Page 21 of Dukes All Night Long
O ops. Garry’s masquerade was about to come to a premature end unless he quickly thought of something. “Parsons! Lady Jenna, meet Parsons, a friend of mine from London. Parsons, um, taught me everything I know about being a valet.”
Parsons, who had been valet to Garry’s Uncle Lance until he had to leave to look after a sick mother, proved he’d lost none of his intelligence in the past three years. “It’s good to see you again, lad, but what are you and the lady doing here?”
“Your master has been blackmailing her ladyship’s sister, and we are searching for the evidence he has against her,” Garry said.
“Mr. Garry!” Jenna protested.
“Sir Thomas is a villain, my lady, and no mistake,” Parsons said.
“You need not fear I shall tell him anything about seeing you here. What are we looking for? Letters? I know what is in most of Sir Thomas’s drawers and boxes, but there are a couple of boxes on high shelves in the dressing room I have been told not to touch. ”
“Then let’s check those,” Garry said. “Parsons, how is your mother?”
“Poorly, Mr. Garry, thank you for asking,” the valet answered. “I am looking for a position by the sea. The doctor says she might recover more quickly if she can breathe sea air, but I am her only son, sir, and I must have her close enough to visit.”
He climbed up a set of steps he had pulled from a niche in the dressing room, and retrieved two large hat boxes, passing them down to Garry, who gave one to Jenna and carried the other to the table under the window in the bedchamber.
“I might be able to find something,” he said to Parsons.
“I know some people with homes near the sea. I can ask for you.” Grandfather had promised him several properties as a sweetener to the proposed marriage, including a townhouse in Brighton.
If he installed Parsons there to look after the house, the man could train someone younger, who didn’t mind traveling, as Garry’s valet.
It was about time he had one, instead of depending on any available footman.
Parsons was touchingly grateful. “Would you do that for me?”
“Why not? I know you to be a fine valet.” Garry had the top off his box and was going through the contents, while Jenna did the same with the other box.
“Mr. Garry, these are all bundles of letters. In different writing. Do you suppose…?”
“That the cad is blackmailing other people, too?” Garry asked. “Yes, I do suppose. This hat box is the same. Sir Thomas has been a busy man. Parsons, do you have something we can put these in? Lady Jenna and I will take them back to Congleton Abbey and burn them.”
“A pillowcase, sir?” Parsons said. If he kept calling Garry “sir”, Lady Jenna was going to become suspicious, and if he slipped and said “my lord”, the masquerade would be over. Garry would prefer to tell her himself, and he had better do so soon.
While Parsons fetched the pillowcase, Garry idly opened one of the folded bundles of papers in the hat box in front of him, and found himself looking at Jenna’s face. No, not Jenna. The chin was not as round and the eyes were a different shape.
Though the girl in the drawing was quite a bit younger—more of a girl than a young adult—it was almost certainly Sabina. A stark-naked Sabina spread out across a bed in a provocative pose.
Garry turned to the next sheet of paper in the bundle. The girl in the drawing had been joined by a man—a vague sketch with just an impression of his shape and a curve for a face, but enough to see what he and the girl were—
Jenna snatched at the bundle. “Give me those,” she commanded.
“Not just letters,” Garry commented, handing the bundle over.
“She did not pose for those,” Jenna insisted. “It is a lie.” She tucked the bundle into the inside pocket of her cloak, and added a ribbon-tied bundle of letters.
“If I had to guess,” said Garry, “On the top one, the face and body were not even done at the same time, or by the same hand. I cannot be certain in this light, but the pencil lead appears to be two different colors, and the stroke and shading on the face is not the same as on the body. I did not get a chance to examine the others.”
“Nor will you,” Jenna retorted. “They are going in the fire. Do you think Carter had someone add to the original pictures just so he could blackmail my sister into marrying him?”
“We will find the artist and ask him,” Garry told her.
The sound of approaching voices came from the passage outside.
“Quick,” Garry said. “Into the dressing room.”
“I will delay Sir Thomas for long enough that you can replace the boxes, my lord,” said Parsons. “After that, hide in the wardrobe on the right-hand side of the room. There is nothing there that the scoundrel will need tonight. I’ll let you out once he has settled for the night.”
Quick thinking on Parson’s part, even if he did call Garry, “my lord”. With the dressing room door shut behind them, he could still hear Carter ranting at Parsons, but not what he was upset about.
“Tip the contents of the hat boxes into the pillowcase, then take it and hide in the wardrobe,” Garry instructed Jenna, holding the pillowcase open.
Only afterward did he think he should have made it a request. If he’d spoken like that to Barbara, the next sister to him in age, she would have slapped his face and done the opposite.
Jenna had more sense. She did exactly as he had asked and he joined her in the wardrobe after fetching the ladder, replacing the hat boxes, and putting the ladder away.
The wardrobe was no more than fifty inches wide and perhaps forty deep.
Jenna had burrowed between the hanging clothes and was right at the back.
Garry pulled the door shut and slithered after her.
More than a third of the floor space was taken up with the shoe shelves that rose partway up the left-hand wall.
Garry had to contort himself to fit between the shoe shelves, the hanging clothes, the back of the wardrobe and the shelf at the top of the space.
Even so, the only way the pair of them could fit was with Jenna in Garry’s arms, pressed against his body in a way that set his senses and his imagination reeling.
They were just in time. Through the wardrobe door, Garry could hear Carter’s hectoring voice, complaining about the heat of his washing water, Parsons’ failure to select the blue silk nightshirt rather than the red-striped linen nightshirt, and Parsons’ tardy response to pouring him a brandy.
“You useless parasite,” Carter raved. “I suppose you have not even heated the sheets.”
“The coals have probably cooled by now, sir,” Parson replied, calmly. “Do you wish me to go to the kitchen for some more?”
Carter, from the sounds, was brushing his teeth. He made a couple of grunting noises, before growling, “Check the sheets, you fool. Find out how warm they are.”
Garry heard nothing further for several minutes, which meant he could give his entire attention to how well Jenna fitted within his arms, her breasts crushed against his lower chest. He rested his hands against the back of the wardrobe and ordered them to stay there, for they were absolutely not permitted the exploration that they craved.
Nor could his lips become involved. They were hiding, not embracing. She was an innocent, barely out of the schoolroom. She did not even know who he really was.
She must use rosemary in her hair rinse, for the fragrance was in his nostrils, along with something more floral. A perfume? A soap? It was delicate and subtle, not the overwhelming assault on the nostrils that Garry had met before in ballrooms and in lovers’ boudoirs.
The murmur of voices came from further away than before. Carter and Parsons must have moved through to the bedchamber, and shut the dressing room door. It was probably safe to come out of the wardrobe, but Garry was perfectly content where he was.