One Touch of Scandal Read online

  Liz Carlyle

  One Touch of Scandal

  Contents

  Prologue

  Rise of the Guardians

  Chapter 1

  Only the Good Die Young

  Chapter 2

  It Must Be Magic

  Chapter 3

  Pinkie Pays a Social Call

  Chapter 4

  A Visit to Belgrave Square

  Chapter 5

  The Accidental Homecoming

  Chapter 6

  Tea for Two

  Chapter 7

  A Little Family Quarrel

  Chapter 8

  The Damning Evidence

  Chapter 9

  A Soldier of Fortune

  Chapter 10

  A Taste of Temptation

  Chapter 11

  The Guessing Game

  Chapter 12

  The Enchantment

  Chapter 13

  The Mystic’s Tale

  Chapter 14

  The Bréviaire’s Secret

  Chapter 15

  The Rogue’s Return

  Chapter 16

  Rubies in the Snow

  Epilogue

  The Wedding Gift

  About the Author

  Other Books by Liz Carlyle

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  Rise of the Guardians

  Paris, 1658

  The fine haze crept over the Marais in silence, a gossamer thing that settled softly into the cobbled lanes and grand allées alike, deadening the night like so much straw cast down before a hearse. Along the Seine, the lamplights of Paris turned one after another to a rheumy amber, their beams barely piercing the night.

  It little mattered. The storm that had rained down upon la cité for all of three days and nights had driven both man and beast to shelter, and in the Marais, neither stirred. None heard the hoofbeats that pounded out of the brume, at first a mere rumble of sound. But the sound gathered and quickened, became a cacophonous clatter, then rang and swelled into a roar neither fog nor death could still and no man could ignore, until the narrow lane of rue St. Paul was filled wall to windowsill with horses dark from sweat and foamed with lather.

  Casements screeched and sashes thudded up as, all along the street, the good citizens leaned out to see what despot’s army bore down upon them. But as quickly as they had come, the horsemen passed through, clattering down onto the river road, along the Hôtel de Sens, then onto the Pont Marie, their thick black capes streaming out behind as they fairly leapt over the Seine to vanish into utter darkness.

  Later it was whispered by those who had seen them that the horsemen had been inhuman; that the heavy hoods had concealed naught but cheeks of pale, bleached bone with bright, burning sockets above. That the hands which fisted the reins were without flesh or substance; indeed, that the riders came thundering forth in the wake of the storm and down upon the quiet pastures of the Île Saint-Louis as emissaries of the devil himself—and that all that was to come afterward was naught but a righteous punishment.

  In the darkness beyond the Pont Marie, the foremost of these devil’s minions drew up his steed, a snorting, wheeling mass of muscle and temper, and hurled himself from the saddle in one motion. His cloak of black wool billowing about his boots, he strode through the mud and weeds, then lifted his fist—of bone and flesh—to pound upon the door of an old stone cottage with the strength of his whole of his arm, and much of his shoulder, too.

  Within, the knock was heard too well, as was his intent. Indeed, the horsemen had been heard and their purpose surmised long before they had come thundering across the bridge.

  A second dismounted, his torch held aloft. “They are within?”

  “Aye, stench of guile carries,” said the horseman. He pounded upon the door again. “Ouvre-moi! Open, you scurrilous dog! In the name of the Fraternitas Aureae Crucis!”

  As if his words had willed it, the arched and weathered slab of a door creaked open on stiff hinges, the rusted iron ring that served as its knob clunking impotently as it stopped.

  “Oui?”

  “The Gift,” rasped the horseman, planting a wide palm upon the door. “We’ve come for the Gift.”

  A round-faced friar, his vestments a dull brown in the flickering light, his eyes feverish with agitation, looked up at the intruder.

  “Now,” the horseman bellowed, laying the opposite hand to his sword hilt.

  The friar shook his head. “Je ne sais pas ce que vous veux!”

  “You, sir, are a bloody liar.” The words were lethally soft. “The Gift, man. Now. Or by all that is holy, I shall bind you by the wrists and drag you back up to St. Paul’s to stand before our Jesuit brethren. And what will you say for yourself then, eh?”

  The friar’s visage twisted with vehemence. “Très bien,” he snarled, spittle flying. “Let the sin of this be upon your head!”

  And yet he did not move. The horseman stood stalwart, saying no more, his sword hand eagerly twitching. “I am sworn to God,” he said, “not to peace. You would do well to heed me.”

  After a slow exhalation, the friar turned from the door, rummaged in the gloom but a few moments, and returned with a large bundle set high upon his hip.

  The horseman leaned across the stone threshold and pushed gingerly at the folds of wool until a small, drowsy face peeked out at him beneath a tumble of brilliant red curls, one fist set squarely to her mouth.

  “Nay, Sibylla!” said the horseman gently. “No’ the thumb, lass!”

  He reached for her, his tall leather boots creaking in the stillness.

  But at the last possible instant, the friar hesitated and withdrew a pace into the gloom. “Imbécile!” he hissed. “Think what you do! She is le antéchrist! You will rue this day in hell.”

  “The only day I rue,” said the horseman, shouldering his way inside, “is the day she set sail for this place.”

  The friar spat onto the flagstone between his firmly planted boots.

  “But now we return,” the horseman went on, drawing his sword, the sound of steel on steel ringing through the night. “And the only question which remains, mon frère, is does God let you live to see us go?”

  CHAPTER 1

  Only the Good Die Young

  London, 1848

  Blood. Blood, everywhere.

  Oblivious to the whispers and the quick, soft footfalls up and down the passageway, Grace Gauthier lifted her hands, studying them with numb dispassion in the flickering gaslight. It felt as if the fingers and palms—indeed, even the ruined cuffs of her nightdress—belonged to someone else altogether.

  Guarded whispers drifted from the study across the corridor.

  “In shock, in’t she?”

  “Aye, and this ’un dead soon after ’e hit the carpet.”

  Grace shuddered.

  Had he suffered? She prayed not. She dropped her hands, shut her eyes, and leaned back against the sitting-room wall to stop the shaking, but her trembling, she realized, was bone-deep and would not be so easily stilled.

  Somewhere downstairs, a woman was sobbing. Indeed, she should be sobbing. Why was she not? Why could she not make sense of this?

  “Miss Gauthier?”

  This voice came as if from a distance, mangling her name. Grace did not care. She felt as if she stood in a tunnel, far, far away from this quiet chaos. But she did not. She was here, and Ethan was gone, and this—all of this—would soon seem all too real. Long months spent upon the battlefields of North Africa had taught her that numbness in the face of death was but a fleeting respite.

  “Miss?” said the voice again.

  An English voice, but not a cultured one. Yet not like Ethan’s, either. Not hard with
the confidence of a self-made man.

  “Oui?” Grace forced her eyes open.

  A warm, heavy palm slid beneath her elbow. “I am afraid you must come into the library with me now, miss.”

  She came away from the wall and went down the corridor with him like an automaton. What was his name? He had told her upon bursting into Ethan’s study, this broad, ruddy-cheeked man who had seized such a firm grip on her elbow. And told her again when he’d dragged her from the body, his voice shushing and gentle, as if he spoke to a child.

  Or a lunatic.

  But the name had escaped, along with all hope. And now he was drawing her swiftly past the study, where the men in blue, brass-buttoned uniforms whispered, then down the sweeping staircase where the draft from the gaping front door stirred at the hems of her wrapper. The sobbing from within the house deepened to a wretched, inhuman moan.

  She hesitated, the newel post cold as Ethan’s body beneath her hand. “I should go,” she murmured. “I should find Fenella—Miss Crane.”

  But the man ignored the suggestion. “Just a few more questions, miss,” he said without slowing, “then we—”

  His words were forestalled by the appearance of yet another man; the fourth, Grace thought. Or perhaps the fortieth. She had been too stricken to count.

  But unlike the others, this man was no uniformed officer. Instead he was dressed elegantly, as if for the theatre. A black opera cloak swirling about his ankles, he materialized like a specter from the London fog, coming up the front steps and through the open door as if he owned the house and everyone in it, stripping off a fine pair of kidskin gloves as he came.

  The incongruity of this threatened to at last shove Grace over the edge of hysteria. Ethan lay dead in a pool of his own blood, behind his own desk, in his own home. And the rest of London went about its business? They went to the theater?

  The man swerved gracefully around the pile of luggage sitting in the front hall and headed toward them, his footfalls ringing sharply on the fine marble floor.

  “Evening, Assistant Commissioner.” Grace’s escort stiffened as he tucked his tall top hat neatly under one arm.

  The man halted a few feet away, his quick gaze flicking over Grace, then back again. “Evening, Minch. This is Mademoiselle Gauthier?” He pronounced the name flawlessly—Gaw-tee-aye—as if he were a Frenchman born.

  “Yes, sir,” said Minch. “Did the capt’n brief you?”

  “No need. Sir George saw fit to drag me from the opera himself.” The man—the commissioner, or whatever he was called—dipped his head to catch Grace’s eyes. “Mademoiselle, I am sorry for your loss. The deceased, I collect, was your affianced husband?”

  Grace tried to hold his gaze, but it was cold as ice. “Oui, I…we…we had—” Suddenly, the swell of grief and horror came up to nearly choke her. “W-We had an understanding.”

  The man took charge. “Sergeant Minch here will escort us to the parlor, where we may speak in privacy,” he said. “If you would kindly follow him?”

  It was the first order given Grace that had not sounded quite like a military command. Indeed, it sounded rather more dangerous than that. He took her arm, and, in an instant, Grace was seated in Fenella’s favorite chair by the hearth and a brandy pressed into her hand.

  “Drink it, mademoiselle.”

  After a time, she looked up to see that she was now quite alone with the dark man with the thin blade of a nose. He had tossed down his opera cloak along with his gloves and was staring at her quite intently.

  “Where is Miss Crane?” she whispered, plucking nervously at her bloodied cuffs. “I…I should change and go to her.”

  The commissioner turned his eyes away. “I am very sorry, mademoiselle, for your loss,” he said again. “The trunks and baggage in the passageway—I understand they are yours?”

  Grace licked her lips and tasted the brandy she did not remember drinking. “Yes, I was going to my aunt’s,” she managed. “So that Ethan—Mr. Holding—might send the announcement to the papers tomorrow.”

  “The announcement?” His eyes narrowed. “Of your betrothal?”

  “Yes.” Her voice caught. “His year of mourning, it…it was over.”

  And hers had just begun—yet again.

  “I am afraid, mademoiselle,” said the man, “that I cannot permit you to remove the baggage tonight.”

  “Tonight?” Grace blinked. “I—why, I had no intention of doing so.”

  He regarded her in silence a moment, one finger rhythmically stroking the edge of a leather folio he held balanced on his knee. And as she watched him, beginning bit by bit to return to herself, it dawned on Grace that this was the very thing Ethan had most feared. Scandal. Speculation. The tawdry bits and pieces of a less-than-genteel life; things a former tradesman with social aspirations did not dare trail past the hallowed white portals of Belgravia. All of Ethan’s efforts to fit in, to be one of them, would be for naught.

  But then she remembered. It did not matter now.

  The commissioner, however, was speaking. “One of the housemaids will be assigned to repack under supervision those things which you shall need for the next few days,” he went on. “Have you any family in London? Where were you to go tomorrow?”

  “To my aunt’s,” Grace answered, puzzled. “Lady Abigail Hythe in Manchester Square.”

  “Hythe.” He puzzled a moment over the name, but no recognition dawned. “Well, I shall ask you to be so kind, ma’am, as to walk back over the events of this evening with me. Then, once you have changed, and your valise is packed, Sergeant Minch will escort you to your aunt’s house.”

  For the first time tonight, Grace fully grasped the horror of being dressed in her nightclothes amongst all these strange men. She should have been embarrassed, but on her next breath she realized just what the man had suggested.

  “Leave tonight?” she said sharply. “Why, this is not possible! The children will need me. Miss Crane will want me. Mon Dieu, sir, they have lost their father, and Miss Crane her brother. I would not dream of abandoning them at such a time, no matter my own loss.”

  He set his head slightly to one side and studied her, his eyes as cold a shade of gray as ever Grace had seen, his gaze boring into her, and it was then that she felt it. That faint frisson of fear. It ran down her spine, chilling her.

  Inexplicably, the realization brought her courage. Or perhaps it was indignation. Ethan was dead, yes. Nonetheless, she had borne up under far worse. She was the daughter of a commandant, for pity’s sake. She did not feel fear—not from a mere bureaucrat.

  “Monsieur,” she said stiffly, “a fine man and good friend to Her Majesty’s government was just cut down in cold blood. I should hope the police have a vast deal more to worry about than where a nobody governess lays her head tonight. Indeed, I should hope you would have every man in Scotland Yard turned out on the streets within the hour.”

  “Oh, I am quite well aware, ma’am, of precisely how valued a citizen Mr. Holding was to the Government,” the man replied. “Had I not been, the visit I received tonight courtesy of our Home Secretary would most assuredly have made it plain.”

  She came swiftly to her feet. “Excellent, then,” she said. “You have much to do. I must bathe, change, and see to Fenella and the children. Really, sir—I did not catch your name—”

  “Napier,” he said without rising, a terrible breach of etiquette. “Assistant Commissioner Royden Napier, Metropolitan Police. Now kindly sit back down, Mademoiselle Gauthier.”

  Grace drew herself up to her full height. “I shall be but a few moments,” she said with as much Gallic hauteur as she could muster. “I fear I must insist.”

  He hesitated for only a heartbeat, as if weighing something in his mind. Then, “Mademoiselle, I am very sorry,” he said. “You cannot go yet, nor can you see your fiancé’s sister. We have advised the household that no one save perhaps one or two servants can remain here tonight. Interviews must take place, and the property must be sea
rched for incriminating evidence.”

  “Evidence?” said Grace. “In the house? But a thief would have come from outside. Wouldn’t he? Some sort of—what do they call it?—a cracksman? And the children—who will comfort them?”

  Something that might have been pity sketched over his face then. “I believe their late mother’s sister—” Here he consulted his folio, “—a Mrs. Lester, is coming to collect the children and take them down to her country house below Rotherhithe. So it would be best, mademoiselle, under the circumstances, if you went as planned to your aunt’s.”

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes, mademoiselle.” His finger still stroked the leather of his folio. “Tonight.”

  And at last Grace heard what was not being said. This was not about grief, or about sympathy, or even about what she might have seen. This man did not trust her. She might even be—God help her—a suspect.

  With a hand that shook, Grace drained the rest of the brandy.

  The frisson of fear had returned.

  As the morning sun rose high over Westminster, Adrian Forsythe, Lord Ruthveyn, tipped back his head to allow his valet to scrape the last swath of black bristle up his throat, half-hoping that this time the fellow’s wrist might twitch and slit his jugular vein.

  This prospect was followed, however, by the ring of Fricke’s drawing the blade clean across the rim of his basin.

  Alas, not today.

  Ruthveyn straightened in his chair and took the steaming-hot towel Fricke offered. “Well, get on with it, Claytor,” he grumbled to his waiting secretary as he wiped the last of the soap from his face. “What else has gone wrong in the last twelve hours—other than the two shattered windows, Teddy’s concussion, and that little contretemps with the bailiff?”