Chapter 13
C arr sat motionless while his new valet finished shaving his hair in preparation for the new wig. The little man—Randall? Rankle?—slid the peruke in place and offered Carr a silver-foil cone. Carr held it to his face as powder descended about him in a fragrant cloud, covering the wig with a fine white coat. Rankle waited a few minutes for the dust to settle and then carefully removed the cape protecting Carr’s clothing.
“Your Lordship looks most impressive,” he said.
Carr flicked a little clod of powder from his sleeve. “Rankle,” he asked curiously, “did you just comment on my appearance? You did, didn’t you? Begad, what is this world coming to when servants offer unsolicited opinions on the appearance of their betters? I should thrash you for such impertinence but as that would probably undo the best of your tiresome ministrations, I shall resist the temptation. This time.”
Really, first his magnanimity toward Tunbridge, now his valet. He was becoming positively mawkish.
He stood up and held his arms out from his sides waiting patiently while the valet scurried to pull them through the sleeves of his new waistcoat. Violet brocade, an extremely flattering color.
“Henceforth,” Carr continued as Rankle adjusted the collar, “Henceforth, bear in mind that I am fully aware that I look impressive. Indeed, I am interested in your sartorial evaluation of my person only should I fail to look impressive.”
“I’m sorry, sir!” That was the thing about new valets—it took such a deuced long time to break them in, Carr thought with a sigh as he reached down for his gloves and brought them in a blinding stroke across Rankle’s face. The crystal beading on the cuff cut the little man’s cheek. He raised his hand to the wound, staring at Carr in astonishment. A flicker of what looked like—by God!—anger flashed in his eyes. Impossible. Creatures such as Rankle did not get angry. They fled.
“I didn’t ask if you were sorry. I was informing you of my opinion. And you interrupted me. Now, Rankle, should I ever look less than impressive you shall be dismissed. I imagine finding a position in these heathen parts without a letter of recommendation might be a trifle difficult.”
The little valet flinched.
“Now, go away,” Carr said. “I have decided not to attend this evening’s dinner. Have my daughter informed.” The valet bowed and hurried off.
Carr approached a wall covered in green velvet and tugged on an embroidered bell pull. The material flew apart, billowing out and settling in banks on either side of an exquisite life-sized portrait. He stepped back, studying it tenderly.
“Janet, my dear, why now?”
He hadn’t needed the old Gypsy, Pala, to tell him what he knew in his blood, what he’d sensed every night for a dozen years; that Janet was here, watching him. He was used to it. It neither disturbed nor even greatly interested him. The uses one could find for a ghost, after all, were limited.
But this new notion Pala had voiced, that a spirit could infiltrate another’s body and in some sense live again, that Janet had done so, in order to come to him in the flesh once more—If she had found new housing for her spirit, he needed to discover it before he left this cursed castle once and for all.
She’d obviously left her scarf in order to convey some sort of message. But what? Had there been rebuke in that gesture?
Carr opened the lid of a chest that stood beneath the picture. It contained some gold, a few jewels, and remnants of the offending arisaid .
The night Janet had died he’d been hosting the first party Wanton’s Blush had known since its renovation. The most important people in society had made the treacherous trip from London to attend. Among their number had been the king’s personal secretary. The trouble, alas, had begun when he’d gone seeking his beautiful wife shortly before their guests were due to come down to dinner.
He found her—along with their brats—on the cliffs. Apparently she’d finally tumbled on to the fact of his involvement in her clan’s … difficulties. In a fit of pique, she’d sworn to wear her family plaid to his party as a show of allegiance, knowing full well that the wearing of plaids was strictly prohibited by law. And with the king’s secretary there!
She had sealed her own fate.
“In all honesty, Janet,” he murmured to her likeness, “wasn’t it a shade coincidental that you awoke to my ‘duplicity’ the day I hosted what could have been the most important party of my life?
“Yes.” He nodded. “You might as well have jumped off that damn cliff yourself instead of forcing me to throw you over. You did it to ruin my party, didn’t you? But I foiled your little plan, didn’t I, my dear?”
Idly, he fingered the silk arisaid .
“What did you mean by leaving this for me to find, Janet? For you never were one for subtlety. Tiresomely straightforward, if truth be known. So what’s this about?”
Thoughtfully, he dangled the torn half of scarf in front of the portrait. Perhaps, if she hadn’t died that night he might not have felt compelled to marry those other heiresses; he might not have facilitated their demises and subsequently been banished.
She really did have a lot to answer for.
Perhaps Janet recognized her culpability. “Did you leave me this by way of an apology? A sort of ‘Here, you take the damn thing. It’s caused enough grief.’”
The explanation pleased him. “It makes sense. I mean, a scarf isn’t exactly the sort of thing one leaves behind as a means of striking terror into a body. I mean, it’s a scarf, for God’s sake, not a gory eyeball or a pulsing heart, or some such rot.”
“Dear me, Father, please advise me should you ever try your hand at striking terror into someone. I shall absent myself immediately,” a smooth feminine voice said from behind him. Carr spun about.
Fia stood framed in the doorway, her hands folded primly at the waist of an extraordinarily indecent dress. Another young woman would have looked like an expensive bawd in such a gown. On Fia one barely noted the midnight-blue satin.
Father and daughter regarded each other in silence. Beneath its thin layer of bright makeup Fia’s face was perfectly composed. He’d seen an oriental doll once, a porcelain depiction of a theatrical character. It had been fine, detailed craftsmanship, finer than any he’d ever seen. But something about a doll depicting what was in essence a living doll had been unsettling, like seeing a reflection in a reflection. Looking at his daughter gave him exactly the same sensation.
“How long have you been there, spying on me?” he demanded.
She lifted one wing-shaped brow. “I wouldn’t spy on you, Carr. Haven’t you ever heard the old nursery adage ‘He who listens at keyholes hears no good of himself’?”
Her tone was oblique, her brilliantly colored blue eyes, unrevealing. Where once she’d shared every thought with him, now she’d entombed herself in her composure, giving him nothing.
“What do you want?”
“That little man. Rankle. He said you would not be dining. I thought perhaps you’d taken ill. I came to see.” Her tone did not imply concern, but impersonal curiosity. “Forgive my inquisitiveness, but does she answer you?” She raised her gaze to Janet’s likeness.
Carr snapped the concealing draperies closed. “Speaking in front of a picture is not the same as speaking to a picture, Fia.”
“Isn’t it? Thank you for explaining the subtlety.”
Not a ripple of expression flawed her smooth, ravishing young face. Just as well. His two sons had been hot-headed, emotional children; both had ultimately proven enormous wastes of his time.
Fia was different. Fia was, like himself, a predator.
She would never let maudlin sentimentality cloud her judgment, nor pedestrian principles dull her purpose—that purpose being to see that she made the most brilliant matrimonial match English society—’sblood. European society!—had ever seen, thus aligning her father ultimately and irrevocably with power, prestige, and money. So much money he would never again need to waste a moment of his life thinking of it.
“What is that in your hand?” Fia asked.
“A piece of scarf Janet wore the day she died.”
“Don’t tell me her ghost left it for you?” Fia laughed and then reading his expression with horrifying accuracy, said quietly. “Begad, I do believe I’ve hit on it.” She reached out, brushing her fingertips quickly over the silk and just as quickly withdrawing her hand.
“You know,” Fia said coolly, “I should very much like to see my mother’s ghost. Should you ever have occasion to chat with the transparent dame, kindly point her tattered parts my way when you’re done.”
“Are you mocking me?” he asked in his deadliest voice.
She considered him calmly. “Perhaps.”
Insufferable, yet he dared not slap her and the reason provoked him far more than any words she could have uttered. He did not strike her because he was no longer precisely sure of what she was capable. Certainly revenge. Possibly more.
“Get downstairs,” he commanded her, and waited, hating the uncertainty he felt. She’d never directly disobeyed him before. But someday soon she would. He needed to get her wed before then. “My guests ought not to be left unattended.”
“You’re right. They’ll need a pied piper to lead them in their debauchery.”
“I’ll be down shortly.”
“I hope so.” Fia began to turn away. “There’s a lady there who feels your absence keenly. She was quite distressed when she heard you were not dining.”
Carr’s interest quickened. Could it be her? Janet? “Lady?” he asked. “What did this lady look like?”
Fia watched him interestedly. “Elderly. Not yet antique but decidedly venerable.”
Horrible apprehension filled him. Janet had died in the full bloom of womanhood. The idea that she might choose to inhabit a body any less lovely than her previous one would never have occurred to him. She couldn’t do that to him!
“Who is the lady?”
“Mrs. Diggle? Douglas? A mild-mannered, apologetic old cat. Not your usual guest.”
“Douglas,” Carr corrected her, his anxiety abating. He knew the lady. Anyone less like Janet would be hard to imagine. “No, she isn’t in the mode of my usual guest. But her nephew certainly is and it’s for his sake that she and her charge are here.”
“Oh?” Fia intoned uninterestedly.
“Yes. He spent the spring here. You remember him,” Carr said slyly, seeing an opportunity to reward Fia for her mockery. “Thomas Donne.”
Fia had never confessed her infatuation for the tall Scotsman. She hadn’t needed to. Every omission, every glance, every stilted conversation Carr overheard her have with Donne told the story of a young girl’s first overwhelming passion. Just as her sudden and absolute silence on all matters regarding him told another sort of tale altogether.
Carr was rewarded. Her pupils contracted slightly, her nostrils turned a paler shade about the delicate rims. It was a nearly imperceptible reaction, if one wasn’t looking for it.
“Of course,” she said briskly. “I remember them now.”
“Mrs. Douglas is chaperoning Donne’s little sister, a Miss … Miss Favor, I believe.” He scoured his memory for a face to put to the name and came up with a vague recollection of a comely, well-dressed wench, surprised he remembered that much. He paid little heed to virgins, even wealthy ones. What, after all, was the use? He couldn’t marry again and since Favor Donne did not gamble and since he couldn’t get at her money any other way, he hadn’t bothered with her.
“What is she like?” Carr asked, twisting the knife a little. “Does she look like her brother?”
“I don’t recall him that well,” Fia said smoothly. “Miss Favor is small. Handsome. Black hair, aggressive eyes, a dark little warrior.
“Now that I think of it, I recall overhearing her asking one of the other guests after you, too.”
Handsome? Black hair? And she’d asked after him.
“You know, Fia,” he said, “I believe I have changed my mind. I believe I will go down to dine after all.”