The Deception (Baron 3)

“Time grows short,” Mrs. Needle said. “I had to come now. Mind to yer own affairs, Clorrie. Now ye may take my little lassie here down to her breakfast.” The old lady shuffled out of the bedchamber. She turned, studied Evangeline for a very long time, then said finally, “Ye’ll come to the North Tower, Madame. I’ll wager yer only memories of yer cousin are from yer child’s mind. But ye’ve come home, just as I hoped ye would. We’ll talk, lassie. Aye, there’s much we have to speak about, but we must do it soon. So little time left.”

“I’ll come,” Evangeline said. She didn’t move, just stared after the old lady as she made her way slowly and painfully down the long corridor. She felt gooseflesh rise in her arms.

Mrs. Raleigh sighed and lightly patted Evangeline’s hand. “Mrs. Needle was the old duke’s nurse. She’s been here forever; some say she came with the Conqueror. The present duke allows her to do anything that pleases her. Actually, there’s no harm to her. If you do go to the North Tower, be warned. Mrs. Needle is considered a witch, a healing witch. You’ll be able to smell her concoctions before you are even allowed into her inner sanctum. “You’re pale, Madame. Did she say something to overset you? Of course she did. She’s always mysterious, prides herself on leaving folks’ brains all scrambled. She quite enjoys it. Come now, you’ll forget once you have one of Cook’s raspberry scones in your mouth.”

Evangeline said, “She must be very old indeed.” “That’s the truth of it,” Mrs. Raleigh said, walking beside her. “His grace will not hear of removing her from Chesleigh. Of course, no one has ever suggested it, even when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction and one of her potions pervades the entire castle. Once everyone’s eyes watered for two days. I remember quite clearly the burned cinnamon. Dreadful. His grace just laughed. His grace indulges her every whim.

“I must say, though, that her herbal laboratory is magnificent. Everyone brings her clippings and sprigs of this and that. It’s interesting. Normally she stays in the North Tower. But she came to see you. Perhaps she’d just heard about you and was curious. I doubt she’ll bother you again.”

Evangeline shivered. She knew she’d see Mrs. Needle again. In fact, she’d go to the North Tower to search her out herself.

“It’s very early, Madame. I was surprised to find you awake and dressed.” Mrs. Raleigh eyed the same gray muslin gown she’d been wearing the day before. “Such a pity about your luggage. We will see what the duke wishes to do about that.”

“I assure you the duke won’t do a thing, Mrs. Raleigh.”

“Well, he already has Dorrie attending you.” Evangeline thought a moment. “Yes, you’re right about that. He moves quickly.” “His grace decides something, and it’s done before the stable cat, Lambert, can catch another mouse. Did you find her satisfactory last evening?” “Dorrie is very nice.”

“You didn’t ring for her this morning. That is why I came myself, to see that you were all right. The poor girl was worried that she’d displeased you.”

Evangeline thought of her own dear Margueritte, always humming, always laughing, always chattering even if no one was there, always looking at Evangeline’s father with lustful eyes. “Dorrie will suit me just fine, Mrs. Raleigh. I promise to let her assist me this evening.”

Evangeline imagined that she was the first nanny to be assigned a maid, but she didn’t say anything more. Mrs. Raleigh, doubtless all the staff, believed her position with Edmund to be nothing more than a sham, something to salve her pride since she was indeed a poor relation. Poor or not, she was related to the duke, and thus she would have a maid.

“His grace is already in the breakfast parlor. He always rises early. He has told Bassick that he won’t be leaving for London today.” She rubbed her lovely, narrow hands together. “Now we

shall have him here for at least another week, so Mr. Bassick believes, and I’ve never known him to be wrong before, and that pleases everyone, Madame. All of us thank you for keeping him here.”

She was keeping him here? No, surely not. Surely he had other reasons for remaining unless, of course, he wanted to be certain that she wouldn’t strangle Lord Edmund in his bed. It would have been easier if he’d simply settled her in and removed himself back to London. But things didn’t tend to unfold in a nice orderly manner. Then, suddenly, with no warning she was back in Paris, in that narrow room. And, he was there as well, staring at her closely as he said, “Do you know how to bed a man?”

She stared at him, shriveling on the inside, white as her lace on the outside.

“You are nearly twenty years old, not a young chit with stars in her eyes and the sense of a goat. Have you ever bedded a man?”

She shook her head. She watched, just as a rabbit would watch a snake slithering toward it, as he walked to her, stood there, smiling down at her. Then he reached out his hands and cupped her breasts. “Very nice,” he said, low. “He will love your breasts. You, naturally, will do whatever you must to succeed.” She jerked away, but he hadn’t released her. It hurt and she gasped. “Oh, God,” she said, and stumbled.

Chapter 9

“What, Madame? Goodness, are you all right?” Mrs. Raleigh grabbed her arm and held her firmly.

Evangeline shook her head, but Houchard was still clear in her mind, damn him. He was always there, sometimes so clear she just knew she could reach out and touch him, and he would speak to her, his voice clear and hard in her ear, or he would touch her, stroke her with as much feeling as he would stroke the arm of a chair.

She managed a pathetic smile. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Raleigh. I was just thinking about something else, something that happened to me in France. Forgive my inattention. Who is that gentleman with the huge white wig?” She pointed at a large portrait, its frame heavy with gold, painted early in the last century.

“Oh, that was the Fourth Duke of Portsmouth, Everett Arysdale Chesleigh. I’ve heard that he was a wild one, that duke. Too handsome, if you ask me, and all the girls swooned around him. At least most of his bastards are dead now.”

Evangeline wasn’t thinking about the fourth Duke of Portsmouth. She was thinking about this one, a man who was too handsome for his own good as well, and for any woman’s peace of mind. She’d been very aware of him every moment, not just because she was terrified that she wouldn’t succeed in convincing him to allow her to remain, but also because he looked at her the way several other men had looked at her, most notably the Comte de Pouilly. Only with the duke she wasn’t at all offended. It made her feel warm in places she’d never before even been aware of. It made her feel slightly off balance, but that was something that during the past week had been her constant companion, so it wasn’t all that noteworthy. But the warmth, that was something strange, something she couldn’t explain. She just knew she liked it.

She’d played a role with him. She’d parried his questions with her rehearsed answers, always wondering what he was thinking, how he was reacting when she said something that was the least bit out of the ordinary.

His moods changed so quickly, from an arrogant hauteur that was such a deep part of him, to the indifferent politeness when he’d withdrawn, deep into his own thoughts. Well, there was nothing for it.

She had to succeed. She had no choice, none at all.

Mrs. Raleigh’s graceful, birdlike movements, her soothing chatter, continued as she led Evangeline down the long, carpeted corridor in the west wing to the wide, curved staircase that rose in ancient dignity to the upper floors. She followed Mrs. Raleigh across the vast Italianate entrance hall, with its massive chandelier hanging from a silver chain at least the thickness of her upper arm, past the library and the formal dining room. They entered a small octagonal room that was flooded with the bright morning light from the low, wide windows. There was no heavy furniture, no dark wainscotting, just this light, airy space, the walls painted a pale yellow. Several of the windows were open, a gentle, warm breeze billowing out the gossamer light draperies.

She stopped in the middle of the room. “How very lovely.”

“I thank you. Doubtless my mother would also thank you. She ordered the room done this way some twenty years ago.”