The Orphan Pearl Read online

  But though their bond might be strong enough for Wilsey to call on him in his hour of need, John did not care to intrude. This pain was too private.

  “That’s probably best.”

  In the street, he tapped his hat on and debated his next move. Unpleasant tasks had to be addressed quickly. Otherwise doubts began to fester; excuses sprang up like weeds.

  But he had to be careful, too. He’d lay some groundwork by quizzing Clive, who always knew everyone’s business. He owed the duke a visit, anyhow, after the previous night’s sortie.

  The weather holding fine, John made the journey on foot and found Clive at home with his new duchess—a woman with a serene heart-shaped face and ancient eyes, her smooth skin marred by a tattoo-like blemish on her cheek.

  An interesting contrast to Clive’s blue-eyed, blond perfection.

  They sat on opposite sides of a sunny salon. She at a desk by a tall window curtained with gauze, several bottles of ink arranged around her in a semicircle. He at a sofa, elegant and spindly, upholstered in blue-gray velvet. Sheaves of paper lay on the cushions to either side and in stacks on the low table before him.

  “What did you make of Lady Lily?” Clive asked, stacking the papers in his hand atop the pile to his right.

  John sat down in a sturdy armchair. “I found her aggressively uncooperative.”

  “In general? Or with you in particular?”

  “In general.” She took delight in being uncooperative—that was a trait, not a tactic. “And perhaps just for the fun of it. I can’t see that she has any personal agenda.”

  “How do you rate your chances of success?”

  John glanced uneasily at the duchess. She looked back, mild and direct.

  “No secrets here,” said Clive. “Speak freely.”

  John shifted in his seat. “It’s hard to say. Better than zero.”

  “Then carry on.” Clive waved at the papers at his side. “If you have an opportunity, see if she knows anything about an orphan.”

  “An orphan?”

  “We have word from Constantinople that the French are in a panic about an ‘orphan girl.’ They tracked her down, then lost her, but seem to have put a great deal of manpower into the search.”

  “What kind of orphan?” John asked. “A child, I presume? Of what nationality?”

  “I don’t know,” Clive answered. “The information I have is frustratingly vague. I’ve pressed Ponsonby to pursue the matter in Constantinople, but it will be some time before I have a reply. In the meanwhile, if this ‘orphan girl’ ties into our treaty negotiation, Hastings might already have the information we seek.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Lady Lily didn’t intend to cooperate, but she clearly had a tendency to chatter. And that meant that she might let something slip. “What do you know about the Earl of Kingston?”

  Clive snorted. “Same thing everyone knows. He’s a cad.”

  “I rather like him,” countered the duchess, twisting in her seat. She draped her milky white arms over the arched back of her chair and propped her chin on clasped hands. The sun formed a halo around her thick dark curls.

  The horror on Clive’s face perfectly expressed John’s reaction to this statement.

  “I acknowledge that he can be charming—” Clive conceded.

  “That’s not it at all.” A spark of humor made the duchess’s eyes dance and the corners of her mouth curve up. Such a subtle play of emotions would be unremarkable on a more expressive woman—or on a woman like Lady Lily, who seemed to bury all her true feelings beneath effusive displays—but, on the duchess’s inscrutable face, had an air of high drama. “Have you ever known him to be charming?”

  “No,” admitted the duke.

  “Nor have I,” she said. “He isn’t ‘charming’ at all. He’s direct and abrasive, to everyone. But he’s witty, and very keen.”

  “And untruthful.” John nudged the conversation back in the direction he wanted it to go. “An unrepentant liar.”

  “No one in this room is in any position to throw stones at a man for telling lies,” said the duchess.

  John disagreed. Sometimes lying was necessary. Sometimes it was inexcusable. The vast no-man’s-land between those two extremes could be misleading, but not in Kingston’s case. John couldn’t press the point without revealing his purpose, however, so he took a different tack. “You profess affection for this man, Your Grace?”

  “I understand why people hate him.” The duchess tipped her head to the side, momentarily winsome. “But yes, I do. There’s something about him—”

  “He’s handsome,” interrupted Clive.

  She turned a sly smile on her very, very handsome husband. “That does count rather strongly against him.”

  “Do you have any idea where I’d find Kingston?” John asked.

  “He usually eats at his club,” Clive answered. “The Athenaeum.”

  “Really?” The Athenaeum was a club for artists, writers, scientists. Men of intellect. Unlike most clubs, it admitted members based on their accomplishments, not their breeding—and included women among its rolls. Not the sort of place where he’d expect a man like Kingston to find a home. “How’d he make the list?”

  “He fancies himself a patron of the arts.” Clive shrugged. “The club is in debt. It’s well-known.”

  “Would you say it’s a point of pride for him?” John asked. “Being admitted into intellectual circles?”

  Clive hesitated.

  “He is not a proud man, Mr. Ware,” said the duchess.

  “He’s vain,” countered Clive.

  The duchess nodded. “He is vain.”

  A villain who was vain but not proud. A patron of the arts. Kingston sounded like a man of little substance, obsessed by appearances. That was enough to work with, for the moment.

  “Could I trouble you for pen and ink before I go?” he asked. “I’d like to send a letter.”

  The duchess sat him down at her desk. John quickly scrawled a note. His years abroad had brought him into contact with several members of the Athenaeum Club. Of those, he judged Jack Pym most likely to offer help on short notice.

  Pym had published two books of poetry while he was at Oxford. They’d caused a sensation, but—as far as John knew—Pym hadn’t written a word since. He floated in and out of artistic circles, alternately wistful and resentful.

  John sealed the letter and gave it to Clive’s butler to post. When he returned to his London home in Belgrave Square later that afternoon, he found a reply from Pym waiting for him. A brief note offering to meet in front of the club that very day, before dinner.

  John found Pym slouched against one of the marble columns of the Athenaeum’s elaborate portico, a raised platform lined with double columns and crowned by a gilded statue of Athena. Tall and slim with overlong hair, Pym leaned against a column with his head bent over a palm-sized book bound in white leather.

  He jumped when John hailed him, concentration giving way to a broad, lopsided smile.

  “There he is! The wandering scowler, the ubiquitous hermit, the keeper of mysteries no one cares to unravel. It’s been too long.” Pym took John’s hand in a firm grip, clapping his other around John’s forearm and squeezing firmly. “What brings you to London? Who pried you out of your country burrow? I’d like to send him a note of thanks. Perhaps a gift—would brandy be appropriate?”

  “You know, Pym, you’re the only person I’m ashamed to tell.” John returned the rough embrace. “It was Swann—I mean Clive. He’s a duke now.”

  “You ought to be ashamed.” Pym waved for John to accompany him inside. “Didn’t he kick you hard enough the last time? You were shitting your own teeth before he was done with you.”

  “He offered to have me reinstated as a consul.”

  Pym whistled low. “Bastard.”

  “He knows how to bait his hooks,” John agreed.

  They passed through the lobby and into the grand hall. John drifted toward the doors to the Coffee
Room, not much occupied at this early hour, and the diners that he saw were older than Kingston. John pointed to the staircase. “Drawing room?”

  “If Clive wants you in London, it must have something to do with the upstart in Egypt,” said Pym, as they took the steps side by side.

  “Many a great dynasty begins with an upstart,” John dodged, as they crossed the landing.

  The drawing room faced the street. Sunlight streamed onto a polished wood floor, chandeliers glowed overhead. Chairs and sofas were positioned to catch the most light, overflowing bookcases to shelter from it.

  John spotted Kingston immediately. He was hard to mistake, with his distinctive looks. Very tall, very lean, with a tumble of jet-black hair and compelling angular features. The young earl paced along the wall, walking right toward them, a book in one hand and most of his attention turned to the shelves, scanning titles as he passed.

  “Mehmet Ali,” continued Pym. “Bit of a Brutus, isn’t he, turning on the king who made him?”

  “You could say that.” John stepped out of the way as Kingston passed and turned to follow.

  “I could.” Pym kept pace as they trailed Kingston through the drawing room toward the South Library. “But you wouldn’t?”

  “Only a poet would parse it so fine,” muttered John.

  “If you’d rather I don’t read between the lines, Ware, you’ll have to start answering me in complete sentences.”

  “If you prefer. You’re quite right, of course.” John scanned the library. Built-in shelving crammed with books spanned all four walls from floor to ceiling—an impressive distance, too. A pair of catwalks braceleted the room, reached by a thin spiral stair, to give access to the upper shelves.

  Kingston had paused by the table, hands splayed across the back of an empty wooden chair. He stared into space, head slightly cocked—eavesdropping on the trio of men clumped in the corner.

  “Mehmet Ali started out as a small tobacco dealer in Macedonia. A nobody from nowhere, and he would have stayed that way, if not for the Ottoman army and the Sultan who raised him high.”

  “Then what—”

  John held up his hand to cut Pym short. One of the three men in the corner had just said Lady Lily’s name.

  “I thought she was dead?” said one of the others, ruddy and hale, only just beginning to run to fat.

  “So had I,” chimed in the last, short and mustachioed.

  “All felicity to the family, but I’m sorry to hear she’s turned up at last.” The speaker, tall and thin with a balding pate, was the first to have mentioned Lady Lily. “I hate to ruin the last image I have of her.”

  Mustache sounded very nearly breathless when he said, “Were you there, when she—”

  “At the Heaven and Hell Ball,” confirmed tall and thin. “I’ll never forget it.”

  “Ladies so rarely improve with age,” drawled the ruddy one.

  “And that lady in particular—the wild ones wear the fastest,” said tall and thin.

  John almost corrected him. No, he wanted to say, she’s fresh as new milk. Lively and… untarnished.

  But then he wondered. What had she done to get such a reputation? What sort of ball would put a light in a grown man’s eye, years after the fact?

  And he couldn’t speak. He could only imagine her, round-cheeked and unseasoned, but still with that carefree laugh. And her smile—that last one—bright as a bonfire on May Day, with the same primal appeal.

  A hot, sick shiver skittered down his spine. What had these men seen, what did they know, that he didn’t?

  “Ware?” said Pym. “Are you all right?”

  “Sorry,” John replied, grateful for the interruption. “I was just…”

  Kingston had vanished.

  John retraced his steps, but the earl had left the Drawing Room, as well.

  “Damn and blast,” he swore.

  “Are you going to explain what just happened?” Pym asked.

  “No,” John said shortly. “But I’ll stand you dinner.”

  Pym flashed a lopsided grin. “That’ll do.”

  Chapter Five

  Her father had not told her that the theater would be grand. When she stepped out of the Hastings carriage, she had to stand on the very edge of the pavement to see the whole facade, styled in imitation of a Greek temple. A row of stone arches framed doors of polished wood, all of them shut.

  Well, what had she expected? It wasn’t yet noon.

  Lily circled around to the back of the building, as plain as the front had been imposing. But the street was clean, swept clear of debris, and a wedge of cracked wood propped open the sole door in the exterior wall.

  When Lily peeked inside, she saw a narrow stairwell and a young man polishing the wooden banister. By the smell of it, he’d soaked the rag in his hand with lemon oil.

  “I’m looking for Lord Bexley?” Lily hovered on the stoop. “Do you know where I might find him?”

  “This way.” The young man waved her into the stairwell and led the way up several flights of narrow stairs to a securely bolted door. The stout wood thudded dully when the young man knocked, and then, when they heard footsteps approaching from the other side, he skipped back down the stairs.

  One of the most beautiful women Lily had ever seen opened the door. Petite, poised, with thick dark hair coiled in a crown atop her head and full petal-pink lips parted in an automatic smile. She wore a dressing gown of red-and-gold brocade, cut for a man and oversized, with little heeled slippers but no stockings.

  “You must be Lady Lily!” exclaimed this exquisite creature. “You look just like your brother.”

  Lily blinked. “I do?”

  “I suppose you haven’t seen him in a while, have you? We should fix that.” Her almond-shaped dark eyes twinkled with easy humor and she swung the door wider. “Why don’t you come in? I’m Caroline, Lady Bexley—if you have any interest in being sisters, I invite you to call me Caro.”

  “You’re Adam’s wife?”

  Lily followed Caro down a short hallway into a spacious sitting room full of mismatched furniture, pots of fresh flowers scattered about to scent the air, and paintings crowding the walls. A canary sang from a cage by the window.

  Her brother lived here?

  Her staid, responsible brother—always the good sibling, and she the bad—her father’s obedient, well-mannered little doppelgänger.

  “Not what you expected?” asked Caro.

  “To be frank, no. Not at all.” Lily touched the young woman’s shoulder, to soften her bluntness. Her new sister-in-law was really rather extremely short. “It appears I underestimated him.”

  “Mother of God,” bit out a deep, male voice.

  Lily turned toward the sound and laid eyes on her brother for the first time in a decade. He’d grown into a great strapping beast of a man, handsome, confident—all his early promise realized. More. He had a proud bearing but he’d lost the grim self-control that had marked him, in ways that went well beyond the physical, as his father’s son.

  He’d broken free.

  Not like she’d done. Not so dramatic, not so frantic. But he’d found a way.

  “Did you just swear in mixed company?” Lily swiped tears from her eyes. Gracious, her cheeks were drenched. “Who stole my brother and put a changeling in his place?”

  “And I was ready to accuse you of being an impostor. You’ve beaten me to it.” Adam advanced a step, his expression awestruck. “I didn’t believe it, but it’s true. Lily, you’re alive.”

  Lily threw herself at her brother. Wrapped her arms around him and held on as tightly as she’d ever gripped anything in her life. Underneath his smooth tailoring, he was all muscle and sinew. It was like hugging a statue, no give at all.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered into his ear. “I am so sorry.”

  And then he was crying, too, his arms a vise around her ribs, and they all pretended not to see until he’d mastered himself again.

  “What happened to you?�
�� Adam held her at arm’s length, his eyes red-rimmed but warm. Her throat closed again. “I looked for months. You disappeared into thin air.”

  “Oh, well—I had to be clever about it, didn’t I?” Lily tried to smile and failed. “I can only imagine how awful things would have been if I’d tried to run away and been caught.”

  “So you really did run?” Caro asked. She drifted to Adam’s side and slipped her hand around his elbow. Like a wife. Heavens. Adam was married. She had expected as much, but to see the way they formed a barricade against outsiders just by touching one another. The silent communication that passed between them, so quickly she couldn’t glean anything from it.

  She’d had that, not so long ago. Rustem had tried so hard to understand her. In the early days, she hadn’t spoken a word of his language, an odd Turkish dialect incomprehensible to anyone from more than one hundred miles away. While she struggled to adjust to a new world and a new life, he’d focused on her alone. He’d learned to read her so well that he could respond to her desires before she even had them.

  “Some people feared you were kidnapped,” Caro said.

  “Oh, yes.” Jerked out of her memories, Lily began to chatter. “I planned it very carefully, actually. Visited during the pilgrimage season—that was the key—so that once I reached the streets I’d be able to leave the city quickly, without being noticed. I offered to take a pair of street children to Mecca, if they’d pretend I was their mother along the way. I bought a set of clothes, they showed me how to wrap the veil, and we traveled together all the way to Damascus.”

  “Bloody hell, Lily,” Adam swore. “I can’t believe you took such a risk… You’re lucky to have survived.”

  Lily blushed. “I shouldn’t be so proud of myself. I knew you’d suffer, and that was the only thing I really regretted.”

  At least, it had been when she’d gone out the window of their hotel. Later, on her way east, she’d had time to regret all kinds of things. But that had been pure self-indulgence. Adam she had hurt.