A Marquess, A Miss And A Mystery. ANNIE BURROWS
Читать онлайн книгу.
to make you pine for one of your own, is it? Lord, how I wish that I...’ She pulled herself up short. ‘It is just,’ she said, lowering her voice as they drew closer to the group of people waiting their turn to enter the house through a set of French doors, ‘that if I was an orphan, with no title, nobody would mind if I fell in love with a man with nothing to recommend him but his brains. There is nobody to prevent you from following your heart.’
Something inside Horatia twisted at the mention of following her heart. ‘You are forgetting,’ she said, ‘that even men with brains are governed very much by what they see. They don’t fall in love with awkward little dabs of women with no fashion sense.’ Which meant there was no point, absolutely no point, in hoping such a thing might happen. ‘They fall in love with pretty, witty, blondes,’ she finished, giving her friend a pointed look.
‘It is useless anyway.’ Lady Elizabeth sighed, halting a short distance away from the rest of the churchgoers. ‘Theakstone arranged for Mr Brown to go to Leipzig. And while it is of great advantage to his career, he might just as well have flown to the moon. We will never see each other again, and...’ She stopped on a hiccup that sounded suspiciously like a choked sob. ‘Mama will get her way, I dare say. I shall have to marry someone with money and the standing to overcome the disgrace Papa brought to our family.’
‘I’m surprised she isn’t pushing you at the Marquess, then.’
‘Lord, no. He has the money, but apparently even Mama knows it would be a waste of time attempting to snare such a one. Too slippery to be caught in the parson’s mousetrap. Too busy enjoying himself with the ladies who flock round him and no pressing need to sire an heir. No, she is hoping to match me up with somebody older. With more substance about him. A widower, perhaps, with only daughters.’ She shuddered.
Not for the first time, Horatia thanked her lucky stars she was a mere Miss. Nobody expected her to marry to save the family fortunes. There never had been any fortune to lose in the first place. Herbert had had a small income, which he’d supplemented by doing nominal work at a post gained for him through the influence of a distant uncle.
Until that day he’d come to her with the tale of how he and Lord Devizes had found a brilliant way to earn a little extra. And to serve their country at the same time. Someone, he’d said, tapping his nose to indicate that person’s identity must remain secret, was going to pay any expenses incurred while they rooted out traitors to the Crown. To that end, they’d each chosen their own code names, to keep their own identities secret from anyone who didn’t need to know they were involved in such work. Lord Devizes was to become Janus, because he would present one face to society, and another to the criminal underworld, while Herbert was to be known as Portunus, after the Roman god of keys and doors. When Horatia had frowned in bewilderment, he’d burst out laughing.
‘I’ve boasted that I can unlock any code or cipher anyone could possibly devise.’
‘And can you?’
‘No!’ He’d grinned, then. ‘But you can. You love puzzles and have a knack of solving them. So if we ever come across any coded messages I can bring ’em straight to you. You’ll enjoy doing such work, won’t you? Give you something to keep your mind off...’ He’d grimaced and jerked his head at their aunt, who was jabbing away at her tambour frame at her seat before the fire, embroidering one of her samplers which invariably quoted the sterner verses from the scriptures.
Which reminded her.
‘I don’t suppose you picked up my Bible, did you?’ It wouldn’t do to leave it lying around, where anyone could see the sketch she’d drawn of Janus, to indicate she needed to speak with Lord Devizes in his role as a secret investigator.
‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Lady Elizabeth distractedly as she removed her bonnet, for, by this time, they’d reached the doorway and there were several maids waiting to relieve the Duke’s guests of their outer wear, so that they could go straight to a reception room where refreshments were being served. ‘I didn’t notice it after you’d gone. I thought you must have picked it up yourself.’
No. She’d been too angry to bend back down again. So...where had it gone? If it wasn’t on the floor of the chapel when Lady Elizabeth had emerged from her pew, then somebody must have picked it up.
She gripped her reticule tightly, for want of any other way to express her sudden spasm of panic. She’d just have to hope that it had been Lord Devizes. That he’d picked it up while everyone else’s attention was on her storming out and Lady Elizabeth and her mother having one of their altercations.
Because if it was anyone else...
No, no, surely she was worrying unnecessarily. Only people who worked for, or with, Lord Devizes knew about his code name. Anyone outside their fraternity would make nothing of a sketch of an ancient Roman deity. Would they?
Although...somebody had discovered that Herbert was on to them. He’d told her, after dropping off yet another of the coded messages, that he was following up a lead that could take him right to the heart of the group of people who were involved in passing information about the state of England’s military power to the exiled French emperor. He’d been close, he’d told her with excitement.
Too close, she’d later realised. So close that whoever it was he’d been tailing had turned round and murdered him.
A chill ran down her spine as she stepped out of the sunshine and into the shaded interior of the house. She fumbled at the strings of her bonnet. She had good reason to believe that Herbert’s killer was going to attend the Duke of Theakstone’s wedding. And if she was going to be hunting that person down on her own, she was going to have to be a great deal more cautious.
Since Horatia and Lady Elizabeth had not taken the direct route back to the house from the chapel, practically everyone who’d attended morning prayers had already reached the yellow salon before them.
Horatia followed in Lady Elizabeth’s wake to the tea table, which was manned by a brace of the Duke’s liveried footmen. Having procured drinks, they then proceeded to another great long refectory-style table, which was piled with all manner of the kinds of things she would have taken on a picnic. There were huge hams, chicken legs, slices of bread, whole boiled eggs and fruit that was so artfully arranged on a sort of pedestal that it would have felt as if she was desecrating it if she dared remove so much as a single grape.
She picked up a plate and handed it over to one of the footmen, pointing out what she wanted rather than helping herself to any of the tempting delicacies on show. Once it was filled, but not piled high, Horatia looked about for somewhere to sit and eat it. Lady Elizabeth had already dutifully gone to sit beside her mother. But there was no way Horatia was going to try to squeeze on to the sofa beside them. The vinegary expression on Lady Tewkesbury’s face was enough to give her indigestion. And there were loads of other chairs dotted about, in little clusters, and sofas set at angles so that the occupants could chat.
Though Horatia had the horrid feeling that what they were chatting about was her. Several times she caught a sly look, or somebody nudging someone else to make them aware she was about to walk by. And, of course, there was Lord Devizes himself, surrounded by a gaggle of giggling females, his eyes following her progress, his mouth slightly tilted in that mocking smile he very rarely went without.
His flirts must all be wondering how she could possibly show her face in public after the scene she’d made in the chapel earlier. If only she had the courage to take her plate and cup up to her own sitting room where she could avoid the stares. Or if only there was a bank of potted plants behind which she could hide.
But there wasn’t. For all his vaunted wealth, the Duke had not a single plant, in a pot, anywhere in this room, never mind a whole bank of them. The best she could do would be to find a corner and hope that once she’d sat down in it, and applied herself to her nuncheon, certain people would find something else to laugh