Kitabı oku: «The Dubious Miss Dalrymple», sayfa 3

Elly didn’t know whether to hit her brother or hug him. He looked so dear, standing there holding his dust bunny as if it were the greatest treasure on God’s green earth, yet he was making the worst possible impression on John Bates. John Bates! Elly whirled to face her handsome guest, daring him with her eyes to say one word—one single, solitary word against her beloved brother.

Her fears, at least for the moment, proved groundless. John Bates, who had indeed witnessed all that had just transpired, only advanced across the width of the Aubusson carpet, his golden hair and beard glinting in the candlelight, his cane in his left hand as he favored his left leg, his right hand outstretched in greeting.

“My Lord Hythe, it is a distinct pleasure to meet you,” he said, his tone earnest even to Elly’s doubting ears. “I wish to thank you for agreeing to honor the rental arrangement made between the late Earl and myself. And, oh yes, please allow me to offer you condolences on your loss.”

Leslie looked down on the dust bunny. “But I didn’t lose it. See, I have it right here.”

“Mr. Bates is referring to our libertine cousin Alastair’s untimely death,” Elly corrected sweetly even as she glared at John Bates. He already knew how she felt about her late cousin. Why was he persisting in bringing it up again and again? Anyone would think they had killed the stupid man, for pity’s sake!

The dust bunny disappeared into Leslie’s coat pocket as he took John’s hand, wincing at the older man’s firm grip. “A strong one, aren’t you? Oh, you meant m’cousin, of course. Please excuse Elly. M’sister’s taken a pet against him for some reason, ever since his mourners wouldn’t stay to tea after the service, as a matter of fact. Rather poor sporting of her to my way of thinking, as the fellow’s dead, ain’t he—leaving the two of us as rich as Croesus into the bargain.”

“Leslie, please,” Elly begged quietly, steering the two men toward the settee and seating herself in the blue satin chair.

But Leslie was oblivious to his sister’s pleading. Seating himself comfortably, one long, skinny leg crossed over the other, he informed his guest, “I have been considering composing a picture to honor the late Earl and his accomplishments—only, I can’t seem to find that he actually accomplished anything, except a few things best not remembered. I’m an artist, you understand.”

“You wish to do a portrait?” Alastair asked, to Elly’s mind, a bit intensely.

Leslie waved his thin, artistic hands dismissingly. “No, no. Never a portrait. That’s so mundane—so ordinary. No, I wish to execute a chronicle of Alastair’s life, with symbols. For instance,” he expanded, thrilled to have found a new audience for his ideas, “if I were to do Henry the Eighth, I should include a bloody ax, a joint of meat, weeping angels, a view of the Tower—you understand?”

“What a unique concept, my lord,” Alastair complimented, his eyes shifting so that he was looking straight at Elly, who shivered under his penetrating, assessing grey gaze.

What was he looking at? she wondered. And why did she have the uncomfortable feeling that John Bates could prove to be a very dangerous man?

CHAPTER TWO

HE WAS STARING at Elinor Dalrymple; he knew he was, but he couldn’t help himself. Alastair had come to Seashadow to unmask the new Earl as his attacker. It had seemed so simple, so straight-forward—in a backhanded sort of way. But Leslie Dalrymple, bless his paper skull, wouldn’t harm a fly—even if he knew how. Alastair wasn’t so bent on revenge that he couldn’t see that.

Unfortunately, he told himself as Mrs. Biggs called them to the dinner table, that left only the sister, Elinor, to take Leslie’s place as suspect. Offering Elinor his arm to escort her in to dinner, and throwing a stern look at Mrs. Biggs, who so forgot herself as to begin a clumsy curtsey as he moved past (after she had done so well earlier when he had first arrived at the door), Alastair knew he had to rethink his deductions.

A man, after all, did not accuse another man of attempted murder without a wheelbarrow full of irrefutable evidence. Wasn’t the desire to accumulate evidence what had brought him, under an assumed identity, to Seashadow in the first place? But a man—at least any man who considered himself to be a gentleman—never accused a lady of anything.

Once he had helped Elinor to her seat and taken his own chair across from her, Alastair resumed staring at her, knowing he was dangerously close to being indiscreet, but unable to help himself. A woman! It had never occurred to him that his attacker could be a woman. Oh, certainly she had employed someone to actually perform the dirty deed—to conk him on the head and send him to a watery grave—but that didn’t make her any less guilty, did it?

This was going to take some getting used to, Alastair decided, deliberately smiling at Elinor Dalrymple, as if enchanted by her spinsterish charms and idly wondering if her small, shell-like ears really fit so snugly against the sides of her head or if her ruthlessly pulled-back hair had anything to do with it. He watched her spine straighten as it had on the beach and this time recognized the action as the proud, stiff-necked posture of one who has had more than a nodding acquaintance with poverty.

And with a brother like Leslie to support her, he considered thoughtfully, is it any wonder the two of them had been purse-pinched? He doubted he had to look much further for a motive.

“Do I have a smut on my nose?”

Alastair blinked, his attention caught by the question in Elinor’s voice, although he hadn’t quite comprehended what she had said, his attention still concentrated on her blonde hair as he tried to imagine her as she would look with it soft and loose against her high-cheeked face. “I beg your pardon?”

“You’re staring, Mr. Bates,” she pointed out needlessly. “I wondered if there was something wrong with me that has put you off your food. You haven’t even touched your meal, and Big George has really outdone himself with the veal.”

“Yes, indeed, I have—” Alastair had always relished Big George’s way with veal—so much so that he nearly gave himself away, only catching himself in time to amend his conversation by ending, “always enjoyed a veal. Big George, you say? Is there also, perchance, a Little George running about somewhere?”

Leslie Dalrymple, his mouth full of veal, answered. “Little Georgie, actually, even though he’s past eighteen and fully grown. He doesn’t cook, though—big George won’t let him, at least, according to Mrs. Biggs, not since he set the capons on fire. Little Georgie just helps. Biggs is their name. You already met Mrs. Biggs, our housekeeper. Big George is her husband.”

“Making Little Georgie their son,” Elinor completed hastily. “It is as logical as it is boring, Leslie, my dear, and before you launch into a dissertation on all the other little Biggses running tame about Seashadow, I suggest a change of subject. Perhaps our guest would rather discuss something more worldly than our servant situation.” Leaning forward slightly, she went on encouragingly, “You served with Wellington perhaps, Mr. Bates? What battles were you in, exactly—and when?”

Alastair was amazed at the obvious intensity of her interest. He suddenly felt like a prisoner in the dock, undergoing a detailed cross-examination bent on exposing his guilt in some heinous crime. “Well, actually, madam, I didn’t see much action before—”

Leslie stuck out his bottom lip petulantly and interrupted, “Who cares, Elly? I wanted to tell Mr. Bates about Rosie.” He brightened slightly, looking to his sister. “I’m going to paint her, you know.”

“Yes, dearest, I do know,” Elinor said, reaching over to pat her brother’s hand. “Rosie will be a wonderful subject, once she cuts her second teeth. Now, why don’t you try some of those lovely peas?”

Alastair watched, bemused, as Leslie obediently picked up his fork and began to eat. Oh yes, there was no question as to just who was in charge here. Elinor Dalrymple of the flat ears, scraped-back hair, and miserable disposition—sitting at her brother’s right hand—was the real Earl of Hythe in all but name. Wait until he ran this one past Wiggins!

“Mr. Bates?”

Alastair looked across the table at Elinor, his grey eyes deliberately wide, his expression purposely guileless. If he had decided nothing else, he had decided that this woman was intelligent—which also made her dangerous. “Yes, Miss Dalrymple?”

“You were telling us about your time with Wellington,” she prompted, accepting a small serving of candied yams from the hovering Mrs. Biggs. “From the left, Mrs. Biggs. You serve from the left.”

“Do yer wants ’em or not, missy?” Mrs. Biggs challenged, glaring at Alastair as if begging his permission to dump the bowl on Elinor’s head. “Right, left. What does it matter? I’ve got Baby Willie crying in the kitchen, afraid of that horsey-faced brute, Hugo, and that lazy, good-for-nothin’ Lily nowheres ter be found.”

“Baby Willie’s crying?” Leslie exclaimed, hopping from his seat so quickly, the chair nearly toppled behind him. “We can’t have that, Elly, now can we?” He reached up to pull the large linen serviette from his shirt collar, where he had obediently tucked it after dripping soup on his neckcloth. “I know. I’ll make him a crow from this serviette—of course, it will be white rather than black, but then, that just adds to the romance of the thing, doesn’t it? I can use these peas for eyes,” he went on excitedly, filling his hand with the green vegetable before heading for the kitchens. “It will be famous, I vow it will! Here I come, Baby Willie! Caw! Caw!”

“Leslie, come back here—” Elinor began as Alastair hid a grin behind his own serviette. “Oh, what’s the use? It’s like speaking to the wind.”

His sense of the ridiculous overcoming his good manners, Alastair threw back his head and laughed aloud for a moment before sobering and apologizing almost meekly, “I’m sorry, Miss Dalrymple. I am but a lowly soldier sitting at an Earl’s table. I really shall have to cultivate more elegance of mind. But you have to own it, Miss Dalrymple—your brother is most amusing.”

Her brown eyes turned as black and forbidding as an angry sea. “You think he’s an utter addlepate, don’t you, Mr. Bates?” she accused hotly. “Well, perhaps he is, but Leslie is my addlepate, and I’ll thank you to keep your thoughts to yourself!”

Alastair waved his hands in front of his face, as if to ward off her accusations. “No, no, Miss Dalrymple, please don’t fly into the treetops. I meant nothing by it, really I didn’t. Besides, you are wrong. Your brother is not an addlepate. He’s rich, madam, which makes him a delightful eccentric. Only a poor man is an addlepate.”

There was a commotion in the kitchens that reached into the dining room, turning the heads of both its occupants toward the baize door just as Hugo exploded into the room, Leslie on his arm. “Elly, look! A giant. A Titan! Isn’t it above everything famous!”

Leslie turned delighted eyes to Alastair, who felt himself rapidly wilting beneath Elinor’s white-hot glare. He had brought Hugo along with him because he couldn’t feel right leaving him alone in the cottage. He’d had no idea the man’s presence would cause either Baby Willie’s tears or Leslie’s euphoria.

“Is he really yours?” Leslie went on in accents of rapture. “Mrs. Biggs says he is. Do you think I could borrow him? I’ve just had the happy notion of painting him—for comparison, you understand—alongside of Baby Willie, if that poor dear will ever stop crying. Hugo’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen!”

“Aaahh,” Hugo crooned softly, accepting the compliment most graciously by picking Leslie up by the coat collar with one hand and placing a smacking wet kiss on his lordship’s thin cheek.

Elinor leapt to her feet. “You brute! You put my brother down this instant!”

“Aaarrrggh!”

Feeling as if he had just stepped unawares into a Covent Garden farce, Alastair rose as well, ordering, “Don’t growl, Hugo. It isn’t polite. And put his lordship down; I think he’s having a spot of trouble getting his breath.”

“Dear me!” Leslie gulped, nervously smoothing his neckcloth as he gazed up at the giant. “He is a strong fellow, isn’t he? But not to worry, Elly, I’m convinced that Hugo and I will become fast friends. Won’t we, Hugo?”

The giant grinned, showing the gap between his teeth—the sight of which immediately transported Leslie into another bout of ecstasy—and gently patted the young man’s blonde head. “Glugg, glugg,” he crooned affectionately.

“That is it!” Elinor exclaimed, the high pitch of her voice clearly indicating that she was about to fly into the boughs. Alastair privately commended her restraint, for he should surely have exploded long ago had he been so pressed. “Leslie, excuse yourself,” she ordered in a voice that brooked no opposition, and her brother meekly left the room, turning only once, to wave goodbye to Hugo.

She then turned to Alastair and said coldly, “Mr. Bates, as you are living on the estate, we shall doubtless be forced to deal with each other from time to time—at least until I can have my brother’s solicitor make other arrangements for you. But for the moment, sir, I ask nothing from you other than that you retrieve your cane, whistle this brute to heel, and remove yourself from these premises at once!”

Alastair, who had grown heartily sick of Hugo’s attempts at the culinary arts over the past weeks, eyed the veal hungrily before giving in to the inevitable. The evening had been a shambles from odd beginning to even odder end. But, knowing that tomorrow was another day, he wisely motioned to Hugo, and the two of them headed for the door.

They had just stepped onto the porch—the heavy oak door slamming behind them, obviously propelled by the gentle hand of their hostess—when an insistent “psst, psst” came from the bushes.

“Who’s there?” Alastair whispered, looking about in the darkness as Hugo growled deep in his chest.

The bushes rustled behind them, and out stepped Lily Biggs, her hips undulating wildly as she approached, as if she were trying to navigate her way across a mound of feather pillows. “G’evenin’, yer lordship,” she crooned, batting her eyelashes at her master. “Mum told me yer was back, but I didn’t believe it. She says I’m not ter say nuthin’ about knowin’ yer neither, or else I’ll get my backside switched.”

“Your mother is a very wise woman, Lily,” Alastair said, idly inspecting the impressive cleavage revealed by the snug white peasant blouse and wondering just when it was that the once angular young girl had developed the soft, enticing body of a woman. Had it really been that long since he’d visited his smallest, yet favorite, estate? “You won’t betray me, will you, my little darling?”

With a toss of her head, Lily’s long, dark hair re-settled itself on her snowy white shoulders as she stood toe to toe with Alastair, her firm young breasts pressed invitingly against his chest. Reaching up with both hands to smooth his neckcloth, she grinned and purred, “And what would be in it fer little Lily, d’yer suppose, iffen she was ter do as yer says? I love yer beard, yer lordship,” she continued, lightly stroking his face. “It’s so golden—like the sun or somethin’—and so fuzzy.”

Now, here was a dilemma to tax the brain of the wise Solomon himself. Alastair had been without a willing woman for more than a month—quite possibly a new personal record he wouldn’t wish bruited about among his acquaintances. It would be nice having an unattached, willing female so close to hand—although he supposed he could just as easily import one from the city if he so wished.

Besides, Alastair had known this child since her birth, and would never do anything to betray Billie Biggs’s faith in him. But at the same time—could he trust this willful child to keep his secret if he insulted her by turning down what she was so obviously offering?

“Lily, I—” he began at last, not really knowing what he was going to say, just as the oak door swung open in a rush and he looked toward it, praying it was Mrs. Biggs come to his rescue.

But, alas, just as it had been with the veal he’d hoped to enjoy, he wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“Here, Mr. Bates, you forgot your—oh, good Lord!” Elinor exclaimed, her arm halting in the action of tossing Alastair’s curly-brimmed beaver at him. “Oh, this is beyond anything low!” The beaver came winging toward him, to be deftly snatched out of the air by Hugo, who then sat the undersized thing atop his own oversized head. “You lech! Let go of that poor, innocent girl this instant!”

“Miss Dalrymple,” Alastair began hastily, silently cursing his continuing run of bad luck, “this isn’t what you think. Let me endeavour to explain.”

He turned toward the doorway, slapping Lily’s greedy hands away as he tried to explain. “Leave go, Lily, for God’s sake,” he hissed angrily. “Don’t make this any worse than it is.” He looked up into his hostess’s angry face. “Miss Dalrymple—please listen to me!”

“Listen to you? Listen to you!” Elinor exploded, grabbing hold of Lily’s elbow and yanking her up the steps and into the foyer. “I have two eyes, don’t I, Mr. Bates? There is nothing you can say that could possibly erase the evidence my own eyes have delivered. You may be a veteran, but you are no gentleman. Kindly keep to your cottage until I speak to my brother’s solicitor—and don’t try to approach this house or any of its inhabitants again. Do you hear me?”

“I should think they heard you in Dover, madam,” Alastair replied tightly, his pride stung. “And once again, Miss Dalrymple, I bid you good night. It has truly been an experience.” Feeling he had gotten in the last word, he then limped off into the night, Hugo, as Elinor Dalrymple had so imperiously ordered, at his heels.

“HERE THEY COME! I can see the bow of the boat hitting against the waves, turning them white. They’re about to land.”

“Quietly, your lordship, quietly,” Captain Geoffrey Wiggins admonished in a fierce whisper. “There are three of us and twenty-five of them. I don’t much like the odds.”

Alastair pushed his prone frame more closely against the body-sized hollow he had dug in the sand, kicking out his left foot as some hungry insect feasted on his ankle bone.

“Then why in bloody hell didn’t you bring more men? You told me you were almost certain the Gentlemen were landing here tonight. If I had known when you came to my cottage that all you wanted was for me to put lampblack all over my face and hands and burrow in the sand and watch, I could have stayed by my fire, dreaming about the veal I didn’t get to eat while trying to down Hugo’s swill—no offense, Hugo,” he shot back over his shoulder to where Hugo was likewise lying half-buried in the sand. “What an evening I have had! I tell you, Geoffrey, the Dalrymple woman is mean; mean clear through to the bone.”

“Shhhh!” Wiggins hissed, trying his best to bury his short, round body deeper in the sand. The Gentlemen were on the shore below them now, hastily unloading their cargo of brandy kegs, each gang member hoisting a barrel onto his shoulders before heading inland, the boat returning to the sea. “Count them,” he whispered imperiously.

“Christ on a crutch, man,” Alastair gritted back at him in exasperation, still itching to do combat with something other than the insects that continued to plague them, “you can bloody well count them yourself! What do I look like, a schoolboy at his sums?”

But, his protestations to one side, he did as the older man bid, dutifully counting kegs and gang members until the last of them trailed away over the hill to whatever hidey-hole they had chosen to stash their booty until it could be dispatched farther inland.

“It’s just as I had thought, your lordship,” Captain Wiggins said at last in quiet satisfaction, clambering to his feet and wiping his sandy palms briskly against each other.

“Don’t look so pleased with yourself, Wiggins, or I might just do you an injury. Just as you thought about what?” Alastair asked, turning over so that he could prop his sitting form against an outcrop of rock, his filthy hands dangling from atop his propped-up knees. “This may come as something of a shock to you, old man, but it wasn’t what I thought at all. We came, we saw, we did nothing. No wonder you fellows at the War Office asked for my help. I’m bloody surprised old Boney ain’t tripping down the dance at Almack’s with Silence Jersey on his arm, nattering at him nineteen to the dozen, if this is the way you go about things. Hugo, stop threatening Captain Wiggins! I’ll fight my own battles, thank you.”

The usually gentle giant, who had been eyeing Geoffrey Wiggins in a menacing way that had the squat, rotund man looking about himself as if planning a hasty retreat, growled low in his throat and moved off into the darkness.

Alastair waved Hugo on his way, his teeth flashing white in the faint light of the approaching dawn as he smiled at Wiggins’s obvious relief. “And you worried about my safety, Wiggins,” he said, shaking his head. “I hope your mind is set at ease now.”

“In all my fifty years, your lordship,” the Captain said, extracting a huge red handkerchief to wipe his sweaty brow, “I have never seen the like. How big is he, anyway?”

“Seven feet? Twenty-five stone? He is slightly smaller than Westminster Abbey, however,” Alastair answered disinterestedly, rising so that he looked down at the older man, his hands on his hips. “Now, if we are done discussing the so estimable Hugo’s dimensions, perhaps you can explain why we have partaken in this ridiculous, uncomfortable exercise.”

“Ridiculous? How so, sir?”

Alastair shook his head in disgust at the question. “You came to my cottage at midnight—throwing those pebbles against the window was a tad dramatic, Geoffrey, by the by—promising me a sight of the smugglers you commissioned me to help ferret out for you. I’ll say one thing for you—you didn’t promise more than you delivered. We did see them, for all the sense it made. All we did was lie in the sand for three hours—I’ve been bitten badly, fleas I suppose—while we watched them land at Seashadow, and then counted them as they passed us. I could just as easily have taken your word for it, you know, and remained happily at home.”

Wiggins shook his head, his bushy grey side-whiskers serving as anchors as his chubby cheeks swung back and forth. “Didn’t you see, your lordship? There were twenty-five smugglers, and only twenty-four casks! Think, your lordship!”

Alastair shrugged, not comprehending. “So? One of them is a lazy bugger. What of it?”

“Think again, please, sir. The Gentlemen never waste a motion. One of them,” the Captain imparted importantly, “wasn’t a smuggler!”

The dawn broke, both literally and figuratively, as Lord Hythe snapped his fingers. “A spy?”

Wiggins nodded emphatically. “Precisely, my lord, very good. And I got a fairly good look at his face. I’m sure I’ll recognize him when I see him again—as I can promise you I will. The brandy casks were only a diversion, probably a gift to the men who helped him cross the Channel. A truly dedicated group of the Gentlemen would have brought twice the booty—and no passengers. Twenty-four casks weren’t worth the trouble of trying to get past Lieutenant Fishbourne and his men. Oh, yes, your lordship, we have found our man at long last!”

Alastair brightened even more. This was good news. “Then there is no need to continue this masquerade! Actually you never needed me at all, Wiggins, now that I think on it, although I do appreciate that you thought to include me. I only wish I could have discovered all this myself, but I was conked on the head and thrown overboard before I could do more than plan my first moves against the men you thought were using Seashadow’s beaches. Now it will be a simple matter of surrounding the beach with soldiers and apprehending the fellow. When do you think he’ll be back? I’d like to be here, of course.”

The Captain sighed. This was the most difficult part of his job—dealing with civilians. War Office matters were best left to those in the service, those who understood tactics, maneuvers—the workings of the enemy mind. It certainly hadn’t been Geoffrey Wiggins’s idea to bring the Earl of Hythe in on this enterprise. “Thy will be done,” the Captain blasphemed, raising his eyes to the heavens and seeing his desk-bound, hide-bound superior in the War Office. He sighed again.

Alastair Lowell may have been young, and relatively inexperienced, but he knew when he had leapt to an incorrect conclusion. “He’s just a little fish, isn’t he, Wiggins? You’re after bigger fish.”

The Captain looked at the Earl with growing respect. “Precisely, your lordship! The man we just saw is but a paid courier. I have men waiting along the roadway, ready to follow him to his final destination. We want to know who he is reporting to in London. We brought you into the exercise, your lordship, because we wished permission to operate freely from Seashadow, as we were convinced that the courier was using your portion of the coast. But then, when the attempt came on your life so soon after we had spoken to you, we feared that our plan to spring our trap had been found out.”

“But, as I keep telling you, Wiggins, I’m convinced that the attempt had nothing whatever to do with spies or espionage. It couldn’t have done. Why, you had only told me about your suspicions a week earlier and I hadn’t so much as lifted a finger to do anything more than give you permission to set yourself up as John Bates in the cottage I’m living in now. It’s a good thing you hadn’t as yet introduced yourself around the area, so that everyone believes me to be you. No,” he concluded, his eyes narrowing as he conjured up a vision of Elinor as she had stood at his front door accusing him of lechery, “it’s that miserable Dalrymple woman, Wiggins. She’s the one behind the attempt on my life! All that remains is to figure out whether she did it for love of her brother or love of money.”

“Be that as it may be, your lordship,” Wiggins said resignedly, “I still think I should inform Lieutenant Fishbourne that you are one of us. He is, after all, in charge of this area, and as hot to catch himself a clutch of smugglers and spies as any man I have ever met. Very dedicated, Lieutenant Fishbourne is, as well as eagerly looking out for a chance to improve his standing with his superiors. I have to return to London in at least a fortnight, you understand, to set things in motion from that end, and it wouldn’t do to have the good Lieutenant arresting you on suspicion of being the man we’re after while I’m not here to identify you, now would it, sir?”

Alastair shook his head at this argument, which he had heard before from the Captain. “We’ll allow Lieutenant Fishbourne to continue in his ignorance, Wiggins. But don’t worry, I’ll handle him if it becomes necessary. Remember, I was almost killed. Somebody wants me dead. If you are right, and the Dalrymple woman is innocent—well, I simply don’t know who my friends are right now, Wiggins, and it is an uncomfortable feeling. I don’t mean to set your back up with my stubbornness, but I’m chary of confiding in anyone just now. Frankly, if it hadn’t been that I needed the cottage to lend credence to the story we conjured up between us, even you still wouldn’t know that the real Earl of Hythe is alive.”

“GOOD AFTERNOON to you, my lord, madam.”

Elly stiffened, the lilt of good humor in John Bates’s cultured voice cutting through her like a dull knife, and turned to face him as he carefully made his way down the incline onto the beach, his cane in his right hand.

Wait a moment! His right hand? She closed her eyes, trying to remember how he’d looked as he’d crossed the drawing room to greet her and Leslie the previous evening.

He’d looked handsome, and as dangerous as the devil, that she remembered clearly, although she kept telling herself to banish such debilitating thoughts from her mind. And he’d had the cane in his left hand as he favored his left leg. She was sure of it.

But this afternoon—ah, this afternoon—he was favoring his right leg. Wait until she told Lieutenant Fishbourne about this! If the Lieutenant wanted a spy, she couldn’t think of a better candidate than the insufferable John Bates. But first she would have to be sure, and to be sure she would have to force herself to suffer the man’s company at least one more time.

“Good afternoon to you, sir,” she said with a forced air of cheerfulness, considering it safer to humor the man by pretending to forgive his boorishness of the previous evening until he could be clapped in irons. “Please allow me to apologize for my wretched behavior last evening. Mrs. Biggs graciously reminded me of Lily’s predisposition to throwing herself at anything in—that is, I was made to understand that I was mistaken to blame you for Lily’s, um, for Lily’s—”

“Apology accepted, Miss Dalrymple, and the incident already forgotten,” Alastair cut in, rescuing her from further embarrassment with his easy forgiveness while not sounding in the least penitent for his own misbehavior—and making her twice as angry with him as she had been the night before.

How dare he be so nice, so condescending, so easy to placate? She had thrown the man out of the house, then all but accused him of immorality, for heaven’s sake! Didn’t he have any pride, any feelings of self-worth? The man should be outraged!

The fact that he wasn’t—or at least was pretending that he wasn’t—was only further proof that he had some special, undoubtedly nefarious reason to want to stay at Seashadow.