Lady Notorious (Royal Rewards #4) Read online

  “I decided not to bring my cat this time,” she reassured the butler. “Ardmore’s dogs are intolerably rude to poor Titan. She stays at home with Lord Wexley.”

  Amazingly, the dogs held their peace at the sound of this arrival.

  George motioned for Cass to follow him, and they descended the stairs to greet Selina. George’s only sibling, Selina had always been cheerfully delighted with her place in life. She had wed the previous year at the age of twenty-one, and the young Lady Wexley was now yet more delighted with her husband and household. She had pounced upon the scheme to introduce Cass into society and had brought over—George peered through the open front door with dismay—far more gowns than one person should be expected to own.

  Cass looked a little glassy-eyed as footmen carried in the drapes and swags of fabric. Selina directed them up to the drawing room as having the best light.

  “It’s all just fabric,” she excused with a little shrug. “Wexley plays with grain futures or some such thing. How can he begrudge me my own fun with clothing?”

  “Admirable husband,” George agreed. “A very wise man.”

  “Mrs. Benedetti,” Selina added with a wink, “I wanted to have you come to my household, because I was sure one of the footmen was stealing the spoons. But then I caught Titan at it, so all was well. Yet now I get to have you around anyway, just as I wished.”

  Cass blinked. George rather enjoyed seeing her so discombobulated, since he’d never witnessed anything shake her calm before. “Why . . . would you want that?” she managed.

  Selina leaned in close—mindful of the servants brushing by with yet more clothing, George was glad to see. He leaned in too, listening. “You helped to save my husband’s life,” murmured Selina simply. “Last year, from that mad girl. You’re a good person to know.”

  Cass seemed not to know what to say to this.

  “I agree,” said George, enjoying his own part in flustering Miss Benton.

  When at last Selina’s carriage had disgorged its final gown and trunk full of unmentionables, everyone went upstairs to the drawing room. As the largest chamber, it would do for a makeshift modiste’s shop, especially since the duchess did not intend to receive callers today.

  Unnoticed by George, Selina’s lady’s maid had also swooped into the household, and she was now draping gowns over every item of furniture in the room.

  Selina stood at the center of it all, tapping her chin. “You’re a bit taller than I—and more slender, you lucky thing. But never mind that. One can do wonders with ribbon and pins, at least if one is my lady’s maid. Cobbett, do what you can with this blue. She will be a dream in it.”

  “Gatiss will help, too,” George said. “I arranged it with her.”

  Selina rounded on him. “Good. Fetch her, then leave us. This is women’s work.”

  George allowed himself to be shoved to the doorway, glancing back at Cass all the while. At the sight of silks and satins draped all around, she’d lost the easy confidence she’d had with the dogs. A pretty blush had pinkened her cheeks.

  As George prepared to shut the door behind him, his sister caught his hand. Her nails bit into the skin as she drew him up short. “I never thought you’d go in for a scheme like this.”

  Selina looked pleased, but he was puzzled. “Like what?”

  “Like, you put a ring on someone’s finger and spend a lot of time with her.”

  Oh. So she’d noticed the emerald ring Cass wore. “Part of the costume,” he said. “Part of the plan. To help Father. That’s all.”

  Selina arched a brow, dark as George’s own, and fixed him with a stare. It was a pity icy blue eyes ran in the family; they were so disconcerting.

  “Besides, you shouldn’t be shocked by the trappings of the plan.” He shook free of her feminine talons. “I’m not afraid of rings. Or women. I was engaged once.”

  “I know.” Selina looked thoughtful. “But that was ages ago. Ever since then, it’s as if you’ve freed yourself of all the scheming parents wanting to marry off their dears. Including our parents. You are the envy of all tonnish bachelors.”

  “Hardly a point for comparison,” he replied. “Ca—Mrs. Benedetti is nothing like Lily. And I’m nothing like the George I was then.”

  Though the truth was, he wasn’t sure of that, because he hardly remembered the George and Lily from eight or nine years before. They’d both been young and free of care and certain that they would always be both. Never would they have worried about their fathers being attacked, or the existence of a wagered fortune that depended on the deaths of men they’d known their whole lives.

  “I’ll summon Gatiss for you now,” he said, and was grateful to let the door shut behind him this time.

  * * *

  After hours of being fitted and poked and pinned into gowns that weren’t her own and that she could never have afforded, Cass felt well and truly like a duke’s bastard.

  She was used to gowns that fastened up the front and stays she could lace up herself. Now, from the skin out, she was dependent on servants to dress her in every stitch she wore. She wasn’t sure if she liked that—but oh, she liked this blue silk gown. It was bright and dark at once, the shade of those expensive blue paints that long-ago artists used on the Virgin’s veil. Short sleeves puffed elegantly at her shoulders; a slim band marked the high waist. And then it was just a clean fall of blue silk, more and more of it, until the hem, which was embroidered lavishly in all the shades of fire.

  It made Cass feel like dancing, kicking up her heels and watching the little flame colors flash and wink in candlelight. But she didn’t know how to dance, and she wasn’t sure if these long white gloves were meant to be above her elbow or bunching below, and the slippers on her feet felt flimsy and frail compared to the practical boots she usually wore. Her hair was twisted in complicated curls, and the duchess’s maid, Gatiss, had cooed with delight as she poked a few amber silk roses into the twists.

  So, yes. A duke’s bastard: between worlds and dressed above her station.

  She found George in his second bedchamber, the experiment room with all the shelves and those wooden boxes he’d called camerae obscurae. The heavy drapes were open, and rosy sunset light spilled into the now-dim room. A metallic smell drifted through the air.

  “Greetings,” she said. “I’ve been as experimented on as any of your papers.”

  When he turned to look at her, she caught her breath.

  Not that George in evening dress was so different from George in day clothing. He always wore a well-tailored coat and one of those fashionably high starched cravats.

  But George in evening clothing, with a small glass bottle of chemicals in his hands and a preoccupied expression on his face and a red sun falling low behind him, was a sight for which she was entirely unprepared. It was a peek at the man beneath the coat and cravat. Trying things, wondering about things, not caring about the hour.

  God, it was an attractive sight. Especially when she noticed his hands in work gloves that were all marked and spattered with mysterious chemicals.

  He blinked, seeming to take a moment to realize where and when he was, then smiled a greeting. “Are you worried about this evening?”

  She stroked the line of the gown, waist to hip. “No one in such beautiful silks could be worried. If I dressed like this all the time, I would be a pillar of unshakable calm.”

  Capping the bottle, he returned it to its place on one of the long shelves. The metallic smell lessened at once. “You have money saved, don’t you? You could buy such gowns for yourself.”

  “No, I couldn’t. No matter how much I earn or save. I’ve been frugal for too long to spend money on anything I don’t have to have.” Thus the inexpensive bonnets about which Charles twitted her.

  And no, she didn’t have money saved. Savings were for those in the middle of society: the newly wealthy, the tradesmen and merchants who’d made good. People in Cass’s way of life couldn’t afford to save, and those in the top-lofty
ton didn’t bother.

  George nudged aside one of the lamps on the large table, then pushed it back to its original place. “What about Charles? Would you spend money on him?”

  “I do, all the time. On things he needs and on the inconsequentialities he wants. But those cost far less than a silk gown.”

  Sunset painted his face with a faint blush. “What about me?”

  “What about you? Would I buy you something pretty, do you mean? A beautiful silk?” She laughed.

  But he looked oddly serious. “Would you use your money, or what resources you have, to help me? If I weren’t paying you a wage to do so?”

  The question surprised her, but the answer was easy. “Why, of course I would.”

  “You answer so quickly. Just like that, you say that you would. For anyone.” He turned away to fuss with the lid of the larger camera obscura. “It is a compliment to the goodness of your heart.”

  “You’re acting strange, and what you said doesn’t sound like a compliment at all. But it is a compliment to you.” Now she was the one blushing, and she hoped the dim bleed of warm light would cover it. “Because no, I wouldn’t say that to anyone. But yes, you I can answer. Just like that.”

  “You are generous.”

  This time it did sound like a compliment. Cass didn’t think she was, really, but she liked the sound of it and didn’t want to protest.

  When he dropped the lid of the camera obscura and faced her again, he looked different. Always handsome, now he was incandescent. A beautiful thing such as she craved and could never have for herself, no matter what she saved or how long she waited.

  Somehow they’d got far away from the simple greeting, and the purpose of the evening. Or she had. She wished her gown had a pocket so she could have brought along the miniature of Grandmama. A reminder of her real self—the self that never wore silks and didn’t associate with the likes of a duke’s heir—would have been welcome just now.

  Cass cleared her throat. “Let’s go over the plan.”

  He frowned, all languid Lord Northbrook again in a moment. “Must we? I trust you to handle this. I’m paying you to handle this.”

  She folded her arms. “Don’t be lazy.”

  “No, anything but that.” He rested his weight on the edge of the long worktable. “All right, fine. One last review.”

  On his fingers, he ticked off the now-familiar names of the survivors of the tontine. Besides Ardmore and Deverell, there were Braithwaite. Gerry. Cavender. She was to listen for those names, to speak to the men themselves if they were present tonight. The question foremost must always be: Who will be targeted next?

  “My father won’t be in attendance. He’s much likelier to be found in one of Angelus’s gambling hells,” George said wryly. “And Deverell won’t be at the ball either. His wife has put it about that he’s taking a rest cure, which everyone knows means he is going to drink in a different part of England. He’ll be back in London soon enough, probably sooner than he ought.”

  Deverell was such a strange case. “You mentioned once that he was your godfather,” Cass said, “so I presume you’ve known him some time. Has he always drunk so much?”

  “Not that I recall. Though men hardly behave in front of children the same way they do in private.”

  “It might have grown upon him over the years.” Cass sighed. “Like so many vices.”

  “Again, you make me feel positively ashamed that I lack a defining flaw.”

  She eyed him closely. “I did call you lazy just now. And you once called yourself lazy, too.”

  “True.” He tugged off the much-used work gloves and laid them on the table. “It lacks the elegance, shall I say, of gambling or drinking or toying with women’s hearts.”

  “I am not interested in elegance,” she said. “I’m interested in solving a case. Once we find the pattern behind the deaths of the men in the tontine, we’ll know who’s next. And maybe we’ll even know why.”

  George pushed himself upright and drew a pair of evening gloves from his coat pocket. “Let us go, then. We’ll be unfashionably early, but we care nothing for elegance.”

  Just like that, they were an instant away from leaving the house. Together. But not together, really; not ever.

  Cass hesitated. “Could I . . . what about a kiss for luck?”

  Stupid request. Irresistible, though.

  When George stared at her, she explained, “It seemed the sort of thing your Benedetti cousin might say.”

  “Well. For the sake of getting into the role, then.” In a second, he had dropped his evening gloves on the floor, crossed the room, and taken her face in his hands.

  As she caught her breath, he lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers.

  It was a sweet brush, a slow savor of mouth upon mouth. She shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing else in the world; to sink into the sensation and wrap herself in its boldness.

  It was not so easy to turn off her thoughts.

  What did she hope would happen? Would the world shift? Would he drop to one knee again and offer her a ring under his own name? Would his heart pass into her keeping? Would hers become his?

  No, this was too much to hope for. After all, it was just a kiss. A nice one, as George smelled pleasantly of laundry soap and that faint scent of oranges, and his lips were firm and his fingertips gentle. But if the kiss had been nicer still, surely she’d have thought of none of these things and would simply have surrendered to it.

  She couldn’t afford to surrender.

  She was desperate to surrender.

  He pulled back, and her eyes opened. He was blinking as if dazed. “I needed that. I hadn’t realized how much.”

  Cass realized. “You are the one who is worried.”

  “Not worried,” he contradicted. “Merely . . . apprehensive.”

  “Yet you were asking about my own fears.” It was rather sweet. She picked up his dropped gloves and pressed them into his hand.

  He looked at them as if he didn’t quite know what they were. “Ah, well. You’re the one with a part to play. All I’ve got to do is be myself.”

  Silly of him to say such a thing. He didn’t realize that it was far easier to be someone else.

  Chapter Six

  Most Runners worked alone, but Cass never had. She hadn’t been alone since the first moment of being knit into existence.

  This was why, surely, she was glad for George’s company as she entered the sprawling London mansion of Lord and Lady Harrough. There was no denying the comfort of having one’s hand in the arm of a confederate—or compatriot, or co-conspirator—as one began one’s first evening in the skeptical embrace of the ton.

  True, she’d been at tonnish events before, but only on the fringes to work as a Runner. She had never attended a ball as a guest.

  Over the next several minutes, the nevers piled up.

  Never before tonight had she descended from a private carriage and handed her wraps to a servant. Never had she been greeted by a hostess, a smile of welcome bestowed upon her. Never had a flute of champagne been pressed into her hand, to fizz floral and sweet on her tongue as a duke’s heir introduced her about, again and again, while chandeliers burned bright overhead and perfume and laughter floated in the air.

  Never had she worn such silk, or all but demanded a kiss of a man far above her touch.

  She should never have touched him, yet she wasn’t sorry.

  A sign she was exploring the bounds of her assumed identity? Good for her; what a talented investigator she was.

  To orient her to the space, George made a circuit of the ballroom with her. The room had been no more than half full when they’d arrived, but more and more people drifted in by the minute. Already there was too much noise to hear guests announced, and the violins were no more than a distant squeak unless one walked right by the musicians.

  As they strolled the perimeter of the room, her gloved hand resting properly on his arm, George described the people they pa
ssed. This lady was a good friend to his sister, Selina; that one was always eager to gossip but was never included in it. The gentleman to their left liked to pretend to stumble against women and so grope them; the one to their right would try to slip the emerald ring from her finger if she danced with him. And look! Lady Deverell was here, which must mean his lordship was recovering well—or drinking so steadily, he didn’t notice her absence.

  Cass listened to his cheerful monologue with about seventy percent of her attention. The remainder ought to have been devoted to observing and filing away facts in her memory, but in truth, she was experiencing. Her fingers in a glove of buttery kid, resting on George’s corded forearm. The candles overhead; the scents and sounds of the sweeping room.

  Experiencing was not the same thing as observing—yet she couldn’t make herself stop. There was so much wealth here, and so much company and so much champagne, and none of it for any particular reason. It was just the way these people lived. Merely an evening’s entertainment, a way to pass the time.

  Good Lord. How strange, and how lovely, and how troubling.

  It was all right for her to be rapt, she decided, in her guise as a country girl dragged from her homeland, then returned to it in marital disgrace. Certainly Lady Harrough had been gratified by Cass’s greeting, which had probably been both wide-eyed and gape-mouthed.

  Lord and Lady Harrough possessed a title of recent vintage, George had told her, which mattered very much to the sort of people who cared about titles. They had piles of money, too, and one of the largest homes in London—but the wealth came from shipping or mining or some other thing that also mattered, and not in a good way. Likely one’s family was supposed to have been given a treasure by William the Conqueror. It all seemed very silly, but the unwarranted sense of inferiority meant that their hosts were eager to please and eager to form connections. Which meant good food and much gossip.

  Cass snagged another flute of champagne, admiring the wink of her gold and emerald ring on the white surface of her glove. It was all a bit dizzying. This would have to be the last champagne she’d allow herself this evening.