скачать книгу бесплатно
‘Well, I—’ The man glanced briefly, uncomfortably, to where Pandora was still in quiet conversation with her maid. ‘We only discovered what had occurred a few minutes ago, your Grace, and anyway, I was not absolutely sure that—’
‘I think there has been quite enough chatter for one night,’ Pandora stated. Having now learnt from Henley exactly what had occurred—in lurid detail!—in her absence, she had no wish to discuss it further in front of Rupert Stirling; he already knew far too much about her personal business for her comfort.
She certainly didn’t need Bentley to tell the overly curious and shrewdly intelligent nobleman that the reason he had not called the authorities as yet was because he had been unsure of whether or not she would want him to bring this to their attention.
Pandora turned to the butler. ‘Bentley, take everyone back down to the kitchen and see that they are all given a little brandy to calm their nerves—’
‘But first bring a decanter of the same and two glasses to her Grace’s blue salon,’ Rupert instructed the elderly man imperiously even as he took a firm hold upon Pandora’s elbow.
‘You are white as a sheet, madam,’ he added sternly as Pandora would have protested the need for strong alcohol.
Well … yes, she probably was. But she had thought—hoped— What did it matter what she had thought or hoped, when tonight’s events had so obviously proved her wrong?
‘Do as his Grace suggests, Bentley,’ she instructed wearily, knowing that there would now be no persuading Rupert to leave her or her home until she had offered him some sort of reasonable explanation for what had happened here this evening.
Although quite how much of an explanation Pandora wanted, or indeed, intended to give him, she was as yet uncertain …
Chapter Six (#ulink_e626a79d-4cd6-5a5c-87e5-0f955153e442)
‘I am still waiting, Pandora,’ Rupert prompted.
‘What exactly are you waiting for?’ A frown creased her ivory brow as she looked up from where she was seated upon the sofa on the other side of the unlit fireplace from where Rupert was standing, the glass of brandy he had poured for her minutes ago remaining untouched in her gloved hand. They had both dispensed with their evening cloaks and hats upon entering the salon, Bentley having quietly removed them after delivering the silver tray containing the decanter of brandy and two glasses.
Rupert moved to refill his own empty glass before answering Pandora in measured tones. ‘I’m waiting for an explanation, of course.’
She raised fair brows. ‘I’m not sure I understand—’
‘A word of caution, Pandora,’ he cut in grimly, instantly causing her expression to turn wary. ‘I have never appreciated being lied to.’
‘Very few people do,’ she returned lightly as she took a tentative sip from the brandy in her glass before instantly making an expression of distaste.
‘I especially don’t appreciate being lied to by a woman,’ he added.
‘Does that include all women, or do you have a specific preference in that, too?’ She placed the half-full brandy glass well away from her on a side table.
Rupert’s mouth compressed at her levity. ‘I believe you will find my mood much more … accommodating if you don’t attempt to fob me off with sarcastic humour, either.’
‘Perhaps I wouldn’t feel the need to do so if I knew what it was you wished for me to tell you?’ she murmured.
‘I wish for the truth, madam!’
Pandora shrugged her shoulders dismissively. ‘It has been my experience that one person’s truth is not always the same as another’s — Rupert!’ she gasped in protest as he reached down to take a grasp of both her arms even as he thrust his face very close to her own.
He frowned darkly. ‘Pandora, you expressed neither surprise nor distress upon hearing that someone had entered your home illegally whilst you were out at the opera this evening. Nor have you since gone up to your bedchamber in order to see what, if anything, may have been taken. Why is that?’ His voice was now silky soft and all the more dangerous for it.
Her throat moved convulsively as she swallowed. ‘I have had other, more immediate concerns—’
‘More immediate than establishing whether or not any of your valuables have been taken?’ he pressed determinedly.
The idea that she might have any valuables left in her possession which could be taken almost caused Pandora to laugh bitterly. Almost. For the expression on Rupert’s face was of such fierceness, and so very close to her own, that she found it impossible to do anything other than continue to look into the angry glitter of those compelling silver eyes. ‘There will be plenty of opportunity for me to go upstairs when you have gone.’
‘Which could be some time when I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere until you have fully explained this situation to me,’ the Duke assured her implacably.
‘There is no situation,’ she denied. ‘An unknown person, or persons, seems to have entered my home this evening, deeply distressing my personal maid and leaving the rest of the household in uproar. That is the end to what I know of this business at the present time.’
Rupert continued to look at her searchingly for several long seconds, but could read absolutely nothing from the blandness of her expression or the calm look in those violet-coloured eyes as they gazed up into his.
Such fine and beautiful eyes. So deep a violet as to give the appearance of a deep, dark well. And as full of mystery …
Damn it, now was not the time for him to be appreciative of the fineness of Pandora’s eyes, or indeed any other part of her anatomy!
Rupert released her to straighten abruptly, but continued to look down at her along the length of his nose. ‘I will come up the stairs with you now—’
‘That will not be necessary—’
‘Nevertheless, I have every intention of accompanying you to your bedchamber.’ Rupert’s lids narrowed as he saw a return of the alarm in her expression. ‘What is it you are afraid of, Pandora?’
‘I’m not afraid of anything!’ She rose suddenly to her feet, two bright wings of colour now in the ivory of her cheeks, from temper, he believed. ‘Very well, if you insist, you shall come up the stairs with me.’ Those magnificent eyes flashed deeply purple. ‘Although quite what you expect to find there, I have no idea! A lover, perhaps?’ she added scornfully. ‘Some man I keep hidden away in my bedchamber in order that he might share my bed at night?’
Rupert had far from forgotten the accusations of infidelity made against this woman during her marriage. Accusations which he had not cared to hear then at second hand, and had even less interest in doing so now that he had actually met and spoken to her. No, if and when he were to ever hear the truth surrounding those accusations, then he had every intention of it being Pandora herself who revealed it to him.
There was a detachment about Pandora Maybury. A coolness which she had deliberately adopted in order to keep those hurtful comments at bay, perhaps? The same coolness, which Rupert knew he had been endeavouring to breach, by whatever means possible, since the moment he first met her.
He gave a brief smile now. ‘I somehow doubt that.’
‘You do?’ She looked at him in challenge.
Rupert smiled again, confidently. ‘Yes.’
Pandora eyed him coldly. ‘Then you are singular in that belief.’
He gave a mocking shake of his head. ‘I have told you, I make it a rule never to blindly follow where others in society lead.’
Her smile was completely lacking in humour. ‘How nice to realise that your acquaintance with me is nothing more than a snubbing of your arrogant nose at society!’
Rupert had every hope that it was going to be so much more than that … ‘If you’re hoping to annoy me further, Pandora, then don’t bother; I assure you that I, and my arrogant nose, are completely impervious to insults.’
‘How fortunate for you!’
He crossed the room to open the door. ‘After you …?’ He stood back pointedly to allow her to precede him from the salon.
Which she did with a brisk sweep of the skirts of her gown as she moved past him, her chin raised haughtily high, those violet-coloured eyes glittering angrily, her cheeks once again aflame with temper.
Rupert followed more slowly, unsure himself as to what he expected to achieve by insisting on visiting Pandora’s bedchamber with her—certainly not the obvious! But his instincts had served him well during his years in the army, and as such he knew there was something … not quite right in the calmness of Pandora’s response to someone having entered her home uninvited this evening.
‘Oh!’ Pandora had believed she was prepared for what she would find when she entered her bedchamber. Henley’s description earlier, of mayhem and destruction, had been given to her so vividly that Pandora had known of the shredded bed linen, the feathers scattered about the room from the ripped pillows and mattress, of overturned or broken perfume bottles on her dressing table, and drawers left open and now empty, with the clothes that had been inside thrown about on the floor.
Yes, she had known to expect all of those things upon entering her bedchamber, but still it had in no way prepared her for how shocked she would feel at seeing all of her personal belongings either ripped or broken. As if, not finding what they had come here for, the perpetrator had then become intent upon destroying everything she might hold dear.
‘Sit, Pandora.’ Rupert had lifted and righted the overturned bedroom chair and now indicated she should sit down upon it—before, in his opinion, she fell down.
Her eyes were deep pools of pained violet in the now deathly pallor of her face as she sank down gratefully on to the brocade-covered chair, the fingers shaking on the hand she now raised to cover her trembling lips.
Rupert moved down on to his haunches in front of her to take her other hand into both of his. ‘Who did this, Pandora?’ he prompted gruffly.
She blinked, the sweep of her long silky lashes brushing against the tears that had welled up in her eyes and causing them to fall down her cheeks as she looked at him blankly.
‘Pandora?’ Rupert’s hands tightened about hers. ‘Tell me who is responsible and I will see that they are punished accordingly,’ he assured grimly.
‘I— Why should you imagine I might have any idea who was responsible?’ She shook her head even as she pulled her hand free of his to stand up and move across the room to begin picking up the things scattered or broken on top of her dressing table.
Rupert frowned as he slowly straightened. ‘Possibly because it has happened before?’
Pandora spun about sharply, her eyes wide. ‘Why do you say that?’
Rupert had not known that for certain. Until now. Pandora’s reaction to his question had just confirmed his earlier suspicions. ‘I’ve told you, you were not surprised or distressed enough earlier. And Bentley looked to you when I questioned why he had not called in the authorities. Is it—could it be that someone has done this out of a malicious need to hurt you?’
Some of the tension eased from her shoulders. ‘A jealous wife, perhaps?’ she challenged scornfully.
Rupert drew in a sharp and steadying breath. ‘It is not so out of the question, is it? Stanley had a wife, I believe?’
Pandora closed her eyes. Oh, yes, Sir Thomas Stanley, the man who had died whilst engaged in that same duel which had killed Barnaby, had most certainly had a wife. And two young children. Which was the very reason that Pandora had not, and never would, publicly reveal the complete truth about the events of a year ago.
She raised her lids, her gaze steady. ‘Yes, he did,’ she acknowledged wearily.
The Duke nodded tersely. ‘That being the case, it’s not such a leap to suspect she may be the one responsible for—’
‘She is not,’ Pandora cut in firmly. ‘Clara Stanley moved to live in Cornwall with her two children not long after—after attending her husband’s funeral.’
‘Which doesn’t mean she hasn’t paid someone—’
‘For heaven’s sake! She has not and did not, Rupert.’ Pandora was losing all patience with this conversation.
Rupert looked at her closely, noting the strain in those violet-coloured eyes, the slight trembling to Pandora’s bottom lip, the shaking of her hands as she bent to pick something up from the floor and set it back upon her dressing table.
She raised that same weary hand to her brow. ‘It’s very late, Rupert, and surely you must realise how improper it is for you to linger in this way in my bedchamber.’
‘You are quite right—in that it is far too late for either of us to be concerned about our reputations. And with that in mind, I believe it best if you don’t remain in this house alone tonight.’
‘But I’m not alone—’
‘I beg to differ,’ Rupert cut in crisply.
‘There are the servants—’
‘An elderly man, two flighty young maids, a plump cook and her slightly addled-looking and very young assistant, and an hysterical lady’s maid—’
‘Bentley is not so elderly,’ she defended in offended tones. ‘Those two young maids are his granddaughters for whom he has been responsible since the death of their parents three years ago. Mrs Chivers is cheerfully rotund, and that very young assistant is her daughter, Maisie, who, although slightly … slow, is certainly not addled. As for Henley—I would far rather have her overabundance of emotion, than be forced to suffer the company of my previous maid.’ Pandora’s chin was raised stubbornly as she met his gaze in challenge.
‘And why were you forced to suffer her company?’ Rupert eyed her frowningly.
Her cheeks became slightly flushed. ‘My husband previously engaged all the household staff.’
And left to her own devices this past year, Rupert realised that Pandora had chosen to employ an elderly butler because he was responsible for his two young granddaughters, a cook and her no doubt illegitimate—and ‘slightly slow’—daughter, and a lady’s maid who went into hysterics at the slightest provocation.
All of them servants who had no doubt previously found it difficult to attain employment. And yet Pandora had engaged all of them. Yet another contradiction to that reputation she had as being flighty and self-centred, as well as unfaithful …
Rupert sighed heavily. ‘Pandora, can’t you see that whoever came into this house earlier this evening may decide to come back again?’
‘They never have in the past—’ Pandora broke off, an expression of consternation on her face as she looked across at him accusingly. ‘You said that deliberately in order to trick me!’
Yes, he had, and he would do it again, if it succeeded in leading him to the truth. Or, as much of the truth as Pandora was willing to share with him at this moment … ‘I was right then, this has happened before?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many times?’
‘Three in the last year—and, no, that does not mean that Clara Stanley must be the one responsible.’ She glared her annoyance. ‘Will you not leave that poor woman alone? Has she not suffered enough?’
Again, strange sentiments from the woman who was supposedly responsible for causing most, if not all, of Clara Stanley’s suffering …
There was so much here which did not add up. So many questions that Rupert instinctively knew Pandora would not answer as yet. Truthfully, at least. Not that he had any reason to believe she had ever answered him untruthfully, she just had a way of avoiding the truth when it suited her to do so.
Rupert had heard the gentlemen in his clubs discussing the beauty of Pandora Maybury during the past four years, of her infidelity during her marriage, and it had been impossible not to learn of the gossip of the scandal surrounding the death of both her husband and the man accused of being her lover. But there had been little gossip of note about her since that scandal. No mention of her having taken a new lover. Or lovers. No gentlemen at his clubs having boasted of bedding the beautiful but deadly Duchess.
Of course it could just be that she was too scandalous, too notorious, for any of those gentlemen to wish to become involved with her, even privately, but somehow Rupert didn’t think so; Sugdon, for one, had certainly not seemed to suffer from any such reluctance to bed her!
Rupert’s mouth tightened, nostrils flaring, just at the memory of the scene he had interrupted the previous evening, of Pandora’s gown ripped, her breasts all but visible through the thin material of her chemise. ‘Is there anything missing that you can tell?’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘Obviously I won’t be able to say exactly until after things have been put back to rights, but I don’t think so, no.’
Rupert’s eyes narrowed. ‘Was anything taken those other three times?’
‘Not that I’m aware, no.’
‘Not that you are aware? How can you not know for sure?’
Pandora sighed at his obvious incredulity. ‘My marriage contract stated that if Barnaby should die before me and our marriage was childless, I should be left a house of my own in which to live and funds to support myself. This house was never a part of the Wyndwood estate; in fact, I had no knowledge of its existence until Barnaby bequeathed it to me in his will. It came to me already furnished and I’ve changed very little since I moved here a year ago. But I believe all the furnishings are the same, and that the original paintings still hang upon the walls.’
In Rupert’s experience there was usually only one reason for a gentleman to own a property in London of which his wife had no knowledge. Was it possible that, before his untimely death, Barnaby Maybury had kept a mistress here, in the very same house he had bequeathed to his wife in his will? If that was indeed the case, then Rupert could imagine no greater insult to that wife. However, the clearness of Pandora’s gaze and expression would seem to imply she remained totally in ignorance of the insult …
Yet another indication—if Rupert had needed one—that she wasn’t at all the sophisticated and experienced woman the gossips expected her to be. Indeed, her soft-heartedness, even with regard to the employment of her household servants, gave every impression she was anything but those two things!
Could it be that Maybury’s mistress had since returned to this house three—no, four times, in order to try to retrieve something of hers she had inadvertently left behind when she no doubt hastily removed her things from the premises? It was certainly one explanation, and one that Rupert intended to privately pursue.
If Pandora was in ignorance as to her husband’s use for this house, then it was perhaps best, for the moment, if she remained that way.
Only the vulnerability of her nape and the back of her shoulders was now visible to him as she once again busied herself tidying the things upon her dressing table. A vulnerability which stirred Rupert’s protective feelings in spite of himself.
