Unmasking Miss Lacey

They turned their steps and began heading back the way they had come. An unspoken accord had been reached and this time they walked together along the same path. It was rough and uneven in places where small clusters of broken chalk were scattered at random and Lucinda unbent sufficiently to let him take her arm and steer her expertly over the crumbling stones.

‘I could ask you the same question, you know.’ Her brows rose enquiringly. ‘Why do you not simply choose a beau and marry him? That would stop your uncle importuning you further.’

‘I have no beau, Lord Frensham, nor do I wish for one.’

‘Forgive me, but does that not augur a lonely life to come?’

‘I shall not be lonely.’ Her tone was defiant. ‘I intend to live with someone dear to me.’

She had not meant to say so much and he immediately pounced. ‘If he is not to be a husband, who is this mysterious person? I am intrigued.’

Her answer was as brief as she could make it. ‘My brother, Rupert.’

‘I see.’ But it was evident that he did not, for he looked genuinely puzzled. ‘And where is brother Rupert?’

She could not answer him directly, but said in a confident voice, ‘He will be home very soon. And when he comes, we will make our plans for the future.’

‘Will not your brother have his own plans for marriage?’

‘No,’ she said decidedly. ‘Rupert and I are twins. We have always shared our lives and always will.’

‘Then Rupert is a lucky man.’

They had reached the tethered horses and she knew that she had stayed too long. Jack Beaufort was an attractive man, she acknowledged, but that was all. His confession that he was not about to make her an offer of marriage was a huge relief, one concern less, but he could still prove dangerous. She was sure that he had not recognised her as his attacker, but at any moment she might give herself away without realising. Her safest path was to keep well clear of him. Safest for all kinds of reasons: the unexpected pleasure she’d felt in his company was a warning and she should heed it.

‘I must return to the house and speak with my uncle,’ she said quickly, ‘but I wish you enjoyment of your ride.’ She glanced across at Sir Francis’s stolid beast. ‘Though you might find it something of a struggle, I fear.’

The pirate’s grin was back. ‘You speak truly, Miss Lacey. A bigger sluggard you could not find.’

The encounter had given Jack much to ponder. He could hardly believe the girl he’d met this morning was the one who had stood dumb and drab at her uncle’s side last night. He did not know what game she was playing, but when he’d literally bumped into her, he’d been staggered at the transformation. A shapely figure was shown to perfection by the close-fitting riding costume she wore. The dress of sapphire velvet made a perfect foil for the cornflower blue of her eyes while her complexion, untouched by any trick of the hand, was smooth and clear, delicately flushed from the morning ride. Wisps of golden hair escaped from a Glengary cap of blue satin. She was quite lovely—what a revelation!

Lovely and spirited, he thought, as he rode slowly back to the house. She was no simpering miss, for sure: her eyes could dance with mischief and she was capable of the sharpest retort. When she’d thought herself being forced into an unwanted liaison, she had fought hard and he could not blame her; he knew how it felt to do battle with an intransigent family. Once she’d realised that she was safe from the threat of matrimony, she had relaxed into a different girl. He had enjoyed her company and found himself wanting more. But he should nip in the bud any interest she aroused, for, spirited though she was, she was also young and inexperienced and no match for a worn lover such as he.

He wondered where the years had gone since Julia had left him humiliated. Years spent in every kind of sport, in travelling, drinking, gambling, in careless affairs. Not one of those so-called friendships had had meaning. And here he was at thirty, still escaping the noose his sisters intended, still unable to put the past behind him. He shook himself, trying to banish the invisible shroud that had settled around his shoulders. He must make for Merry’s as soon as he was able. He was missing all the fun.

Or was he? The gathering would be like every other exclusive house party he had attended in the past eight years: he would play the congenial guest among the men, the attentive swain with the ladies, and return to London as bored as he’d arrived. The attraction of Hampshire did not seem quite so strong now and he fell to wondering why. Was it the girl? Had she got under his skin without his realising it? She was a beauty beneath that nonsense of last night, and she intrigued him. This business about living with her brother—but that would die a natural death when either or both decided on marriage. There was more, though. He sensed an unease that lay just below the surface of life at Verney Towers. The house was spartan, lacking all comfort, lonely, too. Lucinda appeared to live a solitary life, her uncle enclosed in his own small world and her brother nowhere to be seen. There had been something in her manner when she spoke of her twin that suggested trouble. That made him curious.

The horses in the stable block whinnied softly as they picked up the sound of his approach. Only a single lad was at work, busily washing down the cobbled yard.

‘Did you enjoy your ride, my lord?’ he asked cheekily.

‘No, I did not. There was never a more stubborn beast.’ He slipped from the saddle.

‘He has his notions, like his master.’

Jack thought it best not to enquire too closely of the boy’s meaning. He pulled a stray cigarillo from his inside pocket and lit it with a sigh of contentment. The smoke curled upwards in the clear air and he stood smoking for a while, leaning against the warm wood of the stable shutter. As always, it helped him think. What had possessed Francis Devereux to invite him when he must have known that his niece would react with animosity? Did the man genuinely believe in a foolish promise made years ago, or was his invitation more practical than that?

Lucinda Lacey had never been to London, it seemed, never enjoyed a Season or had the chance of finding a suitable husband. Was the baronet hoping to marry his niece off with the least amount of trouble? If so, the man must have been delighted to receive Georgina’s letter. Jack cursed his elder sister for her interference. She had always been too keen on minding other people’s business and Hester had happily joined forces with her, chorusing together that their brother must marry, and marry soon, to ensure the succession. As very young women they had dutifully agreed to the liaisons arranged for them and had little understanding of their brother’s revulsion at being bound to a woman he hardly knew. Now Maria had joined the fray. She had taxed him for showing no interest in the young women he’d met or at least not the kind of interest that led to wedlock. What could be better, she had said in her soft, die-away voice, than to bring two old families together by choosing this young, unspoilt girl who had known nothing but a quiet country life? What indeed!

The lad had almost finished rubbing down Sir Francis’s mount and Jack sauntered towards him, gesturing at the row of partitions. ‘You run a small stable.’

‘Three horses, sir. Enough for me.’

‘Three? Where is the third?’

‘She’s a little shy.’

Jack craned his neck and glimpsed a half-hidden stable at the far end of the long building. He walked towards it. An odd circular wooden door appeared to have been cut into its farthest whitewashed wall.

‘Where does that strange-shaped door lead?’

‘I don’t rightly know, sir. It’s been locked since I started here.’

But it was the horse that interested Jack. He would have liked a choice of mount this morning, but had been given none. ‘What’s her name?’

‘That’ll be Red. She’s a chestnut, a real beauty. Belongs to Mr Rupert.’

Rupert Lacey’s name seemed inseparable from this morning’s conversations.

‘Mr Rupert is Miss Lucinda’s brother, I collect.’

‘Yessir.’

‘He lives here?’

‘Not at the moment ‘e don’t,’ the boy said carefully.

Jack knew better than to press a servant who clearly did not wish to talk, so he said nothing, but walked slowly towards the far stable and leaned over its open door.

The boy was right. The horse was a beauty. A tall chestnut mare, coat gleaming even in the weak October sun, and a soft white blaze down the centre of her forehead lending her the look of a magical creature.

A white blaze. Something rattled his memory. A clearing, a white diamond-shape blaze on a chestnut horse, moonlight silvering horse and rider. Surely not! This could not be the highwayman’s mount! Yet when he looked closer, he was almost certain that she was. His mind began to race, searching for an explanation. Had the mare been stolen in order to perpetrate the crime? But how do you steal a horse from private land, ride her like the wind, then restore her to the stables without anyone being the wiser? It was hardly possible; it was more likely a member of the household—a servant, a groom, perhaps? But who would have been so audacious and why?

He turned to the boy. ‘How many grooms work here?’

‘Jus’ me, sir, with these horses. Dexter’s the coachman, but the carriage horses are kept in a different block t’other side of the house and ‘e sleeps above their stable.’

So if a servant had staged a brazen attack, it would have had to be this boy and that seemed impossible. He gave the lad a small coin for his time and began to walk towards the house, eager to regain his room and think through the conundrum. As he walked, he extinguished his cigarillo and buried the butt in his pocket. His fingers touched something soft, a handkerchief, no—he brought the article into the light—a piece of lace torn from the ruffle of a shirt.

He stood stock still, his brain once more churning. It was a man’s shirt, but a gentleman’s, not a stable boy’s. A gentleman from Verney Towers. Apart from Francis Devereux, there wasn’t one. Did Lucinda have a secret admirer who took to the road for fun? He’d said to Fielding that he thought their ambush had been a jape gone wrong. But she had been adamant that no lover existed and, truth to tell, he could not imagine a swashbuckling youth as her admirer. She was too considered, too restrained, in her dealings with men. He remembered the way she had pulled away when he had touched her. Her wrist, her left wrist! She had winced from an injury, from pulling a recalcitrant bush from the ground, she’d said. But was that a cock-and-bull story? What if it had been her wrist that he had grasped last night? If so, it would explain the fleeting sense of familiarity he’d experienced at their first meeting. The thought sent shock waves through him. He refused to believe it. What possible reason could she have to run such an appalling risk?

Once in his room, he spread his long form on the bed, thinking hard. Lucinda Lacey as his assailant! It was a ridiculous proposition: she was a lady. Ladies of his acquaintance might do many questionable things, but holding up a coach wasn’t one of them. He sat upright—there was a way to find out. It wasn’t only the scrap of lace that he’d picked up after his unknown attacker had disappeared into the night. He’d retrieved the gun and he had it still. He had been curious about it from the start, certain that it was a duelling pistol. If it was, it would be part of a pair, belonging to—not her, for sure, but this brother? Quite possibly. He drew the weapon from the pocket of his travelling cape and took it to the light. It was as he’d remembered: the pistol sported a most intricate decoration, a crown in the shape of acanthus leaves. It looked like a family crest, though not the Devereux emblem which was blazoned on every spare surface of the house. Did it perhaps belong to the Lacey family? In any case, it was not a gun that was easily replicated. If he found its companion here in this house, he would know almost certainly that the incredible was true. But then what would he do?

Lucinda changed rapidly out of her riding dress; she was intent on seeking an interview with her uncle before luncheon. The darkest of clouds remained in her life, but one threat at least had been removed: Jack Beaufort had no intention of pressuring her into marriage. In fact, he had no wish to marry at all. He had been candid and honest and she liked that in him. She wondered if he would be as direct with her uncle or simply depart the Towers, thanking his host for a pleasant stay. Either way Sir Francis would be furious: he did not easily accept having his schemes frustrated.

The door to the library stood ajar and Lucinda slipped quietly into the room. Her uncle was dozing fitfully by a roaring fire, but looked up as he heard her footsteps.

‘What is it?’ He sounded querulous and she feared she had chosen the wrong moment to make her appeal. ‘I am about to write letters before lunch, Lucinda. You must come back later.’

There seemed little sign of this activity and she decided that she would not be shrugged aside. Taking one of the room’s least comfortable chairs, she sat ramrod straight, facing her guardian.

‘Uncle Francis, I wish to speak with you.’

His small blue eyes cast a baleful look. ‘Indeed? Do you not think that my interests should come first? I have been wishing to speak to you on a matter of grave concern.’

She felt a murmur of unease, but counselled herself to wait patiently for her uncle to continue. He glowered at her for some minutes, fidgeting restlessly with the rings on his plump fingers, but at last he announced, ‘I desire an explanation.’

‘An explanation of what?’

‘You dare to ask! After your disgraceful conduct last night!’

She was taken aback for she had erased from her mind her first meeting with Jack Beaufort. In retrospect, it appeared horribly childish and she must have wanted to blot it from her mind.

Her uncle’s voice took on a cold anger. ‘Did I not request that you look your very best when our guest arrived? Did I not ask you to meet him with courtesy and make him welcome? And what did you do but dress yourself quite deliberately in the most appalling gown you could find and then follow that outrage by treating him with unfeigned rudeness.’

Her uncle was prone to exaggeration, but she could not deny his accusations. Every word he said was true and all she could do was keep silent and hope the storm would pass. But Sir Francis had more complaints. ‘Not content with your shameful behaviour last night, you appear this morning to have abandoned Lord Frensham to his own devices.’

‘I think you will find that the earl is as comfortable with his company as I am with mine,’ she said levelly.

But her guardian was not listening. ‘You made up your mind to dislike the man before he ever set foot in the door and you have conducted yourself towards him most shabbily. I did not expect it from you.’

She felt a stab of guilt. ‘I am sorry to have upset you, Uncle. I may have behaved stupidly, but the truth is that Lord Frensham and I would never suit.’

‘How can you decide such a thing when you hardly know the man?’

‘I do not need to know him. I am sufficiently aware of the circles he moves in to recognise that I could never be happy with such a life. I do not accuse his lordship of personal involvement, but his peers are the very people who helped Rupert to his ruin and I cannot imagine, Uncle, why you should wish me to make a match with such a one.’

Sir Francis had risen from his chair and was stomping around the library, pacing to the window and back, shuffling papers on his desk and moving books from one shelf to another. Finally he stopped and faced her once more, his face mottled with vexation.

‘You will have to marry somewhere, Lucinda. Is it not better that you secure for yourself a life of ease than be doomed to penury by wedding a half-pay soldier?’

She knew his thoughts were with his dead sister, Lucinda’s mother, that once-beloved girl, who had abandoned everything to marry Eliot Lacey against her family’s wishes.

‘I understand your concern for me,’ she said as mildly as she could, ‘but I have no wish to marry, Uncle, no wish at all.’

His face grew even redder. ‘You must marry! You must forget this nonsense of setting up home with your brother. Rupert is a wastrel and always will be.’

His words stung, but they also stiffened her resolve. She would live with Rupert one day and try in whatever way she could to compensate him for the unkindness he’d suffered at the hands of his family. But right now she could not allow herself to be deflected: she must voice her plea even though she knew it to be futile. ‘I know you consider Rupert to be a lost cause, Uncle Francis, and I know that in the past he has given you reason to believe that, but—’

‘He has—in full—and there is no more to be said.’

‘I think there is. I must talk to you about him.’

‘I will say only this, Lucinda, and then we will never speak of it again. While Rupert was a minor, I did all in my power to save the honour of the family—and to save his honour. Unhappily I failed. Now I consider my task at an end and I refuse to be troubled further.’

‘You have been very good, Uncle, more than good,’ she soothed, well aware that for years he had treated her brother harshly and any benevolence sprang from inflated family pride rather than affection. ‘You have done all you possibly could to keep Rupert on the right path.’

‘And received scant gratitude! He has reached the age of majority and must now be responsible for his actions. It is quite simple.’

Lucinda’s eyes were wide and pleading. She took a step towards her guardian, her hands raised in supplication. ‘I am sorry that I disobeyed you in going to London against your wishes, but I had to see my brother. He is my twin and whatever he has done, I love him dearly. What I saw broke my heart. The prison is cold and dank and the treatment he receives severe. The stark loneliness of his life is more than any gently born soul can bear. If you would but see him, you would understand.’

‘He has a lesson to learn and that is that he must live within his means.’

‘I am sure he has learned it. Will you not reconsider your decision? If he needs further punishment, there must be other ways—but please, please, allow him to come home.’

‘If he suffers, it is right that he should do so. He will be released in due time.’

‘His release may come too late. Think how you will feel if that is so.’

‘You have an unfortunate tendency to dramatise, my dear. Rupert Lacey is where he should be. Decency has not worked to make him an honourable man. Incarceration might.’

‘But, Uncle …’

‘No more! I have no wish to continue this conversation and no wish to speak of your brother again. While you live under my roof, Lucinda, you will observe my prohibition.’

Her uncle was immovable. As so often in the past she marvelled at the strange mix that was Francis Devereux: on the one hand a man willing to spend his fortune on the pleasures of life, fastidious in his choice of dress and food, on the other, a stiff and unyielding moralist, a man steeped in tradition for whom family honour was paramount. Rupert had transgressed and was beyond forgiveness. Not that he would care. The Devereux family meant nothing to Rupert—he had said often enough that as Laceys they did not belong. Without a doubt he had been made to feel so from a very young age, punished for every small infraction of the rules, unjustly accused of every misdemeanour. She had tried very hard to protect him from their guardians’ punitive regime, but rarely succeeded. Realistically in a world of powerful adults how could one young child protect another? But the knowledge that she had failed him was always with her.

She must not fail him now in the greatest crisis of his life. He had escaped Verney Towers and its petty rules and inflexible laws as soon as he was able, but it was an escape to disaster. Their grandparents had suffered a pathological fear that Rupert would follow in his father’s footsteps and had tried to beat the Lacey out of him. By all accounts Eliot Lacey rarely had a feather to fly with and was more than happy to bleed anyone who came his way. The beatings had not worked. Rupert had become as big a gambler as ever Captain Lacey was, but, unlike his father, she knew that he took little real pleasure in the turn of the dice. He had gravitated to the tables because they represented rebellion, freedom, rather than easy money. Yet there was enough of his father in him to keep him playing even in the face of abject failure. Despite brutal punishment Rupert, it seemed, had remained stubbornly a Lacey.

Chapter Three

In low spirits, she made her way to the dining room as the last chimes of the gong echoed through the cavernous hall. Their guest was already enthroned at one end of a massive black oak table. The room’s velvet furnishings, once a majestic red, were now sad and faded and Jack Beaufort presented an enticing contrast. He had changed his riding dress to a coat of blue superfine, its cut expertly moulded across a pair of powerful shoulders, and when he rose to greet her, she saw that his shapely legs were encased in tight-fitting fawn pantaloons. There were few men who could look as good in such revealing dress. He smiled lazily at her and unexpectedly she found herself flushing.

She hoped her uncle had not noticed her embarrassment, but she need not have worried. Sir Francis had his attention firmly on the table as dish after laden dish arrived from the kitchens. For the baronet, luncheon was not the usual modest meal and for some minutes he was wholly engaged in satisfying his appetite. Only after he had made his way through a considerable amount of food did he feel ready to converse.

‘This is fine beef. It comes, you know, from a farm not ten miles away—George Rutland’s place. Do you have property in Sussex, Lord Frensham?’

Her uncle knew down to the last squire who held land in his home county, but he would be eager, Lucinda thought, for the earl to enumerate his vast possessions.

Their guest, though, was not playing the game. ‘I own nothing in the county. In fact, I have visited Sussex very little.’

‘Perhaps because it lies so close to London? That is most understandable. You have a splendid London house, I believe. In Grosvenor Square, is it not?’ Sir Francis sat back and waited to be told of its glories.

‘I do not live in Grosvenor Square. My home is in Half Moon Street’.

His host looked shocked. ‘But is it wise to leave such a beautiful house empty?’

‘It’s not empty,’ the earl answered cheerfully. ‘My sister, Lady Bessborough, fills the house with her four children. As a bachelor, I am happy with something a little less grand.’

Francis was temporarily silenced by the need to taste several of the new dishes that had found their way to the table. When he spoke again, it was to say smugly, ‘Of course, you will not have much of a garden in Grosvenor Square.’

The earl seemed disinclined to quarrel with this and her uncle went on, ‘We have some splendid grounds at the Towers, you know—parkland which stretches for miles, a fine terraced garden and any number of succession houses.’ He wiped his lips in satisfaction. ‘Why do you not take a walk? The weather remains fair and I know that Lucinda will be pleased to accompany you and explain all that we are doing here.’

The earl had long since finished eating and seemed glad to rise from the table. ‘That sounds a most delightful way to spend an afternoon.’ His smile was only slightly wry as he bowed graciously in Lucinda’s direction. ‘If you are ready, Miss Lacey, shall we go?’ Beneath her uncle’s implacable gaze, she had little choice but to surrender her seat and take the proffered arm.

They strode in silence towards the honey-coloured terrace at the rear of the mansion. Francis Devereux did not intend to waste an opportunity to throw them together, Jack thought, no matter how distasteful his niece might find it. The gardens no doubt were another step in his campaign. He felt sorry for the girl, sorry for himself. They had been put in an impossible situation.