Page 4 of An Honorable Deception
The next moments were a blur. He burst out, but only in time to see two men running for the doors again. He made note of their relative heights, their clothing, the color of hair he could see under their hats, but he didn’t run after them—not given the moan from the floor.
He fell to his knees beside the young woman. Her eyes were closed, blood staining her clothes in three places. He checked for her pulse, found it present, and took stock of the wounds as he noted more footsteps coming from the direction of the office.
One bullet in her shoulder—through and through. One in her side—he prayed it had missed any vital organs. One in her leg. Whoever those men had been, they either had lousy aim or hadn’t meant to kill her, only to wound her.
“Yates!”
“Blast it, James.” His friend knew better than to call him by name in the presence of a client. But then, he was understandably in shock. And Yates was out here in the open, face undisguised, so what did it matter? Besides, the girl was unconscious, despite that the gunshots shouldn’t have made her so. He’d need to examine her head, see if she’d struck it on the stone of the floor as she fell. “I’m fine. It’s the girl.”
He looked down at her again, and two things struck him. First, that she was beautiful—beyond beautiful. And second, that it was a thought he’d had about her before—when he’dseen her in the society columns, next to photographs of his sister.
She wasn’tMissanything. She was Lady Alethia Barremore, daughter of the previous viceroy of India.
And if she opened her eyes, she’d know his deepest secret.
TWO
Lavinia paced to the far side of the Fairfax library, less interested in a book than in an excuse. Something to hold in her hands so that Marigold wouldn’t see her sitting idle and ask what was wrong. Ordinarily it wouldn’t have been enough to work—her oldest friend would notice if she didn’t turn pages at the proper pace—but it stood a chance, given her own exhaustion. She had, in fact, gone up to rest, but she promised to be back down within an hour.
Not daring to doubt her word, Lavinia had instead decided on finding false occupation. She pulled a book at random from the shelf and returned to the drawing room. Her muscles felt as though they were made of lead. They’d been feeling that way for months, growing heavier and heavier with each passing day.
She hadn’t mentioned it to Papa. If she did, she knew she’d have gotten that worried frown he’d given her far too often in the last six years, the one she knew was borne of love but which made her feel like a burden. He’d insist she go home to Alnwick Abbey ... which sounded lovely, on the one hand. Buthecouldn’t go yet, and the last thing in the world she wanted was to be alone at their estate.
There were too many memories there. Too much of Mother still haunted the halls. Too many pieces of Lavinia’s childhood greeted her everywhere she turned, taunting her.Perhaps it was a lie, each room seemed to say.That laughter was false. That embrace was for show. She never loved either of you.
Sitting back on the same sofa she’d occupied before, Lavinia opened the book—and smirked at the title page. One of Graham’s books of architecture, it seemed. A treatise on the medieval cathedrals of France.
Thrilling.
She’d read far more widely during her illness than any of her friends would realize, but she had to admit that books like these rarely held her attention, even when she had nothing else to distract her. Now? Hopeless. And pretending to read it would be as much a giveaway of her state of mind as staring blindly out the window, but with a bit of luck, Marigold wouldn’t notice the title when she came back down.
Luck would have to suffice—because she wasnotwalking down that corridor again. She intended to stay right here on this comfortable cushion and savor the fact that she had no memories of her mother in this room. There were no ghosts to haunt her here. None but the ones in her own heart.
Daughter of a traitor—that makes you half a traitor yourself. Untrustworthy. Unworthy. Unloved.
She flipped past the title page and to the opening paragraphs. Then, for good measure, went ahead and flipped to chapter two, so that when Marigold returned, it would look as though she’d been doing something.
The words blurred as she let her eyes go unfocused, and for the first time in months, she let her shoulders sag. Papa wasn’t at hand to frown and hover and ask her if she was all right. Marigold wasn’t nearby to ask if she needed to talkthrough her feelings yet again. None of her suitors were here, expecting her to be the perfect earl’s daughter, the perfect match, the perfect future wife.
She leaned her head back and let her eyes slide shut. She almost wished she could have faded into the wallpaper of the Season like most girls—especially ones as old as she. Last year, she’d been determined to make the most of it, to meet the most eligible bachelors, to find a husband to take her away from what she’d begun to realize was a tense situation between her parents.
Last year, though, she’d believed her mother’s betrayal was simply—simply?—infidelity. Anaffaire de cœur, horrifying and lamentable but normal. Almost ordinary. She hadn’t realized as she’d danced with the most handsome young lords that her mother was even then planning an assassination. That she was using Papa’s connections at the War Office to sell out their agents to Germany.
She hadn’t known the legacy of treachery she’d inherited along with her mother’s family’s holdings.
No one knew, aside from the Fairfaxes. Because of the top secret nature of the intelligence Mother had been compromising, it had been covered up. A neat, tidy story told of a heart condition that struck her suddenly.
Society thought Lavinia’s quieter demeanor this year was from the grief of losing her mother. And she let them think that. Because what else could she possibly say?“Actually, my mother hated England and loved her father’s homeland more, and all these years she kept in touch with her German family so that she could pass vital intelligence along to them. She only married my father so that she could utilize his connections. And me? I was an inconvenience of that alliance, which she resented. She threatened to kill me to try to control my father. Isn’t that lovely?”
Not exactly polite conversation. Nor could she ever speak the words she thought at each new introduction.How do you do, Lord So-and-So? Tell me, can I trust you with more than a dance, or will you use me and my inheritance for your own purposes and run roughshod over my life, not caring about the wreck you’ll leave behind?
It was no wonder she was exhausted. She’d spent the last four months looking for double and triple and quadruple meanings in every compliment and question. There hadn’t seemed to be any hope of escape since Papa needed to be here for the Sessions, and she wasn’t about to return to Northumberland without him.
But when Marigold had sent a note round this morning saying she was leaving, the plan had formed quickly and completely. Lavinia would simply go with her. Stay at Fairfax Tower, close enough to her own house to feel like home, but with none of the questions glowering at her from each corner and cupboard. She could keep her best friend company, help her in her final months of pregnancy since they had only a skeleton staff left at the Tower, and escape this heaviness for a while.
The front door burst open, which jolted Lavinia and made her lose her fake place in her stage-prop book. Yates? Certainly anyone else would have knocked, and Yateswasthe sort to burst into a place without warning, but it seemed a bit boisterous even for him. She tossed the book aside and surged to her feet as all expectations for a quiet afternoon crashed to bits.
Yates, yes. He strode into the room with a look she’d only seen on his face once before—when he stood in the line of her mother’s weapon, ready to die if it meant helping others get to safety. But this time, he carried a figure in his arms, who not only lolled unconscious against his chest, but whoselovely white day dress had gone crimson with blood in three different places.
