In which a footman is improper
A charm must be reinvigorated or it will fade into disrepair.
- from Lady Avely’s Guide to Lies and Charms
Once outside, Dacian bundled her into the carriage, and then took his place as footman, hanging off the rear. The coachman, Patrick, set the horses in motion, and the carriage rumbled down the ash-lined drive. Judith sank back against the squab, relieved to be alone for a minute. It had been trying to joust with Lady Garvey, while listening for lies. Dacian’s arms had been a bolstering relief, but that too was an assault on her senses. She needed a moment to put herself in order. Patting her mobcap back into place, she retied the ribbons and smoothed her skirts.
The carriage turned onto the laneway, out of sight of the house. Judith heard rattling at the side door and suddenly saw Dacian’s head peering through the window. He had climbed around the body of the carriage while it was in motion.
“Let me in.” He rapped again on the glass. “We need to talk.”
Hastily, she unlatched the door. He swung himself inside, clicking it shut, and sat down opposite her.
Despite herself, she smiled. “You are not very good at playing a footman, are you? This is most improper.” Fortunately, Patrick was solidly the duke’s man, and would not turn a hair at his untoward behaviour.
“Not as improper as allowing a footman to embrace you.”
Judith blushed. “I don’t think we should attempt that ruse again. Lady Garvey paid far too much attention to you. What if she were to recognise you? She might call the parish constable out to arrest you for killing her son.”
“No risk of that,” said Dacian, with a mock twirl of his moustache, which of course did not respond but momentarily vanished instead.
When he lowered his hand, she saw that the accoutrement, though it sprang back, had started to wilt a little. The whole disguise had slipped down somehow; perhaps with his athletic swing around the carriage. The moustache now sat on Dacian’s lower lip, and his mole in the hollow of his cheek.
Judith reached forward and pulled the pearl pin out of his cravat. “Take it off, for goodness’ sake. It is making me twitch.”
As she pulled the pin out, the brown colour washed out of his hair, leaving it black and wavy again. Now she could see the beautifully carved planes of his face, and his dark, striking eyes. The white cravat loosened around his throat without the pin to hold it in place.
“That’s better,” she said faintly.
He raised a brow. “If you are to take my cravat off, may I take off your mobcap? Fair’s fair, marchioness.”
“Certainly not.” Judith resisted the urge to pat her headgear. She held Dacian’s cravat pin, warm in her fingers. “Thank you for fetching the carriage.”
“A dastardly ploy on your part,” he said, “yet some good has come of it.” He leaned back, folding his arms over his broad chest. “You recall that the best parlour is already taken at the Golden Bat? When I ran back, I saw the occupant emerge. It is Lord Kenneth Garvey himself.”
Judith sat up straight, intrigued. “How very strange. Why would he stay at the inn when he could stay as master at Garvey House?”
“Guilt,” suggested Dacian with satisfaction. “He killed Charles for his title and inheritance, but now he can’t bear the thought of it. Or perhaps he is afraid of running into his brother’s ghost.”
“Or,” said Judith thoughtfully, “he is afraid of a more human accusation. Lady Garvey was very scathing about her second son. Perhaps she suspects his guilt.”
Dacian raised his brows. “What did she say?”
Judith thought back. “I suggested that Kenneth could be Georgina’s guardian in town, and she rejected the notion with hostility. When I pressed her, she said it was a ‘private family matter’, but that she wouldn’t trust Kenneth with Georgina.”
Dacian grimaced. “I suspect I know what that might be about.”
“Oh?”
“Kenneth likes men.” His lips quirked. “Lady Garvey, because she is a fool, probably sees that as a greater moral failing than murder.”
Judith’s eyes widened. “He is like… Lord Vosse?”
“Indeed. In fact, I suspect Kenneth and Lord Vosse were, er, intimately involved with each other, at the house party.”
She cast her mind back, remembering how the two men had been walking together behind Miss Pelling, talking with the intimacy of close friends. Perhaps it had been more than friendship. She had not paid any attention to the possibility at the time, even though she was aware that such arrangements existed. “Who knew about it?”
Dacian shrugged. “Not many. They were discreet.”
“I wonder if Charles knew, and threatened to intervene to protect the family reputation,” Judith pondered. “Perhaps Kenneth killed him not for the title and money, but for passion.”
“Well, we can find out,” said Dacian. “We must invite ourselves into the best parlour and question the man himself.”
“ I must invite myself. You must not show yourself at all. Kenneth might recognise you, and that would give the game away.”
They were drawing closer to Stokesford, and reluctantly she handed the cravat pin over again. She watched as Dacian expertly redid his cravat and thrust the pin through. His disguise resumed, but the moustache was still marginally adrift.
Dacian leaned forward. “Don’t think I have forgotten that you called me Harold,” he warned. “I am still concocting a suitable punishment.”
A smile crept onto her face. “What would you have preferred? Bartholomew?”
He winced. “Good God, no.”
She pretended to consider. “Yes, I think that moustache belongs to a Bartholomew.”
“Stop maligning the moustache!”
“Anyone would think it was your real one,” she mocked. “We must ask Robert to refresh it. You will draw attention if you are wearing it on your chin.”
Dacian ignored that and directed a speculative look at her ankle. “I must carry you out of the carriage, to continue the charade of your injury.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“I assure you, it is no hardship.”
Judith thought of her soft body pressed against his hard one, and looked away. “We do not want to tax your Gift with such trivial matters.”
“What else is my Gift worth, if not to protect a beautiful woman?” His eyes glinted.
She shook her head. “If you expect such ridiculous nonsense to convince me to undo my bodice, you are sadly mistaken.”
“No, you’ll take your bodice off because I’m irresistible,” he retorted. Judith huffed in exasperation, and then he added, “I won’t rush you, marchioness, but I live in hope.” Without waiting for an answer, he swung himself out of the carriage again, to resume his position clinging to the back rail.
Left alone again, Judith’s heart beat fast. He had said those very same words to her, nine years ago.