This is a case in which simple greed will have spared us a good deal of trouble.” Daughtry spoke dryly, his eyes on his breakfast plate. He was a spare, silver-haired man whose sharply arched brows and dark, heavy-lidded eyes lent him a questioning and skeptical look no matter the object of his contemplation: as, for instance, the rasher he now forked up.
Simon often wondered if Daughtry’s face was not the key to his success. Surely there was nothing so comforting in a lawyer as pessimism. “You mean,” he said, picking up his coffee, “that Grimston and his charge did not have Cornelia presumed dead.”
“Indeed.” Daughtry paused to chew, then to dab his serviette at his lips, precisely covering the wrinkled expanse. He even ate his breakfast like a solicitor, slowly and methodically.
“It made sense, of course,” Daughtry continued. He retrieved his fork, aiming it precisely at the quivering eye of his half-cooked egg, appearing to consider the best angle of attack on the yolk; and then, to Simon’s mild disappointment, abdicated the decision by returning the fork to his plate. “By the terms of the trust, Katherine and Cornelia will not have full access to their wealth until they marry or attain the age of twenty-five. In the interim, Sir Grimston receives an annual sum allotted for their maintenance and education. Had we succeeded in our motion for a presumption of death, this sum would have been halved—leaving Grimston, and by extension, Lady Katherine, substantially poorer.”
Simon nodded. “But Cornelia’s reappearance would do the same.”
“Yes.”
“So we should be prepared for a fight.”
Daughtry cleared his throat. “For caution’s sake, let us assume so.”
“I’ll enjoy seeing how they deny it. She’s Kitty’s spitting image.” Simon hesitated. The remark left a bad taste in his mouth. It recast in comical colors the long hour he had lain awake last night. While he was glad to entertain himself with plans to strip and seduce Nell, he felt quite differently about Kitty. “They’re twins,” he added. “Obviously they look alike. I don’t mean to say the resemblance goes any deeper than the skin.”
Daughtry mistook his meaning. “Yes, I suppose that’s the difficulty. Even if her resemblance to Lady Katherine is so extraordinary as you say, it will fall on us to prove that she is the Lady Cornelia, and not some natural child of his lordship. The childhood nurse can be interviewed as to the question of birthmarks and the whatnot. Determining the identity of the woman who raised Lady Cornelia will also be of import. If I may, I would recommend the firm of Shepherd and Sons for that purpose.” He turned to bend an instructional look on the bespectacled secretary seated near the sideboard. This undersized minion nodded and made a note. “A very discreet trio,” Daughtry continued. “And they know their way about the rougher areas. I’ve been very pleased with their investigative services.”
“Excellent.” Simon didn’t care who did it, as long as it got done. “What else?”
“Ah … yes.” Daughtry cleared his throat and set a finger to his lips—some sort of sign, it seemed, for the secretary popped off his seat and bowed low, begging to be excused.
“Marvelous,” Simon said when the door shut behind the lad. “Have them trained to hand signals, do you?”
Daughtry’s lips sketched the barest and most fleeting intimation of a curve. “Discretion is my watchword, particularly in matters of …” One steel gray brow lifted. “Love?”
Simon laughed. “My God, Daughtry. Have you been hiding a sense of humor all these years?”
“Never,” Daughtry said. “However, assuming you intend to shelter the lady …”
“I do.” He wouldn’t risk losing track of her in some rat warren in the slums. “What of it?”
“You must realize that her miraculous recovery will become a matter of public interest. If Lady Katherine and Sir Grimston prove obstinate, it may require an examination at the Law Institution.”
“I’d expected as much.” Her disappearance had filled the newspapers sixteen years ago. Her reappearance would prove no less notorious.
“There will be a great deal of speculation about her whereabouts prior to her reappearance. If you could find a less remarkable place to lodge her … perhaps with Lady St. Maur …?”
Simon loosed a snort. “My mother?” She would want to dip Nell in lye and then boil her for good measure. Of all people, she’d be the last to believe that Cornelia might turn up in the guise of a waif from the slums. She’d always had great difficulty with the idea that the truth might be a separate quantity from the appearance. “Absolutely not. Besides, she’s in Nice until the end of the summer.”
“I see. But if her ladyship is to be lodged in your custody …” Daughtry paused. “Forgive me, but you must understand how it will appear to others.”
“Quite scandalous, no doubt. What matter? No need for her to go courting. I’ll make a satisfactory husband, I believe.”
“You intend to marry her at once, then?”
“Once it seems clear that the inheritance will be hers, yes. Without delay.”
Lips pursing, Daughtry nodded, then turned his attention to smoothing the edge of his cuff.
From a man usually no less rigid than a five-day corpse, this distracted gesture presented an extraordinarily loud statement of doubt. “Speak your mind,” Simon said.
“As your legal advisor, I must contemplate all possible outcomes.” Daughtry shrugged. “Once she’s acknowledged as Lady Cornelia, her care will fall to Sir Grimston, and he will no doubt prove eager to … discharge his duties, as it were.”
To profit from her, more precisely. She was only twenty-two; Grimston would enjoy three years of controlling her not-inconsiderable allowance, provided she remained unwed. “He’ll do his best to remove her,” Simon said.
A dark vision arose before him: having invested a good deal of money in facilitating Lady Cornelia’s resurrection, he might succeed only to watch Nell be swept from his grasp. Grimston would want to postpone her marriage as long as possible. Encourage her to debut, perhaps.
“And if I marry her at once?” he asked. “Before, say, she is introduced to society?”
“That would aid our case,” Daughtry said immediately. “Should it come down to the courts, you can imagine that a judge would find it easier to acknowledge the noble birth of a countess than a woman of uncertain repute, found to be living in questionable circumstances with … a gentleman.”
With a man of your reputation, he did not say, but Simon heard him clearly all the same.
“And yet if something were to go awry,” Simon replied, “I would find myself a bankrupt lord saddled with a penniless guttersnipe for a wife. Hardly ideal, is it?”
“Oh, no.” Daughtry looked surprised. “Indeed you would not. Should she be found to be other than Lady Cornelia, you would have no choice, I think, but to petition for an annulment.”
Caught reaching for his coffee, Simon froze. “Would it be granted?”
“If her fraudulent self-representation was deliberate, it would vitiate your consent to the marriage. This is one of the most dependable grounds for annulment. I can’t think but you would find the court in full sympathy with your plight.”
Simon laughed under his breath. “But that’s … thoroughly wicked of you, Daughtry.”
The solicitor offered up a sly smile. A man didn’t need a sense of humor to be a smug, gloating bastard. “It would be unfortunate,” he allowed. “Nevertheless, it would be entirely within the law.”
“The law is an ass,” Simon murmured. Who’d written that? Shakespeare. He took a long drink. More accurate to say that the law was an upper-class ass. Who else had any hope of using it to his advantage? “She’ll never have a chance.”
Daughtry smiled again. “No, she won’t.”
Simon looked away toward the window. Pretty day, the early sun shining cheerfully through the glossy leaves.
Toying with the rag-and-tatters set wasn’t his usual style. One didn’t play with those who didn’t know the rules or weren’t equipped to abide by them.
But the prospect rarely carried such a dazzling reward—and not simply for him. Nell would profit, too. In most views, she stood to profit far more than he did. The money would allow him to maintain his accustomed life, but it would give her the chance to create a far, far better one. She would be able to live as she pleased: Simon had no intention of demanding anything from her but a share of the inheritance.
And if this bid failed? A few months spent living here wouldn’t harm her. She’d leave his house well fed and well clothed. A happy holiday from hard labor, he thought. If she liked, she could take a few more pieces of silverware upon her departure.
“Put the investigators to work at once,” he said. “I expect the key will lie in proving that the woman who raised her was Jane Lovell. Lady Cornelia called herself Nell Whitby, but she admitted that she took the surname from a stepfather. If Jane’s marriage was legitimate, the parish registers would be the place to start.”
“Very good. And shall I arrange a visit to Faculty Hall?”
For a special license, Daughtry meant.
“Go ahead,” Simon said. “Nothing to lose, apparently.” And everything to gain.
The door opened. His future wife entered the room—dressed, he saw in astonishment, in something very near to rags.
“Good heavens,” he heard Daughtry mutter.
Long-ingrained manners overcame his amazement. He rose, as did Daughtry.
“Morning,” she said brightly, dividing a chipper smile between them.
“Good morning to you,” he replied. The sight of her put a rude period to the heady enthusiasm raised by plotting strategy. He’d forgotten how very much she did not look like a missing heiress. There was the issue of her boniness. And then, mysteriously, the trappings she’d somehow located: a drab, dark skirt, uneven at the hem; a long black jacket whose sleeves ended above her knobby wrists; a bowler hat. For God’s sake, where had she gotten a bowler hat?
Amid the quiet luxury of his drawing room, she looked like the point to a joke. Or, better yet, an exclamation point: her eyes had found the breakfast dishes on the sideboard, and every line of her body strained toward it.
He took a breath and got hold of his anger. “Help yourself,” he said.
She nodded and strode forward.
He sat slowly into his seat. Across the table, Daughtry managed an impassive look that should have won him an award. Silverware clattered against china; a tuneless hum reached his ears. In very high spirits, Nell was shoveling food onto her plate.
Silence held until she sat down at the table.
“Where did you get those clothes?” he asked.
She lifted her brows. “One of your sukeys brought them. Thanks much.”
He bit his tongue. Apparently she was blithely unaware that she’d just become the butt of a cruel joke.
Daughtry sent him an unreadable look. He felt his anger sharpen, lent a new edge by embarrassment. Someone was going to be sacked before the morning was out. He had no tolerance for petty rebellions in his servants, much less their ridiculous little snobberies.
With an effort, he retrieved his fork and set to his sausage.
A wet splat drew his attention upward. A quarter of an egg now lay by Nell’s place.
Her table manners would need … improvement.
She certainly did not lack for appetite, though.
Daughtry laid down his fork and commenced a close study of the tablecloth. Simon didn’t blame him. It felt almost obscene to witness Nell eating. She hunched over her plate as though to guard it while she forked up the contents in a rapid, continuous motion. As she chewed, she flicked narrow looks toward the both of them—monitoring their intake, he realized with shock: adjudging if they would require more food from the sideboard, or, more precisely, how much food would be left for her once her own plate was emptied.
Through the opening door, one of the footmen appeared to gauge that very question. Nell startled at the entrance, then visibly relaxed when the man left without taking what dishes remained.
Pity, Simon thought, felt like an illness, a growing malignancy, the sort of painful cancer that made a patient welcome the cut of the scalpel that would remove it forever.
He looked away from her, toward the paintings along the wall. Old Rushden glowered down from the far corner, stiff as the corpse he’d become, but smug, somehow—his lips frozen in that slight curve that was not so much a smile as a sneering smirk. It had rarely left his lips: in his eyes, most of the world had been his inferior.
Perhaps his daughter was lucky that he’d not lived to discover her. Simon had no faith that the old man would have looked on her kindly.
The thought increased his discomfort. He was not looking on her too kindly. He, who had just decided to fire a servant for mocking her.
The door opened again: more food being delivered. Nell turned in her seat, obviously riveted by the sight of baked mushrooms, mutton chops, fried perch, and boiled tomatoes. As the servant placed these dishes onto the sideboard, she sat back, took a deep breath and, for the first time since commencing, laid down her fork.
He cleared his throat. “There is always more. And if you long for something in particular, you need only ask for it.”
She gave him an intent, measuring look. “I will ask,” she said, and the words seemed edged with some note of challenge. Did she think the offer false?
“Ask,” he said. “What would you like?”
She took up her fork again, twirling it as she considered the matter. “Let me think on it,” she said. A strange smile crept over her mouth as she returned her attention to the food.
No: she began to commune with the food.
First her bites slowed. The next French roll took all of a minute to disappear.
Then came the small noises from her throat as she moved on to a dish of berries and fresh cream.
Finishing these, she paused to lick her fingers.
And then she sighed, a full-bodied sound, breasts lifting and falling. The corner of her tongue came out to delicately lick a spot of cream from the corner of her mouth.
Another French roll started the cycle over again.
He sat very still, once again feeling the fool—albeit distantly, dimly, in a distracted kind of way. She did not notice his regard. Why should she? She was being seduced by strawberries. Ravished by rolls, overcome by Devonshire double cream. Every inch of her was rosy and vibrant with epicurean passions. She had no energy to spare on him.
Which was well and good, he thought, because he had no idea what his face might have revealed had she bothered to look into it. His pity had dissipated—vanished all at once—into something far less spiritual.
He darted a sideways glance toward Daughtry. The man looked appalled.
Which, absurdly, made him smile. Ah, well. Daughtry was an upright sort. But he was not.
Yet it wasn’t simply lust that gripped him. This growing sensation felt like revelation. He’d never seen someone … enjoy herself so. And over what? Breakfast.
She picked up a cup, sniffed, and smiled. His enterprising cook had remembered his request that she be brought chocolate for her breakfast. Nell showed no hesitation to drink it now: she lifted the cup and the pure, white arc of her throat as she swallowed all but begged the brush of the back of his hand.
When she set down the cup, it was empty.
He felt—he felt as if his revelation somehow concerned envy. Chocolate might be uncommon in Bethnal Green, but bread and berries could not be novel to her. Bizarre, but he envied her the delight she took from them. It was no small talent to know how to immerse oneself in mundane pleasures. It had been a very long time since he’d experienced the feeling that he saw on her face.
Curious to consider that he might have something to learn from her. Years, perhaps, since he’d found a novelty able to keep all his senses occupied.
Perhaps she was such a novelty in herself.
Her eyes met his. “You’re staring,” she said.
“Am I?” He couldn’t feel too concerned.
She reached up and brushed off her mouth, then glanced down, following the path of the crumb she’d dislodged. A flush bloomed on her cheeks: it wasn’t just the one crumb in her lap, he suspected, but several.
But if she was gathering now how sorely she’d abused etiquette, it didn’t stifle her. She looked back up to meet his eyes. Hiked her chin and glared down her nose at him. Down Kitty’s nose.
He felt a small shock. God above, she looked so much like Katherine Aubyn.
“You must see the likeness,” he said to Daughtry. It made his head ache. One moment he managed to forget it; the next, it slapped him in the face.
The solicitor darted her a reluctant glance, as if frightened of what he’d see. “There is a remarkable similarity. I can credit that they are twins. However, I will say that the unsuspecting eye might be forgiven for …”
“Overlooking it, yes.” Asking the courts to recognize this woman as the legitimate daughter of an earl would test every polite sensibility. Justice would require a touch of persuasion, a small sleight of hand. A proper corset, Simon thought, and a good deal of starch. “We’ll have to groom her, of course. Modistes, a proper lady’s maid, perhaps someone to school her in deportment—I’ve started to make the arrangements.”
“Very good,” Daughtry said in tones of relief.
Nell reached toward her ear and snapped her fingers. “No, not deaf,” she said. “Just invisible, I take it.”
“Indeed not,” Simon said instantly. “Forgive us. In fact, Mr. Daughtry here will be coordinating our efforts to see you restored to your birthright. And as for today …” He trailed off, observing suddenly the rather … jaundiced flavor of her regard. She did not look friendly.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have kissed her again. Seduction might muddy an otherwise straightforward arrangement.
She hadn’t seem offended by it, though. No note of maidenly modesty had colored her reaction. Her expression after breaking the kiss had looked more like … amazement.
He smiled, amused by his own vanity. Well, but she was his future wife: could not wooing her be considered a wise, even chivalrous course of action?
But first, he had a piece of business to settle: a servant to sack. “We’ll start today,” he said, “by introducing you to the staff.”
There were over two dozen of them.
As the underlings lined up before her in the great domed entry hall, Nell actually found herself counting. She’d reached nine by the time the “upstairs staff” had finished making their bobs and curtsies. Fourteen more from “belowstairs.”
She gritted her teeth as the introductions dragged on. She didn’t like being bobbed to. Without intending it, she kept inching backward, and the damned staff kept inching toward her, a line of advancing toadies, implacable in their witless obedience to their lord and master.
St. Maur found her retreat comical; he actually laughed at one point and asked if she’d like a chair. She didn’t bother to reply, but her look took the smile off his face. He didn’t even know their names! It took the housekeeper and the walking cadaver of a butler, Hankins, to call out their names.
When everybody’s name had been announced, St. Maur murmured in Hankins’s ear, and Hankins motioned the upstairs maids forward again, a line of girls in identical black dresses, identical lace aprons, each wearing the mobcap that marked her choice in life. Six automatons in all.
Here, St. Maur suddenly recalled that these were his employees, not simply players in a penny gaffe held for his bored perusal. He took an interest. “A question for you,” he said to Nell, his voice ringing through the echoing space. “Which of these women brought you the clothes you’re wearing?”
She opened her mouth, an indrawn breath away from replying—and something tipped her off. The silence deepened: the trained circus before her had stopped breathing. Her eyes found Polly and the pallor of the girl’s face had her gaze skipping onward, sliding down the line, landing on the housekeeper.
Oh, ho. Nell recognized the jut of that woman’s jaw. Here was the very picture of a labor-mistress sensing danger. The foreman’s displeasure had communicated itself. Looking now for the source of it, for somebody to punish so she might spare herself trouble, Mrs. Collins crossed those forearms like hams beneath the mighty prow of her righteous breast and swept a pugnacious inspection down the line of slaveys.
Whose eyes all latched onto Nell.
Nell cleared her throat. “I don’t remember.”
A brief pause. Nobody dared breathe yet. She didn’t look toward Polly, although she wouldn’t lie to herself; she would have enjoyed the gratification of a grateful look from that sour little creature.
She turned away from temptation, putting her attention squarely on the master of the house, whose displeasure with her looked mild but definite. Oh, but wasn’t it terrible when the underlings stepped out of line! Wasn’t it vexing beyond belief when the poor proved they weren’t deserving or much grateful, either!
“Look again,” he said, and had she not been listening for the faint note of frustrated interest, she’d have missed it entirely. She was ruining his fun. He hadn’t expected his entertainment to be snatched from him. Poor lad. How on earth would he occupy himself now?
“All right,” she said: easy, pliable, too thick-witted to guess at such complex operations as a master at work on the trail of an impudent rebel. She made a show of surveying the girls. Polly stared straight ahead, blank-eyed, only her folded lips a giveaway to the nerves that must be screaming in her stomach.
Nell pinched up a bit of her skirt. It was nice wool, soft to the touch. But apparently it wasn’t as fine as she’d thought.
She shook her head, then manufactured a regretful look for his lordship’s sake. “No, sorry. I can’t recall.”
She saw the moment he caught on. Not a stupid man, more was the pity. His eyes narrowed. Instantly he thought better of his suspicions: she wouldn’t lie to him, would she? Over this trifling matter? Of course not. Or … would she? He frowned a little. Gave her that searching look that betokened a new idea. Why, yes—yes, she would lie. But why?
She smiled at him. Go look in the mirror, she thought. Go look at your handsome, smooth face and your wide, strong shoulders and your straight, white teeth and your eyes that have never missed a single night’s sleep for worry of how to feed yourself.
He blinked. He made an abortive move, as though to step back from her. Caught himself and then—contrary to all her expectations—he smiled: slowly at first, and then, all at once, gave her a lopsided grin. It took her breath away. Such an open, unabashed concession, this smile! For a moment of pure stupidity she felt dazzled, knocked sideways, amazed.
Here was a man who could lose with good humor. Whose temper reserved itself for more important things. Who laughed now, a low, smooth laugh that acknowledged his own defeat and her cleverness, too; he seemed to enjoy her cleverness, even.
The breath went from her, a hoo that would have made her cringe were she not so wrapped up in the sound of his laughter, which rubbed around her like fur, made gooseflesh prickle on her arms. “Fair enough,” he said, low, amused. “Fair enough, Nell.” He glanced over her head. “Dismiss them,” he said to Hankins, and then, to underline his point, flicked his hand: Away. Shoo.
Which handily snapped her out of her lunatic daze. She discovered a sudden, powerful urge to knock his teeth in. People weren’t flies and this wasn’t a game. Somebody here had almost lost her livelihood over his desire to demonstrate the dangers of having a spine.
The servants marched off, little soldiers, disciplined in their single-file line. God knew where they’d scatter out of formation: around the corner, she’d wager, anywhere as long as it was out of sight. A show of proper obedience. She suspected, she hoped, they would grin to themselves as soon as they rounded the corner.
St. Maur spoke from her side. “You interest me,” he said, and his tone suggested this fact itself surprised him, meant something more to him than perhaps it should: a man surprised by being interested was living a piss-poor facsimile of life, in her view.
She eyed him with a touch of impatience. “You don’t interest me.” Not now. Not after this scene.
This, too, startled him. He tipped his head slightly, as if to see her better. She noticed his brief glance past her—checking to make sure the butler and housekeeper weren’t listening, she’d wager. God forbid he speak too frankly in front of the underlings.
“I’ve upset you?” he asked. “I didn’t want to mention it earlier, but your dress is absolutely—”
“Serviceable,” she said. “The first I’ve worn in a long while without a single hole in it. How does that strike you?”
He stared at her. It struck him dumb. Good. She crossed her arms and enjoyed the sight of him rendered speechless, if only briefly.
Because he recovered bloody quick. “Then you’ll be glad to hear that there are several more upstairs,” he said. “Straight from the shops. Delivered not an hour ago.”
“Good.” She hoped one of them was purple. “But this one will do me for today.” For all the Queen’s gold she wouldn’t have put off this dress now. She smiled at him.
He blinked. Puzzled by her intransigence. “All right, if that’s what you wish. But you must understand that appearances are important.” He frowned. “In this effort, I mean. I don’t hold with the general notion.” He gave a pull of his mouth, a sideways grimace: acknowledging that he didn’t expect her to be convinced, not now, not after the show he’d just organized. “For the purpose of claiming your identity,” he said, “it would help if you looked the part. That’s all I mean.”
She nodded. Made sense. “Is there a call to look the part today?”
He hesitated. “No. That is—I’ve arranged for the modiste’s visit; she’ll take your measurements for some more au courant fashions than Markham’s provides. And a woman recommended by Daughtry, a sort of tutor in deportment, will be paying a call. But—” He seemed to come to the end of his breath, and also his enthusiasm for the effort of persuading her. “No one of import.”
She wondered, with a sarcastic little smirk to herself, whom he might consider to be of import. Not any of the twenty-five or more people in his household. Not anyone who had a real skill or service to offer him. And by definition, she thought, that group included her: she was nothing more than a bundle of money to him. She’d be wise to remember that his courtesies were empty. His charm was only a business strategy.
“Brilliant,” she said. “Let me know when those folk arrive.” She turned on her heel and started across the hall.
“Ah—where are you going?”
She turned back. He had a hand planted in his hair. Poor, pretty lad. He looked flustered and irritated by her. Hard position to find himself in: he probably had no idea how to deal with a human being who hadn’t been trained to his orders.
“I’m going to your library,” she said. She was clear on the brightest side of this whole arrangement: she now had a thousand books at her disposal, and unlike him, she didn’t mean to save them for later. “I expect that’s all right with you. Unless you’d prefer to put me to work?”
He lowered his hand slowly. “No,” he said. “The library is fine.”