.