Her Secret Fantasy (9 page)

I believe one of your lady guests may have lost an earring in the garden, for I found such a bauble last night while admiring your grounds, but foolishly forgot to entrust it to you before I left. Rest assured, I have the jewel in safekeeping. I presume you may hear from its rightful owner shortly. If you would be so kind as to inform me of the name and address of whatever lady lost it, I will make sure it is returned to her post-haste.

Many thanks again for your kindness toward a newcomer to London.

Sincerely yours,
Maj. D. Knight

Pleased with his inquiry, laughing a little under his breath, he paid the florist and marched on to Lord Sinclair’s. Mary Nonesuch was going to be so annoyed to find herself outwitted.

He puzzled over what her real name might be until he reached the chairman’s towering residence, a venerable townhouse six stories tall, with no less than four bays of green-shuttered windows. He let himself through the black wrought-iron gate, ascended the few front stairs, and banged the brass lion-head knocker.

When the door was opened, he handed his card to the tall, white-haired butler and introduced himself with terse cordiality. “Would you please tell His Lordship that I’ve come on committee business?”

The butler looked at his card and then scrutinized Derek. “Very well, sir. You are here for the meeting?”

“Meeting?” Derek stared at him. “No.”

“Oh! I see. Forgive me.” The butler paled slightly and cleared his throat. “Please—pardon my mistake, sir.”

“No matter. I am sure the earl will want to see me, in any case. I testified before the committee only yesterday,” he added. He was not in the habit of explaining himself to butlers, but the man’s slip, mentioning a meeting going on inside, alerted Derek that something was afoot. Best to be agreeable to win the man’s trust. After all, it was in the butler’s power to bar him from seeing Sinclair.

“Of course, Major. Do come in. I will advise His Lordship you are here.”

“Thank you,” Derek said warily, eyeing the man.

The butler still seemed a bit nervous, but Derek was admitted. He removed his hat as he stepped over the threshold, following the butler across the entrance hall’s black and white marble floor to an elegant anteroom.

Here he was ordered to wait.

Something strange was going on around here, he thought with a familiar warning prickle on the back of his neck, the one he usually experienced before an ambush in the field.

So, the committee was having a meeting here in Lord Sinclair’s house? What a pity he had not been invited.

While the butler went to advise His Lordship of his new caller, Derek surveyed the handsomely appointed ante-room with a growing sense of suspicion. Then he became aware of angry voices coming from upstairs.

He lifted his head and looked at the ceiling, trying to make out the muffled words of what quite sounded like an argument. The voices seemed to be coming from the room right above him.

“Answer me!”
somebody bellowed.

Derek lifted his eyebrows as numerous voices joined the unintelligible reply. The butler must have intruded on the earl and the other gentlemen of the committee just then, for at that moment, their private argument suddenly ceased. Feeling increasingly uncomfortable, Derek took a seat on the nearby armchair and tried to look nonchalant as he waited.

A few minutes passed. He studied the room, on his guard, fully expecting the butler to come back and tell him His Lordship was not at home. Instead, when the door to the anteroom opened, it was portly old Sinclair himself who came tramping in, red-faced and seeming a bit out of sorts.

Derek rose from his seat as the earl came toward him, patting the sweat off his jowly face with a handkerchief.

“Major, m’boy, what brings you here? Haven’t much time.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for seeing me.” He nodded in respect, but he watched the chairman carefully. Something told him that asking about the meeting upstairs would get him nowhere. “I just wondered if you had heard yet how soon the transports might be ready to set sail for India,” he said cautiously.

“What, since yesterday?” the old man snapped, rather startling him with his ill temper. “Cool your heels, lad! You’re going to have to be patient. I know you cavalrymen are not known for that virtue, but there is an orderly
process
that must be observed before the funds can be released. If I were you, frankly, I’d expect delays.”

“Delays?” Derek countered. “Why, sir? Is there a problem?”

“I’m not a magician, to pull a rabbit out of a hat, sir! Of course there’s no problem. These things take time.”

“How much time?”

“Weeks! Months? Hard to say!”

“Months?” he echoed in shock. “I…see.”

But in truth, he did not see at all.

He could not envision any set of circumstances under which it might take
months
to send off the army’s needed funds. Three million pounds had been specifically earmarked for military operations in India and was sitting in an account held by the Bank of England, waiting for the day it would be needed.

Wasn’t it?

Suddenly, he had a sick sort of feeling in the pit of his stomach. His mouth went dry and he looked at old Sinclair. “Sir,” he blurted out, “the men are counting on that money.”

“Yes, Major, you made that very clear to us all just yesterday.”

Derek cast about for any sort of logical explanation. What was Sinclair not telling him? Something was definitely wrong. “Sir, has something happened to the money?” he asked abruptly, blunt as ever, his tone grim.

The chairman looked him in the eye. “I would advise you to remember your place—Major.”

“Sir?”

“I understand you are itching to get your old post back. Yes, I heard all about it. Your trouble with Colonel Montrose, the debacle at Janpur. If you ever want to be restored to your command, then you will mind your place.”

Derek stared at him in guarded amazement, quite knocked down a peg by the insult. More important, he realized he had just been threatened with the loss of his career.

“I will send you word when I have news,” the chairman said gruffly as he turned away and marched toward the door.

“My lord?” Derek took a single step in his direction.

“What?” the portly old politician shot back, pausing to glare at him.

Derek faltered, entirely taken aback by this unforeseen turn of events—perhaps naïvely so.
Careful.
He did not dare press his luck, for the only thing out of the man’s mouth that he believed so far was the threat. “If there is, um, anything I can do to help the process along, sir, I am at your disposal.”

His dutiful words and reassuring tone seemed to mollify the earl a bit, perhaps soothing his fear that the colonial savage was intent on causing trouble.

“Very wise, Major. Nothing now.” The earl cleared his throat and adopted a slightly more amenable tone. “As I said, when I know more, I will send word. Till then, you may consider yourself on leave. Amuse yourself in Town like any young man may do. I hear you are a favorite with the ladies.”

Derek dropped his gaze, as stung by the remark as he would have been by another out-and-out insult.

For he saw then that this man did not take him seriously.

This man thought he was an idiot soldier. Cannon fodder, made for taking orders.

Very well. We’ll just see about that.
With a look of dark tranquillity, he gave the chairman a nod edged with subtle insolence. “Aye, sir.”

“Good lad.” The earl banged the door shut behind him; a moment later, the butler reappeared and showed Derek out.

What the hell is going on?
he wondered as he walked back to Piccadilly with slower, musing strides. Clearly, something was wrong, but what? Some sort of problem with the money?

He turned the mystery over in his mind all the way back to the Althorpe, but as he approached the back gates, a gruff voice from behind him called his name.

“Major! Major Derek Knight?” It was a man’s voice, Cockney-sounding. He kept his tone low, as if leery of attracting too much attention.

Derek halted, turning around in wary surprise. “Yes?”

He saw a coachman leaning against a black carriage that was parked on the other side of the street and appeared to have been there for some time. Waiting for him?

A stocky, sinewy fellow of medium height, the coachman pushed away from the vehicle, approaching Derek slowly. The long, dark Carrick coat he wore could have concealed any number of weapons, Derek noted, though it appeared the man carried only a large driver’s whip for his horses. Beneath the low, scrolled brim of his black hat, he had the weathered face of a bruiser.

“Can I help you?”

“Name’s Bates, sir. My master sent me to collect you.”

“Collect me?” Derek echoed.
Bloody hell.
Which of his recent bedmates had failed to mention she was married? He lifted his chin. “Who is your master, and what is his business with me?”

“I work for Mr. Edward Lundy, a Company man, sir.” The coachman paused. “He said you might desire to speak with him about committee business.”

Derek was immediately intrigued. On the other hand, this could be a trap.

Edward Lundy’s fierce-looking henchman glanced down the street, as though keeping watch out for unwanted eyes on them. “Mr. Lundy may have…certain information for you, Major.”

“Well, then. Let’s not tarry.” Derek nodded gamely at him, prepared for the risk.

God knew he had plenty of experience in defending himself if somebody had something nasty planned for him. Confident in his skills with his sword and pistol, he climbed into the coach. If Lundy had information and wanted to talk, Derek was willing to listen. Who could say? He might actually get some answers. It was better than being ordered to “cool his heels” and “amuse himself in Town” like some sort of meat-headed rakehell.

’Sblood, there was a war on. His boys were in harm’s way. Damned right he wanted answers if Lundy could provide them.

The coachman shut the door with an ominous bang, and in another moment, they were off.

Beyond the mullioned windows of Edward’s neo-Gothic castle of a house, the golden day beckoned, clear and cool.

From where Lily sat in the great hall, she could see the jagged gray shadow of the house’s towers and turrets and its pointed gables outlined across the emerald grass.

Inside, however, the interior of her future home gave her the feeling of being in a cage. Perhaps it was all those diamond-shaped mullions crisscrossing the narrow windows. The décor was dark, too, heavy and oppressive, with its Gothic theme. Cousin Pamela would no doubt have adored it, she thought. Dark paneling stretched up to a vaulted ceiling of creamy white plaster, ribbed with dark beams. The three wrought-iron chandeliers that hung down from that great height looked as if they’d been pilfered from a dungeon.

Near the yawning fireplace, the furniture grouping where the ladies convened was upholstered in deep, jewel-toned velvets, perched atop spiral-turned legs.

Clad in a demure beige visiting gown with ivory lace trim, Lily sat beside her chaperone while the exuberant Mrs. Lundy rhapsodized on her plans for the garden party.

“We shall have all manner of athletics, cricket for the gentlemen, archery for the ladies, tennis for both, oh, and bowls on the green. Perhaps you would care to see the menu for the day, Mrs. Clearwell? I’ve got it here.”

“May I?” Lily’s sponsor graciously accepted the piece of paper.

Mrs. Lundy watched her anxiously while she read it with an appraising eye, but for Lily’s part, she continually had to stop herself from staring at the large, gaudy, jewel-encrusted brooch in the shape of a rooster that adorned her future mother-in-law’s gown. It looked like a giant glittering insect crawling up her shoulder. The hideous thing was probably worth a fortune.

“You may have a spot of trouble with the ice cream if the day is overwarm,” Mrs. Clearwell warned. “The almond chicken sounds lovely. And the salad.”

“Oh, thank you for saying so!” Mrs. Lundy patted her sweating cheek with a handkerchief. “I
so
want everything to be perfect, for Eddie’s sake. He works so hard, you know.”

He was working now and could not be disturbed, closeted away in his study in another region of the sprawling house.

Lily didn’t mind. She would just as soon not see her suitor until she had succeeded in erasing Derek Knight from her head.

Mrs. Clearwell passed the proposed menu to Lily to review, while Mrs. Lundy pulled out a little diagram of how the tables were to be arranged beneath the big striped tent that would be erected on the lawn for the day of the grand picnic.

While the two matrons continued discussing every detail of the garden party, Lily stared down at the scrawled sheet of paper in her hand, but her mind wandered.

Forget him.

She had known from the first second she had seen him that Derek Knight was dangerous. Nothing but trouble. The only thing their stolen kiss had accomplished was to further dampen her enthusiasm about marrying Edward.

Her duty.

Derek Knight was not for her. She had been betrayed by her heart once before, so this silly reaction to him signified nothing. Besides, even if she was somehow to snare him, Mother would kill her if she came home with a handsome half-pay officer. Rich and stupid. Those were her marching orders. Why should she torment herself with what was not to be? If she did not marry Edward or someone equally rich, then she’d have to sell Balfour Manor, and that would break her heart. It would be like admitting defeat, admitting ruin. Failing her family. The final nail in the coffin of the Balfour family’s honor.

Everything rested on her success.

If only she could stop thinking about Derek Knight’s hands. Those big, sun-tanned hands, raking through her hair. Tough and strong and capable—and yet those hands were gentle, too. She could still feel the magic of his touch when he had cupped her face, caressed her neck, her arms. It seemed her fantasies around the garden folly had taken on a very different theme, no longer a child’s daydreams, but the needs and longings of a woman.