Patrick ran his hand down the silky mess of Sophie’s curls, spread out against the sheets. She must have bled when he took her virginity, this future wife of his, but she hadn’t said a word. Not a coward, then. But she had no faith in him. Why? What could she have heard about him? Stories, perhaps, about his behavior before his father sent him abroad. But Patrick couldn’t think of anything remarkable, other than the normal pranks of lustful men in their twenties. And yet, since Sophie had agreed to marry Braddon, whose reputation was not the best, a truly egregious tale must be circulating about himself. No. He’d forgotten about Braddon’s title. Sophie had wanted to be a countess. Well, now she would be a duchess.
Patrick’s jaw tightened. Whatever reluctance she’d had to marry him before, Sophie York didn’t have a choice anymore. She was his. He stood up, then leaned over her once more, almost compulsively running a hand down the lovely curves of her relaxed body. God, he’d better get out of here or he’d lose his head again.
Patrick stood, his cape swirling from his shoulders. With the silent stealth of a jungle animal he walked over to Sophie’s dressing table and swiftly pocketed the strand of matched pearls she had worn earlier in the evening. Then he left the room, shutting the door silently behind him. He walked down the stairs slowly, making no effort to hide the firm sound of his feet striking the marble risers.
Carroll had left Philippe in the front hall with instructions to await the master and mistress’s return from a ball. The footman looked up in confusion as a swell, dressed in a black cape, walked composedly down the stairs. His mouth fell open, but Carroll’s excellent training snapped Philippe to attention. He sprang to the door and held it open, bowing his head.
Patrick threw him an amused glance as he strolled through the doorway. Then he paused.
“I wasn’t here,” he said gently.
Philippe nodded. Not for nothing was he born in France.
“It is possible that a thief has been in the house, however,” Patrick added.
Philippe’s eyes shifted desperately to the side. He wished Carroll were there.
“A thief, sir?”
“Unfortunately,” Patrick murmured. “There is a thief in London who brings a ladder, climbs into open windows, and steals whatever jewels have been left out on a dressing table. It is entirely possible that the thief is on the prowl tonight.”
Philippe felt a chill of alarm down his spine. What was he supposed to do next? The tall aristocrat’s eyes were making his head whirl.
“Perhaps we should summon a runner,” he said with a gulp.
He was rewarded by a cool smile. “That would undoubtedly be wise.” Patrick jauntily walked down the outside stairs. Even as Philippe watched, he vaulted into a carriage waiting at the corner. Only then did Philippe dare look at the banknote in his hand.
“Gorm!” Philippe had been handed more money than he could make in three years … enough to get his little sister out of her position as a scullery maid, which she hated so much, and into an apprenticeship with a mantua maker. A flood of gratitude washed his soul.
Then he turned quickly, running back toward the servants’ quarters. He’d just remembered hearing a rumor about a thief who entered houses by a ladder, stealing jewels so quietly that sleeping inhabitants heard not a whisper.
And thus it was that when an extremely disgruntled marchioness and her husband returned to their house, an hour or so later, they disembarked from their carriage to find all the lights burning, and a small circle of Bow Street runners standing about awkwardly.
Eloise stopped in utter confusion. There was her daughter, hastily dressed and with her hair tied back with a simple ribbon. Obviously Sophie was not belting down the post road toward Gretna Greene. Eloise was propelled into the room by her husband’s strong hand in the middle of her back.
“What seems to be the problem here?” The marquis’s voice was sharp and the little group swung about instantly.
The head runner’s eyes brightened. Here was the man of the house to talk to.
“It’s like this, milord,” Grenable said importantly. “There’s been a robbery here.”
“A robbery?”
“Yes, sir. Your daughter’s lost a valuable pearl necklace—”
“Pearls?”
Grenable cast a look at the mistress of the house. She seemed a bit dazed.
“Yes, milady, a string of pearls has been found to be missing.” Grenable turned back to the marquis. “There’s been a few thefts of this sort in the past, milord. We found ladder marks under the young lady’s window, and the mess of quite a number of footprints. So my guess is that we’re talking about a gang here. Likely they came along and set up a ladder, and one of ‘em nipped up the ladder as silent as you please, and the young lady has admitted that her pearls were lying right on the dressing table in her room, just asking to be picked up, begging your pardon.” He bobbed his head at Sophie, who nodded confusedly.
She was only beginning to understand the situation. The process wasn’t helped by the jolting surprises of the past hour: waking to find herself alone in the bed, roused by Simone’s hysterical comments. It seemed that her mama’s maid had somehow figured out that the house had been robbed, or was it one of the footmen? No one seemed to be too clear. At any rate, the throbbing pain between her thighs kept stealing her attention away from the loss of her pearl necklace. And Patrick had left her without a word, without even saying good-bye, that she could remember.
Grenable’s unwelcome voice intervened again. He was a rather squat, oily man with a scrawny beard. “I shall need to question the young lady quite closely,” he was saying. “It is not yet clear to me exactly why Lady Sophie opened her window last night, given that her maid insists that she closed the window quite securely before going to her own room.”
Sophie gulped and looked up. Her mama was frowning at her, and even her father was looking at her rather sharply. She felt as if she were acting in a play without having learned the lines.
“I simply wanted some night air,” she said, her voice wavering. And then, when she spied a gleam of approval in her father’s eyes, she burst into tears. She cried because Patrick hadn’t said good-bye, and because she was bewildered by her thoughtless submission to his seduction.
And thus Grenable’s underlings were treated to the sight of his discomfort, having driven a gently born young lady to tears.
Her father was beside her in an instant; Eloise was a little slower, given her surprise at the sight of Sophie’s tears. In her recollection, she hadn’t seen her daughter cry since she was six or seven. Yet there she was, choking back sobs—and over the loss of a pearl necklace!
“It’s shock,” George said soothingly, meeting his wife’s bewildered eyes. “Very frightening, having a marauding criminal tiptoeing around one’s room during the night.”
Eloise turned and gave Grenable a fierce look. He involuntarily fell back a step. “I fail to see what information my daughter might give you that could possibly aid you in your attempt to apprehend the criminal who broke into our house tonight,” she said bitingly. “I suggest you begin searching the streets without delay.”
Grenable swallowed. Of course the marchioness was right. The open window had just seemed a bit havey-cavey to him. He would do better to go back to Bow Street and send a description of the pearl necklace out to the best-known fencers. He rubbed his hands together, bowing very low as the marchioness swept her daughter from the room.
“I agree, I agree,” he said, turning to the marquis as the door closed behind Eloise and Sophie. “There is nothing more for me here. I must warn you, milord, that the possibility of recovering the young lady’s necklace is very slim.”
The marquis looked remarkably calm as he shook Grenable’s hand. “Do your best, man, do your best. I’m not one of those who criticize the runners. From what I’ve seen, you’re good men, the finest. Always chasing after malefactors.”
“Yes,” Grenable said a bit uncertainly. “We certain
ly do our best.” Somehow he found himself out the front door and heading back to Bow Street before he thought twice.
Given that one of his operating rules was never to show indecision in front of his men, Grenable decided to dismiss the queerness of the marquis’s behavior. After all, what was a string of pearls to such a man, anyway? Grenable should just bless his lucky stars that this particular peer wouldn’t kick up a row if the bloody pearls couldn’t be traced. The very thought cheered him up.
The family butler, Carroll, was even more cheerful when he found that the master seemed to have no intention of turning him off as a result of his slanderous suggestion that Lady Sophie had eloped.
“Don’t think about it twice, Carroll,” George said expansively. “It was a viable conclusion. I thought it m’self. But there, we told you Lady Sophie was safe in her bed, didn’t we? Too bad we didn’t know about the thief when her mother and I left for the ball. But the important thing is that Lady Sophie was right and snug in bed. Well, good night, Carroll.” And off went the marquis, rubbing his hands together.
Funny behavior for a man who’d lost a mint of money to a thief, to Carroll’s mind. But what was it to him?
Chapter 10
Patrick Foakes climbed the stairs of Brandenburg House the next morning a trifle wearily. He’d been up half the night. Braddon had taken the news of his confiscated bride very badly indeed. In fact, the vehemence of his reaction stunned Patrick, given Braddon’s easygoing attitude toward most things. He would never forget the moment when Braddon snatched up a port bottle and started smashing the plaster adhesive on his leg. For a second Patrick thought his friend had been driven mad by grief, but in truth Braddon was only royally peeved.
Braddon had always been fidgety when it came to his mother, Patrick thought as he waited to be announced. And Braddon’s marriage was essentially a matter of Braddon’s mother.
The Brandenburg butler returned, bowing magnificently. “The marquis will see you in the library,” he intoned.
Nothing had changed in the library since Patrick’s last visit, one month ago. Except, perhaps, the attitude of the Marquis of Brandenburg. Last time, Brandenburg had greeted him expansively, striding across the floor to meet him. Patrick remembered being faintly surprised that the marquis would be so happy to greet the man who had damaged his daughter’s reputation the night before. But now Sophie’s ruination lay between them, and George’s eyes were as icy cold as a northern glacier.
As Patrick walked into the room, George dismissed Carroll with a brief nod. Neither of them said a word until Carroll had closed the two heavy oak doors of the library, bowing on his way out of the room.
Patrick met the furious eyes of his future father-in-law steadily as he walked over to stand before him. “I’ve come to request the hand of your daughter in marriage,” he said mildly.
George simply raised one of his clenched fists and aimed it at Patrick’s face, striking him with all the rage of a sleepless night. There was a substantial thunk as his fist met Patrick’s hard jaw, bounced upward, and struck him again at the corner of the eye. Patrick lurched back, catching himself on the corner of George’s desk. Then he straightened and looked at the marquis again.
George was panting with exertion. “I didn’t think you’d let me do that,” he observed.
Patrick’s response was brief: “I deserved it.”
George was beginning to feel foolish. He was too old for boxing gymnastics in the library. He made his way to a group of chairs by the fireplace and dropped into one, not even glancing at his guest to see whether he would follow. Patrick walked over and sat down.
“I went up that ladder last night to help your daughter elope with the Earl of Slaslow,” Patrick said quietly.
He glanced at the marquis, whose face had grown even redder, if possible.
“What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“The elopement,” Patrick continued, leaning back and closing his eyes, “was Lady Sophie’s idea and carried out on her plan. However, Slaslow himself was dead set against the idea of an elopement, and when he injured his leg yesterday, he persuaded me to bring your daughter to his grandmother’s house. His plan was to convince Lady Sophie that an elopement was neither desirable nor possible, given his impairment.”
There was silence from the other side of the fireplace.
“When I arrived in your daughter’s room, she had already decided to break off her engagement to Slaslow.”
“I assume,” George said sardonically, “that she has now changed her mind about your proposal of marriage.”
“I believe so.”
“And what a scandal this is going to be.” The marquis’s voice sounded weary.
“Not as much of a scandal as if your daughter had eloped with the Earl of Slaslow,” Patrick retorted.
George stared into the dying embers of the fire, his heart heavy. Not only was Sophie going to break her engagement to an earl, but unless he was greatly mistaken, she was going to have to marry another man with indecent haste.
“It will be a nine-days’ wonder,” Patrick said calmly. “I shall take my bride on a lengthy wedding trip, and by the time we return a more potent scandal will be amusing the ton.”
“What am I to tell my wife? She’ll be a mite curious about why you two have to get married so quickly, after Sophie’s engagement to another man was just announced.”
“Why don’t you tell her the truth?”
“God, no.” George frowned into the fire. “Eloise looks pretty stiff, but she’s actually quite naive. It would be a terrible blow to her to learn that our daughter was seduced before her wedding.”
Patrick felt a sharp pang of guilt. In the cold morning’s light, he was shocked by his own behavior. What had got into him last night? What was it about Sophie that had driven him into such a frenzy of lust? He had broken every rule of civilized behavior that he’d been taught since a boy.
“Tell the marchioness that it’s a case of true love.”
“True love!” George scoffed. “My wife has never been one for rosy fantasies.”
“Then why did you protect her from seeing me in Lady Sophie’s bed last night?”
“I told you. It would be a huge blow to her…. She’d think that Sophie takes after her papa. And she doesn’t,” George said with a fierce glare.
Patrick met the marquis’s eyes steadily, even given that his own eye was beginning to swell and appeared half closed. “I know,” he said with a crooked half-smile.
George turned a trifle redder at the reminder that his daughter had anticipated her wedding night.
“I’ll look after her,” Patrick said quietly.
“I know, I know,” George mumbled. “I always thought she’d be happy with you. Although I hoped she’d find a quieter sort of fellow. Braddon and you, you’re cats of the same color, aren’t you? Rakes, the both of you.” He cast an apologetic glance at the young man before him, heaving himself to his feet. “I haven’t always behaved as I should.”
Patrick’s lips twitched but he managed to stifle a grin. This, from the man whose name regularly adorned the gossip columns of every London rag published? Patrick could hardly hope to convince George that he had no plans to take a mistress after marrying Sophie. George’s tempestuous extramarital history meant that rakes, from his point of view, never reformed.
George started again. “My wife has a powerful temper, and sometimes Sophie was … saw more than she should have.”
Patrick stood up, his relaxed demeanor not letting slip a clue to his keen interest in George’s confession.
“She’s a good girl, my Sophie is.” George was walking toward the door now, going to ring the bell and summon his daughter to the library to entertain Foakes’s proposal yet again. “She’s a good girl. She’s gotten me out of a curst hobble more than once, helped me out when her mama was acting like a termagant.”
Patrick walked up behind him.
“How did Lady Sophie aid you with these
entanglements?” His voice sounded mildly curious.
“Oh, she would smile, as sweet as new butter, and tell her mother that I’d taken her to the races, that sort of thing.” George’s round eyes were full of self-condemnation. “Do you think that Sophie came up with this infamous plan to elope because of my indiscretions? Did she let you stay in her bed last night because I’ve been such a—”
“I take full blame for what happened last night. Lady Sophie is a true innocent. She had no idea what might happen when I climbed the ladder to her room.”
“Really?” For a moment the marquis’s eyes widened with surprise. “She’s—” What in the devil was he doing, trying to convince his daughter’s future husband that she was some sort of female libertine? She wasn’t, of course. It was just that Sophie had lied so convincingly in the past, protecting him from her mother’s wrath. He’d somehow fallen into thinking of his own daughter as a sophisticated lady of the town, instead of an innocent maiden. For a moment George was swamped in self-reproach.
Then just as he opened his mouth, the doors opened and Carroll stood there.
“My lord?”
“Ask Lady Sophie to join us, Carroll.”
Carroll cast a quick, speculative glance at Patrick Foakes. Of course, the entire household knew of Foakes’s earlier proposal to Lady Sophie, the one she’d rejected. The whole household also knew that Lady Sophie’s engagement to the Earl of Slaslow had just been celebrated. So what was Foakes doing in the house?
Sophie came down the staircase slowly, trailing her hand on the railing. She was wearing a remarkably demure morning gown with a high neckline trimmed with two rows of fabric roses. In fact, she had worn the dress only once before and then discarded it as too dowdy for words. But this morning, visited by tidal waves of embarrassment, her aim was to show Patrick—and her father!—that she was not one of the muslin company, even though she had acted like one the night before.
For the fortieth time that morning, a wash of rosy color swirled in Sophie’s cheeks. Could she even enter the library? What must her father think of her? Her stomach roiled with nerves. But there was no stopping time, no matter how slowly she descended the stairs. Carroll again opened the library doors. There stood her father.