Mary Balogh - Slightly Wicked

“Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, your grace,” he announced. His eyes had alit on Judith downstairs for one brief moment but had not drifted her way since.

Horror of horrors, Judith saw as she was led through the doors, the room had more than one occupant.

There were four to be exact, two men and two women.

“Ralf, old fellow,” one of the men said, jumping immediately to his feet, “are you back already? Did you escape Grandmama’s clutches intact yet again?” He stopped abruptly when he saw Judith.

He was a tall, slender, dark, remarkably handsome young man, only his prominent nose identifying him as Rannulf’s brother. One of the ladies, a very young, very beautiful one, looked very much like him. The other lady was fair, like Rannulf, with long, curly hair worn loose. Like him she was dark-complexioned and dark-browed and big-nosed.

They were fleeting impressions. Judith studiously kept her eyes from the other man, who was just then rising to his feet. Even without looking at him she could sense that he was the duke.

“Rannulf?” he said with soft hauteur, sending shivers of apprehension along Judith’s spine.

She looked at him to find that he was looking directly back at her, his eyebrows raised, a quizzing glass in one long-fingered hand and half raised to his eye. He was dark and slender like the younger brother, with the family nose and eyes of such a pale gray that it might be more accurate to describe them as silver. His face was cold and haughty, apparently without any humanity. He looked, in fact, much as Judith had expected him to look. He was, after all, the Duke of Bewcastle.

“I have the honor of presenting Miss Judith Law,” Rannulf said, his hand tightening about her elbow.

“My sisters, Miss Law—Freyja and Morgan. And my brothers, Bewcastle and Alleyne.”

The ladies looked at her with haughty disdain, Judith thought as she curtsied. The younger brother was looking her over slowly with pursed lips, obvious appreciation in his eyes.

“Miss Law,” he said. “This is a pleasure.”

“Ma’am,” the duke said more distantly. His eyes had moved to his brother. “Doubtless you left Miss Law’s maid downstairs, Rannulf?”

“There is no such person,” Rannulf said, releasing her arm. “Miss Law ran away from Harewood Grange near Grandmaison after being accused of robbing her own grandmother, and I rode after her.

We have to find her brother, who may have the jewels but probably does not. In the meantime she must stay here. I am delighted to find that Freyja and Morgan have come up from Lindsey Hall so that I don’t have to take her to Aunt Rochester’s.”

“Oh, I say,” Lord Alleyne said. “Cloak and dagger stuff, Ralf? How splendid!”

“Miss Law,” the Duke of Bewcastle said, his voice so soft and cold that she was surprised the air did not freeze into icicles about his head, “welcome to Bedwyn House.”

“Doubtless,” Wulfric, Duke of Bewcastle said, one hand spread elegantly about the bowl of his brandy glass, the other loosely holding the handle of his quizzing glass, “you are about to explain, Rannulf, why I am playing host to a suspected jewel thief, who also happens to be young, female, and unchaperoned?”

“And also well above the ordinary in the looks department,” Alleyne added, grinning. “There you probably have explanation enough, Wulf.”

Bewcastle had invited Rannulf to follow him to the library after the housekeeper had been summoned to show Judith to a guest room. Such invitations were rarely issued for purely social purposes. Alleyne had come along too, uninvited. His eldest brother ignored him now and focused his languid attention on Rannulf—though the pose was deceptive. He was, as usual, keen-eyed.

“She is Judith Law, niece of Sir George Effingham, Grandmama’s neighbor,” Rannulf explained. “She was living there at Harewood Grange as a sort of companion to Lady Effingham’s mother, her own grandmother. There has been a house party there for the past two weeks. Miss Law’s brother was a guest—a young jackanapes who lives a life of expensive idleness, well beyond the means provided him by his father, a country rector. My guess is that the family is very close to being ruined.”

“Miss Law, then,” Wulfric said after sipping his brandy, “was a poor relation at Harewood. Her brother is up to his neck in debt. And their grandmother owns—or owned— expensive jewels.”

“They disappeared during a ball,” Rannulf said. “So did Branwell Law. And one piece of jewelry as well as an empty velvet bag that usually held the most expensive jewels were found in Miss Law’s room.”

“Incriminating indeed,” Wulfric said softly, raising his eyebrows.

“Too incriminating,” Rannulf said. “Even the rawest of amateurs could have done better.”

“Oh, I say,” Alleyne said cheerfully, “someone set them up for a fall. Some dastardly villain. Do you have any idea who, Ralf?”

The duke turned toward him, his glass halfway to his eye. “We will not turn this into a farcical melodrama if you please, Alleyne,” he said.

“But he is almost right,” Rannulf told him. “Horace Effingham, Sir George’s son, tried to force himself on Miss Law during a garden party at Grandmaison a week or so ago. He would have succeeded too if I had not happened along just in time and given him a bit of a thrashing. On the night of the ball he attempted revenge by almost trapping me into compromising his sister and being forced to offer for her—Miss Law saved me from that fate. It was during the same ball that young Law abruptly left Harewood and Mrs. Law’s jewels disappeared.”

“Splendid stuff,” Alleyne said. “And while all that excitement was going on in Leicestershire, I have been stuck here shepherding Morgan about to see all the famous sights.”

Wulfric had released his hold on his quizzing glass. He was pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and middle finger, his eyes closed.

“And so Miss Law ran away and you followed after,” he said. “When was that, Rannulf?”

“Yesterday,” his brother said.

“Ah.” Wulfric removed his hand and opened his eyes. “And dare one ask where you stayed last night?”

“At a posting inn.” Rannulf’s eyes narrowed. “Look, Wulf, if this is an interrogation into my—”

His brother held up his hand and Rannulf fell silent. One tended to do that with Wulf, he thought, irritated with himself. A single gesture—even the simple raising of an eyebrow would do it—and Bewcastle commanded his world.

“You have not considered,” Wulfric asked, “the possibility of a clever trap, Rannulf? That perhaps the lady is poor, greedy, and ambitious?”

“If you have any other observations of that nature,” Rannulf said, sitting forward in his chair, his hands on the arms, “you had better keep them to yourself, Wulf, if you do not want to be looking for your teeth a moment after.”

“Oh, bravo!” Alleyne exclaimed admiringly.

Wulfric merely curled his fingers lightly about the handle of his quizzing glass and raised his eyebrows.

“I take it,” he said, “that you are enamored of the lady? The daughter of an impoverished, soon to be ruined, country clergyman? Red hair and certain, ah, generous endowments have turned your head?

Infatuation does tend to have a blinding effect on the rational mind, Rannulf. Can you be quite sure you have not been so blinded?”

“Horace Effingham volunteered to pursue the Laws to London,” Rannulf said. “My guess is that apprehending them will not be good enough for him. He will want to find evidence that will prove beyond all doubt that they are the thieves.”

“If he intends to plant it, we will thwart him,” Alleyne said. “I know him by sight, Ralf—a toothy, oily individual, right? I am delighted to discover that he is a villainous cur. I say, life has brightened considerably since this morning.”

Wulfric was pinching the bridge of his nose again.

“What I need to do,” Rannulf said, “is find Branwell Law. I doubt he is in his rooms at this time of day.

He is more likely out somewhere trying to make his fortune on the turn of a card. But I’ll go around there anyway to see.”

“That is what servants are for,” Wulfric said. “It is almost dinnertime, Rannulf. Miss Law will doubtless feel even more uncomfortable than she did earlier if you are absent from the table. I will have a servant sent around, and if he is at home, you may go there in person later.”

“She is determined to go there herself,” Rannulf said.

“Then she must be dissuaded from doing so,” Wulfric said. “How is our grandmother?”

Rannulf sat back in his chair. “Dying,” he said.

Both his brothers gave him their full attention.

“She will not talk about it,” he said. “She is as elegant, as independent, as active as ever. But she is clearly very ill indeed. Dying, in fact.”

“You did not speak with her physician?” Wulfric asked.

Rannulf shook his head. “It would have been an invasion of her privacy.”

“Poor Grandmama,” Alleyne said. “She has always seemed immortal.”

“This business with Miss Law, then,” Wulfric said, “must be cleared up without delay. Our grandmother will need you back there at Grandmaison, Rannulf. And I will want to see her once more. The bride she has chosen for you is perhaps the Miss Effingham you referred to? The family is of respectable, though not brilliant, lineage.”

“She has changed her mind,” Rannulf said. “Grandmama, I mean. And she knew I was coming after Judith.”

“Judith?” his brother said softly, his eyebrows rising again. “Our grandmother approves of her?