London, February 1819
The silk was the color of sin.
It shimmered where the candlelight danced across its surface, its rich crimson and sumptuous garnet hues swirling in the cascading lengths. The silken ribbon was wide, its superior quality was evident, and it must have been expensive, a luxury only the very wealthy could afford. On the brim of a bonnet, it would have been impressive. On the bodice of a ball gown, it would have been spectacular.
Wrapped around the limbs of a dead earl, however, it was a problem.
Ivory Moore pressed her fingers over the pulse point at the man’s neck, knowing she would find none, but needing to confirm. Beneath her touch the soft flesh was already cooling, and she let her fingers move to the bindings covering his wrists, tracing the silk to where it was knotted deftly around the bedpost.
“He’s dead.” It was a statement, not a question, from her pretty associate standing just behind her.
“He is indeed, Miss DeVries,” Ivory murmured.
“That is the Earl of Debarry,” Elise DeVries hissed urgently in her ear.
“I am aware.” Ivory stepped back slightly to consider the tableau in front of her. The naked earl was spread out across the mattress like a marooned sea star, his wrists and ankles tied to the four corners of the bed. His barrel chest rose like an island amid a scattering of rose petals and decorative ostrich feathers and rumpled bedclothes. He was instantly recognizable, even stripped of the wildly expensive clothes he favored, whose absence exposed a body that was just beginning to lose its battle with fine wine and idle living.
The earl was still handsome despite the fifty-plus years of vice he’d enjoyed before this last unfortunate encounter. He was powerful, wealthy, and widowed—and everywhere he went in polite society, he was treated with the deference befitting his title. But privately, behind closed doors, he was known to all as the Earl of Debauchery, more famous for his love of women and his outrageous sexual exploits than anything else. Finding him tied to a bed wasn’t a surprise.
Finding him tied to the bed of the demure Lady Beatrice Harcourt, the Duke of Alderidge’s eighteen-year-old sister? Now that was more of a shock.
Ivory took another step back, pushing the hood of her cloak off her head, and placed her bag gently on the floor. There was little time to waste, but before she could analyze the potential damage and formulate a solution, there were preliminary matters to consider.
“The door is locked, Miss DeVries?” she asked briskly. Containment was critical.
“Of course.”
“Good.” Ivory turned to address the woman standing stiffly near the hearth. “Was it you, my lady, who summoned us?”
Lady Helen Harcourt was worrying an enameled pendant at her throat, but at Ivory’s question she dropped it, clasping her hands in front of her hard enough to make her knuckles as white as her face. “Yes.”
“A wise decision on your part, my lady.” Ivory eyed the woman’s greying hair, which had been pulled into a severe knot, softened only by a jeweled clip that matched her green ball gown. Deep grooves of distress were cut into Lady Helen’s unyielding face, but despite her pallor, there were no signs of impending hysterics.
Ivory felt a small measure of relief. “May I ask who found the body?”
“Mary. Lady Beatrice’s maid.” Lady Helen unclasped her hands long enough to make a gesture in the direction of a red-eyed maid sitting in the corner, who, at the mention of the word body, had started to sob.
Ivory exchanged a look with Elise. The maid would need to go.
“And where is Lady Beatrice at the moment?” Ivory inquired.
“I can’t find her. She’s just…gone.” It came out in a rush, the news delivered in a tone barely above a whisper.
Well, that wasn’t surprising. Beatrice had very likely fled, and while the girl would need to be found, it wasn’t the immediate priority.
Ivory eyed the crumpled bedclothes beneath the body, and the lavender counterpane that lay in a forgotten heap on the floor. She took in the size of the room, and the pretty dressing table with its collection of bottles and pots. A pale-pink ball gown, embroidered with tiny roses, had been tossed over the back of the chair, layers of costly fabric and lace abandoned with little care. Stockings and slippers, along with Debarry’s evening clothes, had been discarded and had fallen in disarray on the floor. Two empty wine bottles rested on their sides at the edge of the rug.
Ivory frowned. If it had been Lady Helen’s rooms, she would have had more options. An affair between an aging spinster aunt and a peer of the realm—no matter how unlikely—if properly presented, would cause gossip, but not ruination. A dead earl tied to the bed of a debutante in her first season posed a much greater challenge.
There was very little time to waste. Who knew how long they had before someone—
A sharp banging on the bedroom door snapped Ivory’s head around and caused Lady Helen to emit a squeak of shock.
“Helen?” came a disembodied voice through the thick wood. “Are you in there?”
“Who is that?” hissed Ivory, her mind racing through the possible excuses Helen might offer for locking herself in her niece’s room.
The older woman was staring at the door, her hand pressed to her mouth.
Another rap sounded, the urgent impatience of the blow making the wood shake. “What the hell is going on, Helen? Is Bea in there with you?”
“My lady!” Ivory snapped in low tones. Whoever was standing on the other side of that door was not going away. Worse, he would soon draw attention to this room with all his banging. Every servant in the house would descend on this scene, and even Ivory wouldn’t be able to contain that.
“It’s Alderidge,” Lady Helen whispered faintly, as though she didn’t quite believe it.
Ivory started. “The duke? I was given to understand he was currently in India.”
“He was. Apparently he’s decided to grace us with his presence.” Lady Helen’s words were tight with bitterness. “Too little, too late, as always.”
Ivory fought the urge to groan aloud. It was clear there was no love lost between the duke and his aunt. Ivory only hoped the man held his sister in higher regard. She did not need family turmoil to complicate what was already a terribly complicated situation.
“Aunt Helen!” The knob rattled loudly. “I demand you let me into this room at once!”
“Can he be trusted?” Ivory asked, though she feared she had little choice in the matter. Someone was going to have to let him in or risk having the door knocked clean off its hinges.
Lady Helen’s lips compressed into a thin line, but she gave a quick, jerky nod. That was all Ivory needed. She flew to the door, twisted the key in the lock, and wrenched the door open. She had the vague impression of a worn greatcoat, battered boots, and a hulking bearing.
“What the hell is going on?” the stranger bellowed. “And who the hell are you?”
“Welcome home, Your Grace,” said Ivory, and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. She yanked him into the room. “Please do come in and cease making so much noise, if you would be so kind.”
The man stumbled past her a couple of steps before coming to an abrupt halt, but not before Ivory had closed the door behind him and once again turned the key in the lock.
“Jesus Christ,” Alderidge swore, getting his first look at the scene in front of him.
Ivory was standing just behind the duke, and she could feel the chill of the night still clinging to his coat. The only things she knew about Maximus Harcourt, Duke of Alderidge, were that he had inherited his title a decade ago and that he spent much of his time overseas captaining an impressive fleet of trade ships. But she knew nothing about his personality, his family relationships, or the motivations that had brought him home to London tonight.
She desperately hoped Alderidge was not going to be a problem. “Did anyone see you come up here?” Ivory asked.
“I beg your pardon?” The duke swung around to face her, and Ivory felt the impact of his icy grey eyes clear through to her toes.
“Is anyone else looking for your aunt? Or your sister, for that matter?” She refused to look away, dismayed to realize an involuntary flutter had started deep in her belly, radiating out to weaken the joints at her knees and send heat flooding through her body.
Good heavens. She hadn’t had this sort of visceral reaction to a man in a very, very long time, and she wasn’t pleased. Desire was a distraction, and distractions were perilous. Maybe it was because Alderidge was such a radical departure from the long line of polished, simpering aristocrats she’d been dealing with for years. Dressed completely in black, he looked a little like a pirate who had just stepped off the deck of a ship, what with his long, sun-bleached hair, his wind-roughened skin, and at least a week’s worth of dark-blond stubble covering his strong jaw. A scar ran along the left side of his forehead, disappearing into his hairline. His clothes were plain, his salt-stained coat meant to be serviceable and warm. He looked dangerous and, at the moment, furious.
“No, no one saw me. I left my ship and crew at the damn docks after a long journey across uncooperative seas and came here, thinking to find some peace and quiet. Instead I find a swarm of gilded strangers packed into my ballroom, and more strangers locked in my sister’s room with my aunt and a dead body. Someone damn well needs to tell me very quickly and very clearly just what the hell is going on here.” The duke was making a visible effort to remain calm.
Lady Harcourt made little disapproving sounds with her tongue for every curse that erupted from the duke’s mouth—and Alderidge flinched, as if on cue, after each of his aunt’s tiny clicks and sighs. Ivory might have found this exchange funny in other circumstances. Right now, however, she needed to take control and make sure the duke and his aunt were aligned. Otherwise she hadn’t a prayer of extracting the family from this mess unscathed.
“You may call me Miss Moore,” Ivory said pleasantly, “and I am from Chegarre and Associates. This is my colleague, Miss DeVries.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Elise make a brief curtsy.
“And Chegarre and Associates is what?” Alderidge demanded. “A solicitor’s firm?” He paused, a shadow of uncertainty flickering in his eyes as he regarded her. “I’ve been away from England for quite a long time, but I feel certain I would have heard the news if a group of women had set up shop at the Inns of Court.”
“We are not lawyers exactly, Your Grace.”
“Then what—”
“Your sister seems to have gotten herself in a spot of trouble,” Ivory continued, nodding at the naked form sprawled across the sheets. “We’ve been summoned to get her out of it.”
“That is not possible. My sister is the Lady Beatrice Harcourt.”
“We’re aware,” Ivory agreed grimly, turning and marching over to the bed. “And the dead man currently tied to her bed is the Earl of Debarry.”
The duke’s jaw was clenched so hard that Ivory imagined his teeth were in danger of shattering. He turned to his aunt. “Where is Bea?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
Angry color had flooded Helen’s face. “I came looking for her when I couldn’t find her downstairs in the ballroom, thinking maybe she was feeling poorly. The ball is in her honor. It took months to plan. Everyone who is anyone is downstairs.” She stopped abruptly, as if suddenly realizing the awful import of that fact.
“She’s missing?” Horror colored his words.
“The precise location of your sister is not known at this point, Your Grace,” Ivory confirmed. “Though I have every confidence that we will locate her shortly.”
The duke swung around to face her again, those ice-grey eyes impaling her as if she were somehow responsible for this debacle.
“We have a much more immediate problem that needs to be addressed, Your Grace, before we can focus our efforts on locating Lady Beatrice. And that is the body currently tied to her bed.” Ivory jerked her chin in the direction of the maid still sniffling into her apron. “Your sister’s maid, Mary, discovered this unfortunate scene, and most fortuitously, it was your aunt who intercepted her before anyone else could. It was also your aunt who did the sensible thing and hired us.”
“Hired you? What the hell for?”
“We manage situations such as the one your sister has currently found herself in.”
“And what sort of situation is that, exactly?” His tone was threatening, but Ivory didn’t have time for niceties.
“You are a man of the world, Your Grace. I feel certain you are able to guess.”
The duke’s eyes darkened to the color of an approaching storm, and another unwanted thrill shot through Ivory. She curled her fingers into her palms, letting her nails bite into the skin.
“Have a care, Miss Moore,” he snarled. “I assure you, you do not wish to insult my sister’s—”
“I deal in facts, not in fairy tales.” Ivory cut him off and was absurdly gratified to see shock wash across his face. “There are no signs of a violent struggle, nor are there any obvious wounds or marks on the body. It is likely that the earl died from natural causes induced from the exertions that usually follow being tied with red silk to the bed of a healthy young woman.”
Helen Harcourt wheezed. “You can’t possibly be suggesting that Lady Beatrice—”
“Further,” Ivory continued, “it is also likely that Lady Beatrice panicked and fled the scene once she realized her companion had drawn his last debauched breath. It is a very common reaction, and in my experience, the young woman in question will return when she has had a moment to collect her wits and invent a suitable explanation for her absence. And if Lady Beatrice lacks the requisite powers of invention, Chegarre and Associates shall be happy to supply her with a credible lie that she may repeat to the ton.” She paused. “Your loyalty is admirable, but I suggest you save the moral outrage for someone else. I care more about rescuing your sister’s reputation than the truth of what happened here tonight. And frankly, so should you. We’ve got a great deal of work to do if your sister’s future is to remain as bright as it was this morning.”
The duke’s expression was positively glacial. “I give the orders here, Miss Moore, not you. Don’t presume that I will ever follow your lead.”
Irritation surged. “Take a look around you, Your Grace. Do you see a crew of sailors anxiously awaiting your direction?” She put emphasis on the last two words. “This is not your world. This is mine.”
“Get out of my house,” the duke said, his voice as sharp as cut glass. “Now.”
His aunt made a strangled sound of distress.
“If that is your wish, Your Grace, we will be happy to comply, of course. But I ask that you consider carefully. Our firm has been brought here by your aunt to preserve your good name and honor. Our objective is the same as yours: we want only to protect Lady Beatrice and the rest of your family. And what you must understand is that there is a window of opportunity here that is rapidly closing. Downstairs there is a ballroom filled with some of the most important and influential people in London. Soon those people will begin to wonder where the Earl of Debarry has gotten to. Soon people will start wondering where the comely Lady Beatrice—the guest of honor—is hiding. Soon people will come looking. And should they find a dead earl tied to Lady Beatrice’s bed, I will no longer be able to help you. But it is your choice, of course, if I stay or if I go.”
“I don’t need you to fix my problems,” the duke growled.
Ivory resisted the urge to roll her eyes. The duke was in so far over his head that he couldn’t even begin to see the surface. Instead she adopted her most neutral tone. “I’m not here to fix your problems, Your Grace, I’m here to fix those of Lady Beatrice.”
Lady Helen swayed slightly before straightening her shoulders with resolve. “Don’t be a fool. We need help. Neither you nor I can make this all disappear.”
The duke was shaking his head. “I can handle this.”
“Can you really?” his aunt asked. “How?”
Alderidge blinked, and Ivory suspected the duke was finally getting over his initial shock and was now considering the magnitude of the problem before him.
Helen continued on, relentless. “How will you make certain the honor of the Alderidge family is preserved? How will you prevent this, this…scene from becoming known to everyone? Do you intend to let malicious gossip and baseless slander ruin poor Beatrice’s life?”
Ivory rather suspected Lady Beatrice was doing a fine job of ruining things all on her own. But it was not for her to judge. Especially since a little ruin was always good for business.
“You’re supposed to be her guardian,” Lady Helen said bitterly. “A lady should have the protection of her brother. If you had ever once thought of anyone but yourself, we would not now find ourselves here, in this sordid and disgusting position.”
“My lady,” Ivory snapped, sensing that this conversation was in danger of veering badly off track. “Now is not the time to point fingers. If you must lay blame, I would suggest you conduct that useless exercise tomorrow over tea, when your guests are gone and there is no longer a body tied to your niece’s bed.”
Whatever color had been left in Lady Helen’s stoic face fled, and her mouth gaped slightly. Ivory noticed Alderidge’s was similarly hanging open.
She put her hands on her hips. “Now, what is it going to be? Do you require our services on behalf of Lady Beatrice or not? Make a decision. Time is running out.”
The duke swore again, his expression black. “Very well. Consider yourself hired. My sister can’t…” He trailed off, as if searching for words.
Ivory pounced. “You must agree to defer to my instruction and trust in my expertise, Your Grace.”
Icy grey eyes snapped back to her. “I will agree to no such thing. I don’t even know you.”
“And I don’t know you, which is irrelevant. But I will not be able to do my job if you get in my way. Dissent will cost your sister everything.”
The duke muttered something vile under his breath. “Do what you must.” It sounded strained.
“Do I have your word?”
“You heard me the first time, Miss Moore. I do not need to repeat myself.”
“A wise choice then, Your Grace.” She produced a small card from a pocket sewn into her cloak and handed it to the duke. “In the event you need to find me in the future.”
Alderidge shoved the card in the pocket of his coat without even looking at it. “After tonight, Miss Moore, I hope to never see you again.”
That stung a little, though Ivory had no idea why it should. No one in their right mind wanted to see her. Her presence in someone’s home meant the parallel presence of some sort of acute social or family disaster.
She sniffed. “The feeling is quite mutual, Your Grace. The sooner we conclude this unfortunate bit of business, the better it will be for all involved. But I must warn you before I begin, if I may be so gauche, that the services provided by Chegarre and Associates are expensive.”
“Are they worth it?” Alderidge asked in a harsh voice.
Ivory held his gaze. “Always.”
* * *
Maximus Harcourt, tenth Duke of Alderidge, couldn’t remember ever having felt so helpless—or so furious. He had stepped into a nightmare that defied comprehension, and making it worse was the knowledge that he was not the person most qualified to handle it.
Unruly crews could be reformed. He could deal with tropical storms and raging seas. Pirates and smugglers could be summarily dispatched. Max had rarely met a problem he couldn’t best. He’d rarely met a problem with the power to confuse him. But this? Well, this was an altogether different sort of beast.
Which meant he was now at the mercy of Miss Moore. A woman who treated the discovery of a dead, naked earl tied to a missing virgin’s bed as though it were no more serious than a cup of spilled tea on an expensive rug. As though this sort of thing happened every day.
He’d never in all his life met a woman with such nerve. Or maybe it wasn’t nerve at all but simply arrogance. It was difficult to tell how old she was, though certainly she wasn’t any older than he. Even beneath her plain clothing and mundane cap, she was striking, in a most extraordinarily unconventional way. Her skin glowed like unblemished satin, framed by tendrils of hair the color of rich chestnut, shot through with mahogany. Her dark eyes were too wide, her mouth was too full, her cheekbones too sharp. Yet all of that together was somehow…flawless.
“Was that the ball gown your niece was wearing tonight?” Miss Moore was asking his aunt, pointing at a pile of abandoned lace and rose silk draped over a chair.
Max wrenched his gaze away from her face and, with a jolt, recognized the embroidered silk that he’d shipped to Bea the last time he’d been in China. He’d been sure his sister would love the detail.
“Yes.” Lady Helen pressed a hand to her lips, her face a peculiar ashen color.
“Then she’ll not be downstairs,” the dark-haired woman who had been introduced as Miss DeVries murmured. “Nor does she have any intention of returning to the ball.” She plucked the gown from the chair and held it up to her body with consideration.
Miss Moore nodded. “Let’s hope she has the good sense to stay away until we have a chance to speak with her.” She paused, eyeing the gown critically. “Can you make it work?”
“Most certainly,” said Miss DeVries, replacing the gown and then inexplicably loosening the ties on her own shapeless woolen dress. Max frowned, perplexed, then horrified, as the top half of her chemise was revealed. It slipped over a shoulder, revealing smooth skin puckered by scar tissue from what looked like an old bullet wound. He gaped before hastily averting his eyes. What kind of woman stripped in the middle of a room full of people? What kind of woman had cause to have been shot?
“Excellent.” Miss Moore turned to his aunt. “If you wish to preserve your niece’s reputation, and your own, you need to return downstairs. Your absence may have been noted by now, so I need you to circulate, smile pleasantly, and ensure everyone is having a marvelous time. If anyone comments on your absence, cite your nephew’s unexpected, yet welcome, return. I can’t stress enough the value of a good distraction, and the duke’s arrival will be splendid.”
“My sister is missing and you’re telling my aunt she should go and dance a quadrille?” Max could feel a vein throbbing at his temple.
Miss Moore glared at him and then turned her attention back to his aunt. She didn’t even give him the courtesy of a response. Bloody, bloody hell.
“Can you do that?” she was asking Helen.
Lady Helen nodded stiffly.
“If anyone asks about the whereabouts of Lady Beatrice, mention you just saw her at the refreshment table. Or near the ballroom doors. Somewhere that cannot be immediately verified.” Miss Moore put a hand on the older woman’s arm. “Your behavior is critical right now. No one must suspect you are anything but pleased with how successful the ball is. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“In thirty minutes you will visibly exit the ballroom and make your way to the bottom of the main staircase.”
“Why—”
“Thirty minutes. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
He’d never heard Helen so tractable in his life.
Despite himself, Max was grudgingly impressed that Miss Moore had managed to handle his battle-ax of an aunt with a deft touch. That was something he hadn’t mastered, nor did he suspect he ever would. She was a good woman, but also a mighty annoyance. She delighted in repeating to him just how much she had sacrificed for his family, and it wore sorely on his nerves.
Miss Moore led her over to the door and cracked it open, peering out into the empty hallway. She turned back and softened her voice. “This will turn out all right, my lady. I suspect your niece is rather terrified right now. She’ll need you, and your forgiveness, when she comes home.”
Helen nodded and met Max’s eyes, her expression stony. “Your parents would be turning in their graves,” she said coldly. “If you have any regard for your sister, you will help Miss Moore do whatever it takes to find her and fix this.”
Max fought the acerbic response that jumped into his throat. As if he were incapable of recognizing that Bea’s future was hanging by a perilous thread. He became aware that Miss Moore was glaring at him again with those impenetrable dark eyes, and he swallowed his retort, nodding instead. Arguing with his aunt would get them nowhere.
“Arguing will get us nowhere.” Miss Moore stole his thought as soon as his aunt had departed and she’d locked the door behind her. “She’s upset, and I need everyone to keep a clear head.”
Resentment rose hard and fast. How dare this chit lecture him on maintaining composure in difficult circumstances? He was a sea captain, for God’s sake. Every day of his life brought difficult circumstances. The only difference being that he knew what to do with those.
Miss Moore had returned to the bed and was diligently working on the knots that bound the dead man’s wrists. Max strode to the footboard and began working on the bindings at his ankles.
“I refuse to believe my sister had anything to do with this,” Max said. He wondered for whose benefit he’d made that statement.
Miss Moore straightened slightly, brushing an errant strand of hair out of her eyes. “Your Grace, there is one thing you must understand. I do not get paid to form opinions or pass judgments.” She bent to retrieve a cloth bag by her feet and began stuffing the silk ribbons into it. “Frankly, I don’t really care if Debarry was your sister’s lover or not. What I do care about is ensuring she is not ruined, or worse, because of it.”
“Worse?”
“The earl is dead.” She was now collecting feathers and rose petals, and they too disappeared into the bag. The wine bottles followed with a loud clink.
Max felt his skin prickle with unease. “You can’t be serious. You think she killed him?”
“If she did, he went out a happy man,” Miss Moore remarked.
Max recoiled. “Bea is barely eighteen. She is beautiful and innocent and—”
Miss Moore had stopped and now turned to meet his eyes. He hated the sympathy that was in them, yet somehow he couldn’t bring himself to look away.
“My apologies. My comment was insensitive.” She approached him, searching his face. “How long have you been away, Your Grace?”
“What?”
Miss Moore remained silent, simply waiting for his answer.
Despite himself, he couldn’t think of a reason not to answer. “I own and captain Indiamen, Miss Moore. I am rarely in England. The last time was two years ago.”
“Ah.” She nodded, as if this bit of information somehow explained the situation in which they currently found themselves.
“I may not know my sister as well as you think I should, but I know she wouldn’t have an earl tied to her bed,” Maximus said, ignoring the tiny voice in the back of his head that was telling him he knew no such thing. “And I resent any implication otherwise.”
Miss Moore was still studying him carefully, and for the life of him, he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Though he had the inexplicable feeling she was somehow seeing more than he cared for her to see.
“Is there a guest room on this floor?” she asked abruptly.
Max frowned, caught off guard. “There are two of them. At the end of the hall.”
“I’ll need your help to move his lordship.” She left him at the bed, discarding her own cloak, and bent to collect the abandoned clothing strewn about the room. A pair of trousers, then a shirt and a waistcoat. “We’ll need to redress him first to stage this properly.”
Maximus stared at her. Bloody hell, but this woman was unnerving.
She returned, the clothes draped over an arm, a faint look of annoyance across her face. “Quickly. Time is of the essence, Your Grace.” She plucked the ribbons from his unfeeling hands.
Max scowled. “If we’re going to dress a corpse together, then at least give me Debarry’s trousers.”
Miss Moore gazed at him with shrewd speculation.
“I have my limits, Miss Moore.”
“A gentleman,” she murmured, and he wasn’t sure at all that she wasn’t laughing at him.
“A poor assumption on your part,” Max muttered, but the woman’s only response was to toss the trousers in his direction.
“Good” was all she said.
* * *
Ivory yanked the shirt over the corpse’s head, careful not to touch the duke where he had the dead man braced. Alderidge had shed his greatcoat, and beneath the bulky winter garment lay a pair of broad shoulders and an impressive collection of muscles in all the right places. His own shirt and waistcoat hid some of them, but not enough to slow the pulse she could feel pounding at her throat.
It was ridiculous, but it was an effort not to simply stare at him.
He looked a bit untamed, Ivory thought, as she jammed a lifeless arm through the opening of Debarry’s striped waistcoat. Like a lion that had suddenly appeared amid a clutter of domesticated house cats. She diligently attacked the row of waistcoat buttons, wrestling them into their buttonholes, considering further. It was obvious Alderidge was a man used to power and control, yet it would seem his sister’s welfare trumped his disinclination to surrender either. That was certainly a relief—
“Miss Moore?”
Ivory blinked and looked up. “I’m sorry?”
“I asked you if you think I should retie his cravat.”
Good God. This was no time for flights of fancy about untamed pirates. They were dealing with the Earl of Debarry here, and she could not afford any missteps. The man had too many powerful friends. The situation at hand required her undivided attention.
“No,” she said, gathering her wits. “Leave off his cravat. And his evening coat and his shoes. But bring them with us.” She pushed herself off the bed, where she had been kneeling. “Elise, stay here with Mary. Get her to stop sniveling and pick out the appropriate wig from the kit. She’ll know what hairstyle Lady Beatrice was wearing tonight. I also need to know if there is anything missing of Lady Beatrice’s. Clothing, shoes, jewelry.”
Elise, now in nothing but her chemise, nodded, busy examining the rose ball gown. “Of course.”
“There’s water in the basin,” Ivory said, pointing toward the washstand. “I’ll need that. Please leave it just outside the door.”
“Done. Anything else?” Elise asked.
“No, I think that will get us started. His Grace and I will take Debarry to a guest room.” She gestured at the duke to get under one of the corpse’s arms.
Alderidge frowned. “Why are we taking him to a guest room?”
“Because he’s too big to stuff up a chimney.” Ivory pulled a lifeless arm over her shoulder and together they hauled the man off the bed.
The duke’s jaw clenched again. “I don’t appreciate your humor.”
Ivory sighed. “No, I don’t suppose you do.”
They made their way to the door, Ivory puffing under the dead weight. Thank God the duke and his muscles had shown up when they did. She and Elise would have managed it, but it would have been a struggle. She unlocked the door and cracked it open, peering into the hall. It was still deserted.
“Quickly now.”
They made their way down the hall, the duke doing most of the work to support the body. Mercifully, the hallway remained empty, and they shoved their way into a guest room, Ivory pushing the door shut behind them with her foot. The room was dark, the only faint light coming through the window from streetlamps burning below.
She ducked out from under their lifeless load and pulled back the sheets. “Put him into bed,” she whispered.
Alderidge dropped the bundle of clothing he had under his other arm and heaved the corpse onto the mattress. Together they arranged his limbs into a pose of peaceful slumber.
“Now what?” he asked in a clipped voice.
“Debarry was feeling poorly when you ran into him,” Ivory said, pulling up the sheets and tucking them around the earl. “Though you had just returned home and hadn’t even had a chance to change for the ball, you offered to have his carriage brought around. He refused, declaring that he was certain he would feel better with a brief rest. Being a gracious host, you offered him your guest room. You saw to his needs yourself, as the servants were all busy downstairs.”
“Why don’t we just take him back to his own house?” the duke hissed. “I don’t particularly want him found dead in any of my rooms. People will talk.”
“Probably. But Debarry shows no obvious symptoms of anything save a lifetime of overindulgence. His untimely death will be unfortunate but not shocking.” She retrieved the earl’s pumps and set them neatly by the bed. The forgotten evening coat and cravat she laid out over the end of the footboard, as if Debarry had been planning on redressing. “And the risk of taking him back to his own house is too great. Downstairs there’s an army of guests and footmen and coachmen and grooms to get past, and then assuming we arrive safely at our destination, we’d have to navigate Debarry’s own servants. It would be almost impossible.”
“Almost?”
“I’ve done it once or twice when there has simply been no other option.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I’ve helped others out of worse situations than this.”
“Worse? How could it be worse? This man is dead, and my sister is missing!”
Ivory winced slightly. There was absolutely nothing she could say at this moment that the duke wanted to hear about Lady Beatrice. “I need you to dress for the ball now,” she told him instead. “And you need to hurry.”
“Have you lost your mind? I should be out looking for Bea, not prancing around a ballroom.” His voice was absolute, and Ivory suspected that he was very good at commanding his crew.
Too bad for him she wasn’t one of them.
“And you will look for her. But not right now.” She was careful to keep her tone steady but firm.
“You think this is partly my fault, don’t you?”
“As I said earlier, I am not here to form opinions, Your Grace. I’m here to make sure your sister returns safely to your protection. And to do that, I need you to trust me.”
The duke raked his hands through his hair, creating an impenetrable shadow across his face. Ivory didn’t need to see his features to know that furious indecision would be stamped there.
She took a step forward and placed her hand gently on his shoulder. The man might be a controlling ass, but he was clearly worried about his sister. And she needed his full cooperation if she was going to pull this off. “This is what will happen next. You will dress. Go downstairs. Welcome your guests, regale them with tales of your last voyage. Be visible. You are the perfect distraction, and your presence here will doubtless aid your sister tonight. Somewhere over a card game, mention to at least two people, but no more than four, your regret that Debarry is missing the hand because he was feeling poorly. In one hour you will instruct your butler to check on his lordship. Not a footman, but the butler. Butlers are far more discreet.” Beneath her fingers his muscles were tight.
“What about Bea?”
“Leave her to me. Just for right now. Now let’s get you dressed. Which one is your room?”
Alderidge opened his mouth twice before he managed a response. “You’ve done quite enough, Miss Moore.”
“I will tell you when I’ve done enough,” Ivory said. “You can either tell me which one is your room or I will simply find it myself. But I will remind you again that time is not our friend.”
“I don’t need—”
Ivory blew out a breath of exasperation and tiptoed to the door. She checked the hallway, but it remained empty, the only sound the muted noise of the music and the crowd below their feet. Silently she slipped from the room and started down the hall. She bent to retrieve the basin that Elise had left outside Beatrice’s door, careful not to slop the water on the rug. “Which room, Your Grace? I will open every one of these doors, or you can just tell me.”
“Jesus.” Alderidge was on her heels, and not happy about it. “This one.” He pushed by her and stalked to the end of the hall, opening the last door on the right.
The room was dark, yet the faint musty smell she had expected from a room left unused too long was absent. Though the room was chilled, it would seem the town house enjoyed the attentions of an exceedingly diligent staff. Ivory closed the door behind her and waited for her eyes to adjust, light suddenly flaring as the duke lit two lanterns.
The room was sparsely decorated with the basics, and there was not a personal touch in evidence anywhere. A bed with a Spartan headboard and footboard was covered in a plain white coverlet. A cumbersome wardrobe loomed against one of the walls, and there was a washstand with a porcelain bowl resting empty and cold in the center. A small cheval mirror stood near the washstand, and at the foot of the bed rested a battered trunk, the only indication that this space might belong to somebody.
“No dressing room, Your Grace?” Ivory asked, heading for the washstand. She dumped the water into the bowl and put Lady Beatrice’s basin on the floor. Then she moved to the wardrobe.
“A waste of space.” He was still standing near the cold hearth and the lanterns.
“Spoken like a man who chooses to live on a ship, I suppose,” Ivory replied mildly. “I must assume you have a shaving kit in here somewhere?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then I would advise you to get started.”
“Are you ordering me to shave? Now?”
“Anything that deviates from an expected appearance will be remembered. Remarked upon. Speculated on. You cannot appear like a barbarous, disheveled pirate on the same night that your ball ends because there is a dead man in your guest room.”
“What did you just call me?”
“I didn’t call you anything. I simply commented upon your current appearance.” Ivory had reached the wardrobe and stopped. “Do you need me to shave you?”
Alderidge’s jaw dropped open. “What?”
Given his expression, she might as well have suggested she take him on a flying carpet to the moon. “Time, Your Grace, is ticking. I don’t know how many more times I need to stress this to you before you understand that we simply must find a way to get done what needs to be done. Either you shave, and make yourself look presentable to society, or I will do it for you.”
“No, I don’t need you holding a razor to my throat,” Alderidge muttered, but at least he was moving now. He knelt before the battered trunk and released the buckles. He opened the lid and rummaged in its interior, then pulled out a leather case. He stalked over to the washstand and started extracting items.
Satisfied, Ivory turned back to the massive wardrobe, just as a terrible thought struck her. “Do you even have evening clothes?”
“Of course I have evening clothes.” He stopped. “Somewhere. In there, maybe?”
Dear God. Ivory yanked open the two center doors and nearly swooned with relief when she wasn’t met with a swarm of moths. The clothes, like the room, were neat and orderly, folded on shelves, as though the duke had just stepped out for two hours as opposed to two years. When it came to the domestic details, Lady Helen, it would seem, ran a tight ship.
Ivory ran her fingers over a collection of crisply folded linen shirts, waistcoats, breeches, and more formal pantaloons. The drawers below revealed an array of stockings, braces, and pressed cravats, each one separated from the next by a thin piece of tissue. Opening the long door at the side of the wardrobe, she discovered a collection of jackets sorted by function. It had been a very long time since she had had the pleasure of choosing evening wear. Of any sort.
The sharp scent of shaving soap had filled the room, and Ivory could hear the faint swirl of water in the basin, followed by the scrape of a straight blade against stubble. A faint twinge of melancholy struck her, old memories surfacing of the pleasure she had derived from simply watching a man shave. In those memories she sat on the edge of the bed while her husband went about his ablutions, most often preferring to do it himself, as this duke did. In those memories those stolen moments of privacy were always filled with banter and conversation and laughter.
But they were just that. Memories. And they had no place in the present.
Pushing the melancholy and memories aside, Ivory carefully selected a shirt, waistcoat, and tailcoat, draping each over her arm. She stood on her tiptoes and pulled a pair of pantaloons from a shelf. The clothes were all of fine quality and understated in their color, making it easy to coordinate.
“I’ll lay your clothes out on the bed,” she started, turning around. She had the tailcoat and his shirt spread neatly on the coverlet when she made the mistake of looking up. And found herself staring.
The duke had stripped off his worn waistcoat and shirt, and had his back to her, peering into the cheval mirror as he ran the blade over his skin. He’d moved one of the lanterns to the washstand so that he might see better, and the light created an impressive silhouette, putting his torso in stark relief. The muscles in his arms and shoulders flexed each time he lifted the razor to his face—raw, male, physical power sculpted into beautiful lines. His spine created a valley of shadow that started beneath the ends of his long hair and traveled down through the ridges and planes of his back to dip into the waistband of his breeches.
She couldn’t draw enough air into her lungs, and a peculiar light-headedness seemed to have impaired her ability to remember what she was supposed to be doing. He was stunning, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine what that power and strength might feel like beneath her hands or between her—
“Am I not doing this fast enough for your liking?” the duke said irritably, and with some horror, Ivory realized he was watching her in the mirror.
“Are you almost done?” she said, and it was a monumental effort to keep her voice even.
“Yes.” He picked up his discarded shirt and dried his face.
“Good.” She placed the last items of clothing on the bed and turned back to the wardrobe, under the guise of fetching stockings. And while she was fetching him silk stockings, she would try to remember how to breathe normally.
Bloody hell. She needed to pull herself together.
“Get undressed,” she ordered, not turning around. “I need you downstairs in ten minutes.”
“And I don’t need you in here at all.”
Ivory jumped, not having heard the duke come up behind her. She turned and was presented with a view of his broad chest.
His broad, shirtless, beautiful chest.
She stumbled backward, only to be caught by a pair of strong hands. She could feel the warmth from his palms on her upper arms.
“I’ve been dressing myself since I was two, Miss Moore. I do not need further assistance.”
“Congratulations, Your Grace.” She was pleased that she seemed to have regained her sanity.
His icy eyes bored into her. “And the last woman who ordered me to undress was rather naked herself.”
It was meant to shock her, she knew. He wasn’t the first man to try to do so.
Ivory snorted. “Congratulations again, Your Grace.”
The duke’s jaw clenched again. Clearly not the response he’d been expecting.
“If I thought it would get you downstairs faster, you’d already have my gown at your feet,” she said, silently cursing her traitorous body and the twist of lust that pooled deep within her at the very thought of her clothes on the floor at his feet. “But I trust that it won’t come to that.” She had to tip her head up to look at him.
It was he who now looked a little shocked.
Ivory ducked her head. Playing the flirt was entirely counterproductive and unwise, no matter that it felt deliciously wicked. She would leave him to his own devices. “Ten minutes, Your Grace.” She turned, slipping from his touch. She had barely a second to miss it before one of his hands caught her own and forced her to turn back.
“I’m trusting you, Miss Moore.” He dropped her hand. “Don’t make me regret it.”