THE TRANSFORMATION

“It is you,” the earl said, as if confirming his own assumptions. Holding out his right hand, he advanced toward her, smiling widely. “Miss Quinton, I have to own it. Please perceive me standing before you, openmouthed with astonishment.”

Immediately Victoria’s back was up, for she was certain this smiling man was enjoying himself quite royally, pretending that she had overnight turned from a molting crow into an exotic, brilliantly plumed bird.

“Oh, do be quiet,” she admonished, furious at feeling herself blushing as he continued to hold out his hand to her. “Now, if you have done amusing yourself at my expense, I suggest you take yourself off on your usual immoral pursuits, as I have more than enough on my plate without having to stand here listening to your ludicrous outpourings of astonishment.”

Dropping his ignored hand to his side, Patrick merely smiled all the more as he unabashedly quipped, “Now you’ve gone and done it, Miss Quinton. Just as I was about to search out your uncle and thank him for having brought about a near miraculous transformation, you had to go and open your mouth.”

Kasey Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than sixty books. She has won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award and the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for her historical romances set in the Regency era, and also writes contemporary romances for Silhouette and Harlequin Books.

The Questioning Miss Quinton
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Dorothea Sandbrook, librarian and friend, who thirty years ago took the time to introduce a restless teenager to the fascinating world of books—and set off a love affair with the written word that goes on and on

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

“HOW COMPLETELY and utterly boring.”

Victoria Quinton, feeling no better for having voiced her sentiments aloud, shifted her slim body slightly on the edge of the uncomfortable wooden chair that was situated to one side of the narrow, badly lit hallway, a thick stack of closely written papers lying forgotten in her lap as she waited for the summons that was so un-characteristically late in coming this morning.

Raising one hand, she stifled a wide yawn, as she had been kept awake far into the night transcribing the Professor’s latest additions to his epic book-in-progress on the history of upper-class English society; for besides acting as secretary, sounding board, and general dogs-body to him for as long as she could remember, Victoria also served as transcriptionist to the Professor, transforming his, at times, jumbled and confusing scribblings into legible final copies.

The Professor would not allow Victoria to recopy his notes into neat final copies during the daytime, and since her evenings were not known for their hours spent in any scintillating pursuit of pleasure, she could find no convincing reason to object to his directive that she fill them with more work.

As for the Professor, his lifelong struggle against insomnia made his evenings a prime time for visiting with the countless people he was always interviewing—all of them contenting themselves by prosing on long into the night over some obscure bit of family history of concern to, probably, none other than his subjects, another scholar, or himself.

Victoria had never been introduced to any of the Professor’s nocturnal visitors, nor did she harbor any secret inclination to learn their identities, which the Professor guarded like some spoiled child hiding his treasured supply of tin soldiers from his mates. After all, if the Professor liked them, they would doubtless bore her to tears.

Hearing the ancient clock in the foyer groan, seem to collect itself, and then slowly chime ten times, she tentatively rose to her feet, torn between acknowledging that every minute that ticked by made it one minute less that she would be expected to sit in the gloomy library writing page after endless page of dictation until her fingers bent into painful cramps, and dreading the certain sharp scolding she would get for not rousing him when the Professor finally awakened on his own.

In the end, realizing that she wasn’t exactly spending the interim in a mad indulgence of pleasure—seeing as how she had been sitting in the same spot like some stuffed owl ever since rising from the breakfast table—she made for the closed door and gave a short, barely audible knock.

There was no response. Victoria sighed and shook her head. “He’s probably curled up atop his desk again, afraid that the trip upstairs to his bed would rob him of his drowsiness, and taking his rest where he can,” she decided, knocking again, a little louder this time. Then she pressed her ear against the wood, thinking that the Professor’s stentorian snores should be audible even through the thickness of the door.

Five minutes passed in just this unproductive way, and Victoria chewed on her bottom lip, beginning to feel the first stirrings of apprehension. She looked about the hallway, wondering where Willie was and whether or not she should search out the housekeeper as a sort of reinforcement before daring to enter the library on her own.

But Willie was always entrenched in the kitchen at this time of the morning, industriously scrubbing the very bottom out of some inoffensive pot, or shining an innocent piece of brass to within an inch of its life. She had her routine, Wilhelmina Flint did, and Victoria was loath to interrupt it. Besides, Willie had a habit of over-reacting, and Victoria didn’t feel up to dealing with the possibility of having to dispense hartshorn or burnt feathers at this particular moment.

Also, the Professor might be sick, or injured in a fall from the small ladder he used to reach the uppermost shelves of his bookcases. What a pother that would create. For if the Professor was hard to deal with when healthy, as an invalid he would be downright unbearable!

Victoria gave herself a mental kick, realizing she was only delaying the inevitable. She had hesitated too long as it was; it was time she stopped hemming and hawing like some vaporish miss and acted. So thinking, Victoria straightened her thin shoulders, turned the knob, and pushed on the door.

The room thus revealed was in complete disorder, with papers and books strewn everywhere the eye could see—which wasn’t far, as the Professor’s huge, footed globe was lying tipped over onto its side, blocking the heavy door from opening to more than a wide crack.

“Willie will doubtless suffer an apoplexy,” she joked feebly, wondering if she herself was going to faint. No, she reminded herself grimly, only pretty girls are allowed to fall into a swoon at the first sign of trouble. Plain girls are expected to thrust out their chins and bear up nobly under the strain. “Just one more reason to curse my wretched fate,” she grumbled under her breath, pushing her spectacles back up onto the bridge of her nose, taking a deep breath, and resigning herself to the inevitable.

Putting a shoulder to the door, she pushed the globe completely aside with some difficulty and entered the library, blinking furiously behind her rimless spectacles as her eyes struggled to become accustomed to the gloom. The heavy blue velvet draperies were tightly closed and all the candles had long since burned down to their sockets.

“Oh, Lord, I don’t think I’m going to like this,” she whispered, trying hard not to turn on her heels and flee the scene posthaste like the craven coward she told herself she was. Victoria could feel her heart starting to beat quickly, painfully against her rib cage, and she mentally berated herself for not having had the foresight to have acted sooner.

“Pro—, er, Professor?” she ventured nervously, hating the tremor she could hear creeping into her voice. She then advanced, oh so slowly, edging toward the cold fireplace to pick up the poker, then holding it ahead of her as she inched her way across the room, her gaze darting this way and that as she moved toward the front of the massive oak desk.

The Professor wasn’t behind the desk; he didn’t appear to be anywhere. Lowering the poker an inch or two, Victoria walked gingerly round to the rear of the desk, as she had decided that the intruder—for what else could possibly have caused such a mess except a house-breaker?—was long gone.

She looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully, for the Professor’s chamber was directly above the library, and wondered if he was still abed, and as yet unaware of the ransacking of his sacred workplace. “Wouldn’t that just be my wretched luck? I most definitely don’t relish being the one landed with the duty of enlightening him with this marvelous little tidbit of information,” Victoria admitted, grimacing as she cast her eyes around the room one more time.

“Oh,” she groaned then, realizing at last that the stained, crumpled papers that littered the floor at her feet constituted at least three months of her painstaking labor, now ruined past redemption. “The only, the absolute only single thing in this entire world that could possibly be worse than having to transcribe all those boring notes is having to do them twice!”

She flung the heavy poker in the general direction of the window embrasure in disgust, not caring in the slightest if her impetuous action caused more damage.

“Arrrgh!” The pain-filled moan emanated from the shallow window embrasure, and the startled Victoria involuntarily leaped nearly a foot off the floor in surprise before she could race to throw back the draperies, revealing the inelegantly sprawled figure of the Professor, his ample body lying half propped against the base of the window seat.

“Professor!” Victoria shrieked, dropping to her knees beside the man, who now seemed to have slipped into unconsciousness. For one horrifying moment she thought she had rendered him into this woeful condition with the poker, until a quick inspection showed her that it had come to rest on the tip of his left foot, which must have been sticking out from under the hem of the draperies all along, if only she could have located it amid the mess.

Running her hands inexpertly over the Professor’s body, she didn’t take long to discover that there appeared to be a shallow, bloody depression imprinted in the back of his skull. As she probed the wound gingerly with her fingertips, Victoria’s stomach did a curious flip when she felt a small piece of bone move slightly beneath her fingers.

“The skull is broken,” she said aloud, then swallowed down hard, commanding her protesting stomach to take a firm hold on her breakfast and keep it where it belonged.

“Ooohhh!” the Professor groaned mournfully, moving his head slightly and then opening one eye, which seemed to take an unconscionably long time in focusing on the woman kneeling in front of him. Reaching out one hand, he grabbed her wrist painfully hard before whispering, “Find him! Find him! Make him pay!”

“Professor! Are you all right?” Even as she asked the question, Victoria acknowledged its foolishness. Of course he wasn’t all right. He was most probably dying, and all she could do was ask ridiculous questions. She may have long since ceased feeling any daughterly love for the man now lying in front of her, but she could still be outraged that anyone would try to kill him. “Who did this to you, Professor?” she asked, feeling him slipping away from her.

“Find him, I said,” the Professor repeated, his words slurring badly. “He has to pay…always…must pay…promise me…can’t let him…”

“He’ll pay, Professor, I promise he’ll pay. I won’t let him get away with it,” Victoria declared dutifully, wincing as the hand enclosing her wrist tightened like a vise, as if the Professor had put all his failing strength into this one last demand for obedience. “But you must tell me who he is. Professor? Professor!”

The hand relaxed its grip and slid to the floor. Professor Quennel Quinton was dead.

CHAPTER ONE

AS HE WAITED for the reading of the will to begin, the only sounds Patrick Sherbourne could hear in the small, dimly lit chamber were intermittent snifflings—emanating from a woman he took to be housekeeper to the deceased—and the labored creakings of his uncomfortable straight-backed wooden chair, the latter bringing to mind some of his least cherished schoolboy memories. He lifted his nose a fraction, as if testing the air for the scent of chalk and undercooked mutton, then looked disinterestedly about the room.

That must be the daughter, he thought, raising his quizzing glass for a closer inspection of the unprepossessing young woman who sat ramrod straight on the edge of a similar wooden chair situated at the extreme far side of the room, placing either him or her in isolation, depending upon how one chose to look at the thing.

No matter for wonder that Quennel kept her hidden all these years, he concluded after a moment, dropping his glass so that it hung halfway down his immaculate waistcoat, suspended from a thin black riband. The poor drab has to be five and twenty if she’s a day, and about as colorful as a moulting crow perched on a fence.

She looks nervous, he decided, taking in the distressing way the young woman’s pale, thin hands kept twisting agitatedly in her lap. Odd. Nervous she might be, but the drab doesn’t look in the least bit grieved. Perhaps she’s worried that her dearest papa didn’t provide for her in his will.

That brought him back to the subject at hand, the reading of Quennel Quinton’s will. Professor Quinton, he amended mentally, recalling that the pompous, overweening man had always taken great pains to have himself addressed by that title, although what concern it could be to the fellow now that he was six feet underground, Patrick failed to comprehend.

The other thing that Sherbourne was unable to understand was the Quinton solicitor’s demand for his presence in this tall, narrow house in Ablemarle Street, after one of the most woefully uninspiring funerals it had ever been his misfortune to view.

He had not met with Professor Quinton above three times in the man’s lifetime—all of those meetings being at the Professor’s instigation—and none of those occasions could have been called congenial. Indeed, if his memory served him true, the last interview had concluded on a somewhat heated note, with the irate Professor accusing Sherbourne of plagiarism once he found out that the Earl had entertained plans for compiling a history of his own and saw no need to contribute information to Quinton’s effort.

Easing his upper body back slightly in the chair, he slipped one meticulously manicured hand inside a small pocket in his waistcoat and extracted his heavy gold watch, opening it just in time for it to chime out the hour of three in a clear, melodic song that drew him an instant look of censure from the moulting crow.

He returned her gaze along with a congenial smile, lifting his broad shoulders slightly while spreading his palms—as if to say he hadn’t meant to interrupt the strained silence—but she merely lowered her curiously unnerving brown eyes before averting her head once more.

“Bloodless old maid,” he muttered satisfyingly under his breath without real heat. “I should buy her a little canary in a gilt cage if I didn’t believe she’d throttle it the first time it dared break into song.”

“Prattling to yourself, my Lord Wickford? Bad sign, that. Mind if I sit my timid self down beside you? I feel this sudden, undeniable desire to have someone trustworthy about in order to guard my back. But perhaps I overreact. It may merely be something I ate that has put me so sadly out of coil.”

Patrick, who also happened to be the Eleventh Earl of Wickford, looked up languidly to see the debonair Pierre Standish lowering his slim, elegant frame into the chair the man had moved to place just beside his own. “I didn’t see you at the funeral, Pierre. It wasn’t particularly jolly,” Patrick whispered, leaning a bit closer to his companion. “By your presence, may I deduce that you are also mentioned in the late Professor’s will?”

Standish carefully adjusted his lace shirt cuffs as he cast his gaze about the room with an air of bored indifference. “Funerals depress me, dearest,” he answered at last in his deep, silk-smooth voice, causing every head in the room to turn immediately in his direction. “I would have sent my man, Duvall, here in my stead this afternoon, could I have but carried it off, but the Professor’s solicitor expressly desired my presence. It crossed my mind—only fleetingly, you understand—to disappoint the gentleman anyway, but I restrained the impulse. Tiresome, you’ll agree, but there it is.”

He paused a moment, a pained expression crossing his handsome, tanned face before he spoke again in the same clear voice. “Tsk, tsk, Patrick. Can that poor, plain creature possibly be the so estimable daughter? Good gracious, how deflating! Whatever Quinton bequeathed to me I shall immediately deed over to the unfortunate lady. I should not sleep nights, else.”

Sherbourne prudently lifted a hand to cover his smiling mouth before attempting a reply. “Although I am fully aware that you are cognizant of it, dare I remind you that voices rather tend to carry in quiet rooms? Behave yourself, Pierre, I beg you. The creature may have feelings.”

“Impossible, my darling man, utterly impossible,” Standish replied quickly, although he did oblige his friend by lowering his voice ever so slightly. “If it has feelings, it wouldn’t be so heartless as to subject us to its so distressing sight, would it? Ah,” he said more loudly as a middle-aged man of nondescript features entered the room and took up his position behind the Professor’s scarred and battered desk. “It would appear that the reading is about to commence. Shall we feign a polite interest in the proceedings, Patrick, or do you wish to abet my malicious self in creating a scene? I am not adverse, you know.”

“I’d rather not, Pierre—and you already have,” Sherbourne answered, shaking his head in tolerant amusement. “But I will admit to a recognition of the sort of uneasiness you are experiencing. At any moment I expect the proctor to come round, crudely demanding an inspection of our hands and nails as he searched for signs of poor hygiene. It is my conclusion that there lives in us both some radical, inbred objection to authority that compels us to automatically struggle against ever being relegated to the role of powerless standers-by.”

“How lovely that was, my dearest Patrick!” Pierre exclaimed, reverently touching Sherbourne’s arm. “Perhaps even profound.”

The solicitor had begun to speak, to drone on insincerely for long, uncomfortable moments as to the sterling qualities of the deceased before clearing his throat and beginning the actual reading of the will, the first part of which dealt with nothing more than a series of high-flown, tongue-twisting legal phrases that could not possibly hold Sherbourne’s interest.

“I wasn’t aware you were acquainted with old Quinton,” Patrick observed quietly to Standish, having realized at last that Pierre had never sufficiently answered his earlier query on the subject. As if they were exchanging confidences, he went on, “Indeed, friend, I am feeling particularly stupid in that I have failed to comprehend why either one of us should be found unhappily present here today. For myself, I can only say that the good Professor did not exactly clasp me close to his fatherly bosom whilst he was above ground.”

“I knew the man but slightly, untold years ago in my grasstime,” Standish replied, adding smoothly, “though I had foolishly not thought to inform you of that fact. I trust, dearest, that you will accept my apologies for this lapse.”

“Why not just call me out, Pierre, and have done with it?” Sherbourne asked facetiously, slowly shaking his blond head, as he should have known he couldn’t get past Standish so easily. “And please accept my apologies for my unthinking interrogation. I was striving only for a bit of mindless, time-passing conversation. I assure you it was never my intention to launch an inquisition.”

“Are you quite set against starting one, then?” Standish asked glumly, appearing quite crestfallen. “A pity. I begin to believe I should have welcomed the diversion—if not the thumbscrews. Our prosy friend behind the desk is not exactly a scintillating orator, is he?”

Just then Patrick thought he caught a hint of something the solicitor was saying. “O-ho, friend, prepare yourself. Here we go. He’s reading the gifts to the servants. We should be next, before the family bequests. What say you, Pierre? Do you suppose it would be crushingly bad ton if we were to spring ourselves from this mausoleum the moment we collect our booty?”

“Shhh, Patrick, I want to hear this. Oh, my dear man, did you hear that?”

“I’m afraid I missed it, Pierre,” Patrick said, amused by the patently false concern on Standish’s face.

“Quinton left his housekeeper of twenty-five years a miserly thirty pounds and a miniature of himself in a wooden frame!” Standish pronounced the words in accents of outraged astonishment. “One can only hope the old dear robbed the bloody boor blind during his lifetime.”

The solicitor reddened painfully upon hearing this outburst from the rear of the room, then cleared his throat yet again before continuing with the next bequest, an even smaller portion for the kitchen maid.

“As the Irish say, my dear Patrick, Quinton was a generous man,” Pierre ventured devilishly. “So generous that, if he had only an egg, he’d gladly give you the shell.”

This last remark was just too much—especially considering that the housekeeper, upon hearing it, gave out a great shout of laughter, totally disrupting the proceedings, while drawing Standish a chilling look from Miss Quinton. The angry solicitor removed his gaze from the document before him, prepared to impale the author of such blasphemy with a withering glare, but realized his error in time. A man did not point out the niceties of proper behavior to Pierre Standish—not if that man wished to die peacefully in his bed.

Flushing hotly to the top of his bald head, the solicitor quickly returned his attention to the will, reading importantly: “To Patrick Sherbourne, Eleventh Earl of Wickford, I hereby bestow all my considerable volumes of accumulated knowledge, as well as the research papers of a lifetime, with the sincere hope that he will, as it befits his moral responsibility as an honorable gentleman, continue my important work.”

“He never did!” came the incredulous outburst from the housekeeper as she whirled about in her seat to look compassionately at Professor Quinton’s only child. “Oh, Miss Victoria, I be that sorry!”

“Not half as sorry as I am,” Patrick told Standish in an undertone. “I shall have to build another library at Wickford just to hold the stuff.”

“If I might continue?” the solicitor asked as the housekeeper’s exclamation had set the two other occupants of the room—a miserably out-of-place kitchen maid who was ten pounds richer than she had been that morning, and a man already mentioned in the will and identified as the Professor’s tobacconist (and the recipient of all the Professor’s extensive collection of pipes)—to fidgeting nervously in their chairs.

“It’s all right, Willie, honestly,” Victoria Quinton soothed softly, patting the housekeeper’s bony hand. “I’m sure the Professor had his reasons.”

Wilhelmina Flint sniffed hotly, then said waspishly, “He had reasons for everythin’ he did—none of them holdin’ a thimbleful of thought for anyone save hisself.”

“Enough! What’s done is done. Please continue, sir.” Victoria said in a voice that fairly commanded the solicitor to get on with it.

“To Mr. Pierre Standish—who knows why—I bequeath in toto the private correspondence in my possession of one M. Anton Follet, to be found in a sealed wooden box presently in the possession of my trusted solicitor.”

Upon hearing this last statement, Patrick stole a quick look at his friend, but could read no reaction on Pierre’s carefully blank face.

“The remainder of my estate passes in its entirety to one Miss Victoria Louise Quinton, spinster. That’s the last bequest,” the solicitor told them, already removing his spectacles in preparation of quitting the premises. “Mr. Standish, I have the box in question, and the key, here on the desk. If you’d care to step up, I’ll relinquish them as soon as you sign a receipt to that effect.”

“My, my. Secret correspondence, Pierre?” Sherbourne suggested, looking at the other man intently. “Do you know this Follet fellow?”

“I know a great many people, Patrick,” Standish answered evenly, already rising from his uncomfortable seat to bow slightly as the ladies quit the room, Miss Quinton in the lead, the uneven hem of her black gown sweeping the floor as she went. “Your recurrent curiosity, however, begs me ponder whether or not I should be performing a kindness by furnishing you with a comprehensive listing of my acquaintance, as a precaution against your spleen undergoing an injury, for example.”

“Put m’foot in it again, didn’t I, Pierre? And after I promised, too,” Patrick remarked, grimacing comically at his faux pas. “I’ve no doubt you’ll soon find me nattering with the dowagers at Almack’s—lingering at the side of the room so as to catch up on all the latest on-dits. I implore you—can you think how to save me from that pitiful fate? Perhaps, in your kindness, even suggest a remedy?”

“A diverting interlude spent in the company of young Mademoiselle La Renoir might prove restorative,” Standish offered softly, accurately identifying Wickford’s latest dasher in keeping. “I hear the dear lady is inventive in the extreme—surely just the sort of diversion capable of ridding your mind of all its idle wonderings.”

“While ridding my pocket of yet another layer of gold, for La Renoir goes through her ingenious paces best when inspired by the sparkle of diamonds.” The Earl shook his head in the negative. “How jaded I have become, my friend, for I must admit that even Marie’s seemingly endless repertoire of bedroom acrobatics have lost their ability to amuse me. I’d replace her, if not for the ennui of searching out a successor. My idle questions to you today are the most interest I have shown in anything for months. Perhaps I am past saving.”

“Er, Mr. Standish,” the solicitor prompted, pointedly holding his open watch in the palm of one hand.

Standish ignored the man as if he hadn’t spoken. “Boredom can be the very death,” he told Patrick sympathetically, idly stroking the thin, white, crescent-shaped scar that seemed to caress rather than mar the uppermost tip of his left cheekbone. “I was bored once, my dearest, so you may believe that I know whereof I speak. Ended by wounding my man in an ill-advised duel, as a matter of fact, and nearly had to fly the country. That woke me up to the seriousness of my problem, I must say! Once free of the benighted bolt hole I had been forced to run for until the stupid man recovered—for a more cowhanded man with a sword you have yet to see—I vowed to show a burning interest in all that had been so nearly lost to me.”

“Such as?” Patrick prompted.

“Such as, my darling Patrick, an extreme curiosity about the human condition, in all its frailties. Oh yes— I also acquired an even more intense concern for my own preservation.”

“I’d really rather not carve up some poor innocent, just to start my blood to pulsing with the thrill of life, if you don’t mind, Pierre,” Wickford pointed out wryly. “Although I am sure that is not what you are suggesting.”

“What I am suggesting, darling, is that you look about yourself for some enterprise or pursuit that can serve to hold your interest for more than a sennight. In my case, the observation of my fellow creatures has proven to be endlessly engrossing. For you, well, perhaps Professor Quinton’s papers will inspire you to complete his work.”

“Or prod me into slitting my throat,” the Earl muttered, shaking his head. “I do see your point, Pierre. I thank you, and I promise to give your suggestions my deepest consideration.”

Extracting a perfumed handkerchief from inside his sleeve, Pierre waved it languidly before touching it lightly to the corners of his mouth, saying, “It was nothing, my darling man. But I’m afraid I really must leave you now, before our poor solicitor person suffers a spasm, dithering back and forth over the fear of offending me and his desire to return to his own hearth and slippers—although I fail to comprehend why anyone should fear me, as I am the most peaceful man in all England.”

“And I’m next in line for the throne,” Sherbourne responded playfully, to be rewarded by one of Standish’s rare genuine smiles.

“Et tu, darling?” he commented without rancor. “Ah well, I imagine this common misconception of my character is just a cross I must bear. Pray keep me informed of your progress, my dearest Patrick, for I shall fret endlessly until I know you are restored to your usual good frame.”

CHAPTER TWO

PATRICK REMAINED in his chair, idly watching Standish sign the receipt with a flourish and then depart, a small oblong wooden box tucked neatly under his arm. Perhaps he was desperate for diversion, but Patrick would have given a tidy sum to know the contents of that box. Pierre was a good friend, but not very forthcoming, and it was slowly dawning on Patrick just how little of a personal nature he really knew about Pierre Standish, even after serving with him in the Peninsula.

He looked around the book-lined room, wondering if M. Anton Follet was mentioned in any of the volumes, or in any of the papers holding Professor Quinton’s extensive, although incomplete, history of the British upper class. His own research was devoid of any such reference, he knew, but then he had not gone much beyond a compilation of his and a half dozen other loosely related family histories before the whole idea had begun to pall and he had shelved the project (as he had so many others that he had begun in the years since his return to London from the war).

Rising stiffly from his chair—for he had spent the previous evening with Marie La Renoir and his muscles were still sending up protests—he realized that he and Miss Quinton, who had at some time reentered the library unnoticed by him to stand in the shallow window embrasure, were now the only occupants of the depressing room.

Steeling himself to pass a few moments in polite apology for having somehow usurped her claim on her father’s life work (it would never occur to him that either he or Standish should apologize for their rudeness during the reading of the will for, in their minds, the crushing boredom of such an occasion had made them sinned against rather than sinning), he walked over to stand in front of her, a suitably solemn expression looking most out of place on his handsome, aristocratic face.

“Miss Quinton,” he began carefully, “I can only tell you that your father’s bequest came as a complete surprise to me. As I could not but help overhearing your housekeeper’s refreshingly honest reaction at the time, I can only assume that you had a deep personal interest in his work.”

Victoria Quinton turned around slowly to look at the Earl levelly, assessingly—dismissively. “Yes, you would have assumed that, wouldn’t you?”

Patrick blinked once, looking at the young woman closely, unwilling to believe he had just been roundly insulted. She was standing stock-still in front of him, her hands clasped tightly together at her waist, the picture of dowdy dullness. He had to have been mistaken—the woman hadn’t the wit to insult him. “I assure you,” he then pressed on doggedly, “if there are any papers you particularly cherish—or any favorite books you would regret having pass out of your possession—you have only to mention them to me and I will not touch them.”

“How condescending of you. In point of fact, sir, I want them all,” Victoria Quinton replied shortly. “Indefinitely. Once I have discovered what I need to know, Lord Wickford, you are welcome to everything, down to the last bit of foolscap. Make a bonfire of it if you wish.”

Not exactly the shy, retiring sort, considering her mousy exterior, Sherbourne thought, his curiosity reluctantly piqued. Possessing little that would appeal to the opposite sex, she had probably developed an animosity toward all men; no unmarried miss of his acquaintance would dream of speaking so to him. “Would it be crassly impolite of me to ask what it is you hope to discover?” he asked, staring at her intently.

Victoria turned smartly, her heavy black skirts rustling about her ankles, and headed for the hallway, clearly intending to usher her unwelcome visitor to the door. “It would be, although I am sure you feel that being an earl makes you exempt from any hint of rudeness. But I shall nevertheless satisfy your curiosity, considering your generosity in allowing me use of the Professor’s collection. I shall even pretend that I did not overhear your complaints when you first heard of the bequest.”

Patrick’s dark eyes narrowed as he stared after this infuriating drab who dared to insult him. “How kind of you, Miss Quintin,” he drawled softly as they stopped walking and faced each other. “I vow, madam, you fair bid to unman me.”

Miss Quinton’s left eyebrow rose a fraction. “Indeed,” she pronounced flatly. “As I was about to say, sir: I have dedicated myself to the unmasking of the man who murdered the Professor. The answer lies in his papers, and I shall not rest until the perpetrator is exposed. And now, good day to you, sir.”

She then moved to stand beside the open door that led down three shallow steps to the flagway lining the north side of Ablemarle Street. But her startling disclosure (and jarring candor) had halted Wickford—who could only view departing the house as his single most cherished goal in life—in his tracks, leaving him standing some distance from the exit.

“Find the murderer?” he repeated, not trying very hard to hide his smile. “How very enterprising of you, madam. Have you perhaps looked underneath your bed? I hear that many spinsters believe murderers lurk in such places.”

Victoria’s chin lifted at the insult. “I’m positive you are considered quite amusing by your friends in those ridiculous clubs on St. James’s Street, but I can assure you that I am deadly serious.”

“But your father was killed by a burglar he must have discovered breaking into his library,” Patrick pressed on, caught up in the argument against his will. “Murder, yes, I agree, but it’s not as if the man’s identity could be found amid your father’s research papers or personal library. I fear you will have to resign yourself to the sad fact that crimes like this often go unpunished. Law enforcement in London is sorry enough, but investigations of chance victims of violence like your father are virtually nonexistent.”

The front door closed with a decided crash as Victoria prepared to explain her reasons to the Earl—why, she did not stop to ask herself—so incensed was she by his condescending attitude. “The Professor knew his murderer, probably opened the door to him, as a matter of fact. I have irrefutable evidence that proves my theory, but no one will listen to me. I have no recourse but to conduct my own investigation.”

“What is your evidence?” Patrick asked, feeling a grudging respect for her dedication, if not her powers of deduction.

“That, Lord Wickford, is of no concern to you,” she told him, pulling herself up to her full height. As she spoke she slipped a hand into the pocket of her gown, closing her fingers around the cold metal object that was her only lead toward discovering the identity of the murderer. “Suffice it to say that I have in my possession a very incriminating clue that—while it does not allow me to point a finger at any one person—very definitely lends credence to the theory that you, sir, or one of a small group of other persons I shall be investigating with an eye toward motive, entered the Professor’s library as a friend and then struck him down, leaving him to lie mortally injured. Before dying in my arms the Professor charged me with the duty of bringing his murderer to justice and, I say to you now in all sincerity, sir, that I shall do just that! All I ask of you is some time before you remove the collection. I will notify you when I no longer require it.”

“Admirable sentiments, eloquently expressed, Miss Quinton,” Patrick owned soberly, “although I feel I must at this point protest—just slightly, you understand—that you have numbered me among your suspects.”

Bats in her belfry, Patrick then decided silently, becoming weary of the conversation. That’s what happens to these dusty spinster types after a while. But aloud, he continued, “I’ll respect your right to hold to your own counsel about your ‘clue,’ of course. But my dear Miss Quinton, you must know that I would be shirking my duty as a gentleman if I didn’t offer you my services should you find yourself in need of them. That is, if you are willing to accept help from one of your suspects?”

“I shan’t need your help,” Victoria retorted confidently, deliberately ignoring the vague feeling of unease that had been growing ever since she first began this strange conversation. Longing to do Sherbourne an injury, she thought to herself: If I cannot throw actual brickbats at him, I can at least attack him verbally. “For now,” she continued in a voice devoid of emotion, “it is enough that I have been able to interview my first suspect. I might add, sir, that I shall strive not to allow your boorish behavior today—and all I have read in the newspapers about your questionable pursuits—to prejudice me against you. At the moment, you are no more suspect than any of the other gentlemen who could have committed the crime.

“I apologize for baiting you so openly, Lord Wick-ford,” she then conceded, her voice softening a bit, “but you are only the second suspect I have encountered today, you understand, the first having escaped before I could speak with him. I was merely testing your responses, feeling you out as it were,” she added, not entirely truthfully, for in fact her opinion of him and his kind was not especially high.

Now Victoria had Sherbourne’s complete attention. “Second suspect, you say? As I doubt that either the solicitor or that down-at-the-heels tradesman who scurried out of here with the Professor’s collection of pipes is capable of murder, could you possibly be trying to tell me that Pierre Standish is also to be considered a suspect? My, my,” he remarked, seeing the answer on her expressive face. “At least, Miss Quinton, you have put me in good company, although I imagine I should be feeling quite put out with you for even supposing I could have had anything to do with your father’s death, except for the fact that I find it extremely difficult to take seriously anything you have said. Your last revealing statement implicating Mr. Standish has served to confirm my opinion of the worthlessness of your arguments.”

Patrick smiled then, shaking his head in disbelief. “Therefore, I won’t even dignify your assumption of my possible guilt with a question as to your reasons for it. I make no secret of my disagreement with your father when last we met, as I realize it is more than possible that you overheard us.”

“I have not yet been able to ascertain a motive for you, or any of the suspects,” Victoria was stung into saying. “To tell the truth, there may still be suspects I have not yet discovered. I am in no way prepared at this time to make any accusations.”

“I shall sleep better knowing that, at least for now, you are only assuming to place guilt rather than running off to the authorities with a demand for my immediate arrest, I assure you,” Patrick returned, bowing with an insulting lack of respect. “I shall also—need I even say it?—make it a point to enlighten Mr. Standish of his new status as a suspect in a murder, although telling him that he is not unique in his position, but has merely been lumped in with other would-be dastards, may not be a wise move on my part. Pierre does so hate running with the herd, you understand. But I’m sure you won’t let Mr. Standish’s righteous anger frighten you if he should happen to take umbrage at your accusation, for your motives are pure, aren’t they, Miss Quinton? After all, you are only doing as any loving daughter might do, and you are a loving daughter, aren’t you, Miss Quinton?”

Victoria’s pale face became even more chalklike before a hot flush of color banded her features from neck to forehead—the only portions of her anatomy Patrick could, or wished to, see—and she replied coldly, “My feelings for and relationship with my late father are not at issue here, sir. The Professor was murdered, and I have undertaken the fulfillment of a dying man’s last wish. It’s the only honorable thing to do under the circumstances.”

Patrick looked about the drab hallway consideringly. “You’ve led a rather quiet, almost sequestered life, Miss Quinton. Dare I suggest that you are contemplating using the Professor’s death as an excuse to insert a bit of excitement into your previously humdrum existence? Although, looking at you, I can’t imagine that you possess any real spunk, or you would have asserted yourself long since rather than live out your life in such dull drudgery, catering to the whims of an eccentric, totally unlikable man like the Professor. No, I must be mistaken. Obviously you believe yourself to be embarked on a divine mission. Do you, perhaps, read Cervantes?”

“This is not some quixotic quest, sir, and I am not tilting at windmills. I have control of my mental faculties, and I am determined to succeed. I suggest we terminate this conversation now, so that I may get on with my investigation and you may repair to one of your ridiculous private clubs, where you can employ that inane grin you’re wearing to good use as you regale your low-life friends with what I am sure will be your highly amusing interpretation of my plans and motives.”

Sherbourne’s smile widened as he shook his head in disbelief. “I really must read the columns more often, if their gossip has indeed painted me as black as you believe me to be. At the very least, such a vice-ridden, pleasure-mad libertine as I should be enjoying himself much more than I think I am, don’t you agree? Either that or—oh, please say it isn’t so—you, Miss Quinton, have hidden away behind that dreary gown and atrocious coiffure a rather wildly romantic, highly inventive, and suggestible mind that is considerably more worldly than your prim façade, educated speech, and high-flown ideals indicate. Is that why you’re so hostile, dear lady? Are you a bit envious of those lives you read about in the scandal sheets? Are you out to snare a murderer to fulfill the Professor’s dying wish, or do you see this as a chance to deliver a slap in the face to a society that you equally covet and despise?”

“That’s not true!” Victoria exclaimed, aghast. “How dare you insinuate that I have ulterior motives for my actions? You don’t know me. You know less than nothing about me.” The Earl’s verbal darts were striking with amazing accuracy now, and all Victoria could think of was finding some way to make him leave before she could be tricked into saying something that confirmed his suspicions. “Every word you utter convinces me more that you are the guilty party—attacking blindly in the hope you will somehow be able to dissuade me from my intentions. Let me tell you, sir, yours is an exercise in futility! I shall not be defeated by such an unwarranted personal attack!”

“As you say,” Patrick answered, one finely arched eyebrow aloft. “Well, good hunting, Miss Quinton. If you desire any assistance, or need rescuing when you find yourself in over your head, please do not hesitate to contact me.”

“I find it incumbent upon me to say that I cannot think of what possible use you’d suppose yourself to be,” Victoria marveled nastily, “considering your reputation for the aimless pursuit of pleasure, not to mention your renowned propensity for immature exploit.”

“Oh no, you misunderstand, Miss Quinton,” the Earl informed her mildly. “I shan’t come pelting into the fray on my white charger to save you, you understand, but I might be inclined to wander by and say ‘I told you so’ on my way to some nearby low gaming hell or depraved orgy.” Moving once more toward the door, he added, “Now that we have exchanged the requisite pleasantries, I do believe I shall take my leave. Do please try not to weep as I pass out of your life forever, Miss Quinton. I’d wager a considerable sum that yours is not a face that would be enhanced by a maidenly show of tears.”

“I never cry” was all Victoria answered, bent on correcting his misconception without seeming to take exception to his ungentlemanly remarks. The only outward sign that his insult had hit a tender spot was to be found in a slight widening of her curiously amber eyes, but it was enough to afford Patrick some small solace.

“I can believe that, Miss Quinton,” he answered cheerfully, patting his hat down on his head at a jaunty angle as he prepared to leave before she said something that tried his overworked patience too high. “I imagine any emotion save your obvious contempt for your fellow man to be alien to one such as you. Indeed, it must gratify you in the extreme to be so superior to the rest of us poor mortals. When your father’s papers pass into my possession—in other words, on the day when you finally are forced to admit defeat in your ‘quixotic quest’—I shall be eager to inspect the Quinton family tree. It must be thick with truly outstanding specimens.”

“You have not heard me boast of my ancestry, sir. It is you who carry a coat of arms on your coach door like a badge of honor, as if anything any of your ancestors has done can possibly reflect advantageously on you, who have done nothing to deserve the slightest honor at all.”

Patrick’s back stiffened as he swallowed down hard on an impulse to strangle the unnatural chit. He hadn’t yet gotten through her iron-hard shell, no matter what he had thought earlier. He hadn’t found a single chink in her armor of dislike and indifference that had refused to yield even an inch. She should be reduced to tears, not standing there toe-to-toe with him, trading insults.

“When first I saw you, Miss Quinton, I thought your father hid you away because of your lack of looks,” he offered now, knowing he was behaving badly but somehow unable to help himself, for the woman seemed to bring out the worst in him. “I see now I was sadly mistaken. It was your serpent’s tongue he strove so hard to conceal. Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s not nice to go around antagonizing people with every other word that rolls off your agile tongue?”

Victoria took in the heightened color in Lord Wick-ford’s thin cheeks and decided that she had tried him high enough for the moment. He had revealed nothing of himself save a reluctance to admit to anger and an ability to trade verbal insults without flinching, and he had appeared truly surprised to hear of her belief that her father had known his murderer.

Even so, she should have considered her tactics more closely before deciding to opt for a full, frontal assault. After all, hadn’t Willie always told her that one caught more flies with honey than with vinegar? Victoria winced inwardly, wondering if the Earl was right—that she was, at three and twenty, taking on all the less-than-sterling traits of the waspish spinster.

Of course, she comforted herself, his surprise could have just as easily stemmed from his realization that she had somehow discovered some evidence that could incriminate him, she amended carefully, knowing it wouldn’t be prudent to jump to any conclusions this early in the day.

She was just about to open her mouth and apologize for having behaved so shabbily when Sherbourne, who had just interrupted his latest move toward the front door as a sudden thought occurred to him, whirled to point a finger in her face and demand: “Pierre Standish, Miss Quinton. Humor me, if you please, and speculate for just a moment—what possible reason could he have had for putting a period to your father’s existence?”

“Who is M. Anton Follet, Lord Wickford?” was Victoria’s maddening reply.

Patrick inclined his head slightly, as if acknowledging a flush hit. “Ah, madam, such deep intrigue. I do so love cryptic questions, don’t you?” His smile was all admiration as he ended silkily, “If this is a sample of your sleuthing, however, I suggest you repair to your knitting box without further delay.”

“I don’t knit.”

Patrick’s eyes closed in a weary show of despair. “This, I believe, is where I came in. And, madam, this is where I depart. Good day to you, Miss Quinton.”

So saying, Sherbourne opened the front door and let it close softly behind his departing back.

It wasn’t until his coach (the one with the gilt coat of arms on the doors) had delivered him to his own doorstep that Sherbourne realized he was more than just extremely angry. He was also confused, upset, and intensely curious about Pierre Standish, M. Anton Follet, Quennel Quinton, Miss Victoria Quinton’s bizarre scheme, and the identity of the Professor’s murderer.

It did not occur to him that the one thing he was not was bored.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHAT AN ODIOUS, odious man!” Victoria Quinton told the empty foyer once the Earl of Wickford had departed, having gained for himself—although it pained her, she had to acknowledge it—the last, telling thrust in their war of words. For at least one fleeting moment during their conversation she had felt the same impotent fury she had invariably experienced on the rare occasions when she had gone up against the Professor in a verbal battle before she had at last decided that she really didn’t care enough about her father’s view of life to try to convince him of her side on any subject.

Crossing the foyer to enter the small, shabby drawing room that—as the Professor had rarely visited it—she considered her own, Victoria walked over to stand directly in front of the wall mirror that hung above a small Sheraton side table, one of the few fine pieces of furniture that her mother had brought to the marriage.

The mirror hanging above it, on the other hand, was a later purchase of the Professor’s, and it was exquisite only by way of its ornate ugliness. Peering through the virtual forest of carved wooden decoration that hemmed the mirror in from all sides, Victoria did her best to examine the features she saw reflected back at her.

“‘Not a face that would be enhanced by a maidenly show of tears,’” she quoted, tilting her head this way and that as she leaned closer for a better view, as Victoria was markedly shortsighted without the spectacles she had chosen not to wear that afternoon.

“What Lord Wickford left unsaid was that if I had been so foolish as to ask him what would enhance my looks, he would have immediately suggested the prudent disposition of a large, concealing sack overtop my head.” She smiled in spite of herself, causing a dimple Patrick Sherbourne had not been privileged to see to appear in one cheek, lending a bit of humanizing animation to her usually solemn face.

Putting a hand to her chin, she turned her head slowly from side to side once more, objectively noting both her positive and negative features. “The eyes aren’t all that depressing, if I can only remember not to squint at anything beyond the range of ten feet.” she mused aloud. “Although I do wish my brows were more winglike and less straight. I always look as if someone has his hand on the top of my head, pushing down.”

Squinting a bit as she moved almost nose to nose with her reflection, she continued her inventory. “Nose,” she began, wrinkling up that particular feature experimentally a time or two. “Well,” she concluded after a moment, “I do have one, not that it does much more than sit there, keeping my ridiculously long eyes from meeting in the middle, while my skin certainly is pale enough to pass inspection, although I do believe I should have considerably more color than this. In this old black gown I look less like one of the mourners and more like the corpse.”

She stepped back a pace and deliberately pasted a bright smile on her face, exposing a full set of white, even teeth surrounded by a rather wide, full-lipped mouth that did not turn either up or down at the corners. Her neck—a rather long, swanlike bit of construction—did not seem to be sufficiently strong to hold up her head, and her small, nearly fleshless jaw, though strongly square boned, perched atop it at almost a perfect right angle, with no hint of a double chin.

Reaching a hand behind her, she pulled out the three pins holding up her long, dark brown hair, so that it fell straight as a poker from her center part to halfway down her back. “Ugh,” she complained to the mirror, ruefully acknowledging that, although her hair was a good length, it was rather thin, and of a definitely unprepossessing color. “How could anyone with so much hair look so bald?” she asked herself, trying in vain to push at it so that it wouldn’t just lay there, clinging to her head like a sticking plaster.

Then, holding her hands out in front of her, she inspected her long, slim, ink-stained fingers and blunt-cut nails before quickly hiding them again in the folds of her skirt. The Professor had told her repeatedly that her hands and feet were a disgrace, betraying physical frailty because of their slender, aristocratic construction.

“How I longed all through my childhood for a knock to come at the door and for someone to rush in to tell me that I wasn’t really Victoria Quinton but a princess who had been stolen away by gypsies and sold to the Professor for a handful of silver coins,” she reminisced, smiling a bit at the memory. Having no real recollection of the mother who had died while her only child was still quite young, Victoria had resorted to fantasy to explain away her unease at being unable to love the strange man who was her father. “Oh well,” she acknowledged now with a wide grimace, “if my aristocratically slender bones didn’t gain me a royal palace, at least they saved me from being hired out as a dray horse in order to bring a few more pennies into the house.”

That brought her to the point she had been dreading, an inventory of her figure. “What there is of it,” she said aloud, giving an involuntary gurgle of laughter. Victoria might have inherited her above-average height from the Professor, but she had been blessed—or blighted, according to the Professor, who would have liked it if she could have been physically suited for more of the housekeeping duties—with her mother’s small-boned frame and inclination to thinness.

“Skinny as a rake, and considerably less shapely,” she amended, as her reflection told her clearly that the only things holding up her gown were her shoulders.

Victoria closed her eyes for a moment, sighed deeply, then lifted her chin and began twisting up her hair, fastening the anchoring pins with a total disregard for the pain her quick movements caused. “Point: Victoria Quinton, spinster, is an antidote,” she declared, staring herself straight in the eyes. “Point: Mr. Pierre Standish insulted me openly and then all but cut me dead. Point: The Earl of Wickford did not hesitate in revealing to me his distaste for women of my sort.” She stopped to take a breath, then ended, “Point: I don’t care a snap about the first three points.

“Mr. Standish is a soulless devil, everyone knows that, and the Earl—well, he is the most excessively disagreeable, odious man I have ever met, not that I have even spoken to above two or three of that unimpressive gender in my entire life. I don’t care a button what they think, and I am well shed of the pair of them!” She nodded her head decisively and her reflection nodded back to her.

She felt fairly good about herself and her deductions for a moment or two, until her mind, momentarily blunted by this rare display of self-interest, stabbed at her consciousness, rudely reminding her that she did need them. If she were ever to solve the puzzle of just who murdered the Professor, she needed them both very much.

Even worse, she acknowledged with a grimace, she needed to do something—something drastic—about making herself over into a young woman who could go about in public without either spooking the carriage horses or sending toddlers into shrieking fits of hysterics.

The two men who had been in the house in Ablemarle Street were not her only suspects—although they did for the moment stand at the head of the list of society gentlemen she had thus far compiled—and she must somehow inveigle introductions to certain others of the ton if her plan to ferret out the murderer was to have even the slimmest chance of succeeding.

Victoria pressed her fingertips to her temples, for she could feel a headache coming on, and looked about the room, searching for her spectacles. She still felt slightly uneasy about her decision not to wear the plain, rimless monstrosities, unwilling to recognize maidenly vanity even to herself, and decided to blame the insufferable Earl of Wickford, and not her foolishness, for the dull thump-thumping now going on just behind her eyes.

How she longed for her cozy bed and a few moments’ rest, for she had been sleeping badly ever since the Professor’s death three days earlier, but she discarded the idea immediately. “The Professor would have kittens if I dared to lie down in the middle of the afternoon,” she scolded herself sternly. Although she had never been afraid of the man, she had found it easier to keep her thoughts to herself and display an outward show of obedience, thus saving herself many a lecture.

But then, just as she was about to head for her work-basket that stood in the corner and the mending that awaited her there, she brought herself up short, and a small smile lit her features. “And who’s going to run tattling to him, Miss Quinton, if you do take to your bed—Saint Peter? You are your own mistress now, my dear,” she reminded herself, a bit of a lilt coloring her voice. “You have longed for this day, dreamed about it for years, and now—through no fault of your own—it is here. You are free, Victoria Quinton, free to do whatever you will!”

Pivoting smartly on the heels of her sensible black kid half boots, she exited the small drawing room in a near skip, heading for the staircase.

It was perhaps only a small act of rebellion after so many years of doing only what she was told, but it was to set a precedent for the future.

CHAPTER FOUR

PATRICK HALTED on the threshold of the club’s sedately decorated main salon and looked about for Pierre Standish, finally locating his quarry sitting alone and looking very much at his ease near one of the large floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the busy street below.

Sherbourne did not take himself immediately to that side of the room. Instead he spent several minutes wandering about in a seemingly aimless fashion, passing the time of day with some of his friends, although declining to sit and take refreshment with any of them.

He even took the time to place a wager with Lord Alvanley on the outcome of a mill that was to be held in the countryside later that week, before eventually arriving at his planned destination and sliding into a facing wing chair, a jaunty greeting on his smiling lips.

“Tsk, tsk. That took you precisely three minutes longer than it should have, my darling Patrick, although, in general, it was rather well done,” Standish drawled amicably before returning his large gold watch to his pocket and looking up at Sherbourne for the first time.

“I beg your pardon, Pierre?” Patrick questioned, keeping a carefully blank look on his face as he adjusted his coattails before crossing his legs at the knee, allowing one elegantly fashioned Hessian to dangle.

“Yes, I believe you should,” Standish answered smoothly as he motioned to a servant who was hovering nearby to fetch another glass for his lordship. “I recall that I have urged you to find an interest, my darling, but I fear your future does not lie in cloak-and-dagger machinations.”

Patrick shook his head in admiration, admitting defeat. “How did you know I was looking for you particularly? I thought I was being quite smooth, actually.”

Pierre took up the glass the servant had brought and poured some rich-looking red liquid into it from a decanter before handing the glass to Wickford. “I could, I suppose, say I have visited a wizened old gypsy in Europe who—because of some heroic service I rendered her—has given me the gift of foretelling events, causing you to look at me in awe, but honesty prevents me. Actually, dearest, I was at home when you called this morning but—how shall I say this without being indiscreet?— I was considerably engaged at the time.”

Taking a small sip of his wine, Patrick leaned back in his chair and quipped mischievously, “My deepest apologies. I can only pray that I didn’t interrupt at a critical moment? Some indiscretions have so little understanding of the link between concentration and performance.”

Pierre’s dark eyes twinkled slightly in his otherwise emotionless face. “I have amazing powers of concentration, thankfully. Besides, Patrick, you know I have always made it a point never to disappoint a lady.”

Patrick acknowledged his understanding with a slight nod of his head, knowing better than to dwell on the subject. Besides, he had not sought out Standish merely to spend a few pleasant minutes enjoying the verbal sparring that helped pass the time between noon and an evening’s entertainment. “Speaking of ladies, Pierre—”

“Not I, my dear, at least not literally,” Standish said, a smile still lurking in his eyes.

Patrick chose to ignore this last statement, knowing that Pierre could keep a conversation jogging along in this lighthearted vein forever, without once saying anything to the point. He had met with his friend for a reason, and it was time the two of them got down to serious business. “There’s something I think you should know, Pierre. Miss Quinton believes her father knew his murderer,” he announced baldly, watching his friend closely for any reaction.

Pierre did not so much as blink. “How utterly amazing. I am, of course, astonished,” he said in a tone that totally belied his statement.

“As usual, my friend, you react by not reacting. Perhaps a bit more information is required.” Leaning forward a bit so that he could speak without fear of being overheard, he went on confidingly, “Does the fact that this same Miss Victoria Quinton considers you and me to be her prime suspects pique your interest in the slightest?”

“Are we, by God?” Standish responded, raising his dark brows a fraction. “I begin to believe you have awakened a slight curiosity on my part—perhaps even the faint glimmerings of interest. Perhaps you will oblige me by beginning with how you have come upon this charming little tidbit of information.”

Patrick leaned back in the chair once again, satisfied at last with his friend’s response. “The lady in question told me herself the day of the funeral, not that she wanted to, you understand.”

“It’s that pretty face, Patrick,” Pierre interrupted, an earnest expression on his dark face. “I’ve noticed before the devastating way you have with the ladies. I imagine you’ve heard quite a few things over the years. Have you ever thought of writing your memoirs?”

“It was not my pretty face that did it, but her own satisfaction with her deductions that had her flinging her outlandish theory at my feet like a gauntlet,” Sherbourne corrected testily. “Lord, man, at first she attacked me like a hound on a blood scent, trying, I believe, to frighten me into confessing.”

“Quite the little Trojan, hmmm?”

“Quite the little idiot,” Patrick amended. “She’s taken it into her head to solve the mystery of the Professor’s murder, you see, and believes the answer might lie somewhere in the papers I’ve inherited.”

“And your thoughts on the subject?” Standish prodded, reaching for his wineglass.

Patrick smiled slightly, shaking his head. “I think the lady in question is a bit queer in her attic. Quinton was killed by a burglar; everybody knows that.”

“Do they?” The question held no inflection, hinted of no hidden curiosity. It was just as if Standish, like Miss Quinton, had thrown out a suggestion, and now was waiting to see if his friend was going to pick it up.

Patrick slowly twirled the glass in his hand by its slender stem, watching the small bit of wine swirl around the bottom in a tight whirlpool as he considered Pierre’s question. At last he raised his head a fraction, staring intently into the other man’s eyes.

“Yes, darling?” Standish purred.

“Victoria Quinton may have the disposition of a cursed warthog—and a face to match—but she’s sharp as needles, Pierre. Much as it pains me to admit it, I can’t simply dismiss her assertions as daughterly grief. It’s—it’s as if she considers what she’s doing as some sort of duty. Do you know, Pierre, I don’t think she loved Quinton—or even liked him.”

“Quennel Quinton was many things as I recall, but I know I did not find him to be especially lovable. Perhaps I have underestimated our little drab. She must have some intelligence,” Pierre put in thoughtfully.

Patrick nodded in agreement. “A dedicated bluestocking, I’d say, which is why I cannot comfort myself by believing her theory to be some romantic bag of moonshine she’s embraced merely in order to lend some sparkle to her humdrum existence. She’s just not that sort of female.”

Pierre directed a long, dispassionate stare at the man facing him before speaking again, all trace of mockery now gone from his voice. “You seem to have given our dowdy Miss Quinton and her assertions quite a bit of thought, Patrick. Perhaps you have even begun to question the reasons behind the Professor’s demise yourself. Tell me, my dear, is this to be an intellectual exercise only, or do you plan to do something about it?”

Patrick lapsed into silence once more, absently raising his wineglass to take a drink before realizing it was empty, and then holding it out as Pierre refilled it from the decanter. Lifting the glass to his lips, he then downed its contents in one long gulp before rising to his feet. “She’s a damned obstinate woman, Pierre, and she’s deadly serious about this foolishness she’s taken into her head. Somebody has to watch out for her, or she’ll land in a scrape for sure.”

Pierre put down his glass and applauded softly. “Congratulations, my darling man. You have come to exactly the correct decision. But do be careful, Sir Galahad—lest the lady decides to view her benefactor in a romantic light. You may save her from carelessly falling into the hands of a desperate murderer, only to have her end up casting herself into the Thames for love of you.”

“Don’t worry about that, Pierre,” Patrick assured him. “Victoria Quinton hates the sight of me. She thinks I’m a terrible, shameless person. Useless too, I believe she said.”

“I wait with bated breath, my dear one, to hear your opinion of her opinion.”

Patrick slipped a snow-white lace handkerchief from his cuff and daintily dabbed at the corners of his mouth in imitation of one of his friend’s little affectations before answering: “I was flattered, of course, my dear Pierre. What else could I be?”

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOU’RE LOOKING kinda peakedlike, Miss Victoria,” Wilhelmina Flint remarked a week after the Professor’s funeral as she lifted yet another stack of papers from the desk in the library in order to run her feather duster over its shiny surface. “Why don’t I run myself on down to the kitchens and brew you up some of my black currant tea onc’t I’m all finished puttin’ this mess to rights?”

“Finish it, Willie?” Victoria questioned lightly, leaning back in the Professor’s big leather chair to look up at the hovering housekeeper. “The only way this room could possibly get any cleaner would be if you were to dump all the furniture into the garden and whitewash the walls. Didn’t you just dust in here this morning?”

Willie raised her chin and sniffed dismissively, although she wasn’t really offended by her young mistress’s words, considering that she had raised Miss Victoria since the girl was just out of soggy drawers and had therefore long ago become accustomed to her genial attempts to belittle her own love of cleanliness and order.

“Go away with you now, Missy,” she said, going on with her work, which for the moment meant she was concentrating on chasing down yet another daring bit of lint that had somehow escaped her eagle eyes earlier.

While Wilhelmina tidied and fussed and generally stirred up more dust than her switching feathers could capture, Victoria sat at her ease, idly observing the hubbub as she gratefully abandoned her increasingly disquieting research for a few moments. Willie was a treasure, even with her seeming obsession with cleanliness, and Victoria knew it, just as she knew that the woman must never learn so much as the slightest hint of damning information coming to light about her longtime employer.

Although the housekeeper—who had left the countryside to be with her mistress in London when the Professor took the local squire’s only daughter to wife—had never tried to replace Victoria’s dead mother in her heart, Wilhelmina’s brisk efficiency had always been liberally laced with affection for the plain, awkward child who received nothing but the most cursory notice from her busy professor father. If Victoria confided in her now, Wilhelmina would put a halt to the murder investigation immediately!

Victoria had grown to love the tall, rawboned redhead, and as she grew older she had secretly coveted Willie’s buxomy, wide-hipped, narrow-waisted, hourglass figure, believing the housekeeper’s ample curves and brilliant coloring to represent the epitome of feminine beauty.

Even now, with the once vibrant red hair showing traces of grey, Victoria could still see much of the full-blown beauty that had once been Wilhelmina’s, and wondered yet again why she had never married. Surely there must have been plenty of opportunities. “Willie,” she ventured now, “tell me truly—there must have been someone you wished to wed, maybe some farmer back in Sussex before you moved here? I mean, you didn’t stay with us all these years just because of me, did you?”

The housekeeper stopped in the midst of rubbing a brass bookend with a corner of her starched white apron and peered intently at the serious young woman. “Because of you, Miss Victoria?” she questioned in a tone that hinted at the utter ridiculousness of such a question, then laughed out loud. “Lord love you, Missy, I should most certainly think not! It’s crazy in love I was with the dear, sweet Professor, of course. That’s why I stayed. It’s as plain as the nose on your face!”

Now it was Victoria’s turn to laugh, for if there were ever two people born to do murder to each other they were Wilhelmina Flint and Professor Quennel Quinton. Clearly Willie was doing her best not to load her young mistress down with yet another heavy dose of guilt, to be piled atop all the other guilt she was feeling over being unable to muster up any genuine grief over her father’s death.

“I may have led a sheltered life, Willie, but I’m not a complete greenhead,” Victoria reminded the housekeeper, sobering again. “You and the Professor were many things to each other, but none of them were even remotely connected to anything of a romantic nature.”

“You’re forgettin’, Missy. The Professor left me that fine miniature of hisself. Wouldn’t you be wonderin’ why he should do such a thing?”

Victoria sat front once more, placing her elbows on the desk. “That’s another thing that puzzles me, Willie. There’s something about that miniature that bothers me. I don’t ever remember seeing it before, for one thing, but it’s my inability to reconcile the miniature with the man I knew that is most difficult. I imagine it is hard to conjure up a real sense of recognition when faced with an image of one’s parent at an age closer to one’s own.”

Willie backed hurriedly away from the desk, turning her body slightly away from Victoria’s as she extracted a cloth from one of her apron pockets, and then proceeded to make a great business out of dusting one of the uncomfortable wooden chairs that comprised the only seating for visitors in the room. “Doesn’t quite look like the old geezer, does it? It’d be the smile that’s throwin’ you off, I wager, Missy, seein’ as how he did precious little of it in his lifetime.”

Victoria allowed a small, appreciative grin to show on her face before prudently hiding it with her hand. Willie had always been fairly outspoken about her lack of love for the Professor during his lifetime, but now that the man was gone she seemed to be pulling out all the stops. If she only knew… But no, Victoria didn’t dare tell her.

“I won’t scold you, Willie, even though I must remind you that you are being disrespectful of the dead. You have every right to be upset over the pittance he left you after all your years of service,” Victoria went on, urging further confidences. “Even Mr. Pierre Standish—although he was extremely rude to voice his opinion aloud—said that thirty pounds was a most sorry sum.”

“It was thirty pounds more than I was expectin’, Missy,” Wilhelmina replied, flicking her cloth briskly over the seat of the chair before sitting herself down with a thump and looking her mistress straight in the eyes. Victoria suppressed the sudden urge to flee, knowing that somehow the tables had been turned and Wilhelmina was about to ask some very probing questions of her own.

“What I wants to know now, Miss Victoria, is this—how much did the cheeseparin’ old skinflint set by for you? I’ve been watchin’ you and wonderin’ what it is that’s put you so badly off your feed. You’ve been sittin’ in here day in, day out for over a week now, shufflin’ those papers back and forth from one pile to another. It’s bad news, isn’t it?”

Victoria hesitated a moment, wondering if it was exactly fair to pour out at least a part of her troubles to Willie, who could do nothing more than commiserate with her—other than to throw a few colorful curses the Professor’s way, of course—but she did feel a great need to talk to somebody.

“Well,” she began slowly, a note of bitter self-mockery in her tone, “as you must know, Willie, there existed between the Professor and myself a certain, er, want of openness while he was alive.”

“He treated you like an unpaid servant, lovin’ and trustin’ none but hisself and his useless scribblins’,” Wilhelmina cut in candidly. “Let’s call a spade a spade, Missy. There’s naught but ourselves here to listen, you know.”

Victoria lifted her head, throwing her long, slim neck and clearly defined, fragile, square jaw into prominence. “You’re right, Willie, as usual,” she said with some asperity. Then, losing a bit of her bravado, she began to ramble, hoping to change the subject. “It’s time to call a spade a spade, whatever that silly saying means, for whatever else would one call it—a flowerpot? Willie, did you ever stop to consider just how silly some of our time-honored sayings are? Like ‘right as a trivet.’ Whatever could that mean? Could it just as easily be ‘left as a trivet’? Or ‘wrong as a trivet’? After all—”

“Are we soon goin’ to be servin’ tea in the parlor to the sheriff’s officers?” Willie interrupted brusquely, not about to be sidetracked now that she had nearly gotten her mistress to the sticking point.

“You mean like Lord Barrymore did years ago, Willie?” Victoria asked, obviously still more than eager to digress from the distasteful subject of her current financial embarrassment. “I read somewhere in the Professor’s notes that Lord Barrymore was dunned so much that the sheriff’s officers seemed as much at home in his house as did his own servants.”

Wilhelmina nodded impatiently. “Yes, yes. His lordship had them dress up as servants when he was throwin’ a party. I know all about it, Missy. Us that serve know everythin’. Now stop tryin’ to twist out of it and tell me—are we rolled up?”

It was no use, Victoria decided, opening her mouth to speak. “The Professor held the purse strings entirely, of course,” she began slowly, “and I doubt even you could find anything unusual about that.”

“Not out of the way, Missy, just stupid,” Wilhelmina answered baldly. “As if there was yet a man born who knew the real cost of things—yellin’ for fresh peas in the dead of winter like I was goin’ to take m’self off out into the back garden and find ’em hangin’ on the trees.”

“But although he kept the household on quite a strict budget,” Victoria pressed on, wishing to get over this rough ground as smoothly as she could, “he always seemed to have funds enough to purchase his expensive books and his favorite tobaccos and, of course, his finely aged brandy. Oh dear, that sounded rather condemning, didn’t it?”

“He knew how to live, that he did. I’ll say that much for him,” Wilhelmina put in thoughtfully. “I can’t say I liked his choice of tailors, with the dull as ditchwater browns that he fancied for everything, but the quality was always there, wasn’t it?”

Victoria nodded her head up and down firmly, as if Willie’s confirmation of her assessment of the Professor’s finances had reinforced her own feelings. “Naturally I assumed that the Professor had some private form of income—monies invested in the Exchange, or some income from an inheritance. You know what I mean.”

Wilhelmina sat forward at attention. “But?”

“But his solicitor tells me he has no record of any such matters, and I have searched and searched this room without unearthing a single clue as to where the money came from. Even this house is rented.”

Wilhelmina’s expressive brows came together as she frowned, considering what she had just heard. “Are you tryin’ to tell me that the old bas—, um, that the Professor left you without a penny to scratch with? I can’t believe it! It doesn’t make a whit of sense, Missy.”

“Oh, there’s some money in the house,” Victoria explained hastily. “I found nearly one hundred and fifty pounds locked in a small tin box in the bottom drawer of his desk. There’s more than enough to honor the Professor’s bequests to you and Betty, and the rent for this quarter’s already been paid. If nothing else, at least I didn’t find any unpaid tradesmen’s bills.”

“So there’s naught but a hundred pounds standin’ betwixt you and the street?” Wilhelmina pursued intently, shaking her head in mingled anger and disgust. “You keep my thirty pounds. I’ve got more than enough put away that I don’t need to be takin’ the bread out of a child’s mouth. Lucky thing for old Quennel that he’s dead, let me tell you, for I’d like to strangle him with my own bare hands, and then go off to the hangman singin’!”

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