A Marquess, A Miss And A Mystery. Annie Burrows
so out of place that instead of confronting Herbert’s friend, she’d retire to a corner where she’d perch like a little black crow and watch the gaudier females flock round Lord Devizes.
It was now or never. Pushing her glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, she got to her feet and shuffled to the end of the pew, then pulled open the strings of her reticule and took out a handkerchief. Behind her, Lady Elizabeth’s mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Tewkesbury, breathed in sharply though her nostrils. Something she was wont to do whenever Horatia crossed her line of sight. The Dowager made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of her daughter becoming so friendly with a mere Miss. In fact, if it wasn’t for the fact that mother and daughter were barely speaking to each other at the moment, she suspected she would have forbidden Lady Elizabeth from bringing her along.
However, she was here. And Lord Devizes would be sauntering past the end of her pew any second now.
She blew her nose, then thrust her handkerchief back into her reticule, her heart thundering. It was too much to hope he might pause and bid her good morning. He’d had ample opportunity to do so any number of times since his arrival at Theakstone Court. But over and over again, he’d looked right through her. As if she was beneath his notice. As if he didn’t recognise her.
Though why should he? Though Herbert had introduced them, during her one and only Season, while he’d still been trying to persuade her that he could make her ‘fashionable’, Lord Devizes had clearly been highly unimpressed by his friend’s dumpy, dowdy little sister. He’d danced with her just the once. And that clearly only as a courtesy to his friend. Lord Devizes had barely spoken to her during that dance. Had never subjected her to an iota of the charm for which he was so famed, let alone actually progressed to flirting with her.
But never mind that now. This wasn’t the time to indulge in ancient resentment. Especially since he’d treated her no worse than any other of the so-called gentlemen who’d been persuaded to take pity on such a frumpy little wallflower. He was within three yards. A couple more steps and she’d be able to reach out her hand and tug at his sleeve.
Like a beggar, seeking alms.
So, no, she wouldn’t do that. She had to make their contact look accidental, or she’d be drawing attention to her desperate need to speak to him. Which she must not do.
And so, as he drew level with her, she fumbled her Bible off the pew and tossed it at his feet, hoping it would look as though she’d dropped it.
He stopped. Looked at the Bible lying in his path. Looked at her. Placed one hand on his hip and raised one corner of his mouth into a...a cynical sort of sneer.
Her face flooded with heat. The...the...bad name. The swear word. He was making it look as though he suspected her of dropping her handkerchief at his feet, in the age-old way women had of attracting the notice of a man they could not get to notice them any other way. Which she was. But not because she was lovelorn. Surely he could not be as stupid as he looked? Surely he must realise that it was because she was Herbert’s sister that she needed to speak to him? About Herbert? And his work?
Even if he was that stupid, didn’t he have even a modicum of good manners? Surely he could go through the motions of polite behaviour and bend down to pick up her book?
Apparently not. He just stood there, that cynical smile on his face, his mocking eyes regarding her steadily as her face heated with all the pent-up frustration this aggravating man had caused her recently.
‘I can’t believe,’ she muttered, stepping forward, then bending down to reach for her Bible, ‘that Herbert rated you so highly when you cannot even pick up a hint, never mind—’
She’d been going to say my Bible, but unfortunately, at the very moment she bent down to snatch up her Bible, he finally leaned down as well.
With the result that her head clashed with his outstretched arm. And, as she’d been bending down angrily and his arm was the consistency of an iron bar, she bounced off it, then off the end of the pew, and ended up sitting on her bottom on the cold, hard chapel floor.
She heard a lot of muffled sniggering.
‘I cannot believe,’ said the Dowager Marchioness of Tewkesbury, presumably to Lady Elizabeth, although Horatia could not see either of them from the chapel floor, ‘that you could have brought a person like that to a place like this, even if you are—’
‘Mother!’ Horatia heard Lady Elizabeth’s skirts swish as she whirled round in her pew and, to judge from earlier altercations, glared at her mother.
While she glared up at the agent of her misfortune, who was smiling a little wider now as though barely holding back laughter himself.
And extending his arm, as though to offer his help in getting to her feet.
‘I don’t need your help,’ she snarled, ignoring his hand and grabbing hold of one of the finials on the end of the pew she’d just bounced off, which had lots of knobbly bits to give her purchase, instead. ‘Not to get to my feet, not to find Herbert’s—’
‘You are Herbert’s sister?’ He raised one eyebrow, as though the fact astonished him. ‘I never,’ he said, running his eyes over her bedraggled frame, ‘would have guessed.’ Not many people did. Herbert was so handsome and elegant. Even he had laughingly said that while she had all the brains in the family, he had all the beauty.
‘You...’ she stuttered. ‘You...’ Once again, her vocabulary didn’t come up with a word sufficiently insulting to hurl at him that she could possibly use in a chapel.
He lowered his hand. ‘Take your time, Miss Carmichael,’ he said with infuriating calm. ‘I feel certain that you will be able to think of a suitable insult, should you take a deep breath and count to ten.’
The sniggering grew a touch less muffled. Although there was a roaring sound in her ears, now, almost drowning out the sounds of mockery.
She hated him. She really, really hated him. It had been bad enough that he’d neglected to do the decent thing and at least come to visit her, given how closely he and Herbert had been working, to offer his condolences. But to first pretend he did not recognise her, then to make her a laughing stock...
‘There isn’t one,’ she grated. And whirled away before giving him the satisfaction of seeing the tears that were burning her eyes. Tears she absolutely would not shed, not in front of such a...
She strode down the aisle and slammed out of the door of the chapel. And as the heat of the sun struck the crown of her bonnet, she finally let the bad words come. In English, and French and Italian.
And it wasn’t just because he’d humiliated her in front of all those titled people. It was because she’d wasted so much time and effort. Instead of thinking of ways to get in touch with the man Herbert had referred to as Janus, she should have gone on the hunt for his killer herself.
Because it was clear he wasn’t going to be of any help to her. At all.
She was on her own.
As always.
As Herbert’s sister flounced out of the chapel, Nick bent down to pick up her discarded Bible.
Talk about indiscreet. If he hadn’t deliberately goaded her into losing her temper with him, she’d have blurted out her suspicions regarding Herbert’s death in the echoing space of a chapel where even whispers carried further than they had any right to go.
No wonder Herbert had been so protective of her. No wonder he’d worked so hard to shield her from the realities of what his recent lifestyle entailed. She had no idea how to conceal what she was thinking. He’d been able to read every single thought that had flitted across her disapproving little features from the first moment she’d walked into Theakstone Court.