“You have another daughter,” Rafe interrupted. “Thea, I believe is her name?”
Mr. Knight shook his head. “I do not know where we went wrong with Thea.”
“Did it never occur to you, Mr. Knight, that those men in her scandal might have lied?”
“The trouble with Thea, my lord, well, she was always up to some mischief or other, and that time she went too far. We never could make a rule but that she would find a reason to break it. But don’t concern yourself, my lord—our Helen is quite different, and she will be a credit to you. Why, when Miss Larke invited Helen to her house, we never imagined she would end up married to an earl.” His eyes brightened. “But you must dine with my wife and me tonight!”
Even if that were possible, Rafe would rather dive headfirst into a piranha-infested pond. His face must have helpfully indicated as much, for Mr. Knight actively recoiled.
“Forgive my impertinence, my lord,” he hastened to add. “I would never dream of imposing.”
“My bride and I return to my estate in Somersetshire tomorrow. We wish for complete privacy while our marriage is new.” Rafe lowered his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “For the first month, the marriage will be our secret, Mr. Knight.”
“By my buttons! A secret with my son-in-law, the earl.”
At which point, Rafe should have left, but instead said, “My solicitor desires to discuss the settlement.”
His solicitor, having not been aware of this desire, looked surprised, but Mr. Knight didn’t notice. He launched into a story of how he had set aside a portion of fifteen thousand pounds for each of his elder daughters, to be protected even if he lost his fortune again, but considering he now had only one daughter of marriageable age—and why, she had married an earl!—his lordship could have the full thirty thousand.
“Fifteen thousand will suffice,” Rafe said.
From there it was a matter of tedious paperwork, but fortunately Rafe’s solicitor took a perverse pleasure in paperwork and briskly made arrangements for receiving the funds. Back on the street, the solicitor agreed to open an account in Thea’s name, in which to deposit her dowry. Secret, Rafe insisted: The lady must not be informed of her new fortune until Rafe was ready to tell her. If she knew, she would leave, and he had to keep her close.
Close. He shook off the memory of her cradling his face. Not that close, he scolded himself, a scold he had to repeat, several times, all the way home.
Where he discovered that London had not finished torturing him yet.
William Dudley was back on the street outside Rafe’s townhouse. As he had previously, the actor wore tattered black robes and his hair was in disarray. He curled his fingers into claws as he screeched about sorcery and poisons and how the Earl of Luxborough was a demon made flesh.
A very convincing performance, Rafe had to concede. One could almost believe Dudley to be a genuine zealot, like the many other men and women who shouted their messages in market squares around the land. It was all very well for the upper classes to pride themselves on their rationality, in these oh-so-enlightened times, but in the absence of widespread education, superstitions ran deep. No wonder tales of a devil-scarred witch in the aristocracy spread faster than typhoid.
Rafe stopped right in front of him. Dudley gave him an apologetic nod, before continuing.
“Behold the evil sorcerer,” he screeched, clawing at the air. “He who rains demons down upon the innocent!”
“Heard that one before, Dudley,” Rafe said. “Haven’t you a new script?”
With a nervous glance down the empty street, Dudley dropped his voice to a normal tone. “Sorry, my lord. No time to prepare one. Lord Ventnor didn’t know you would be back in town and he sent for me in a hurry.”
“He pays you well, I hope?”
“Beware the witch! Bears he the mark of the Devil!” Dudley screamed, then, after another furtive glance, whispered, “’Tis good work, my lord. ’Tis hard for an actor these days. Especially in summer, when everyone’s out of town.”
“Everyone” being the upper classes, who escaped the city’s heat and stench for the seaside, a fashionable spa, or their country estates. Unfortunate, then, that Ventnor still skulked about town.
“If the neighbors were here, they would have tossed you in jail,” Rafe said. “Quiet it down, would you? Ventnor won’t know.”
The actor scanned the pristine street, as though the viscount lurked in a drainpipe. “Lord Ventnor knows everything. What he’d do to me if…”
“Yes, I know,” Rafe sighed, and went inside to wash off the London grime.
Rafe emerged from his bath to learn that the Bishop of Dartford was taking tea in the front parlor.
Furthermore, the butler informed him nervously, a pile of bills was growing on his lordship’s desk, which matched the pile of parcels growing in the countess’s sitting room. In the time it took the butler to explain what the countess had got up to that day, three more deliveries arrived from smart Bond Street shops: parcels for the countess, bills for him.
Clutching the bills, Rafe wandered into the front parlor, where Nicholas was seated before a plate of cakes, pouring himself tea from a floral-painted teapot, the voluminous sleeves of his bishop’s shirt billowing at his sides. He looked up, eyes twinkling over the fragrant steam, thinning gray hair a mess.
“Rafe, my boy, lovely to see you,” Nicholas said.
“You too,” Rafe replied, full of fondness for the old rascal. “What mischief are you up to now?”
The bishop beamed, the picture of pink-cheeked innocence—if innocence was a ten-year-old boy who had just put a frog in his governess’s bed.
“I don’t know why you put up with that.” Nicholas gestured with his teacup at the window, through which came the faint strains of Dudley doing his job. “Accusing people of witchcraft is against the law.”
“It’s Ventnor’s doing. If I had Dudley put in jail, Ventnor would simply replace him with someone else.”
“Dudley? Oh, that’s William Dudley, of course.” He put down his cup and crossed to peer out the window. “That’s where I recognize him from. The theatre. I saw him playing opposite Sarah Holloway. Marvelous actress. Shame she disappeared. Such splendid red hair and a wonderful pair of—”
“Nicholas.”
“—lungs.” Nicholas grinned. “You used to enjoy the theatre. Come sometime with Judith and me.”
“Maybe I will.”
“A miracle! Rafe Landcross has agreed to be sociable!”
“I agreed to go to the theatre,” Rafe corrected irritably. “Where I shall be exceedingly unsociable. I’ll not talk to a single person, and I’ll scowl so hard the actors fall off the stage.”
Chuckling, the bishop returned to his tea. Rafe lounged against the window and perused the bills, to see what Thea had bought on his account. Silver buttons. Lace handkerchiefs. Snuff boxes. All small items, very easy to resell. No, indeed, he would never make the mistake of thinking Thea Knight a fool. She would have a tidy sum when she resold this lot.
She must really need money, though, to have jeopardized her scheme like this, with the risk of anyone discovering she was not Helen. If only he could tell her that she would receive her own dowry.