“If you recall”-his voice had lowered to a gravelly purr; slowly he brought his gaze back to her eyes-“I’ve yet to set a price for assisting you in finding Justin.”
The air between them all but crackled. Her lids lowered, but then she forced them up and locked her eyes on his. “Finding him, and clearing his name.”
Her words were breathless. His lips quirked. “Indeed. But finding him comes first.” He let his gaze drop to her lips. While he considered how to phrase his demand.
He wondered how her lips would taste now…
Wondered what he should ask-what she might give…
As if following his thoughts, she slowly stiffened, steel infusing her. He was jerked to full awareness when her lips firmed.
He glanced up at her eyes-and found them blazing.
“Just find Justin, and I’ll pay whatever price you care to name.”
The words rang with outright challenge. Raising her hands, she pushed against his shoulders-hard enough to make him straighten and step back.
She rose. Proud and haughty, she met his gaze, held it for a pregnant instant, then turned and swept toward the archway. “When you’ve found Justin, let me know.”
Christian watched her disappear into the parlor and inwardly swore.
Transferring his gaze to the cold hearth, he ran his hand through his hair. His temper quickly cooled; his arousal was less forgiving. Reassessing his position didn’t take long.
Turning, he stalked out of the house, picking up his cane and going quickly down the steps, then striding away along the street.
If finding Justin Vaux was what it would take to get him what he wanted, he’d find Justin Vaux.
Letitia knew the ton. It was the circle she’d been born into, in which she’d been raised, and in which she’d spent all her adult life. To her the ton wasn’t a fixed entity, but a fluid, dynamic cosmos that wise ladies navigated and-if they were truly powerful-learned to manipulate.
She hadn’t yet reached master status, but she was by no means a novice when it came to manipulating her peers.
Consequently, the next morning she dutifully donned her weeds, but rather than sit at home in the darkened front parlor, she called for her carriage and set out for the park. Hermione went with her, but after the previous evening’s event, their aunt Agnes, who lived with them and assisted Letitia in chaperoning Hermione, elected to remain abed.
“I thought,” Hermione said, her gaze on the coachman’s back, “that most widows remained indoors for at least the first few weeks.”
“Usually,” Letitia conceded. “But we are Vaux. Not even the most censorious dowager will expect us to sequester ourselves, not with a murder in the family.” She paused, then added, “Indeed, they’d most likely be highly disappointed if we did. And we’re hardly cavorting-merely taking the air.” Heaven knew, after last night she needed it.
Although the day was fine, a warm breeze gently teasing curls, flirting with ribbons, and rather irritatingly playing with her veil, as it was August, there were far fewer carriages drawn up by the verge in the park than was customary during the Season.
Those of the ton with country estates-which was to say most of the nobility-were presently on them, enjoying the summer and more bucolic pleasures. That still left a core of the aristocracy in residence, along with minor branches and connections, those whose sole residence was in the capital and who hadn’t been invited to someone else’s country house party this week.
While sorely in need of fresh air to blow the cobwebs-and the sensual miasma invoked by Christian Allardyce-from her brain, Letitia had another purpose-to assess the reaction of the ton to the news of Randall’s murder.
One couldn’t successfully manipulate society’s thinking without knowing the current situation.
She directed the coachman to draw in to the verge in a large gap between two landaus. The separation between her carriage and the others was sufficient to establish that she wasn’t courting gossip, wasn’t openly inviting discussion of Randall’s sensational death.
“I can see Lady Cowper climbing down from her carriage,” Hermione whispered. “She’s heading this way.”
“Good.” Letitia glanced at the lawns nearby. “You’ll have to give up your seat-the ladies won’t want to mention murder with your delicate ears about. I suggest you stroll, but don’t go far.”
Somewhat to her surprise, Hermione nodded. “All right.” Gathering her parasol, she opened the carriage door. The footman hurried to assist her to the ground.
Hermione loved listening to her elders gossip. Letitia, eyes narrow, studied her sister, suspicious, wondering…but then Emily Cowper reached the carriage and she had to give her attention to her ladyship, and the numerous others who followed in her wake. Emily, who had known her since birth, claimed precedence as an old family friend and joined her in the carriage. Most others merely stopped by the carriage’s side, to offer their condolences and hear whatever she felt able to tell them of the recent shocking events.
As she’d predicted, given that she and Hermione were appropriately garbed in black bombazine and she evinced no desire to encourage those stopping by to linger, their presence elicited no censure, especially not with Emily Cowper, patroness of Almack’s, sitting so solicitously beside her.
Letitia knew her ton.
As she’d expected, there were many who, along with their condolences, were only too happy to recount what they’d heard. To her dismay, the universal theme was that Justin, in a fit of the famous Vaux temper, had brutally slain his brother-in-law. Whether his temper had been aroused on his own account, or on hers, or on Hermione’s, was the chief point of conjecture.
No one-not one person-questioned Justin’s guilt.
Letitia was grateful for her veil; she’d never been especially good at hiding her feelings, and she certainly wouldn’t have been able to conceal her mounting dismay as lady after lady simply assumed Justin was Randall’s murderer.
The veil also allowed her, when from the corner of her eye she caught sight of a group amassing a little way from the carriage, to cut her eyes in that direction.
What she saw horrified her. What was Hermione doing?
Her sister, animated and exclaiming, stood at the center of a circle of fascinated ladies, young and old, all hanging on every word she uttered, increasingly hotly.
She was defending Justin. Letitia didn’t need to hear Hermione’s words to know that was so.
Swallowing a curse, she immediately developed a headache. Excusing herself to Lady Cowper and the other three ladies with whom she’d been speaking, she dispatched the footman to fetch Hermione with a message that she was needed immediately at the carriage.
Her sister broke off in mid-tirade, and ignoring those around her, came hurrying over. She gripped the carriage’s side. “What’s happened?”
Supremely aware of curious eyes, and even more curious ears, Letitia gestured weakly. “I have the most dreadful headache-we need to return to the house.”
Hermione frowned, surprised by the headache, something she knew Letitia rarely suffered from. “All right.” The footman opened the door and she climbed into the carriage.
Letitia gave the order to return to South Audley Street in a suitably faint tone.
Both footman and coachman were Randall’s people. While she could have spoken quietly enough to leave the coachman unaware, the footman, perched directly behind the seat on which they sat, was another matter. She resigned herself to holding her tongue-and her temper-until they reached the house.
Nevertheless, as they turned out of the park and into Park Lane, she couldn’t resist asking, “What were you talking so animatedly about?”
Hermione’s face took on a mulish cast. “Justin. I was telling them all that he couldn’t possibly have murdered Randall.”
As Letitia had feared. Behind her veil, she pressed her lips tight and said no more.