Lady Notorious (Royal Rewards #4) Page 5

  “Cor,” she said, impressed. “Right, then.”

  As Cass bent over a desk and scribbled a few lines about Fox’s arrangement with Janey, she heard the younger woman murmuring, “At. Tone. Mint. Atone. Munt. Attun. Ment.” Trying out the syllables, as if getting accustomed to the idea.

  Cass folded the paper, then pushed through the gate and handed the note to Janey. “Thanks,” she said. “Truly. Charles will be cheered up, seeing you.”

  “At. Own. Mint,” Janey answered with a nod, taking the paper. “Every other day until he’s on his feet agin.”

  She slipped through the crowd with the ease of a born thief. Cass took her own leave then, the cursed valise bumping her leg again with every step. She’d wait outside the courtroom for the ducal carriage, and . . . and soon she’d become someone else. She’d fool the ton. Collect their secrets. Save the Duke of Ardmore.

  Keep Charles’s job.

  It wasn’t that much to handle. Right? She’d come up with something.

  She always did.

  Chapter Four

  “This is such a pretty house,” said Miss Benton as George welcomed her into the entrance hall of Ardmore House.

  At least, that’s what George thought she said. Her lips shaped the words, but her voice was almost entirely drowned out by the barking of the Duke of Ardmore’s dogs.

  Everyone who lived here was accustomed to the dogs’ snarls and growls. Though she’d called here before, Miss Benton was not. As their rumpus rang down the stairs, a wave of sound to which they treated the world almost every time someone arrived at the house, her brows drew together. “What a greeting,” were the words shaped by her lips.

  George leaned in closer, speaking into her ear. “You hear the dulcet tones of Gog and Magog. My father’s dogs. They stay with him in his study and dislike everything.”

  “Rather like Charles,” she replied. “Except for the bit about the study.”

  “Pardon me for a moment.” George held up a finger, an I’ll-be-right-back gesture, and darted up the stairs. On the first floor of the house, along with the music room and drawing room and a scattering of other chambers, was the duke’s study.

  If George wanted to see his father outside a gaming hell, this was the place to do so. Ardmore spent almost all his hours at home in here—when he wasn’t dining, of course, or dressing for the day. The long hours were entirely unjustified by the slight amount of attention he paid his dukedom, though George supposed it still took time and effort to review a steward’s letters and scrawl a reply, even of great brevity.

  George poked his head into the duke’s favorite room, and the cacophony made by the dogs increased. The two great hounds almost covered the floor of the study, a small chamber dominated by a desk, behind which the duke was sitting. Letters and invitations and bills littered the desk. Tradesmen, of course. Ardmore paid his gambling debts at once, which meant haberdashers and grocers had to wait ever longer.

  Also dominant in the space was a large painting behind the desk. Until the previous year, the duke had long displayed a study by Botticelli. Three mostly naked women dancing by moonlight; George had liked the picture quite well. But Ardmore had traded it to the crime lord Angelus in payment for gambling debts. Only some of the duke’s debts, unfortunately, and they’d since mounted again.

  There was no shortage of paintings to take the place of the naked dancing women. Expensive oils in gilded frames hung thickly on every wall of Ardmore House. Art was the only thing the duke loved as much as a deck of cards.

  Maybe this was why he’d now hung a painting that combined the two. A Dutch piece from the 1500s, it showed two men and a woman—all with distressed expressions—playing some sort of card game. George liked this one, too. The hats were excellent. The man on the left looked like he was wearing an artist’s palette on his head, and the woman sported a bath sheet. The other man stared at them both with an expression of froglike dismay.

  “Hullo, Froggy,” George said to the painted man. “Eight of spades? You’ll never win anything with that.”

  Ardmore’s jaw clenched. This was his only reaction, ever, to George’s greeting.

  To be fair, George had in fact greeted a painted man several centuries his father’s senior. He turned now to the duke. “Father. Our guest is here. Can’t you calm the dogs?”

  The duke eyed George balefully. He’d been skeptical of George’s suspicions about the tontine from the start; the stabbing of Lord Deverell had convinced him only grudgingly that there might be something in the matter. But the installing of an investigator in his own household was, to quote, “foolishness. A lot of rough talk and dirty boots.”

  When George explained the investigator was, in fact, a young woman who spoke politely and wore clean boots, the duke had turned an interesting shade of red. Only assuring His Grace that the guest was a friend of Lady Isabel Jenks—which was almost the truth, since Miss Benton had once worked with Lady Isabel’s husband, Callum—had returned the duke’s complexion to its normal shade.

  He looked a little ruddy again as George asked him to calm the dogs, both of whom were bristling at George as though they’d rather like to break the line of succession. “Sit,” said the duke. Two great sets of haunches went down, though the barking and growling continued.

  “That’ll have to do,” said the duke. “They’ll quiet down soon enough.”

  Those damned dogs. George shut the study door, shaking his head to clear some of the racket out of it, then descended the stairs again. His father was right: the animals were beginning to quiet. By the time George reached the entrance hall again, he could almost ignore their snarls.

  “Sorry about that,” he said to Cass. “I thought we’d like to be able to use our ears. Hullo, someone’s taken your valise.”

  “Yes, the butler greeted me. He said he’d have it brought to the green bedchamber. Then he said he’d bring tea to the drawing room, but I told him it was all right and I’d just wait for you here.”

  George had prepared the staff for the arrival of a “family visitor.” Miss Benton had been retrieved from Bow Street in one of the duke’s crested carriages, as George thought it best to begin making a show of her presence in the household.

  Now that the dogs were reasonably quiet, he could try again to welcome her. “Come on up, then, to the drawing room. We’ll sort out what to do next. Unless you want to rest first?”

  “No need for that,” she said. “I’m working for you. Let us begin.”

  As she spoke, she looked everywhere: up at the ceiling that soared above the entrance; down at the marble floor and the sculpted treads of the staircase. “I’ve never thought of Ardmore House as a place I might stay.”

  “And I didn’t imagine I’d be living here at my advanced age, yet here we both are,” George replied, ushering her up the stairs.

  “How pretty,” Miss Benton said again as they climbed past thickly clustered oil paintings framed in gilt, past polished wood and ornate plaster medallions traced in gold and heavy printed wall hangings. It was a compliment utterly simple, and sincere in its simplicity. She wasn’t trying to impress; she was merely noticing.

  As they settled in the airy drawing room, he found himself appreciating the prettiness of it—the overwrought, overdone, undeniable comfort of it—as he usually did not.

  “Tea for you?” he asked when they had settled in a pair of striped-silk chairs before the fire. It was a warm day and the flames were low, but the scent of crackling wood was pleasant.

  She waved off the offer of refreshment. “I’m all right. Let’s sort out the details of my presence here. Who am I to be—did you decide? Your bastard cousin?”

  “Half cousin. I plan to blame your get upon my grandfather, the previous duke.”

  A corner of her mouth lifted. “Dear me. The roots of this tale go back a long way.”

  “Everyone will believe it. The old duke had a weakness for women, just as my father does for cards and dice.” He frowned, wishing for a te
acup to occupy his hands. “I used to think it was funny.”

  “You need a shocking vice of your own. Then you would enjoy those of others more.”

  “I’ve been called lazy,” he offered.

  “Not exciting enough. No one is shocked by laziness in a ducal heir.”

  That stung a bit. “Perhaps I can begin smoking opium,” he replied lightly, “but we’ll wait on that until matters are more settled. I do apologize for delegitimizing you—is that a word?”

  She was utterly unflappable. “You’ve made me a bastard. It’s quite all right to say so frankly. I suppose my scandalous birth is so that I won’t have appeared in society or Debrett’s, and no one will know me.”

  “Exactly.” She was admirably quick. “Where have you been living all these years, oh bastard cousin of mine?”

  “I’d best be from the wilds of England—otherwise I shall have to know another language. I was raised in a village nobody in London has heard of.”

  “Very good, to say it with that sort of self-deprecating air. It shuts off questions.”

  She tapped the side of her nose, smiling. “I’m twenty-six. Does the mathematics work out for me to be your grandfather’s daughter, or should I become a different age?”

  “Yes, it’s possible. The old roué was playing about with younger women until the day he died, when I was probably five or so.” He counted on his fingers. “You’d have been two then; no need for an aging potion. The last of his by-blows, maybe? What an honor for you.”

  She lifted a ruddy brow. “Was it necessary for you to do arithmetic using your fingers?”

  “I use my fingers for all sorts of things, Miss Benton. None of them are strictly necessary.”

  She didn’t even blink. “An intriguing topic, but perhaps we’d better keep to the one at hand.”

  One of her hands slipped into her pocket. She had a watch in there, or something of that size. Through the gown fabric, he saw the outline of a little case as her fingers turned it.

  She sat for a moment as if in thought, then withdrew her hand from her dress pocket. “You’d best call me Cass since we’re to pose as family. And my false name had best be Cassandra too, or I’ll always be forgetting to answer to it.”

  “Ah, Cassandra. The doomed prophetess.”

  “Not doomed. Cursed. No one believed her, though she was always right.”

  He granted this. His recall of Greek myth was imperfect at best. “My Christian name is George,” he said. “You are welcome to use it. It’s everywhere and means nothing interesting. How do you like yours?”

  “It’s fine. I’m not always right, but people believe me.”

  “One generally is believed when one admits to human frailty,” he replied. “Very well. You remain Cass. What is your last name for the time being?”

  “Hmm. How about something intriguingly foreign? But similar to Benton, so I won’t entirely forget to answer to that, too.”

  George cast about for names from the gothic novels he sometimes enjoyed. “Ben . . . Ber . . . Bah . . . hmm. Perhaps Benedetti?”

  “Benedetti it shall be,” she approved. “I was swept off my feet by a dashing Italian who proved cruel, and I have fled back to the bosom of my ancestral family.”

  “The very thing to explain your hurried arrival and lack of belongings.”

  “I am resourceful,” she preened. “One has to be if one is to escape a cruel husband.”

  “Should we be expecting this dreadful individual to chase after you?”

  “No, indeed.” Her lips trembled, but her eyes were merry. “He lost all interest in me once he realized I had no fortune. He even paraded his mistresses before me.”

  “The blackguard.” George stood, extending a hand to Cass. “You’ll need a ring if you’re married. Let me find something while you get settled into your bedchamber. The butler can show you to it, and you can share my mother’s lady’s maid. I’ll begin introducing you now, Signora Benedetti.”

  “A ‘missus’ will do,” she said as she rose. “I’m as English as you are, and there’s no way to pretend otherwise.”

  She placed her hand in his. He remembered, fleetingly, how he’d touched his tongue to her palm. What had he been thinking?

  He hadn’t been thinking; he’d simply done what he wished on the impulse of the moment. In this particular moment, another impulse led him to press her fingertips with his.

  She pressed back. It was rather like a secret code, though he wasn’t sure what it meant.

  George rang for the butler and introduced the previously unnamed family guest as a connection of the late duke’s, a Mrs. Benedetti. Bayliss was not without understanding of the previous duke’s foibles. With a significant glance and a “Very good, my lord,” he led Cass to the green bedchamber. It had belonged to George’s sister before her marriage the previous year; all the more appropriate for a guest who was a relation.

  Not that Cass really was. And with her wry, musical voice and bright mind, there was no danger George would forget that Cassandra Benton was unrelated to him by blood.

  On the floor above the drawing room, George’s parents had their suite of rooms. He knocked on the door to the duchess’s chamber, not really expecting an answer. At this hour of the day, his mother was always in twilight: half-asleep, mostly unaware.

  When he eased the door to Her Grace’s chamber open, he saw that he was correct. The duchess lay in bed, though the curtains were open to daylight and she wore a morning gown. The room, like the rest of Ardmore House, was scrupulously clean, yet a dusty scent as of old dried flowers hung in the air.

  “Mother,” he said—again, not really expecting an answer—“I need to borrow a ring from you.”

  He’d have to get her lady’s maid to unlock the jewelry box. George found Gatiss in the dressing room. She was a steady woman of late middle age who was mending a rent in the seam of one of the duchess’s garments. In recent years, she’d rarely been asked for any errand related to jewelry; thus she arose eagerly, taking up the jewel case key and returning with it and George to the duchess’s chamber.

  “But Lily died,” murmured Her Grace from across the room as her maid unlocked the jewel case. “Why do you need a ring if she died?”

  George went very still. Gatiss, too, froze, her hand atop the jewel case. Of all the times for his mother to emerge from twilight into reality.

  Yes, George had been betrothed once. And the lady had died. So George hadn’t needed a ring for her, after all.

  It was an old loss. By now it hurt only like the memory of a wound. The scar was tight where it had healed, sometimes tugging on the unhurt parts of him.

  Slowly, George turned. Though she still reclined on the bed, his mother’s eyes were open and clear. He had almost forgotten that their color was blue, like his own.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Lily died years ago. I don’t need the ring for Lily.”

  Her hands moved vaguely, plucking at the heavy lace that adorned the neck of her gown. “Who are you going to wed, then? I have heard nothing of it.”

  “No one, Mother. It is for something that will help a family member.” He toyed with sending Gatiss away and explaining the plan with Cass to the duchess, as he had to the grudging duke, but Her Grace was already closing her eyes again.

  “Have the ring with the emerald.” Her voice was quiet again, drifting away. “No one has worn it for years, yet it is very pretty.”

  There. He had his mother’s blessing, though she knew not for what. He turned back to Gatiss.

  “Open the case, please,” he said. “Whatever this emerald ring is, I will have it.” Some explanation was in order so he could control the story down in the servants’ hall. He thought about what would cleave nearest the truth and also nearest the story the butler had already heard.

  “A near relative of the old duke,” he said delicately, “is staying with us for her protection from a cruel husband. She fled without her ring or most of her belongings, but I should like her resp
ectable married status to be clear.”

  “Of course, my lord,” said Gatiss, as if there was nothing strange about what George had said. He took the ring she indicated, slipped it in his pocket, then left the duchess’s chamber and pounded upstairs to the remaining family rooms. Here he had his own bedchamber and the room for his experiments, and down the corridor was the green-papered room that would now belong to Cass.

  She wasn’t in there, nor was there any sign of her presence. The counterpane stretched white and pristine across the bed, and her belongings had already been stowed out of sight.

  He looked about for her and located her in his second room, the one he had appropriated as a condition of moving back into the family home. It was the smallest of the bedchambers, dominated by a long, wide window that faced north and caught slanted sun at all hours. The window was framed by heavy draperies that could be drawn to block light when needed.

  The space was furnished simply, with a chair before a long table holding his camerae obscurae. A set of narrow shelves ran the length and height of a full wall. On those shelves, he kept special papers, along with chemical concoctions in carefully labeled bottles of amber glass. The lamps that bookended the worktable were also shaded in amber glass. It was the sort least likely to be affected by sunlight or to interfere with a dark-roomed experiment.

  Cass was lifting the lid of the larger camera obscura when George spoke. “Nosing around?”

  She didn’t start; she didn’t even flinch. She only looked over her shoulder at him. “Did you expect anything less?”

  “No. At least, I shouldn’t have.” He slouched against the door frame, bracing a shoulder against it. “You might as well have the run of the house while you’re here, just as I do.”

  She closed the wooden lid gently, looking thoughtful. In the diffuse light from the window, she looked sharply cut: a straight nose, a graceful neck. Her shoulders were square in her simple gown, her golden red hair coolly lit like a crown.