butler told me to wait for Lord Stanegate. Are you he?’ Her voice was a surprise. Warm and mellow, like honey. Hazel eyes watched him, full of concern. Feigned?
‘I am Stanegate,’ he said, not troubling to blank out his feelings from either his face or voice. For whatever reason, she had made his father very ill. ‘And you?’
‘Miss Smith.’
Why couldn’t I have thought of something more convincing? Nell stared back into the hard eyes, as dark as wet flint. He was too big, too serious, too male. And far too close. She locked her knees against the instinct to edge backwards as she read the anger under the control he was exerting.
‘Miss Smith?’ No, he didn’t believe her. There was scepticism in the deep voice, and one corner of his mouth turned down in the reverse of a smile as he studied her face. ‘Why, exactly, have you delivered a silken rope to my father?’
Nell made herself withstand the compelling dark eyes. ‘Is that what it was? The parcel seemed innocuous enough. I saw no harm in it.’
‘The rope looked like a snake. You are fortunate that he did not die of the shock. The earl is not a well man, his heart is weak.’ There was the anger again, like fire behind the flint. A man who loved his father and was afraid for him.
‘I had no idea what it contained. It was only a parcel to be delivered.’ Just let me go…
‘Indeed? You hardly look like the sort of female to be employed delivering parcels.’ The viscount—she supposed that was what he was; her grasp of the ranks of nobility was escaping her under stress—folded his arms across his chest and looked her up and down. She knew what he was seeing. Shabby gentility, neatness and decency maintained by sheer willpower and a refusal to give in and allow her standards to slip.
‘I am a—’ Lie, her instincts shouted ‘—dressmaker. I deliver garments for fittings to clients’ homes on behalf of my employer. One gentleman asked, as a favour, if she would have me deliver that parcel here. He has spent a good deal of money at the shop recently. Madame did not like to refuse such a good customer.’
‘His name?’ He did not seem to actually disbelieve her despite the sceptical line of that hard mouth. And it was true. Almost.
‘I do not know it.’
‘Really, Miss Smith? An excellent customer of your employer and you do not know his name?’ He moved closer, just a little, just to the very edge of discomfort for her, and narrowed his eyes.
Nell lifted her chin and stared back, letting him see that she was assessing him in her turn, refusing to be cowed. Almost thirty, she guessed; six foot, give or take half an inch; fit; confident, used to getting his own way. Was that because of his station in life or his in herent qualities? All she could tell of the latter, just now, was that he was an angry man who loved his father.
‘No, I do not know his real name, my lord. I know the name he gave: Salterton.’
‘And how do you know that is false?’
‘I assumed by the style of what he chose that he was buying items for his mistress. He spent a lot of money. Money, I deduced, that he would not want his wife to know about. I was there when he first came into the shop and I heard Madame ask him his name. He hesitated, just a fraction, and then there was something in his voice. He was lying; one can tell.’
‘Indeed, one can,’ Lord Stanegate said, that mobile corner of his mouth twitching up into a fleeting smile that held no humour whatsoever. Nell felt her cheeks grow hot and stared fixedly at the cabochonruby pin in his neckcloth. ‘What does he look like?’
‘I hardly saw him and I think that was deliberate on his part. I do not think even Madame has fully seen his face. He always seems to come in the evening and he wears a slouch hat, his collar is turned up. He pays in cash, not on account.
‘But one can see he is dark.’ She struggled for remembrance and to assemble her impressions into a coherent description. ‘He is foreign perhaps, because there is something in his voice—not quite an accent, more of a lilt, although he speaks like an English gentleman. He looks fit, he moves well.’ She frowned, chasing the elusive words to describe the shadowy figure. ‘Like a dancer. He is not quite as tall as you and of slighter build.’
As she spoke, she realized she was letting her eyes run over the man in front of her, assessing the elegant simplicity of expensive tailoring and the fit, well-proportioned, body under it. He was dressed for driving in a dark plain coat and buckskin breeches with glossy high boots. She dragged her gaze back to the tiepin: there was something about the set of the strong jaw above the intricate folds of the neckcloth that suggested he was aware of her scrutiny and did not relish it.
‘You are a good observer, Miss Smith, considering you only glimpsed him and had no reason to take an interest.’ He did not believe her, but she was not going to admit that the dark man had both intrigued and repelled her from the start. He had seemed to bring danger into the frivolous feminine world of the shop. ‘What is the name and direction of your employer? Doubtless she will remember even more.’
‘I prefer not to give it. Madame would not be pleased if she found I had involved her in an awkward situation.’ And that, my girl, is where you get yourself when you lie. I cannot tell him now, not without admitting I do not work for a dressmaker, and then he will believe even less of what I say.
‘And if she is displeased, what is the worst she can do to you?’ The viscount moved away a few steps and half sat on one corner of the library table. Nell let out her breath, then realized that he had simply moved back to study her more closely, head to toe.
‘Dismiss me.’ Which would be, quite simply, a disaster. Not, of course, that a man like this would realize how precarious the life of a working woman was—with no family, no other means of support.
‘Hmm.’ He regarded her from under level brows. Nell had the impression that he spent rather a lot of time frowning. ‘And what can I do, do you suppose? I will tell you—I can hand you in at Bow Street as an accomplice in a conspiracy to murder my father.’
‘What! Murder? Why, that is simply ridiculous!’ The shock of the threat propelled her into motion, pacing away from him in agitation. Nell came up against a large globe on a stand and spun back to face the viscount. ‘The earl is obviously in bad health and he must have overstrained himself getting out of his chair or something. Conspiracy? That is nonsense. What is there in a length of rope to harm a grown man? What is it anyway? A curtain tie?’
‘A silken rope,’ he said slowly, with a weight to his words that made her feel she should read some significance into them. And at the back of her mind, sunk deep in her memory, something stirred, sent out flickers of unease as if at the recollection of a childhood nightmare.
Nell shrugged, sending the discomfort skittering back into the darkness. Somehow, she did not want to explore that elusive thought. ‘Take me to Bow Street then,’ she bluffed, as though that in itself was not enough to have her instantly dismissed without a character. ‘See if the magistrates think that innocently delivering a parcel justifies being locked up and abused.’
‘Abused? In what way do you consider yourself abused, Miss Smith?’ Lord Stanegate sat there, hands folded, apparently relaxed, looking as unthreatening as six foot of well-muscled angry man could look. ‘I can ring for a cup of tea for you, while you consider your position. Or I could send for my sisters’
