Lord Perfect (The Dressmakers 3)

4 She’d borne it well, Benedict thought. She’d held her head high. She had not let anybody ruffle her composure. She had behaved with dignity, every inch the lady.

“Mr. DeLucey and I shall manage without you,” Benedict said. “While we’re gone, dear sister, I hope you’ll get as much rest as you can. The next few days promise to be challenging.”

SINCE PETER DELUCEY had obtained separate rooms for the supposed siblings, that was the last Bathsheba saw of Rathbourne until the following morning, when she met him for breakfast in a private dining parlor on the inn’s ground floor.

He rose when she entered the room, and his expression softened. “You look a good deal better than you did yesterday,” he said. “I was afraid you’d made yourself ill, what with the debauchery and the noble self-sacrifice and bearding lions in their den and such.”

“You are the most ungrateful man,” she said. “I was trying to save you from yourself.”

He laughed and came to her.

“It was sweet of you,” he said. He brought his arms round her but he did not draw her close. He only looked down at her, smiling a little.

“I am not sweet,” she said.

He kissed her forehead. “Indeed you are. You are wicked, too. A dizzying combination.”

A footstep outside made him draw away.

Someone tapped on the door.

“Yes, yes, come in,” Rathbourne said.

Thomas entered. “Lord Northwick is here, sir.”

“Yes, of course. We were expecting him. Don’t make his lordship wait, Thomas. You know better than that.”

“Which I was not wishing to interrupt anything,” Thomas muttered as he went out again.

“Thomas thinks me an ingrate, too,” Rathbourne said.

“I take back everything I said about him on Friday evening,” Bathsheba said. “Thomas is a paragon. And a saint.”

“Indeed, he is, poor fellow. He waited all the day yesterday for me in his underwear. That was your fault, by the way, but I—Ah, Lord Northwick. Good morning, sir.”

His lordship stood in the doorway for a moment. Then he swept off his hat, revealing hair nearly as dark as hers, but threaded with silver at the temples. He was immaculately groomed, and dressed to the highest pitch of the tailor’s art.

He entered and closed the door behind him.

“Good morning, Lord Rathbourne,” he said. “Perhaps you would be so good, sir, as to tell me what, exactly, all this charade is about?”

Chapter 15

TEMPER, BATHSHEBA HAD DISCOVERED, WAS not the exclusive domain of her branch of the family. Now she was aware that the Dreadful DeLuceys weren’t the only ones who knew how to make dramatic entrances.

She had been too agitated yesterday, too conscious of being unwelcome and too much occupied in steeling herself against the hurt and frustration, to study her audience very carefully. In any case, Mandeville, who’d come storming in like a Visigoth invasion, took center stage.

Still, she’d been aware of Northwick. Though he’d said very little and looked very bored, she had felt herself under an unusually keen scrutiny. Without question, he had made her far more uneasy than his openly hostile father had done.

Clearly, Northwick was nobody’s fool.

She sank into the nearest chair, her heart pounding. She’d known Rathbourne must be found out sooner or later. But knowing it was not the same as seeing and hearing it happen.

He did not appear in the least discomposed. “Ah, then you were not taken in by the ‘mad brother Derek’ business,” he said.

“I know Bathsheba Wingate has no siblings,” Lord Northwick said. “I know Lord Rathbourne has several. One is named Rupert. I became acquainted with Rupert Carsington a few years ago when he and one of my cousins had a dispute with some fellows at a wrestling match. Mr. Carsington threw one of his assailants into a trough. I recognized the style of combat—and a strong physical resemblance. Now, perhaps you would be so good as to explain matters, sir.”

“Apart from my not being Derek the deranged imbecile, it is all as Mrs. Wingate explained yesterday,” Rathbourne said. “We have come in search of my nephew and her daughter. But pray be seated. You have no objections to breakfasting with your cousin, I trust?”

There followed a short, thunderous silence.

A test of some kind, or a challenge.

It was something men did, and the silent language was one Bathsheba did not fully understand.

Then Lord Northwick said, “No objections, sir, so long as everybody understands that I would trust my cousin only as far as I could throw one of those rocks at Stonehenge.”

Rathbourne’s face turned to marble.

Man language or not, it was time to intervene.

“That is fair enough,” Bathsheba said. “Lord Northwick is not obliged to like or trust me. The main concern is finding the children.”

“That is why I am here,” Lord Northwick said. “I came because Mrs. Wingate said Atherton’s boy was missing. I knew Lord Hargate’s eldest son had wed one of Atherton’s sisters. When you appeared, sir, I surmised that you were this eldest son. Such being the case, it seemed the story of the missing nephew must be true. Still, a number of questions remained. I wondered why you failed to identify yourself. I wondered why you were dressed in that bizarre manner. I wondered at your behavior. None of this accorded with anything I had ever heard or read previously about Lord Rathbourne.”

Rathbourne said nothing, merely regarded him stonily.

He was not going to explain himself, even to a man of the same rank.

Lord Northwick shrugged. “In any event, my primary concern was and is Atherton’s boy. I am not in the least surprised at his being led astray by the young person in question. My dear cousins have at one time or another led any number of people astray.”

Including you, Lord Northwick might as well have added, for he looked it, plainly enough, at Rathbourne.

Rathbourne’s expression became bored. “I believe the important question is where my nephew is being led to, and how we might most quickly intercept him. Mr. DeLucey gave me to understand that you were willing to assist us in this regard. Or did I misunderstand?”

Lord Northwick’s gaze went from Bathsheba to Rathbourne. His jaw set and he said, “I believe I know my duty, sir. Naturally I shall render you every assistance.”

London

The Dowager Countess of Hargate went to bed very late and woke very early. This, her grandchildren said, was how she contrived to know everything about everybody before anyone else did. The volume of her correspondence far exceeded that of King George IV, his Prime Minister, and the Cabinet combined. She spent a good part of her day in bed, reading and answering letters. This still left plenty of time for gossiping with her friends (known to her grandchildren as the Harpies), playing whist, and terrorizing her family.

By early afternoon on Monday, she had reached the terrorizing portion of her program, and sent for her eldest son.

Lord Hargate found her in her boudoir enthroned among vast heaps of pillows and dressed as always in the grand style popular in her youth, which involved enough silk, satin, and lace to drape St. Paul’s, inside and out, twice over.

He had greeted and kissed her and was enquiring about her health when she waved a letter in his face and said, “Never mind that nonsense! What the devil are you about, Hargate? My grandson has run off with a black-haired hussy, I am told. He has been brawling and making a spectacle of himself on the Bath Road.”

“Your informant is mistaken,” Lord Hargate said. “Rupert is safe in London with his wife. They are making arrangements to return to Egypt, my dear. You know as well as I that Rupert will not run off with anybody but Daphne. He is completely—”

“Not him,” said his mama. “How can you be so thick, Ned? Why should I trouble to send for you, was it only to announce that Rupert had done something ridiculous? I should be more likely to send for you if by some bizarre accident he did something sensible.

To my knowledge he has done so only once in his life, when he married that clever red-haired girl with the fine fortune. Since this miracle occurred but a few months ago, I should not expect another in my lifetime.”

“No doubt, then, your informant has confused one of my offspring with one of our cousins,” said Lord Hargate. “Geoffrey has taken his family to Sussex to visit his in-laws. Alistair is in Derbyshire, awaiting the birth of my grandchild. Darius has gone to support him in his hour of trial. None of them could possibly have been anywhere upon the Bath Road in recent days.”

“You leave one son unaccounted for,” she said.

“You cannot mean Benedict,” Lord Hargate said.

She gave him the letter.