Page 7 of Lady Be Good

Dinner that evening started at the unconscionably early hour of half seven. “Country hours,” the housekeeper had said. Lucky thing that Lilah had brought The Lady’s Guide to Refined Deportment, which contained an entire passage on the curious schedule kept at country estates. Otherwise, she would have had no idea what to make of Mrs. Barnes’s remark.

As she set out from her room, she took a wrong turn. The house was larger than one realized when viewing its facade. The two stories extended very deep, the result—Lilah had learned from the volume of family history—of an extension joined to the rear of the Tudor structure by Baroness Hughley the fourth.

Alas, Baroness Hughley the fourth had grown up during the English Civil War, an experience, Lilah gathered, that had left her with a fervent appreciation for confusion and hidey-holes. Peculiar passages and odd, twisting halls distinguished the rear extension, and it was one of these passages that led Lilah not to the dining room, but to a peculiar, secret half floor, more of a short hallway really, where she found herself lingering in startled delight.

Upstairs, the residential apartments opened onto a corridor furnished with the typical suits of armor and marble statuary. But this hall looked to have been borrowed wholesale from some eastern potentate’s palace. Turkish carpets blanketed the flagstones. Handsome carved screens concealed the plaster walls.

The auction house had pretensions to grandeur. But beyond the marbled public rooms, it was, after all, a place of business, marked by bare floors and workaday furniture. Never before had Lilah found herself in a place that spoke so strongly of power and wealth—and she was at full liberty to explore. How diverting!

Somebody was occupying the area, for the wall sconces were lit. Checking her pocket watch (not strictly appropriate for evening attire, but Lilah had not forgone all her old habits; every dress she owned contained a hidden pocket or two), she discovered that enough time remained before dinner to allow a brief prowl. If discovered, she would simply claim that it was her duty, as Miss Everleigh’s assistant, to survey the area. These screens, for instance, might fetch a very good price at auction.

Four doors lined the short hall. Her hairpin opened them easily. The first room was a small, attractive salon, with dark wallpaper and large, handsome oil paintings depicting a string of Hughley scions and their hounds.

The second room contained a billiards table, the green baize visibly warped by time and the damp. A hint of ancient pipe smoke lingered in the furniture.

The third room was a very fine water closet, done in Moroccan tile.

The fourth room . . . ah! A fire burned low in the hearth, and on a low scrollwork table, a glass of wine sat, half-emptied.

She hesitated, one hand on the doorknob, unnerved by the depth of her curiosity. She was a practical woman. Pragmatism was a woman’s best advantage in the world. Lord Palmer was her enemy. Her interest in him was only . . . practical. She must learn as much of him as possible, the better to protect herself.

She walked into the room. The desk was littered with a variety of letters, many of them bearing diplomatic insignia. A curious group of correspondents—all of them Russians, some of whom she knew from their patronage of the auction house. Obolensky was a special emissary of the czar, whom Susie had shown through the Slavic collection during the party last week.

She nudged aside the letters. Beneath them lay a large map of London, on which somebody had circled the location of the auction house. Other areas had also been notated—neighborhoods that an aristocrat typically avoided. Mile End, St. George’s-in-the-East—these made up part of Nick’s territory, poor areas whose local bigwigs paid monthly tributes to her uncle.

Mile End. Who was the bigwig in Mile End? A Russian, wasn’t it?

She stepped away, frowning. What use had an English war hero for such interests? Were this a theatrical set, such props would have marked him as a spy . . . and not for England.

Dinner was predictably joyless. Palmer tried to lure Miss Everleigh to speak more of herself. She answered his attempts with enervated courtesy, not so much rebuffing his charm as presenting a mask of perfect indifference to it.

He turned the conversation toward Buckley Hall. Here, Miss Everleigh grew animated. As Lilah nursed a single glass of wine and forced down bites of overcooked venison, Miss Everleigh launched into a lecture on the furniture of the Sun King.

Lilah did not incline to paranoid fantasies. English viscounts did not trouble themselves with espionage, particularly not for Russians. Of course they didn’t.

Palmer noted her silence. “And how fare you, Miss Marshall? You seem tired. Did you set yourself too exhausting an aim?”

She gathered that was a subtle reference to her dagger throwing. “No,” she said brightly, “I was not taxed in the least. Is your arm sore, sir?”

It seemed there were two subjects, after all, on which Miss Everleigh would wax enthusiastic, the second being Lilah’s manners. “You might refrain from mention of bodily parts at the table,” she said icily. “I am surprised, Miss Marshall. I thought conversational politesse was the main talent for which my brother employed you.”

Lilah delayed her reply with a long sip of the Bordeaux. “Forgive me,” she said evenly. “It’s true, I find myself somewhat fatigued. I have never kept country hours before.”

These tidings sank into an astonished silence. “You have never been to the country?” Miss Everleigh asked at last, as though her ears might have deceived her.

“I’ve been to the seaside, miss. But only for the day.”

“Then you’re bound for pleasant surprises,” Palmer said. “The quiet, for one.”

“Yes, I noticed it last night.” Along with the immense darkness outside, which had terrified her, and driven her to stay up till dawn with that book on the Hughley family.

As though he’d read her mind, Palmer said, “Miss Marshall made a study last night of my ancestors. Some ancient volume of family history, lying about in her rooms. Did you manage to finish it, Miss Marshall?”

She smiled at him. “First page to last.”

“A pity,” said Miss Everleigh. “Sleep might have equipped you to prove more useful. I trust you won’t fritter away tonight.”

Lilah bit her tongue. “No, miss. I expect I will sleep very well.”

“Excellent. Though I hope you will stir from your rooms at an earlier hour than you managed this morning.”

Lilah did not let her smile budge a fraction. She did, however, take the comfort of fondling her dinner knife. It was sharp, and there was satisfaction in knowing that if she chose, she could rid Miss Everleigh of that stray wisp of hair currently escaping her blond coiffure. It would hardly require the pause to take aim.

She felt Palmer’s eyes on her. She glanced over. He dropped his gaze to the knife.

She pulled her hand back into her lap.

The dimple appeared in his cheek. He was fighting a laugh. Clearing his throat, he turned and addressed some bland question to Miss Everleigh. More discussion of the Sun King.

Lilah sighed. It was the most vexing development imaginable that she should feel, at odd moments, a real liking for him. He was a bully and a blackmailer—but that made him little different from many acquaintances of her youth. Once she’d realized he had a purpose in stealing those papers other than to torment her, she’d found her anger hard to hold on to. It was the way of the world, after all; one did what one must to thrive. And she had been clumsy—all but begging to be caught as she’d hidden beneath that desk.

No, moral indignation would not have furnished her the key to disliking him. Not when he, unlike most of his brethren, spoke to her as a real person. Not when he caught her little jokes and laughed, albeit reluctantly.

He did not want to find her charming, either. That was obvious. A fine pair they made, struggling to dislike each other despite having every good reason to do so.

But if he was some kind of underhanded plotter . . . well, then she could loathe him properly. Hypocrisy, after all, was her least favorite quality. A traitor disguising himself as a war hero? That was dirtier business than her uncle’s.

She studied him as he flirted with Miss Everleigh. She could not square her suspicions with her gut feeling. Something was rotten, but she didn’t sense he was dangerous—not in an underhanded way, at least. More in a . . . kissing kind of way.

Heaven help me. She looked down at her plate to hide her blush. Knowing him better would help her make up her mind about him. But time in his presence only seemed to erode her wits further.

The days settled into a predictable pattern. Lilah was not invited to dine downstairs again, which suited her perfectly. She took her suppers in her sitting room, then read until exhaustion overwhelmed her dislike of the dark. At dawn, she hurried—and failed—to beat Miss Everleigh to breakfast. Then, for the next twelve hours, she trailed her mistress like a sheepish dog, trying her best to learn more of the woman without appearing chatty or forward or inattentive to the tasks at hand.

Some days, Miss Everleigh lost patience with her, and sent her off to comb through rooms on her own, with the instruction to set aside and make note of objects that promised good value. These days felt positively magical. As a child, Lilah and her sister had often pretended to be explorers, hunting their household for buried treasure. Now she did the same—but instead of discovering the pennies her father had used to hide, she uncovered items that belonged in museums. Beneath a pile of yellowing canvas, she found a pair of silver candlesticks, intricately engraved with a variety of exotic beasts, elephants and tigers. She forced open a broken chest of drawers, and out spilled chess pieces carved from ivory and inlaid with precious jewels. Cobwebbed corners concealed figurines, china plates, and handsomely painted tiles, abandoned and forgotten by long-dead generations.

Meanwhile, out the window, she saw things that city life had never shown her. A sunset as red as blood, in a sky so wide that it was a wonder the clouds didn’t get lost. Storms showed themselves on the horizon an hour before they arrived, so one could see rain slanting at a distance while sun still shone across the lawn. One day, a band of tinkers trundled up in a yellow caravan to sell their wares. Miss Everleigh would not let her go meet them, but she watched from the window as the housekeeper purchased pots and pans.

Fiona had nursed a dream of growing old in the countryside. Property in London was very dear, but careful savings might purchase a cottage in some village far from London, where nobody would ever discover a girl’s past. She’d made a habit of memorizing poems about country lanes and babbling brooks and the like.

But you don’t even know if we’ll like the country, Lilah had told her once.

Well, one day we’ll go and find out, won’t we?

Now Lilah found herself in the middle of her sister’s dream. But Miss Everleigh’s punishing schedule left no opportunity for outdoor explorations . . . until one afternoon when she dispatched Lilah to the farthest corner of the house and forgot to summon her afterward. The sun still rode high in a clear sky as Lilah finished her work. At last she saw the chance to explore the charms of the pastoral.

But three steps down the lawn toward the wood, she discovered what Fiona had never guessed, and poets never bothered to mention: country air was poisonous! First her eyes began to water. Next, her nose caught an itch. At her third sneeze, she turned back for the house in a state of high alarm.

It was just her luck to run into Lord Palmer in the front hall. He was dressed for riding, in tall boots and a close-fitted hunting jacket. “Where is Miss Everleigh?” he said curtly. “Why are you not with her?”

She held up one finger. The next sneeze was coming.

“You have a single task here.” He underlined his point by slapping his quirt against his thigh. “To assist—”

The sneeze exploded, knocking her back a pace. “It’s dreadful out there!” she said. “Don’t go!”

He blinked. She sneezed again. When the fit subsided, she saw a smile tugging at his lips “Spot of hay fever?”

“Is that what it is? Is it curable? Oh, I—” She sneezed again. “Drat it!”

He handed over a handkerchief, which she gratefully pressed to her runny nose. It smelled of him—soap and leather and clean male skin, with perhaps a hint of horse. “Avoid the greenery,” he said, “and you’ll recover.”

“There seems to be a great deal of it here.” Yet he looked aggravatingly hale, his bronzed skin suddenly suspect. He had been out in the sun very recently. “How do you not suffer?”

“Country raised,” he said.

That sounded like a curse. “I must go lie down.” But when she started past him, he caught her arm.

“You must go assist Miss Everleigh. You are not here on a holiday.”

“She put me to my own work, and—” She pulled free in time to spare him her next sneeze. “She’s not likely to welcome me in this state, is she?”

Looking at her, he sighed. “All right. Come with me.” Turning on his heel, he started off down the hall.

She hurried after him. A brief, twisting, confounding route led them to a door that opened into the hallway she had discovered once before. She slowed, a nervous flutter distracting her from misery. He was leading her into his study! What would she say about the map? Would it be wiser to pretend not to notice it?

But it transpired that he had cleared away any incriminating documents. With the drapes pulled back and daylight spilling across the bright Turkish carpet, the room looked very different—a far less likely site for the conduction of treason. She felt foolish, suddenly. Country air rotted her brain as well as her health. He was no traitor. There must be a very good reason for him to correspond with all those Russians.

But then why had he hidden their letters? One only hid things one needed to conceal.

He crossed to a handsome cabinet, pulling out a decanter. “Odd as it sounds, whisky is the quickest cure.” He splashed a finger into the glass and carried it back to her. “I’ll leave a portion in the kitchens for your use. Ring for another glass in the evening, along with a spoonful of honey. That always suffices for my mother.”

“Oh, she also has hay fever? Was she raised in the city, too?” Perhaps his mother was a well-born Russian, which would explain his connection to luminaries from that nation.

“In Sussex.” His eyes narrowed. A journalist had described their color as “the lambent shade of a summer sun.” At the time, reading the description, Lilah had snorted. But she now grudgingly admitted that it was a very fine turn of phrase. She reserved judgment, however, on whether his golden hair really constituted a “magnificent mane of leonine splendor.” “I can’t imagine why it concerns you,” he said.

She remembered his mood the night he had seen his sister in the street. His family, for some reason, troubled him. She offered an apologetic smile. “I merely wish to assemble a map—a list of places that are safe to visit, and won’t kill me when I set foot outdoors.”

A slight smile erased his severity. “The condition isn’t so perilous. Inconvenient, I’ll grant you. But not life threatening.”

“Says one who doesn’t suffer from it!” She took a sip of the whisky. “I can’t believe one isn’t warned before departing town. I tell you, it took one breeze, and suddenly I was suffocating.” She spared an envious thought for all the people breathing freely right now of London’s soot-stained air.

“I don’t mean to be dismissive,” he said. “I do know my mother suffers greatly at this time of year.” He glanced out the window, which offered a fine view of oaks and shrubbery in blossom. Poisonous blossom. “But the whisky should help. How are you feeling now?”

She took a testing breath, and felt no urge to sneeze. “Yes,” she said, “I think it’s working.” With enthusiasm, she finished the rest of the glass. “You could pour me a spot more, if you like.”

He laughed. “I think a finger will suffice for you.”

“I’ll wager your mother would take my side.” She hesitated. “Is she originally from Sussex?”

“Her family hails from Ireland.” He sat down across from her. “And if I recall, she has never complained of hay fever when visiting her cousins. So, there you have it, Miss Marshall: Tipperary is your safest destination.”

“Tipperary! But my own—” She stopped, horrified by her near slip.

“Your family is from Tipperary as well?” he asked pleasantly.

“No. Of course not. Surrey, in fact.” You dolt! For four years, she’d been Lilah Marshall, daughter of a clerk who hailed from the bland, irreproachable Home Counties. And now, dazed by evil hay and a finger of whisky, she had almost undone the whole effort.

Head tipped, he was studying her. “Yet you do have the look of the Irish about you.”

She bristled. “I certainly do not.” Fiona had looked Irish—Fiona of the auburn hair, eyes greener than grass. She’d taken after Da that way.

Lilah, on the other hand, took after their mother’s side. Dark hair and blue eyes. My little English bluebird, Da had called her. You’d not draw an eye in a crowd of High Churchers.

He’d meant that as a compliment, of course. Being able to move unnoticed was a great asset in his line of work.

“No, I’m afraid I’m quite right.” The dimple had popped out in Palmer’s cheek, so she knew to prepare for teasing, “I definitely see a touch of the old country about you.”

“Hardly, my lord. I’m a regular English wren.”

He lifted his brows. “But that sounds quite plain. Whereas I was thinking instead of your . . .” He paused, looking arrested. “Why, you make yourself sound as plain as your name. ‘Marshall.’ As English, one might say, as a Sunday roast.” A devilish sparkle entered his amber eyes. “So perfectly, unexceptionably unmemorable. Very convenient, for a thief.”

Certainly he had Irish blood. No other race possessed the gift for second sight. “I’m an Everleigh Girl,” she said. “That night in Mr. Everleigh’s office was a singular occurence.”

“But by your own admission,” he said, “you are out of practice. Ergo, once upon a time, you thieved a great deal more often.”

“Marshall is a fine name,” she said stridently. “No plainer than Stratton, in my view.”

“Indeed. One can’t argue that. And your mother’s name, may I ask?” He sat back, stretching his long legs before him, inadvertently—or perhaps deliberately—flaunting the pronounced musculature of his thighs. Those breeches fit him like a glove. The effect was . . . distracting.

“My mother’s name?” she repeated absently. Nobody had ever asked her about that. He had very powerful calves, didn’t he? She hadn’t realized calves could be handsome, but the close fit of his buckskin proved it. Strapped with muscle! Put those calves to auction, and all the ladies would bid. “Smith,” she said. “Her name was Smith.”

“Of course!” He gave a rich, resonant laugh. “Smith and Marshall. John Marshall, dare I guess? And Mary Smith.”

She returned his look defiantly. “Sarah Smith.” Now she must remember that, in case he tested her again later. “But how kind of you to take an interest in my genealogy, Lord Palmer.”

“Oh, I’m finding you more interesting by the minute.” He paused, frowning.

She wrestled against the urge to feel flattered. Interesting was not a compliment. The wealthy used that word for any number of trifling diversions. God’s sake, far too frequently they used it to describe the weather.

More to the point, his curiosity might undo her. “I wish I deserved your interest,” she said. “Alas, there’s nothing so remarkable about a clerk falling in love with the daughter of his colleague. Your parents, on the other hand—what a grand romance it must have been, for an English viscount to fall in love with an Irishwoman.”

“Half Irish,” he said. “And not as rare as you’d think. So your father was a clerk, was he? At which place of employment, Miss Marshall?”

“How did your parents meet? I do adore a good love story.”

“Yes, I’m gathering you’re quite fond of any number of stories. Whereas I particularly like tales of misadventure.” He leaned forward, bracing his weight against his thigh by one elbow. He’d rolled up his cuffs; his bronzed forearms looked hard as iron, dusted in gold. The veins stood out prominently. “Tell me, how did the daughter of a respectable, law-abiding clerk find herself equipped with the skills of a lockpick and thief?”

Heart skipping, she rose. “Well, I do feel much better now.”

With a cat-in-the-cream smile, he came to his feet as well. “So glad to hear it. Will you tell me your true name sometime, Miss Marshall?”

She manufactured a laugh. He knew nothing other than what she led him to suspect. How she’d betrayed herself, she had no idea—and that in itself concerned her as nothing else did. First she’d let him catch her stealing. Now she was letting him see through her.

Or did he truly have the second sight? Now that she knew he was partly Irish, she could see signs of it everywhere—his brawny build; the squareness of his jaw; his noble height and the breadth of his shoulders. No lad like a Tipperary lad, as Cousin Sally used to sing. “How amusing you are, Lord Palmer. And how imaginative.”

“And how intrigued,” he said agreeably. “For it comes to me that a wise host should know his guests better than I do.”

That sounded like a very pleasantly spoken threat. The last thing she required was for him to dispatch some investigator to learn more about her. What if somebody from Everleigh’s caught wind of his interest? “But I’m not your guest,” she said.

“No.” His smile tipped into a menacing angle. “Not a guest at all, are you? But lovely, all the same.”

She had been prepared for another jab—not a compliment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t.” He reached out and laid a finger against her cheek. “At this rate,” he said softly, “you will wish you were plainer, before long.”

Only his fingertip touched her. But that small point of contact rooted her in place.

“Do you know,” he said, “you wore a smudge at just this spot the day I arrived here.”

Bewilderment delayed her reply. What an odd thing to remember! “Yes, I . . . didn’t notice it till I was dressing for dinner.” She’d had dust and dirt everywhere.

“I mourned its disappearance when you came to the table.”

She blinked. “But . . . why?”

“I wanted to lick it off you.”

The notion made her stomach feel curiously liquid. “How odd,” she whispered.

“Oh, I can get odder.” He leaned in and touched the tip of his tongue to her earlobe. He whispered into her ear: “I like how you taste.”

“You . . .” She swallowed. “You sound as if you want to eat me.”

“In small bites. Ask yourself if you would like it.” He stepped back, his look hot and unwavering. “Will you go find Miss Everleigh? Or will you stay here with me?”

She snatched up her skirts and rushed out. It took the length of the hallway for her pace to slow. What bizarre agitation! A single brush of his fingertip, the tip of his tongue, and some husky words should not have caused such upheaval.

Halfway to the attic, she figured it out. Palmer had devised the perfect way to torture her. Each brushing, tasting touch of his—and worse, each show of restraint—lured her body into a collusion with him. He made her long to be reckless.

Why, he was a rake! A proper one, not the clumsy approximations that galumphed through Everleigh’s ballroom. He aroused her curiosity as much as her appetite, all the while reiterating that the choice belonged to her.

And the routine worked! Her vulnerability to it amazed her. She had always considered herself wiser than the girls who traded kisses for perfume and jewelry. What possible appeal could material objects exert when their price might cost a girl’s independence?

But Palmer didn’t try to bribe her. All he offered was an awareness of her own hungers—and the invitation to explore them, if she liked. Ask yourself. Small bites.

He made erotic poetry of her right to choose. Oh, dangerous indeed!

In the attic, another surprise awaited her. Miss Everleigh knelt on the floor, surrounded by piles of cloth, her face bright and exultant. She looked up, her transparent joy making her breathtakingly beautiful. “Persian brocade.” She held up a length of glimmering silk and, miracle of miracles, laughed. “Safavid dynasty! Can you believe it?”

Lilah tried to smile. If Palmer wanted her to focus on her task, he’d best stop touching her. Certain things she didn’t need to know about herself—weaknesses better left unexplored.

“It’s priceless,” Miss Everleigh said. “Truly—did you ever imagine this house should contain anything so astounding?”

“No,” Lilah said wistfully. “I did not.”