Lady Jessamine Meriton laughed and patted her niece's hand. "With your reputation, how could he believe otherwise?"
Cecilia frowned and shook her head. "I don't know," she said. "He is an odd gentleman. His manners are languid, but something about his eyes—there is a cunning glint in their depths that makes me nervous. The man sends shivers through my body when he looks my way."
"Sir James? Well, I just hope those shivers are not a sign of a growing tendre for the man, for I tell you straight out that it is common knowledge he only courts the current catch of the season—who in turn would like to catch him!"
Cecilia again raised the lace-edged handkerchief to her lips to smother laughter. "I am well aware of that. Do not be alarmed. I have no intention of setting my cap for him. I believe it would be wise to avoid his company."
"Now you are fanciful!"
"I'm not so sure," Cecilia murmured, looking back over her shoulder.
There, at the entrance to the card room, stood Sir James Branstoke. At her regard, he cocked his head and bowed slightly. A blush rose to suffuse Cecilia's pale cheeks. For the first time in her life, she felt light-headed and dizzy—without recourse to artifice.
She turned toward Lady Amblethorp, effusively complimenting her hostess for the musicale while apologizing for leaving early, the high color tinting Cecilia's complexion giving credence to her claim of sudden, feverish ill-health.
Quickly Lady Meriton retrieved her lap desk from a chair near the door, and the two ladies departed.
Sir James Ruger Branstoke watched Mrs. Waddley and Lady Meriton take their leave of Lady Amblethorp. Idly, he wondered if anyone else noticed how beautiful Mrs. Waddley looked with a blush upon her pale cheeks or how in confusion, her deep blue eyes darkened to purple.
He smiled, his thin lips curling in sardonic amusement. Society was decidedly obtuse. Her radiant countenance showed no trace of illness. So why did she feign a sickly constitution? Branstoke didn't know, but he intended to find out.
Chapter 2
Cecilia pushed one panel of the rose-colored damask draperies to the edge of the window. Cold air trapped next to the glass panes by the heavy drapery material grazed her pale cheeks. She shivered slightly. Each warm breath she exhaled swirled visibly in the air, frosting the window. Soon she'd have to move, or the growing circle of condensation on the glass would obscure her view. She would need to move if she wished to continue to view the clear blue sky dotted with scudding, billowy clouds, to see the red clay chimney tops in contrast to the sky and the soot-streaked roofs, or to look down the street at the pale green foliage on trees and bushes. The beauty and freshness of spring, all sights Mr. Waddley enjoyed. They brought out the hidden poet in that dedicated merchant's heart.
The marriage of Mr. George Waddley, merchant, to Miss Cecilia Haukstrom, arranged by her father and brother solely for the hefty financial settlement they would gain, had not been a love match. Nonetheless, eight years of marriage had brought George Waddley and his young wife relatively close. She even came to consider the respect she held for him might be a form of love. George Waddley treated her like she was someone special, a queen in his realm. More importantly, he told her he considered her his friend. To Cecilia, that was the highest accolade he could bestow.
Her head tilted to rest against the frosted glass. She remembered how they would talk for hours—oh, how they would talk! He introduced her to the wonders of trade and the mysteries of finance. He gave her an understanding of politics and an appreciation for newspapers. Her bright mind and ready wit pleased him, he said. He told her he hadn't understood what he was doing until she came into his life.
Now he was dead. A victim, society decreed, of the teeming London underworld that owed its life to thievery. He simply walked in the wrong place at the wrong time. How trite. And oh, Cecilia knew, how wrong.
Cecilia clenched her fist around a handful of damask material. Mr. Waddley was murdered, murdered because he discovered illegal activities occurring at his warehouses and wharf. Before the night he went out, never to return, Cecilia's husband confided he had uncovered something, something that distressed him. He wouldn't say what, though she inferred some form of late-night illegal activity on his wharf. He told her he wasn't sure of his facts, and until he was, there was no profit in conjecture. His face rigid with anger and resentment, he said he hoped he was wrong about his suspicions.
Mr. Waddley had been restless that entire day. More than once, Cecilia caught him staring at her with an intense frown-pulling his shaggy brown eyebrows together. What had been behind that frown? Why couldn't Mr. Waddley be more forthcoming with her? They talked of everything else. Why his strange reticence in this matter? Did he have an inkling of her brother's involvement in the occurrences at Waddley Spice and Tea? Was he trying to save her pain at the knowledge of some nefarious dealings on her brother's part? If that were so, she wished he hadn't. The thought of Randolph's possible involvement in illegal activities was appalling but not unexpected. He was a wastrel and often vulgar—bloodlines notwithstanding. In truth, any love she bore her brother came solely from duty.
Still, as of late, Randolph had been displaying a rare attentiveness. He'd offered to act as her escort on numerous occasions. That evening he was to take her to an Italian Opera. When he'd begun extending his services as an escort, Cecilia believed his motives stemmed from a pang of belated guilt at the marriage he'd arranged for her, guilt he decided he had the luxury to indulge in since he'd become his uncle's and grandfather's heir.
Now she wondered if he harbored a different form of guilt. Try as she would to banish that thought, it insidiously wound its way through her mind, tying her beleaguered brain in knots until all she was aware of was the echo of his voice within her mind. Like a chant in time to the endless beat of a metronome, her memory replayed those hated words:Talkers are no good doers.
The strange thing about the phrase was that heard spoken it had a familiar sound like it was something she'd heard before. Her pale brow furrowed as she tried to recall where she might have heard the phrase. Unfortunately, she could not place the elusive memory. She sighed.
"Cecilia? Are you all right?"
Cecilia turned toward her aunt's concerned voice, her hand falling from the drapery to her side. "Yes, I'm all right." She smiled, and a light laugh escaped her lips. "Much better than society would have me."
Expressions of doubt and concern captured her aunt's face and that of their guest, Mr. Thornbridge, a young clerk from Waddley Spice and Tea Company who sat near her aunt. Lady Meriton pursed her lips, refraining from further comment on the subject. She elected instead to wave her niece to a seat by her side. "Come. Have a pastry with us. Cook has outdone herself."
"No, thank you. I'm not hungry," Cecilia returned instantly in habitual response. She did, however, cross the room to join her aunt on the sofa.
Lady Meriton studied her niece critically. "Yours is presently a sylph-like figure. I fear it will soon be skeletal if you persist with your current eating habits. Should that happen, those illnesses you feign may well become more real than imagined." She poured a cup of tea for Cecilia.
Cecilia laughed, accepted the cup, then patted her aunt's hand. "Should that occur, we shall have to depend on my erstwhile physician here," she said, inclining her head in Mr. David Thornbridge's direction, "to see that I recover."
Mr. Thornbridge started at his benefactress's sally, his cup rattling in its saucer. He placed the cup and saucer carefully on the inlaid table at his side. "Mrs. Waddley, I must protest," the young gentleman declared, his face suffused with embarrassed color.
"Oh, Cecilia, be serious," Lady Meriton abjured, thrusting a small plate bearing a sugared tart into her niece's hands. "Pay no attention to her, Mr. Thornbridge. My niece is as healthy as a horse and will likely remain that way, skeletal or not. I should know better than to request she eat," her aunt said while complacently watching Cecilia take a bite of the confection. "It is best to just put the food before her and allow her nervous habits to guide it to her mouth."
Cecilia paused in the act of raising the pastry to her lips. She stared at the tart, ruefully smiling."Touché, ma tante,"she murmured before taking another bite. She absently brushed sugar from her cheek. "Mr. Thornbridge, I apologize for my melancholy demeanor today."
