A Delicate Deception Read online

  Letting the house quite literally rot had never been his intention. In the immediate aftermath of grief he hadn’t had the wherewithal to do anything with it, and then he had been busy doing the work of two men. But allowing an entire house to sink into the earth was nothing if not a waste, and Sydney hadn’t been raised to waste so much as a crust of bread, let alone an entire house. He could sell the place, if that didn’t feel like a grossly presumptuous thing for him to do, considering his manner of inheriting it. He could let it, he supposed, and take the money and . . . add it to all the other money he couldn’t bring himself to touch, the rest of that sum that had passed from Penny to Andrew to him. He could hand the whole thing over to Lex, who had at least a greater emotional claim to the place than Sydney did. Maybe that was what Lex had summoned him for—a plan to take the house off Sydney’s hands. If Lex ever arrived, he would be sure to ask.

  The next evening as Sydney returned to Pelham Hall after having supper at the inn, he passed a chaise and four heading in the opposite direction. He could think of only one reason for this, so he doubled his pace. When he reached the front door he all but threw it open.

  There, seated on an overturned barrel in what had once been the manor’s great hall, sat the Duke of Hereford. For one instant Sydney felt nothing but the purest relief that his friend was alive and well. But soon enough that passed and he recalled how long he had been waiting.

  “Fifty miles, Lex. I traveled fifty miles to wait in a pile of rubble for over a week. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead or hoaxing me.”

  “You make it sound as if you walked the distance in your bare feet.” Lex took a puff from a cigarillo, letting the ashes fall to the bare flagstone floor. “You probably took the stagecoach, because we both know you’re too stingy to pay for a post chaise.”

  “Lex.” Sydney tried again, summoning whatever scraps of patience he had left. “I need to return to my post. Not everyone can be as indolent as you.”

  Lex made a moue of distaste. “Surely they finished with that canal by now.”

  “One, it was a railway. Two, when it was finished, I started work on another railway. That is how employment works. One keeps working and earning one’s living.”

  “So tedious.” Lex crossed his legs and bounced one foot over the other. There was neither fire nor lamplight, and the windows were covered in ivy, so Lex’s face was obscured by shadows. Still, Sydney could see streaks of silver in Lex’s formerly dark hair. Sydney hadn’t been the only one to lose a sibling that night: Sydney had lost Andrew, but Lex had lost his only sister. And since Sydney had last seen him, Lex’s father and his only surviving brother had died, making Lex the duke, but also an orphan.

  Sydney paced the length of the room. “Tell me why you sent for me. I’ve imagined every distressing scenario, so please put me out of my misery.”

  “I’m trying to make this interesting for you,” Lex said peevishly. “Don’t make me hurry my tale.”

  “Tell me this isn’t some misbegotten attempt to get me back into your bed,” Sydney said, more to provoke Lex than out of any concern that this might be true.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” Lex said. “If I needed someone in my bed that badly, I could find a willing volunteer nearer than Liverpool.”

  “Manchester,” Sydney said.

  “As you say,” Lex said with a shrug, plainly not caring much for a geography lesson. Or for accuracy. Or for Sydney’s patience. “In any event, I had to bend the truth a bit to ensure that you came. And I couldn’t exactly write down the facts of the matter, in case the letter got intercepted.”

  “Are we spies now? How thrilling.”

  “Oh, my dear boy, I wish it were as easy as that. What we are is parents. Leontine, darling,” he called. “Come here.”

  A child of about five years walked into the room, fixing Sydney with a bright smile. She had golden hair and a ruffled dress and a profile he would know anywhere. It was too dark to see much of the child’s face, but when she stepped into the solitary beam of sunlight that made its way through a crack in the dirty windowpane, Sydney had all the proof he needed.

  “How?” he managed, his voice hoarse and his eyes swimming with unshed tears.

  “This charming parcel was delivered to Hereford House with a note explaining that she’s Andrew’s natural child,” Lex said, dry as dust.

  “Her mother?” He could not think of where they had been—he looked at the child, trying to calculate her age—five or six years ago. London, for a few months, then Durham. “When is your birthday?” he asked the child, kneeling in front of her.

  “She doesn’t speak English. Or if she does, she’s being dashed stubborn about it. Try French.”

  “Comment vous appelez-vous?” he asked, certain he had bungled his pronunciation. The child tilted her head uncomprehendingly. He had probably said something unforgivably insulting. Andrew had always done the talking when they had been overseas. He had done the talking everywhere they went, for that matter; he had been the one who knew how to make himself liked and understood. Looking at this child, Andrew’s daughter, Sydney felt a fresh surge of grief.

  “It’s Leontine,” Lex said.

  “Bonjour, Leontine. Bienvenue.” That much he could remember. The child smiled at him when she heard her name. He looked around the room for something to occupy her. He had not had anything to do with small children since Andrew had been this age and he had only been two years older. Sydney was grateful that he had, at least, swept the room clear of anything sharp or dangerous, except for a couple of workmen’s tools in the corner. But he had also removed anything that could reasonably be played with. He took his watch from his pocket, dimly aware that babies were apparently amused by the ticking sound. She was not a baby, but perhaps the principle would hold. She took the object eagerly.

  “A French mother,” he said aloud. That, unfortunately, did not narrow down the field. He remembered the months they had spent in Flanders working on a bridge. “Who brought her to you?”

  “She was left on my doorstep like a jug of milk. The note said her name was Leontine, her father was Andrew Goddard, and her mother and aunts died of typhus. I assume mothers and aunts are euphemisms for residents of the bawdy house where the child undoubtedly was conceived.”

  Knowing Andrew’s proclivities, that was entirely likely. For all his talk of sex not being a sin if it was mutually respectful, he had found a vast quantity of women to mutually respect. “Why did they bring her to you? You don’t just sail across bodies of water and deliver children to the nearest duke.”

  “How the devil do you expect me to know what goes through the minds of French brothel keepers? I expect they were looking for Andrew, found he was dead, and decided his brother-in-law would do just as well.”

  “Good God.” Sydney could only imagine how distressing it must have been for Lex to be reminded of his loss and burdened with a child all at once.

  “Quite,” Lex said tightly.

  “All right,” Sydney said, trying to collect himself. “I’ll bring her back to Manchester presently. I’ll engage a nurse and housekeeper. And I’ll need to hire a house.” He could hardly bring the child back to his bachelor lodgings.

  “She’s not going anywhere,” Lex snapped, and it was the first time his mask of cool indifference slipped that day.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “She was sick all over my trousers, my carriage, and my valet a dozen times in the past week. That’s what took us so long to get here. I didn’t want the creature to expire. And to be perfectly clear, I’m quite done in as well. I’m staying here until I recover my senses, or until the damp brings the sweet release of death, whichever comes first. In any event, Sydney, you’ll be pleased to know that Carter already made up a bed for me in what he assures me is a room with four solid walls and a ceiling. I didn’t ask about the status of the floor but trust his judgment implicitly. He’s gone to the village to find a girl to take after our, eh, niece. It’s a pi
ty the house is barely habitable, though.”

  “Nobody told you to attempt to inhabit it,” Sydney said. “I would have come to you in London. We could have gone to any of your properties. We could have stayed at an inn.”

  “No, we couldn’t,” Lex said. “I needed you to meet the child in private, because I didn’t know what you’d want to do about her.”

  The child in question was, at the moment, sitting contentedly on the dusty flagstone floor studying Sydney’s watch and comparing its time with that of an elderly longcase clock. The latter refused to settle upon a proper number of minutes per hour no matter how diligently Sydney tinkered with its workings.

  “What on earth did you imagine I’d want to do?” Sydney asked, peeved. “Hide her in a convent? She’s quite plainly my brother’s child.”

  “Is she?” Lex asked softly.

  “What do you mean, is she? I know it’s been a while but surely you remember what Andrew looked like.”

  “Of course I remember,” Lex said. “But I can’t see her, you idiot. Can’t see much of anything.”

  Sydney took note of the cane that was propped up against Lex’s leg. And he realized Lex hadn’t once turned his head towards Sydney during the entire time they had been speaking. “Not from the fire,” he said. Sydney had been in Durham when the fire broke out, and so a week had passed before he learned that his brother and sister-in-law were dead and his friend insensible after having been hit by a falling beam during his attempt to rescue them.

  “Yes, of course from the fire. And I’m not completely blind. I can see light and sometimes movement, but not enough to identify whether a French urchin is related to my brother-in-law. In any event, I’ve gotten quite used to it and I find pity excessively boring, so save it. Besides, even if I had known that she was Andrew’s, I still didn’t know if you’d want the world made aware of her existence. You know perfectly well that a good many people won’t have anything to do with their baseborn relations. To be honest, I don’t know what to think of you since Andrew died. You certainly don’t want anything to do with me.”

  This was simply too much. “You never wrote back! I wrote you six letters, and your secretary responded to each and every one of them.”

  “Because I can no longer read, you imbecile. And having my secretary read aloud letters from a former lover is rather lowering, not to mention a wonderful way to find oneself in the stocks.”

  “But I didn’t know you had lost your sight!” Sydney said, so exasperated he hardly registered that Leontine had found a small fire iron and was using it to pry open the casement of the broken clock.

  “You would have if you had visited. And don’t tell me you never go to London. I’m quite aware that you testified before Parliament about steam or some such thing.”

  “Lounging around a ducal palace is not my idea of a good time, Lex. That much hasn’t changed in the past two years.” That had, in fact, been one of the many reasons their brief liaison had never become anything more. Sydney had needed to do things, to build things, to work, and Lex had been unapologetically idle and profligate. Sydney wanted no part of that world.

  “As arrogant as ever, I see,” Lex sniffed.

  “I, arrogant? This from you, of all people.”

  “You don’t need to be a duke to be arrogant.”

  “It certainly seems to help,” Sydney retorted.

  “Arrogant and rude. What would your mother say?”

  The thought of what his mother would say was enough to make his mouth twitch into the beginnings of a smile. “She’d urge you to forsake Mammon and cast your sights heavenward,” he lied. What she would actually do was attempt to persuade Lex to sign some kind of petition about mill workers, then leave with a hefty subscription to one of her favorite charities.

  “She’d think I was charming.” Lex buffed his fingernails on his lapel.

  That was probably true, blast it. But the thought of his mother reminded him that this child was not only Andrew’s child and Sydney’s own niece, but his parents’ only grandchild. And Sydney was the only living relation she had this side of the Atlantic. Leontine was the very spit of Andrew, from her golden curls to her apparent unconcern for things like not taking crowbars to clock cases. Just looking at her made Sydney’s heart twist in a peculiar way.

  He took a deep breath. He would not be cross with Lex for having dragged him to this place, because now he could give Andrew’s child a good life. Not only was this what Andrew would have wanted, what Andrew would have done if he had been alive, but it was Sydney’s duty. This time at Pelham Hall was a necessary evil, a pause on his way to righting wrongs and doing what was needful. He could do that.

  The fact that this would give him time for more morning rambles with Amelia did not figure whatsoever into his complacency, he decided.

  When Amelia set out the next morning at her usual time, she rather hoped to find Sydney waiting for her. That was a stupid thought, because she hadn’t asked him to walk with her again, and she couldn’t very well expect him to read her mind.

  But there he was, leaning against the gatepost. “If you don’t want company on your walk, I’ll head in the other direction,” he said. “But I thought you might need protection against any vicars’ wives. No hard feelings whatsoever if you’d rather be alone.”

  Amelia chose not to investigate the surge of happy nervousness that raced through her. “I packed an extra sandwich,” she said, lifting her basket.

  “I brought a sack of plums. We’ll have a feast. In what direction are we walking?” Nan arrived then and gave Sydney her customary greeting, which was a cautious sniff followed by a rather halfhearted growl.

  With this, they established a pattern of walking out together every morning. He waited for her by the gatepost, and they each brought food to share. If Amelia were being honest with herself, she had seldom more enjoyed spending time with anyone. Even years ago, before company had started to feel like a burden, she didn’t think she had liked anyone quite this much. She tried not to think too much about what this might portend.

  “Your walks have gotten much longer,” Georgiana observed after a few days. “Sometimes you aren’t back until noon.”

  “The weather’s too lovely to waste indoors,” Amelia said.

  “Amelia, I’ve known you over ten years and you’ve never said such a thing in that entire time. You spent all of last summer holed up in your writing room and didn’t seem to regret one minute of wasted sunshine.”

  Amelia busied herself in unlacing her boots. “I’ve been walking with a land surveyor,” she admitted, not sure why it felt like a confession. A week ago she would have told Georgiana everything, from how near she had come to kissing him to the way he looked without his coat on. But now whatever existed between her and Sydney felt fragile, as if she might ruin it if she tried to assign it a name.

  “A land surveyor?” Georgiana asked. “Have you taken an interest in geography?”

  “I’ve, rather, um, taken an interest in the surveyor.”

  Georgiana’s eyes and mouth both rounded comically. “Well. You’re being careful?”

  Had Amelia been less skilled in masking her emotions, she would have flushed bright red. “There’s no need.”

  “That’s what you think,” Georgiana said darkly. “Men.”

  “He seems to be a decent man.”

  “Decent men still have penises,” Georgiana intoned. “And probably entirely misguided notions of what they ought to do with them.” Georgiana herself was perfectly indifferent to the charms of men and women alike.

  The next morning Sydney wasn’t at the gate. Amelia waited, unsure of whether he was late or if he had chosen not to come. Or perhaps he had gone back to Manchester. It had been nearly two weeks since she had first seen him, which surely was enough time to do whatever it was he was doing. Come to think, wasn’t it a bit peculiar that he never seemed to have any maps or charts with him? Surveyors tended to have an assortment of tools, as well, and he nev
er carried anything more than a satchel with his midday meal.

  But then she saw him rounding the bend, and she didn’t make any effort to conceal the smile that broke across her face.

  “Good morning, Amelia,” he said, smiling in return.

  They grinned at one another, standing too close, looking too long. If she tipped her head up and rose to her toes, they’d already be kissing, and she didn’t quite know why they weren’t. “I thought you might not come today.”

  “I was up late last night patching a leak in the roof.”

  “At the Swan? I hope the landlord doesn’t regularly ask you to do that sort of thing.”

  “No, no,” he reassured her, but a flicker of unease crossed his brow. “Nothing like that.”

  He had purplish circles under his eyes, speaking to his lack of sleep, and his hair was adorably rumpled on one side. “Sydney, did you only now roll out of bed? You have a crease from your pillow still on your cheek.” Laughing, she reached up and touched the red line with her thumb, tracing it from the warmth of his cheek to where it disappeared into his beard. “Lazy lie-abed. It’s several whole minutes past dawn.”

  He huffed out a laugh. His skin was warm. She hadn’t put gloves on and she was glad of it, because she could feel his skin and the bristles of his beard. He grasped her wrist in one big hand. At first she thought he meant to stop her from touching him, but instead he held her wrist still, almost pressing his cheek into her touch. Then he took a second glance at her hand.

  “What happened to you? Did you overturn an inkwell onto yourself?” He held her hand carefully, his thumb moving over the pattern of ink blots on her palm.

  “I got extremely upset with Edmund Tudor and broke a pen. The results are what you see before you.”

  He blinked. “I see,” he said in a tone that indicated he definitely did not see, but was determined not to act as if anything she said was bizarre or required explanation. She felt a surge of affection.