A Kiss Away From Scandal

‘That does not make them right,’ she countered. ‘Ignorance is no substitute for truth.’

Perhaps not. But in Gregory’s opinion, it made for a pretty fine excuse and had worked well in the past. ‘It is not as if we will be lying to him. He will expect to find candlesticks and we are leaving him some. He will never know the difference.’

‘But I will,’ she said.

Hadn’t Leggett said something about the sisters being the daughters of a vicar? If so, their ingrained morality was proving deeply inconvenient. ‘Your sister’s husband is not paying me enough to turn the town upside down for things that are likely lost for ever.’

‘If all that was needed was to grab the first things that came to hand, I could have done it myself.’ Noting the wary way she had watched the proprietor, he doubted that was the case. But she had no trouble standing up to Gregory, for he saw a faint flash of irritation in the brown eyes glittering behind her veil. ‘I do not know what he is paying you, but I am sure Mr Leggett did not hire you to do the job halfway. If the funds were insufficient, you should have negotiated for more when he hired you.’

For a sheltered young lady she was surprisingly perceptive. She was annoying as well. But his fee had been tripled to account for that.

He gave her a subservient smile. ‘Very well, then. I shall try harder.’

He turned back to the shopkeeper. ‘You have a very small collection for an item that is one of the first to be sold, when the gentry’s pockets are to let. Are there any others in the shop?’

The man favoured them with his wall-eyed gaze for a moment and Gregory set a coin on the counter. ‘For the inconvenience of opening your stockroom to us, good sir.’

The man pocketed the coin and stepped back, pulling the curtain to the side to let them pass.

The little room at the back of the shop was cluttered, as he expected it to be, but not without organisation. The shelves were full of more dented bird cages, tarnished teakettles and chipped vases than could be sold in a lifetime. Beneath them were an equally large number of chests, full of silver flatware and... Lo and behold, candlesticks.

He threw back the lid and lit a nearby candle to supplement the meagre light streaming from a grimy window on the back wall. Then he gestured Miss Strickland closer. ‘Here you are. If the items are to be found in this shop, you are the only one who might tell. Look for yourself.’

He had expected a shudder of distaste and the demand that he sort through the chest and display the contents to her. Instead, all her reservations fell away. She pushed back the veil and dropped to her knees on the floor beside it, digging without hesitation through the pile of dented flambeaus and sconces.

Suddenly, she sighed in surprise and turned to him with a dented pewter stick clutched in her hands. She offered it to him and reached up to push back her bonnet. Then she smoothed her hair out of the way, leaving a streak of tarnish on her soft, white brow. ‘Does it match?’

He frowned in confusion and leaned forward to look closer. The decoration she held was designed to imitate a Corinthian column, the top a square of ornate tracery. On her forehead was a small V-shaped scar with a break that matched a gap in the decoration.

‘Someone hit you with this?’ He hefted the weight of it in his hands and felt the anger rise in his gorge at the brutality of the late Earl, her grandfather.

She nodded. Then, oddly, she smiled. ‘My sister, Charity.’ Her hand dived back into the chest and pulled out the mate, which was bent at the base. ‘In response, I threw this one at her. But I missed and it hit the dining-room wall. There is still a crack in the plaster where it landed.’

He felt momentarily weak as the rage left him again. ‘That is good to know. I would hate to think that either of you had a skull thick enough to cause such damage to it.’ But if they had, it ought not to have surprised him. Hope Strickland was proving to be the most hard-headed woman he’d ever met. He doubted her sister was any different.

She was still smiling. ‘Then, Faith came and pulled both our plaits until we cried. I had forgotten all about that.’ She was looking fondly at the candlesticks, as if meeting old friends. She frowned. ‘And now, we will have to give them to a complete stranger, just because he shares our name.’

Her dark mood disappeared as quickly as it had come. She looked back up at him, so fresh and unguarded that he felt a lump rising in his throat. ‘But I remember this. It is why just any candlestick would not do. Perhaps the new Earl would not know the difference, but it would not be the same to me.’

‘I understand.’ He stared at the smudge on her forehead in fascination. He wanted to wipe it away, smoothing a finger over that small, white vee in wonder. A flaw should make her uglier, not more fascinating. Was it raised, he wondered, or smooth? A single touch, under the guise of cleaning away the grime, would tell him.

He cleared his mind, cleared his throat and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, offering it to her. ‘You have...’ he touched his own forehead ‘...here.’

She gave him a misty smile and a shrug of embarrassment before wiping away the dirt and returning his linen to him.

He was no less intrigued once it was gone. Perhaps it was her reaction to the injury that drew him to her. He’d been in such childhood scraps himself, but did not remember any of them as fondly as she did hers.

Of course, he’d had no brother to strike him. He did not often think of that, either. But suddenly there was a strange emptiness in him, as if he was hungry, but could not decide for what.

It was probably tea. The single slice of toast he’d had for breakfast had burned away hours ago. He needed sustenance to fill his belly and clear his mind. The sooner they left this store and returned Miss Strickland to her town house, the sooner he could remedy the hunger. He held out one hand for the heirlooms and another to help her to her feet. ‘Come. Let us pay for the return of these. Perhaps, tomorrow we can find your painting.’

* * *

They went back to the carriage and rode in silence back to Harley Street, where he handed her down to the waiting footman and carried the brown-paper bundle containing the candlesticks into the house for her.

The smugness he felt at today’s success did not do him credit. He had been confident of his ability to deliver a satisfactory solution to Leggett’s problem. But he had not expected to find a reasonable duplicate on the very first day, much less an actual item. Despite his employer’s warnings that the entire family was nothing but trouble, Hope Strickland might actually be the key to completion.

There was still the matter of her plans for the unsuspecting American. But since they had resulted from her lack of confidence that the entail could be made complete, today’s success might have loosened her grip on them.

It had been quite gratifying to see the look on her face when they had found the candlesticks. Since he had caught her practising her smiles in a mirror, he’d doubted that any of the ones she’d given him were born of sincerity. In his experience, the ruling class was good at appearing to be things they weren’t: kind, friendly and happy, for instance.

But her grin when she’d pulled the family silver out of that chest had been positively impish. The youthful mischief in her expression was a million miles away from the aloof mask she’d worn for the rest of their time together.

When she’d looked up at him, bathing him in an aura of true happiness, he’d had to remind himself that his reward for taking the job was not actually the smile of a beautiful young lady. He was doing this for money.

The proper Miss Strickland had seemed disgusted by the idea when she had talked of his fee. In her world, women might sell themselves to the highest bidder for a loveless marriage without turning a hair, but men were expected to do things for country, gallantry or sport. They never did anything as common as earning a living.

But as she’d talked of her childhood, she had forgotten what he was and looked at him as if he were an equal. Better yet, she had seen him as a man. There had been surprise on her face and perhaps a little awe in his ability to help her so easily. He had been flattered. He was smiling at her now, as he set the package on the dining-room table.

She looked up at him, as she removed her bonnet, and gave a slight toss of her head to free the last strand of her hair from the ribbon. Then, she smiled back at him with a puzzled expression that proved her earlier lapse was forgotten. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Drake. The day was more productive than I expected. But now I must go and change for dinner.’

It took a moment to recognise the reason for her statement. He meant nothing to her. In fact, she seemed a little surprised that it had been necessary to dismiss him. When servants were finished being useful, they were expected to disappear until the next time they were needed.

Instead, he had been standing there like an idiot, as if he thought they had a reason to converse socially. It was the same feeling that had come over him in the carriage and he must gain control of it immediately. He forced a polite nod in response and said, ‘Of course, Miss Strickland. If it is convenient, I will return tomorrow and we will try another shop.’

Her already relaxed expression seemed to become even more placid. She gave a contented sigh, secure in the knowledge that they understood each other. ‘That will be fine, Mr Drake. And now, if you will excuse me?’

He bowed and she turned and left him to find his own way out.

He stood for a moment, staring after her, annoyed with her and with himself. When contemplating his place in society, he was not normally given to envy or dissatisfaction. By dint of his own effort, he had gained wealth and comfort and was smart enough not to be burdened by the sort of problems that led people to hire him. He was more than happy.

But today that did not feel like enough.

‘Mr Drake.’

He jumped at the sound of his name. The girl who had spoken it was staring at him from the doorway. Leggett had said that she was but nineteen years old, yet there was something about the look in her spectacled eyes that made her seem much older. The illusion was encouraged by the rather old-fashioned way she wore her straight brown hair and the utilitarian cut of her gown.

‘Miss Charity, I presume,’ he said, bowing deeply.

She nodded. ‘We have not been introduced. But then, you had not been introduced to my sister when you barged in on her yesterday.’

Apparently, there were no secrets in the Strickland family, especially not as they related to the harassing of strangers. He nodded in acknowledgement. ‘Your grandmother led me to believe I was expected.’

She gave him a dubious smile.

He held out his open hands and shrugged. ‘I gave her my card and she told me to find your sister in the hall. She assured me that Miss Strickland would know exactly what it was that needed doing. She made no offer of introduction. I assumed none was necessary.’

Miss Charity’s expression grew only slightly less doubtful. ‘If I were you, I would be very careful in following when the Dowager is the one in front. She veers wide of the truth when it suits her.’