Page 19 of Word of the Wicked (Murder in Moonlight #5)

B oredom alone would have made Peregrine Mortimer look forward to one of his aunt’s extraordinarily dull parties.

In this case he added the attraction of cards, where he might just make enough money to get himself back to London, and of course flirtation, not merely with the charmingly respectable Sophie Chadwick, but also with the mysterious beauty Mrs. Silver—who, for some reason, he suspected was not respectable at all.

With such prospects for the evening ahead, Perry actually whistled as he ran downstairs from his bedchamber to greet his aunt and her parrot-faced companion in the drawing room.

He stopped whistling to stand in the doorway as though stunned, his arms spread wide. “Why, Aunt Jess, how lovely you look! Just like that painting of you as a girl!”

“Oh, get along with you,” Aunt Jessica said, smiling—moved not by any truth in his assertion, he knew, but by the fact that he bothered to lie to please her.

Old Hannah Jenson did not quite snort, though her face managed to convey a silent if undoubted derision. Perry was in too good a mood to answer her in kind, so he merely smiled at her too.

“A most becoming gown, Miss J!”

Her expression changed to one of suspicion, which was so amusing that Perry smiled some more.

The ringing of the doorbell interrupted this unprecedented courtesy, and he solicitously aided his aunt to rise from her chair in order to greet her approaching guests.

In a moment of malice rather than manners, he offered his other arm to Miss Jenson.

“No, no, stay seated, Hannah,” Aunt Jessica said impatiently. “Perry shall assist me.”

That didn’t please the old companion, though it certainly boosted Perry’s mood even further.

He hoped his warning words to Dr. Chadwick’s inquiry people would bear fruit.

If not, he was sure he could invent enough suspicion so that between them, they could see the Jenson woman cast off. In any event, it would be fun trying.

Slightly to his disappointment, the first guests were not Mrs. Silver and Mr. Grey—did they have to come as a pair, or would he find the means to separate the delectable lady? Instead, it was Mr. and Mrs. Raeburn, the vicar and his wife, who walked first into the room.

Mrs. Raeburn was not a bad-looking woman, though an arrant snob. Her husband was amiable enough—except on Sundays, when his sermons tended to the fire-and-brimstone type. When Perry inherited the manor, he’d see the fellow toned it down a bit. Enough to give a jolly fellow nightmares sometimes…

At his aunt’s side, Perry greeted them both with hostly bonhomie, and turned to welcome Miss Fernie, the old schoolteacher who came hard on their heels—Friday-faced old thing.

He wondered who had displeased her since the last time he’d had the misfortune to run into her.

Why did the school always seemed to be staffed by half-wits—daft old ladies or laborers’ sons too foolish to be good for anything else?

Mind you, at least Ogden didn’t talk to him, or pretend to be of the same class, as Miss Fernie always did.

The Chadwicks arrived next. Sophie looked particularly pretty in an ivory gown with pink rosebuds.

He was sure it was the same one she’d been wearing at Christmas, but since it suited her so well, he forgave her.

Unlike her mother, she greeted him in a very offhand kind of way, which she probably thought alluring.

Perry was amused and would have teased her for it, had not Mrs. Silver entered then, escorted by the tall, lean Mr. Grey.

She really was a stunning woman, casting every other female into the shade. While he offered his hand to Solomon, he kept his gaze on her as if he could not draw it away—a trick that had worked well for him in the past, though one haughtily raised eyebrow was Mrs. Silver’s only reaction.

“I’m so glad you could come,” he murmured, taking her hand. “You brighten the room, as if the sun has come out.”

Her hand, which he would have retained a second longer, gave an odd little twist, sliding free of his grasp, and she would undoubtedly have made her escape had he not latched on to the couple behind, surely the last of his aunt’s supposedly genteel guests.

“Ah, you will not have met Mr. and Mrs. Lance from Chettering House? Allow me to present you. Mrs. Silver and Mr. Grey are distinguished visitors to Sutton May.”

Somehow, Grey was between him and Mrs. Silver as he greeted the Lances, and Perry was forced to offer his aunt his arm back to her chair, while all the guests were served sherry, wine, or brandy, according to their tastes.

At least Perry was able to stay by his aunt and flirt with Sophie Chadwick, which was a pleasant enough way to pass the time before the games started.

Sophie and Netta Lance were as close as one could come to a young lady of quality in Sutton May, and of the two of them, Sophie was by far the prettier.

It amused Perry that she kept starting toward Netta, some distance away, and then all he had to do was to say something to her—anything, however outrageous, or even mundane—and she felt obliged to answer.

The benefits of a well-brought-up young lady!

Not did it escape his attention that Mrs. Silver’s gaze landed on him frequently.

His blood heated as their eyes met. He barely noticed that Sophie slipped away from him, for Mrs. Silver suddenly seemed not only attainable but necessary , urgently so.

She smiled, and her lips fascinated him.

They seemed to have an extra little curve, and he could just imagine the pleasure they could give…

“Shall we play?” Aunt Jessica suggested, rising with the vicar’s assistance this time, since Perry was already prowling across the room, almost magnetically drawn to the beguiling Mrs. Silver.

“Say you will play at my table,” he breathed.

“This table,” she said, seating herself at once. Annoyingly, it was a table for four rather than two.

“Only if you promise your next game to me alone.”

“We shall see.”

She is playing hard to get, he thought, amused, for he knew he would catch her this very night, one way or another. He caught her watching him much too often for indifference. And she saw him win. Tonight was going to be so profitable in so many ways…

He pocketed his winnings graciously as he rose—and he did not even need to follow her, for she remained at his elbow as they stood alone while others continued playing or milled around.

“Are you ready for our game?” he asked, smiling into her eyes.

“Why, no, I merely wanted a quick word,” she said, and her low, musical, and yet slightly husky voice sent delicious thrills along his nerves. “I hope you won’t compel me to expose you.”

The shiver, suddenly, was unpleasant. And it was she who held his gaze.

“You cheat, Mr. Mortimer,” she said softly. “And you do not even do it well.”

She moved away, accepting a glass of wine from the footman and smiling at Mrs. Lance and Miss Fernie, who had just risen from another table.

Perry was left alone, his heart thundering in his breast so hard that his ears sang.

For although he despised his company, he realized suddenly that their poor opinion of him would be devastating.

Not just for his cachet among the yokels, but for his aunt’s inheritance.

She was not compelled to leave him anything at all.

Mrs. Silver could ruin everything with one word that would spread like wildfire in high wind—around the room, around the village, around Society…

*

Constance’s instincts about men were rarely wrong, so she was not surprised that her initial opinion of Peregrine Mortimer had been proved right from the beginning of the evening.

His pursuit of the clearly uncomfortable Sophie Chadwick smacked of social bullying, while cheating his supposedly lesser friends and neighbors at cards was arrogant, contemptuous, and curiously entitled.

He had even seen Constance watching him, and yet not taken the hint, assuming instead that she could not take her eyes off his manly charms.

She had encountered far too many Peregrine Mortimers in her life not to recognize the type. She only hoped her warning would work, for she wasn’t prepared to give another.

Solomon was playing cards with the vicar’s wife. Mrs. Lance, who seemed a pleasant lady, joined a game of whist, leaving Constance alone with Miss Fernie, one of the people she particularly wanted to speak to, since she had once been the village schoolteacher.

“A game of piquet, ma’am?” Constance suggested.

“To own the truth, I can’t see the cards as well as I used to. Staring at them gives me a headache. I believe I shall sit out the next game and instead enjoy a few choice morsels from the buffet.”

“What an excellent idea.”

Constance had not even noticed the buffet being laid out at the far end of the drawing room, but it was clearly meant for casual nibbling between or even during games.

Since they were currently alone picking at this feast, Constance said, “Actually, I am glad of this opportunity to consult you, Miss Fernie, since you must know the village and especially the children very well. Are you a native of Sutton May?”

“My father was the vicar here, long before the Raeburns came, obviously. And I was brought up to be useful, so I eventually taught at the school—being educated, you understand.”

“Eventually?” Constance repeated.

Miss Fernie smiled, almost preening. “Oh, I had my Seasons in London, you know. My father was the younger son of a very prominent family. I have traveled the world more than anyone else in the environs of Sutton May. You come from London, do you not?”

“I do.”

“I’m sure I knew a Silver family when I was young… I still correspond with my family who have a house there. I even visited them last spring. Town has changed so much, I find. The lines of Society are no longer what they were. Perhaps that is a good thing. What is your first name, my dear?”