Mistress (37 page)

Iphiginia looked momentarily disconcerted. “Hardstaff. Yes, I see what you mean.”

“In any event, I think it’s time to dig a bit deeper.”

“What do you hope to find?” she asked.

“I do not know yet.”

Iphiginia fell silent for a few minutes. Marcus assumed she was mulling over the night’s events. He was contemplating the instructions he intended to give Barclay in the morning when she interrupted his thoughts.

“Marcus?”

“Yes?”

“Did you think that the Goddess of Manly Vigor on the right behind the transparency screen was a bit too thin?”

Marcus gave a crack of laughter. He reached out and pulled Iphiginia into his arms.

“Not in the least. I believe that she is precisely the tonic I require to maintain my manly vigor.”

They located Zoe at the Crandals’ ball. She and Lord Otis were just leaving the dance floor. They were both flushed from a lively waltz.

“ ’Evening, Iphiginia. Masters.” Otis’s eyebrows bobbed. “Didn’t know you were planning to attend this crush.”

Iphiginia looked at Zoe. “We must speak to you immediately.”

Zoe’s smile of welcome dissolved into an anxious expression. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Whoever killed Mrs. Wycherley appears to have acquired some of the information on her victims and is amusing himself by revealing their secrets,” Iphiginia said quietly.

“Oh, my God.” Zoe put her hand to her throat.

Otis gripped her arm in a supportive manner. “Calm yourself, m’dear. We can deal with this.”

Marcus took charge. “Let’s go out into the garden, where we can talk about this with some degree of privacy. There really is only one solution to this situation, you know.”

“We must tell the truth to Maryanne.” Otis’s whiskers twitched. “I told Zoe as much weeks ago when it all started. Chickens always come home to roost, I said.”

“But our precious Maryanne,” Zoe whispered in a shaky voice. “What will she say? What will Sheffield say? What about the marriage plans?”

“We shall get through this, m’dear,” Otis murmured as he guided her toward the doors. “From the very beginning we knew that someday we might have to face the thing.”

•      •      •

An hour and a half later, shortly before two-thirty in the morning, Marcus walked into his laboratory, poured himself a glass of brandy, and settled into the chair behind his worktable.

He surveyed the chamber by the light of the single lamp that he had lit. He needed to think and he always did his best thinking in this room.

He propped his boots on the table, leaned back, and took a sip of the brandy. It was his habit to let his thoughts drift aimlessly for a few minutes before he began to concentrate. The technique helped him to focus his attention.

He reflected briefly on the conversation in the Crandals’ garden an hour ago. He knew Iphiginia was anxious about her aunt’s situation, but Otis had seemed quietly satisfied with events. Marcus thought he understood. After eighteen years of being forced to play the role of a doting friend, Otis would now be able to claim his daughter.

By the end of the discussion, Zoe had seemed resigned to the inevitable, perhaps even relieved that the secret was about to come out.

It remained to be seen how Maryanne would respond to the news that Otis was her real father. Her wedding plans were unquestionably in jeopardy, but who knew how it would all fall out? Marcus thought. Sheffield was an independent-minded young man with a will of his own. If he really loved Maryanne, he might not give a bloody damn about the gossip.

If he really
loved
Maryanne?

“Bloody hell.” Marcus’s mouth turned down in disgust. He was starting to think like one of those idiot romantic poets. Obviously he had been spending too much time in the company of his brother and Iphiginia. Their distorted, overly romanticized views of the relations between men and women were having an insidious effect on him. He would have to take care that he did not allow
them to influence him unduly. He was a man of reason, not a poet.

He had learned his lessons the hard way, formulated his rules so as to protect himself from the pitfalls of naivete and romantic inclinations.

A knock on the door of the laboratory interrupted Marcus before he could refocus his thoughts.

“Enter.”

“Marcus?” Bennet walked into the room.

Marcus glanced at him. “What is it?”

“Nothing.” Bennet hesitated. “Lovelace said you were in here. I was on my way upstairs to bed. Thought I’d say good night.”

“I came in here to do some thinking.” Marcus looked down at the glass in his hand. “Have a brandy with me?”

“Thanks.” Bennet seemed relieved by the invitation. He crossed the room to the brandy table and poured himself a measure.

Marcus waited.

Bennet cradled the brandy glass and looked down into its depths. “I saw you with Mrs. Bright an hour ago.”

“At the Crandals?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“It was an awful crush,” Bennet said. “The ballroom was packed.”

“Yes, it was.”

Bennet cleared his throat. “Have you made plans for your wedding yet?”

“Mrs. Bright has not yet consented to be my bride.”

Bennet’s head came up swiftly, his expression one of amazement. “What did you say?”

“She is not precisely leaping at the opportunity to become my wife.” Marcus smiled ruefully. “She claims that although she is rather, ah, fond of me, she is not terribly keen on the notion of marrying me.”

Bennet choked on his brandy. “She must be mad.” In
spite of his opinion on the subject, it was obvious that he was affronted by the news.

“I shall take that as a compliment,” Marcus said. “But in truth she is far from mad. She is spirited, proud, independent, and very much an Original, but she is not mad.”

“How could she not want to marry you? You’re an earl, for God’s sake. And wealthy into the bargain. Any woman in her position would kill to marry you.”

“Mrs. Bright is quite comfortably well off, thanks to her own judicious investments. Nor does she seem overly impressed with my title.” Marcus smiled faintly. “She has a remarkably egalitarian notion of what constitutes a gentleman. I believe she has read a bit too much of Locke, Rousseau, and, very likely, Jefferson.”

Bennet was incensed. “She has not questioned your right to the tide, has she?”

“No.”

“I should hope not.” Bennet scowled. “Are you telling me that she might actually refuse your offer?”

“I am telling you that I shall have to put forth considerable effort in order to convince her that I would make her a suitable husband.”

“Hellfire,” Bennet breathed. “This is amazing. I do not know whether to be cheered by the news or insulted by her nerve.”

Marcus turned the glass in his hand and watched the lamplight dance in the crystal. “It was Mrs. Bright who convinced me to withdraw my objections to your plans to become engaged to Juliana Dorchester.”

Bennet glowered at him. “I don’t believe that. Why would Mrs. Bright get involved in my affairs? Why should she give a damn whom I marry?”

“She cares about a great many odd things. And a number of people.”

“Marcus, do you actually mean to say that you changed your mind about my marriage plans because of
something your good friend Mrs. Bright had to say on the subject?”

Marcus smiled ruefully. “Does that surprise you?”

“It astounds me.”

“I confess, you aren’t the only one. I was somewhat taken aback myself.”

“I cannot imagine you allowing anyone, least of all one of your paramours—” Bennet broke off abruptly when Marcus narrowed his eyes in warning. “I mean, one of your female acquaintances to influence you. Devil take it, I’ve never known you to alter your views on a subject once you’ve made up your mind.”

“That’s not entirely true. I’ve been known to change my mind when new facts are introduced which warrant a new conclusion.”

“Bah. That almost never happens because you almost never make up your mind before you have investigated all aspects of a matter quite thoroughly.”

“Suffice it to say that Mrs. Bright succeeded in causing me to alter my decision regarding your plans.” Marcus took a swallow of his brandy.

“Damnation.”

“It concerns you that I have allowed her to influence me?”

“Yes.” Bennet’s mouth tightened ominously. “Yes, it does, even though in this instance I have been the beneficiary of her interference. This is not like you, Marcus.”

“No, it’s not.” Marcus studied the clockwork man in the corner. “I have always made it a point to order my life along a few simple, straightforward principles.”

“You certainly have done so since I was a boy,” Ben-net agreed sourly.

“Mrs. Bright has caused me to bend, and in some cases break, several of my own rules. Barring the possibility that I have, myself, gone mad, what do you suppose it all signifies?”

“No offense, brother, but it strikes me that you have allowed your passions to rule your head.”

“I once accused you of the same thing.”

“Yes, you did.” Bennet looked bleak. “You really do intend to marry her, do you not?”

“Yes.”

Bennet sighed. “Would you mind telling me why you feel you must marry this particular female, Marcus?”

Marcus gazed broodingly at the clockwork man. “When I am with her I do not feel as though I am made of gears and springs.”

Barclay examined the notes he had just finished making. He pushed his spectacles more firmly onto his nose and considered Marcus through them. “What, precisely, do you hope to discover, sir?”

“I am looking for some sort of link between the Hardstaff museum operation and the person who is constructing the sepulchral monument.”

“I don’t understand. What possible connection could there be?”

Marcus smiled thinly. “That is what I am paying you to learn, Barclay.”

“Yes, my lord.” Barclay groaned as he heaved himself out of the chair. “I shall get to work on it at once.”

W
E TOLD
M
ARYANNE DIRECTLY AFTER BREAKFAST
. S
HE WAS
very quiet for the longest time.” Zoe sniffed into a hankie. “I was terrified that she would hate us forever. She started to cry.”

Iphiginia, seated behind her desk, exchanged a glance with Amelia. Amelia raised her brows but said nothing. Neither of them interrupted the tale.

“And then—” Otis blew into a large handkerchief— “she looked at me and said ‘Papa.’ After all these years, she finally said ‘Papa.’ She threw herself into my arms.”

“I vow, it was the happiest moment of my life.” Zoe burst into more tears.

“And of mine, my dearest.” Otis went to her and put his arm around her. “You cannot imagine what it means to me to be able to openly acknowledge my own dear daughter.”

“We should have told her immediately after Guthrie died last year,” Zoe said to Iphiginia. “Only think of the trouble it would have saved.”

Iphiginia folded her arms on her desk and frowned. “What about the marriage to Sheffield?”

“Maryanne insists upon telling him the truth,” Otis
said, not without a touch of pride. “May as well, since the blackmailer will no doubt do so, anyway.”

“I expect he’ll cry off.” Zoe sighed. “There’s no help for it. The Earls of Sheffield have always been very high in the instep. Pity. It was such a fine match. But Maryanne is so lovely and charming that I am convinced that we’ll find another equally suitable husband for her.”

“I shall make it public knowledge that I intend to settle an inheritance upon her,” Otis said stoutly. “Always intended to do so, of course, but planned to keep it a private matter. Now we can be open about it. That should help produce a good selection of candidates.”

“Very true.” Iphiginia picked up her pen and fiddled with it as she considered the situation. “Do you know, it strikes me that there might be an even simpler way of brushing through this entire affair.”

“What’s that?” Zoe asked.

“If you and Otis were to marry,” Iphiginia said, “Maryanne would become Otis’s stepdaughter in the eyes of the law.”

“Married?”
Zoe stared at her. “Married? But Otis and I are so happy the way we are. Isn’t that so, Otis?”

“You have always been the delight of my life, my dear,” Otis said gallantly. “You know that. You will continue to be my heart’s truest friend regardless of whether or not we are wed.”

Zoe smiled tremulously. “Otis, I do love you so.”

“The thing is,” Iphiginia said briskly, “if Otis were to marry you, there would be no need to make the true facts of Maryanne’s parentage public.”

“Iphiginia is right,” Amelia said.

Zoe frowned. “I do not comprehend.”

Otis’s brows formed a bristly hedge across his nose. “I say, she has a point, y’know.”

Iphiginia saw the new light in his eyes. She smiled. “If you and Otis were to wed, he would become Maryanne’s stepfather. She could call him Papa and no one would take any notice. He can refer to her as his daughter and
people will merely assume that he has a genuine paternal affection for her.”

“Which is no particular secret, anyway,” Amelia pointed out. “Furthermore, the legalities of the situation settle rather nicely into place with regard to both the Guthrie money and the Otis fortune.”

“Precisely,” Iphiginia said. “Maryanne will no longer be a young lady with a respectable portion, but a great
heiress.”

“No one will think to question the situation,” Otis murmured. “Perfectly natural that I would provide for her.”

“Good Lord.” Zoe was clearly struck by the possibilities. “She would have her pick of husbands.”

Otis took her hand and kissed it. “And I would have the great pleasure at last of not only claiming my daughter without a scandal, but of being able to claim you, my sweet, as my wife.”

“Oh, Otis.” Zoe looked up at him. “You have always been so good to me. You were the only thing that made my life bearable while Guthrie was alive.”

“It was my greatest pleasure,” Otis said. “And if you wish to continue our liaison as it is, I shall be honored to do so. But I want you to know that nothing would make me happier than to be able to call you my wife.”