CHAPTER 12
Theo stared at Quick in astonishment. “What?”
“After walking along after her for a little ways this morning, I noticed this other chap in front of me. He was taking all the same turns I was, and once when she stopped to look in a store window, he stopped, too. I realized that he was following her, just like me.”
“Who the devil was he?” Theo asked, his brows drawing together thunderously.
Quick shrugged. “Don’t know. Never saw him before today. But I’m sure I was right, because while I was idling about, waiting for her to come back out of the house, I saw him doing the same.”
“Did he spot you?” Theo asked.
Tom shot him a scornful look. “’Course not. I may not be in the game anymore, but you won’t find any better than me. I know how to stay out of sight. He was clumsy, or I wouldn’t have noticed him—followed too close behind her.”
“Is he in the game, do you think?”
Quick shrugged. “I don’t know. I been out of it too long—don’t know anybody in it anymore. But usually, following somebody around—you got to figure one or both of ’em’s up to no good.” He paused, then added, “Who is this woman, guvnor? Is she going to hurt your family?”
“Not if I can help it,” Theo replied. He sighed, then said, “I’m not sure. She is the twins’ teacher, but I can’t help thinking there is more to her than that. I have found her in a couple of places where she had no reason to be. I suspect she may be a thief—or working for one.”
He saw no point in mentioning that she was also someone who had come to him in a dream ten years earlier.
“Chuck her out—that’s what I would do,” Tom offered.
“I’m keeping my eye on her,” Theo promised.
“Aye. Well, she’s worth keeping an eye on, all right.” Tom grinned, then added seriously, “But not worth letting any harm come to your family.”
“No. Of course not. I won’t allow her to hurt them.”
But Theo knew it was already too late for that. The members of his family liked her, had taken her in and treated her as one of their own. If Megan was there to steal from them, just the knowledge that she could betray them would hurt them far more than whatever she might steal.
“I could look into it some more, if you want,” Tom said. “I could probably find one or two of my old mates. Check if she and the Irishman are thieves. Though it seems an uncommon roundabout way of stealing something, if you ask me—especially if it means taking on the Greats.”
“She has no problem with the twins,” Theo said in some wonderment. “I have never seen them as well-behaved—or as happy with their tutor.”
“I’d guess they’re not the only ones who like her,” Tom replied shrewdly.
Theo shot him a sardonic look. “Don’t get cheeky.”
“Me?” Quick feigned innocence.
“Do whatever checking you can on her and the Irishman.” He frowned. “And on the chap who’s following her.”
Whatever Megan’s game was, the fact that someone was following her could not be good. Whether the follower was an accomplice who did not trust her or someone from whom she had stolen or had crossed in some way, it seemed very clear to him that the man represented a danger to her.
Theo knew, with a fierce, sharp pain in his gut, that he had to protect her from whoever threatened her. It came as an unwelcome surprise that the need to protect her was greater than his concern for whatever she was planning against him and his family.
“Right you are, guvnor,” Quick said cheerfully. “What about Miss Henderson?”
“I will keep an eye on her,” Theo replied flatly. “The lady won’t be going anywhere this week unless I am along.”
* * *
MEGAN DREADED SEEING Theo again after what had happened in his bedroom the other night. However, there was little way to avoid being in his company—especially, she found, since he seemed to pop up at every turn for the next week.
He dropped by the nursery to chat with the twins or check on their animals. When she took a stroll about the garden after classes, he was there, sitting on the terrace and reading a book, his gaze on her more often than on the tome in his lap. He ate every dinner at home, and not an evening went by that he didn’t suggest that Megan join the family after the evening meal for a round of games or an hour of music or simply the free-flowing conversation that often occupied the Morelands.
There was nowhere that Megan particularly wanted to go, but she felt certain that if she left the house, with or without her charges, Theo would turn up before she had gotten ten steps from the door. He was, she knew, trying to find out what she was doing, why she had tried to get into the duke’s collection room, and why she had been prowling around his own bedroom.
It made her a little nervous that he did not simply ask her what she was doing. It seemed the obvious course. It was even odder, she supposed, that he had told no one else in the family, even his parents, about her strange nocturnal visits to places she had no right to be. It was as if he was protecting her from his family’s anger.
The thought made her feel warm and tender inside. It was foolish, she supposed, to feel that way; he was not doing it, after all, because he wanted to protect her. There were bound to be reasons—selfish reasons—behind his actions.
He could intend to hold his knowledge over her head, to coerce her with the threat of revealing what she had done. But she could think of nothing he could want to coerce her into doing besides giving herself to him, and she had already proved herself embarrassingly close to bedding the man without any sort of coercion at all. Besides, Theo had made no move in that direction since the other night.
He had not tried to be alone with her at any time. His conversation and manner were perfectly gentlemanly. Except for a time or two when Megan had glanced up and found his gaze on her, a quickly veiled heat in his eyes, she would have wondered if he even remembered the ardor they had shared the other night.
She moved through the next week, puzzling over Theo’s actions and attitude, and wondering how she could get back into his bedroom to search it. She could not risk entering it again unless she was absolutely certain that he would not walk in on her. She would have to wait until he was out for the evening, preferably very late at night when no one else would be up or on some night when the rest of the family was out, as well.
The evening of the museum benefit, for instance, would have been perfect—if it had not been for the fact that she would be attending it, as well.
She had half hoped that Kyria and the others would forget about their promise to take her, but those hopes were dashed on Monday afternoon when Kyria, Olivia and Anna swept her out of the nursery and down to Anna’s room, where Kyria’s maid was laying out a number of dresses.
Megan’s eyes widened when she saw the display of sumptuous ball gowns. “Mrs. McIntyre! My lady!”
She turned from Kyria to the other two. Kyria wore a broad smile on her face and Olivia looked pleased and encouraging. Megan glanced at Anna, whose expression was more guarded. There was in her gray eyes the same faint darkness, even suspicion, that Megan had seen there when they first met. Reed’s wife, she thought, did not completely trust her. And there had been that disturbing thing about the woman’s seeing things that others could not….
Megan turned from the women back to the bed, where a wealth of jewel-toned satins, velvets and laces were draped across the spread. There were also gowns lying across chairs and every other available surface.
“This is too much,” Megan protested feebly.
“Nonsense,” Kyria said. “Now stand there and let me look at you. Joan…”
Kyria’s maidservant obligingly held up one gown after another in front of Megan as she chatted with Kyria and Anna about the possibilities. Golds and greens and blues followed deep red and chocolate brown and pale yellow.
“Olivia’s colors suit you best,” Kyria said thoughtfully. “If only she didn’t insist on such plain things.”
“Not plain,” Olivia protested. “I just don’t like a lot of fussy decorations.”
“Elegantly simple,” Anna said, compromising. “I agree. The shades that look good on me aren’t as good on Megan, though I think I am a little more the same size.”
“I like the rust-colored satin,” Anna went on, picking up one of the gowns and holding it up to Megan.
Anna might be suspicious, but she seemed willing enough to help her, Megan thought. Perhaps she was simply more reserved than Kyria. Or perhaps she was simply waiting for her to take a misstep.
“It’s a beautiful color on her,” Kyria agreed. “Why don’t you try it on, Megan, and Joan can see where she needs to alter it?”
It didn’t take much urging for Megan to try on the dress. It was a beautiful rich satin in a dark russet that picked up the red of her hair and warmed her pale skin. She had had her eye on it the whole time. The low neckline curved slightly up to the short, puffed sleeves, and a darker lace trimmed the edge, making the neckline more modest.
Olivia was a trifle more slender than Megan, she found, and she had to suck in her breath sharply to let Joan fasten the hooks up the back.
“Oh, yes!” Kyria exclaimed. “That looks lovely.”
“I can scarcely breathe,” Megan commented, but Kyria waved away that protest.
“We’ll lace up your corset more tightly,” she told her. “I think this is definitely the one.”
Joan tucked the lace down inside the dress, startling Megan with the familiarity that the aristocratic ladies seemed to not even notice.
“Much better,” Kyria almost purred. “We’ll take off the lace at the neckline. You can add a bit of copper lace as decoration at the hem. I have some earrings I made last year that would be absolutely perfect. Copper-and-turquoise dangles.” She paused, thinking, her head tilted to one side. “Or perhaps just plain ear bobs and a cameo choker with a copper-colored ribbon.”
“The choker, I think,” Anna said, hopping up and going to her jewelry box and returning with a cameo on a ribbon. “We can exchange these ribbons.” She wrapped it around Megan’s throat and held it, looking toward Kyria for confirmation.
“Simple and elegant,” Kyria said with a nod.
Megan, looking at her reflection in the mirror, could not help but agree. Even with her hair twisted into its usual plain knot, she looked more attractive than she could ever remember looking. The rich material and the warmth of the color made her skin glow, and her eyes were lit with pleasure. Her waist was infinitesimal in this tight dress, well worth, she thought, a little discomfort. Her bosom, larger than Olivia’s, swelled above the lowered neckline, full and soft, beckoning the eye.
“Um…don’t you think it’s, well, a little low cut?” she asked doubtfully. “I mean, I am only a tutor. It seems, well…” She shrugged.
“Nonsense,” Kyria said firmly. “There is no need to look like a governess at a ball, is there? It isn’t as if you’re going to be teaching anyone.”
“Besides, it’s simple,” Olivia put in. She cast a look at Kyria. “Plain, in fact. No one could say it was inappropriate.”
Megan suspected that her father and the nuns would probably argue about that, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her from wearing this dress. It was sheer vanity, she knew, but she could not wait to see Theo’s face when he saw her in this dress.
Joan fussed about the skirt of the gown, pulling it up here and there, and telling Kyria that she could drape the hem over the copper lace, as well as add a little more padding to the modest bustle. Kyria was quick to agree.
Puzzled, Megan looked at Kyria. “I have to wonder—why are you doing this?”
Kyria raised an elegant brow in a gesture that was designed to quell impertinent questions. “I’m sorry. Do you not wish to attend the museum benefit?”
Megan was too accustomed to asking unwelcome reporters’ questions to be turned aside by the other woman’s manner. She merely smiled and said, “It’s not that I am not grateful for your kindness and generosity, Mrs. McIntyre. Or that I’m not looking forward to being Cinderella at the ball. It is just, well, I cannot help but wonder why you are going to so much trouble to take me to this party.”
Kyria’s snobbish expression dissolved into a grin. “All right. I do have an ulterior motive. Surely you know what that is—I would like to put Lady Scarle’s nose out of joint.”
“She has had her tentacles out for Theo for months now,” Olivia put in, surprising Megan a little. She would have thought Lady St. Leger was as unobservant as her father of all things social.
“He doesn’t have any partiality for her, though,” Anna said. “Does he?”
“Oh, no. He has never been more than polite to her,” Kyria replied. “It’s just…well, I worry sometimes that she will keep after him so long that she will wear him down. Or that she will manage to trick him into some compromising position. You know Theo. He would marry her if he thought honor demanded it.”
“She is just the sort who would do something like that,” Olivia agreed.
Megan could understand Theo’s loving sisters’ motives. She would herself relish irritating the obnoxious Lady Scarle.
“But why—I mean, what does that have to do with me?” Megan blurted out, then blushed to her hairline.
Kyria let out a throaty chuckle. “My dear Miss Henderson, surely you have noticed that our brother spends an inordinate amount of time with the twins these days.”
“And he is not usually inclined to scholarly pursuits,” Olivia stuck in with a smile.
“Lady Helena saw it as soon as the two of you walked into the drawing room the other day. Her back went up immediately. Even she isn’t usually quite that rude. She was livid when I said you were coming with us to the ball.” Kyria smiled at the memory of the other woman’s discomfiture. “I intend for her to be even more upset when she sees you this Friday evening.”
Megan could not understand Kyria’s satisfaction at the thought of her brother’s interest in a mere employee. The Morelands were abnormally egalitarian for aristocrats, of course. Kyria herself had married an American and was quite happy to be addressed as Mrs. McIntyre instead of Lady Kyria. But Rafe McIntyre was at least enormously wealthy, whereas Megan was nothing but a tutor.
It was not, she supposed, as bad as her real occupation—she could think of little an aristocratic family would like less than one of them marrying a muckraking careerwoman. But even so, she was not only a commoner and a foreigner, she was someone who worked for them. And while a daughter might marry outside their group of peers, as Kyria and Thisbe had obviously done, it was an altogether different thing for their firstborn son, the heir to the ancient title, to do so. A tutoress as the next duchess? It would be, Megan guessed, unthinkable.
Then she realized that that very fact was the answer to her question. Kyria and Olivia knew that Megan was so unacceptable as a wife that Theo would never consider marriage to her. It would not be the same as falling into the clutches of a woman of good birth, whom he might have to marry. An employee, and an American at that, would never be anything to Theo but a passing fancy—a mistress, at best.
Megan was aware of a pang of hurt and disappointment at the thought. She liked Kyria and Olivia, and it wounded her to think that they did not consider the consequences for her in their scheme to keep their brother out of Lady Scarle’s clutches.
Somewhat subdued, she stood, letting Joan crawl around her skirt, pinning it up here and there, while the other women chattered about ribbons and jewelry and the dreadful Lady Scarle. When the maid finally finished, Megan quickly got out of the elegant gown and back into her own plain clothes, and left the ladies with a polite smile and thank-you.
She went through the rest of the week careening back and forth between conflicting emotions. Part of her did not want to go to the benefit, didn’t want to face Theo—or Lady Scarle. Yet she knew that she had to; it was a perfect opportunity to see Mr. Coffey again and question him privately about the trip he had made with Theo and her brother.
However, she knew that it was not simply this opportunity that made her a little breathless with anticipation every time she thought about the ball. She wanted to see herself dressed in the beautiful gown; she could not help but imagine how Theo would look when he saw her—the smile that would curve his mouth and the heat that would light his eyes. She wanted to put that hot glow of passion in his eyes; indeed, she melted a little inside just thinking about it.
But the thought scared her as much as it excited her. She did not want to have to face the man’s passion again. Did she? Surely she did not really look forward to having to fend off his advances—or the guilty shame that would assail her if she gave in to his drugging kisses.
By the time the evening of the museum benefit arrived, Megan’s stomach was a ball of nerves. Joan had brought the dress to her that afternoon, altered and pressed, and had hung it carefully in her wardrobe, pushing all other clothes back so that nothing would crease the ball gown. Hanging there in solitary splendor, it was even more magnificent than Megan had imagined. Joan’s touch of scalloping the skirt, with lace inserts peeking through between, added richness and sophistication, as did the drapery over the heightened bustle.
She had also brought the simple cameo, tacked with Joan’s infinitesimal stitches onto a grosgrain ribbon that matched the copper color of the lace, and it now lay spread out on Megan’s vanity. Beside it lay the simple onyx ear bobs that matched the background of the cameo.
Megan had just sat down to begin her toilette when there was a knock on the door and Joan entered. When Megan looked at her, surprised, Joan said, “Her ladyship sent me over to do your hair, miss.”
The maid looked, Megan thought, a trifle miffed. No doubt she preferred to be at her mistress’s side, putting the final touches on Kyria’s beauty. However, she went to work on Megan’s hair with deft efficiency, sweeping it up into a knot, then separating it and winding each strand around her finger, so that the ensuing curls fell in a cascade. Artfully, she arranged delicate feathery curls around Megan’s face. To complete the hairdo, she wound a coppery satin ribbon around the knot and through the curls.
Joan helped Megan into the petticoats and bustle, cinching her up in her corset so tightly that Megan wondered if she would be able to breathe at all that evening. Carefully, Joan lifted the dress over Megan’s head and brought it down, hooking it up the back and arranging the folds of her skirt so that they fell exactly right. She finished her work of art by fastening the cameo on Megan’s neck and putting in the simple earrings.
She stepped back, allowing Megan to look at the finished product. Megan drew in an involuntary gasp. Kyria’s sense of style had been unerring. The stylish dress complemented the color of her hair and eyes, and her pale skin glowed against its satin richness. The cameo around her neck was at once simple and devastating, showing off the elegant line of her neck and drawing the eye without distracting from the expanse of her bosom swelling up from the neckline of the dress.
Megan had always known that she was pretty in a casual way, but never had she imagined that she could look striking. Somehow, she marveled, Joan and Kyria had managed to make her look both desirable and unattainable.
She smiled blindingly at Kyria’s maid. “You are an artist, Joan. Thank you.”
Joan nodded, accepting Megan’s praise as her due. “Her ladyship said that was just how you would look. She’s a canny one.” She stepped forward and pinched Megan sharply on both cheeks, startling her. “There, now there’s a little color in your cheeks. Just perfect. Press your lips together and put a little color in them, too.”
She stepped back, grinning. “Everybody’ll be wondering who the new American beauty is at the ball tonight.”
Megan could only laugh, excitement bubbling up in her. She swept from her room and walked down the stairs, where several of the Morelands already waited, including Theo. He looked up at the sound of her footsteps, and the stunned expression on his face was everything she could have hoped for.
“Miss Henderson, how lovely you look,” the duchess said, moving forward to take Megan’s hand and smile down at her. “Doesn’t she, Henry?”
“Yes, yes, lovely, my dear.” The duke smiled benignly and rather vaguely at Megan, then back at his wife, adding, “Not as lovely as you, of course. You are stunning, as always.”
It was the truth, for the duchess, with her regal height and still slender figure, the dramatic streaks of white in her vibrant red hair, made a striking figure, despite the unostentatious lack of jewelry at her throat and ears, and the almost severe cut of her peacock-blue dress.
Theo stepped forward as his parents turned away, and took Megan’s hand in his, raising it to his lips in formal greeting. She glanced away, struggling to suppress the flicker of nerves inside her at the touch of his lips upon her skin.
“You are beautiful,” he murmured, and the flicker of heat in his eyes as he looked down into hers underlined his words. “I can see that I will have to beat your admirers back if I hope to have a dance with you.”
Megan smiled. “I am sure that is not the case.”
“Will you promise me your first waltz?” he asked.
“I would not think that is appropriate, surely,” she said, casting an unabashedly flirtatious glance up at him through her lashes. “The future Duke of Broughton, taking the governess out onto the floor for the first waltz.”
He grinned. “It will doubtless scandalize the old biddies. Now I am determined to do it.”
She chuckled, though she shook her head.
His fingers tightened on hers. “You cannot abandon me to all those ambitious mothers and their daughters. Please, say you will save me.”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“You would not say that if you had seen them.”
Megan could not keep from smiling. “All right. I will give you my first waltz.” She paused, then added, “But only to save you from the overbearing mamas.”
“Of course.” He turned and picked up a white box from the nearby table. Turning back, he held it out to Megan, saying, “I did not know the color of your dress….”
She took the box, surprised, and opened it with suddenly fumbling fingers. Inside, nestled on a bed of green tissue, lay a delicate white gardenia, framed by its waxy dark green leaves.
“Theo—I mean, Lord Raine…” Megan had not expected this. She reached into the box and pulled out the fragile white flower, breathing in its heady scent. “I—I don’t know what to say. It is beautiful.”
“It pales in comparison to you,” he murmured, taking the small corsage from her hand and fastening it around her wrist. Then he raised her arm so he could smell the flower. Turning her hand, he brushed his lips against the tender flesh inside her wrist.
Megan jumped a little, startled, and cast a swift glance toward his parents. The duke and duchess, fortunately, were engrossed in each other and paying no attention to anyone else.
“Please…you should not,” Megan told him a little breathlessly and took a step back from him. She lifted her head and looked into his eyes, saying softly, “Thank you.”
There was the sound of footsteps at the top of the stairs, and they turned to look up, moving a step farther apart as Anna and Reed came down the stairs to join them. The duke and duchess turned and came over, and for a while they all chatted casually. Megan moved subtly away from Theo, directing most of her comments to the others.
Kyria and Rafe arrived a few minutes later. Kyria was stunning in a gown of pale green silk, pulled back in the front and falling from a bustle in three puffed tiers. Silver lace decorated the hem of the dress and made an inverted V below the tiers of material in the back. Around her neck was a magnificent emerald necklace that would doubtless have outshone anyone less stunning than Kyria.
Kyria gave Megan a swift, assessing glance, and a small smile touched her lips when she saw the corsage on Megan’s wrist. Stepping forward, she greeted Megan with a peck on the cheek, murmuring, “You look beautiful, just as I thought you would.”
Linking her arm through Megan’s, Kyria said, “Theo, why don’t you and Miss Henderson come with us? Papa’s carriage will be too crowded with all of you.”
As they walked out to the carriage, Kyria leaned closer, confiding to Megan in a whisper, “I want to make sure I am there when you arrive. I am anticipating with great glee the look on Lady Scarle’s face.”
“I cannot imagine that anyone will look at me much, Mrs. McIntyre, when I am standing beside you.”
Kyria let out a light laugh. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Miss Henderson. Besides, everyone is quite accustomed to seeing me, whereas you are someone new and different. Everyone will be wondering who you are.”
“Theo and I will be considered the luckiest men there tonight, to be with two women as beautiful as you,” Rafe put in diplomatically in his lazy drawl.
“I feel a little like Cinderella at the ball,” Megan confessed.
Theo smiled at her, kicking up a clutch of nerves in her stomach. “Just so long as you don’t disappear at midnight.”
“I think I can guarantee that I will not.” Megan could not keep from smiling back. How could this man be a murderer?
But he was, and she had to remember that. Theo Moreland was her enemy. She turned her head away, breaking their locked gazes, and kept it that way for the rest of the ride.