One Touch of Scandal Read online

  “Yes,” said Ruthveyn tightly. “I was with him in Algiers. I followed him back here.”

  “Oh,” said Grace softly. “We were frightfully worried for him. But Papa soon fell ill, and I took him to Paris. I have been in London less than a year myself.”

  “Why?” he asked. “If not to see Welham, why did you come?”

  “To take employment.” She was growing weary of his high-handed questions and hard, glittering eyes. “Really, my lord, what did you imagine? That I followed him? That there was something between us?”

  It was his turn to look away. “You are a beautiful woman, Mademoiselle Gauthier,” said Ruthveyn. “And Lazonby was never able to resist…well, much of anything he desired.”

  “But I have always been able to resist a rogue,” she said waspishly. “And that’s precisely what Rance is—a fine soldier and a good friend, yes—but a rogue all the same.”

  “I merely wished to be certain,” said Ruthveyn.

  “Why?” she demanded.

  He looked at her and crooked one impossibly black eyebrow. “Let it go, Mademoiselle Gauthier.” Again, he waved a languid, graceful hand. “Querulousness becomes neither of us. Now, what sort of employment, ma’am? Did Gauthier not provide for you?”

  Grace drew herself up an inch. “That’s hardly your business, either,” she said testily. “But yes, my father did provide for me. I am not wealthy—barely comfortable, I daresay, by your standards—but nor do I believe in idleness. It pleases me to work, and I have been the last several months in the employ of Mr. Ethan Holding of Crane and Holding Shipbuilders.”

  Ruthveyn seemed to stiffen. “Crane and Holding,” he murmured. “The largest shipbuilder to the British Navy. They’ve yards in Liverpool and Rotherhithe.”

  “And Chatham,” Grace added. “Ethan—Mr. Holding—recently forced out a competitor.” She dropped her chin and stared at the floor. “I am—or was—governess to his stepdaughters, Eliza and Anne. Their mother died in a tragic accident last year.”

  A long silence held sway over the room, and through the row of open windows, Grace could hear the clatter of carriages and carts in distant St. James’s Street. In the lane below, someone was sweeping a doorstep, and farther along, a doorman was calling out to a passing hansom. And all the while, Ruthveyn was looking at her with his cold black gaze.

  “The Morning Chronicle reported Holding’s death this morning,” he finally said. “It was suggested someone slit his throat.”

  And just like that, Grace felt the loss well up anew, choking off her breath. Suggested? There had been nothing so vague about it. Ethan’s death had been swift and horrid and real, and his throat most definitely slit.

  She fell forward a little, one arm wrapping round her abdomen. She felt suddenly clammy with nausea, the whole of that night rushing back to the forefront of her memory. Good God, had it only been little more than a day ago? She could still see Ethan there, gurgling upon the floor, his fingers clawing into the carpet as if he might drag himself away.

  She needed to go. This man—this peer of the realm—could not help her find Rance. He was gone. There was no help for her here. Worse, she had not missed the uniformed policemen posted at either end of the square this morning, nor the fact that one of them had followed her all the way down to St. James’s. And suddenly it occurred to her—how ever was she to explain her presence here? And she would have to. It would not take the police long to retrace her connection to the notorious murderer, Rance Welham. That thought was becoming acutely clear to her now.

  What a fool she was! Grace dug her fingers into the arms of her chair and attempted to rise, but even the ability to command her muscles had seemingly abandoned her.

  “Mademoiselle Gauthier?” Lord Ruthveyn’s voice came as if from a distance.

  “Mademoiselle?” The voice was sharper this time.

  “Oui?” Grace managed to release her death grip on the chair. “Yes, I beg your pardon.”

  “What is your involvement in Mr. Holding’s death?”

  Somehow she forced her gaze to his. “My…involvement?”

  “Is Holding’s murder the reason for your visit here today?” His eyes flashed like black diamonds. “Were you there? Have you been questioned? Are you a suspect?”

  “Yes,” she cried, finally jerking from her seat. “And yes, and yes, and yes to all your vile questions! I very much fear I am a suspect. I do not know. No one will tell me. I have been shut out of the house. Forbidden the children. A policeman is following me, for God’s sake. So yes, my lord. I think we can safely say I’m up to my neck in it.”

  Panic surging, Grace lifted her skirts and rushed for the door. But Ruthveyn was so fast, she never saw him move. Grace slammed against him, chest to chest, and felt something inside her give way. He caught her shoulders surely in his elegant hands, and Grace sagged into him, all her strength and will dissolving on a single, choking sob.

  Then Ruthveyn did the strangest thing. He enveloped her in his arms, gingerly at first, as if he’d never held another human being. As if she were blown from spun glass and might shatter at the merest touch. For an instant, he held her thus, then suddenly his arms went fully around her, warm and incredibly solid, holding her with all his strength.

  “My dear girl,” he murmured, his breath warm against her temple. “All cannot quite be lost.”

  Such tenderness—and from a man who looked anything but tender—was almost too much for Grace. She bit back another sob, knowing that the deluge was but barely subdued. “Oh, sir, you cannot know what I have lost,” she managed. “But you…you are kind. And I thank you for that.”

  “Kind,” the marquess echoed, as if the word had never before been applied to him.

  Somehow, Grace set the heels of her hands to his shoulders and pushed herself away. He let her go, his face still unreadable. But the loss of his warmth was almost painful, like the stripping away of something as emotional as it was physical.

  The timing, however, was fortuitous, for just then the door flew open, and a manservant appeared, rolling in a mahogany cart that held a tea service and three small platters. She turned to face the window, blinking back tears as the tea was set out.

  “You must stay, Mademoiselle Gauthier,” Ruthveyn ordered amidst the clacking of porcelain and silver. “I insist you eat, and tell me what, precisely, you wanted of Sergeant Welham—or Lord Lazonby, I should say.”

  Five minutes later, Grace found herself urged back into her seat, her bloodless hands warmed by a cup of tea strong enough to peel paint. She lifted it, sipping almost gratefully, as Lord Ruthveyn filled her plate with bits of food she would never eat. It was a ridiculously early hour for tea, but he did not look like a man who much cared about convention.

  The china, Grace noticed dispassionately, was of the thinnest porcelain imaginable, while the tea service was of heavy chased silver that bore the same odd crest she’d seen etched into the house’s pediment. Indeed, the house and its every appointment spoke of quiet, well-heeled masculinity. Whatever the St. James Society was, its members apparently wanted for nothing. Grace found it hard to reconcile such opulence with the gruff, hard-bitten soldier she’d known as Rance Welham.

  Lord Ruthveyn flicked an appraising gaze up at her, severing Grace’s musings.

  “We have got off to a rather curious start, have we not, mademoiselle?” he murmured as he pushed a lemon biscuit onto her plate with a pair of elaborate silver tongs. “What with Lazonby away, and you stuck with me. And then there was my appalling loss of temper downstairs.”

  “I’m not sure I blame you.” Grace took her plate, grateful for the mundane conversation that was designed, she knew, to put her at ease. “That frightful young man—what was his name?”

  “Coldwater,” said Ruthveyn. “He has become rather a thorn in our side, for he keeps dredging up Lord Lazonby’s old murder case and airing it again in the press. But I will deal with Coldwater. Now pray be so kind as to explain what you wished of Lazonby.” />
  Grace set her teacup down. “Why?”

  He looked at her pointedly. “So that I might help you.”

  “But why should you?” Grace felt her brows draw together. “You are under no obligation to me. You never met me before in your life.”

  For a moment, he hesitated as if measuring his words. “Perhaps it is fated, Mademoiselle Gauthier,” he finally answered. “Fate, after all, has brought you here today.”

  “I believe one makes one’s own fate, Lord Ruthveyn,” she returned. “You owe me nothing.”

  “And Lazonby does?”

  “He seemed to think so,” she returned.

  “And is not my brother’s debt my own?” said Ruthveyn. “Lazonby would do the same for me, and has. So I ask you again, Mademoiselle Gauthier—what was it you wished him to do?”

  Grace opened her mouth, but nothing came out. “I am not perfectly sure,” she finally confessed. “I just thought that…that he might advise me. After all, who better to do so? Rance was unjustly accused of murder. Indeed, he had to flee his own country because of it and sell himself as a soldier of fortune. But at last he has prevailed. He has been cleared of all wrongdoing.”

  “In Her Majesty’s courts, perhaps,” Lord Ruthveyn interjected. “But in the court of public opinion? That is less certain.”

  “I don’t give a tuppence about the court of public opinion,” said Grace.

  “Alas, my dear, this is England.” He cut her a strange glance. “I very much fear you should care.”

  “Well, I don’t!” she said sharply. “Really, I cannot think why I ever came back here to begin with! My English relations are of no help, the police see only a suspicious Frenchwoman—the French are always suspicious, you know—and now my fiancé is dead. There is little else to care about, sir, save my father’s good name. And that is all I shall fight for.”

  Lord Ruthveyn’s black eyes hardened. “Your fiancé?”

  Grace looked down and took up her teacup again, but her hand shook, and it chattered ominously on the saucer. “Yes, Mr. Holding and I…we were secretly betrothed.”

  “Secretly?” Ruthveyn’s voice was sharp. “How secretly?”

  “Not terribly.” Grace took a fortifying sip of the strong, black tea. “His sister, Fenella Crane, knew. His late wife’s family had been told. Officially, however, we were waiting out his year of mourning—but we did tell the girls.” Suddenly, she felt her face crumple. “And they were so happy! I was so afraid they would not be. That it was too soon. But they—they were—so happy…”

  She had not realized she was crying until Ruthveyn slid onto the sofa beside her and produced a handkerchief. “Oh!” she whispered, awkwardly putting down the cup. She dried her eyes and blew her nose. “Oh, you must think me a frightful watering pot!”

  “What I think, Mademoiselle Gauthier,” he murmured, “is that you are a young lady who has seen much tragedy. And in too short a space of time.”

  Embarrassed, Grace turned away. There was something about Lord Ruthveyn that was simply…too intimate to be borne. But to her shock, he set his hand to her face, cupped his long, incredibly warm fingers round her cheek, and gently turned her face back to his.

  And then the strangest thing happened. It was as if the heat of his touch seeped into her, through her jaw and up into the muscles of her face, until there was a flood of warmth through her body that felt something like the sizzle of nearby lightning, and yet nothing like that at all.

  It felt as though Grace had turned her face to the brightest sun imaginable, and drawn from it not just warmth, but something that felt vaguely like peace. Grace held herself perfectly still to it and let the hush fall all around them. The noise from the street below, the faint autumn breeze from the window, even the sound of her own breathing; all of it faded away, but for how long, she could not have said.

  When she returned to herself, Grace heard a voice saying, “Open your eyes.”

  She tried to remember whose voice it was.

  “Look at me, Mademoiselle Gauthier.”

  She had not realized her eyes were closed. “W-Why?”

  “Because I wish to see your eyes,” Lord Ruthveyn murmured. “They are, after all, the window to one’s soul, are they not?”

  At that, her gaze flew to his, almost against her will. But once their eyes met, Grace forced away the strange lethargy. She had nothing to hide. She would not be afraid of this man and his black, glittering gaze. And so she watched him as intently as he watched her. They sat so close, Ruthveyn had one hard thigh pressed to hers. His heat and scent swirled in the air—a mélange of exotic spices and smoke and raw, unadulterated male.

  Grace drew it in, the strange sense of calm and the otherworldly silence still pervasive. A moment passed, a heartbeat in time in which she felt utterly alone with Ruthveyn, as though nothing beyond this room and this moment existed.

  And then his hand fell from her face.

  As if nothing unusual had occurred, he turned his attention to the tea table, plucked one of the lemon biscuits from her plate, and set it to her lips.

  “Eat,” he murmured.

  “Why?”

  “You have lost all your color again,” he said.

  As if mesmerized, Grace found herself doing as he bid, biting off half and chewing it slowly. It was as if her taste buds had been jolted to sudden awareness. The morsel was tart as a slice of raw lemon, yet sweet and buttery. A crumb almost fell, and unthinkingly, Grace caught it with her tongue on a low sound of appreciation.

  Ruthveyn’s eyes narrowed approvingly. “Our chef’s special recipe,” he murmured. “Monsieur Belkadi raked all of Paris for him—then had his sister completely retrain the poor devil. Wait until you taste his saffron couscous.”

  “Couscous?” Grace took the second half with her fingers and finished it off. “Truly? Oh, I shall be his slave.”

  “I shall let him know,” said Ruthveyn. “Now a sandwich.”

  “I…I am not hungry.”

  “You are,” he commanded. “You are starving. You need the clarity of mind that food will bring.”

  It seemed a strange thing to say. But Grace ate a bite of the tiny sandwich he presented, almost without considering how odd it was to be fed by a man she’d just met—or any man at all, come to that.

  The sandwich held a thin slice of cucumber atop a pink pâté, which tasted of salmon and lemon and dill all at once, then finished with the taste of purest cream. “My heavens,” she said after swallowing. “I wonder any of you can waddle up the steps.”

  Ruthveyn said no more but simply handed her the plate, then refilled her tea, slowly stirring in a dollop of milk just as she liked it. She finished off every bite, working her way round in a meticulous, clockwise fashion until, to her shock, the plate was empty.

  “Excellent,” he said again, setting the plate away.

  He returned to the opposite sofa, leaving her feeling oddly bereft and a little cold. He occupied himself for a moment freshening his own tea, which, Grace noticed, he drank with nothing in it. For no reason in particular, she made a mental note of that fact.

  After a time, Ruthveyn set his cup away, then resumed his almost feline posture on the sofa. “Your color has returned again,” he said calmly. “So let us return to the pressing business at hand, mademoiselle, and to my questions.”

  Grace was beyond quibbling with him. “Very well,” she said on a sigh. “What do you wish to know?”

  Some nameless emotion sketched across his face, so swift and so vague she might have imagined it.

  “I wish to know,” he said quietly, “if you loved Ethan Holding.”

  Grace looked at him in surprise. “Do you indeed?” she asked. “Does it matter?”

  He lifted one shoulder a fraction. “Perhaps I am merely curious,” he answered. “But one might argue that a crime of passion looks far less likely when there is…well, little passion.”

  She gave a withering smile. “How cruelly practical you are, Lord Ruthveyn,�
�� she said. “No, I did not love him. Not in the way you mean. But I had a deep respect for him. And while some might have believed him hard, I knew him to be a fair man and a good father.”

  “I see,” said Ruthveyn. “And who is the Crane in Crane and Holding? Surely not the sister?”

  “Oh, heavens no!” Grace tried to relax against the sofa. “Ethan’s mother believed women had no head for business. It is his stepcousin, Josiah Crane.”

  “A cousin?” said Ruthveyn. “That seems an odd arrangement.”

  “The business was begun by the Crane family,” Grace explained. “Ethan’s mother was a widow who had inherited Holding Shipyards, a failing business. She married one of the Crane heirs when Ethan was small, and he accepted Ethan as a son. When his mother died some years after Mr. Crane, Ethan inherited the controlling interest.”

  “Now that is what I call a marriage of convenience,” said Ruthveyn. “And the noncontrolling interest?”

  “Mr. Crane left 40 percent to his nephew, Josiah Crane, in his will.”

  Ruthveyn’s mouth lifted at one corner. “I wonder how Josiah Crane felt about that?”

  “Bittersweet but grateful, I daresay,” said Grace. “Josiah’s father was the elder of the Crane brothers, but he proved to be a wastrel and had to sell his share of the family business to his younger brother. For a time, Josiah was just a junior clerk, working for his uncle. But there, that was a long time ago. It is old history now.”

  Ruthveyn set his head to one side and looked at her assessingly for a moment. “Yet what is time, Mademoiselle Gauthier, save an invention of man?” he finally said, his voice pensive. “Time can span into infinity. On the other hand, sometimes it is no more than a platitude—Time heals all wounds!—is that not what the English say? But envy—oh, trust me, mademoiselle. Envy can be eternal.”

  Grace managed to smile. “You are a far more esoteric thinker, Lord Ruthveyn, than I could ever hope to be,” she answered. “And I must hope, for my own sake, that time does indeed heal all wounds.”

  “Sometimes, Mademoiselle Gauthier, it does not,” he said quietly. Then Ruthveyn seemed to stir from some sort of reverie. “And so Josiah Crane’s father sold his birthright, did he?” he murmured. “He was dashed lucky to get it back again.”