The Wicked Sister Read online

  “No,” he confessed thoughtfully. “Although it might be fun.”

  She shuddered. “It isn’t. Trust me.”

  The interested eyebrow flew up again. And then his head twitched, clearly distracted. “If you’re really hiding…” he began softly.

  But by then, she had heard it, too, the approach of footsteps across the gallery floor. Maria jumped to her feet and flew in the direction of the sofa. If she crouched behind it, she would not be seen from the door.

  Unfortunately, Gervaise was quicker and strode in when she had only just reached the sofa arm. She froze. Behind him came her mother.

  Chapter Two

  She looked like a cornered deer.

  Michael Hanson rather liked the earl’s sister. The dark beauty she shared with the rest of her family seemed, in her, to come with an unexpected nervousness, a tension that was almost haunting. And yet, she addressed him as an equal, without awkwardness or condescension. In fact, she amused him. From her innocent midnight indiscretion to her contemptuous dismissal of men—present company excepted—she was clearly not a young lady who took well to convention.

  However, he had no wish to witness her punishment. This was between her and her mother and brother. He could not protect her or interfere. Not that he expected them to beat her. In his experience, the earl, once he lost his stiffness, was easy-going and good-natured and showed an occasional lack of conventional behavior himself. His mother, on the other hand…

  “What in the world are you doing in here?” the dowager countess demanded of her daughter. “I thought you were going to your chamber?”

  “I was,” Maria exclaimed, holding up the book she had seized when she first whirled into the room. “I wanted a book to read while I rested.”

  The countess sniffed. Michael remained invisible. He was good at that.

  “Rest and read in a moment,” Lord Braithwaite said, not unkindly. “First, you had better tell us what happened at Wickenden.”

  “You already know,” Lady Maria said with a hint of defiance. “Lady Wickenden wrote to you.”

  “But what on earth were you doing on the terrace with Beauchamp in the first place?” the earl demanded.

  “I thought he wanted to talk to me,” Maria said somewhat feebly. “But he didn’t. He wanted to elope. He had his curricle waiting, even though he had never even asked me if I wished to go with him!”

  “Then how did he get the impression you did?” her mother snapped. “Because you had already indulged in clandestine meetings?”

  “No!” Maria exclaimed. “I would never—”

  “But you did,” the earl pointed out. “At midnight in the garden. Where you were seen.”

  “By that nosy old busybody—” Maria began darkly.

  “Mrs. Davenly’s character is not under discussion here,” Lord Braithwaite said with an impatient flick of his hand. “What on earth possessed you to go down there in the first place?”

  Maria paced the short distance between her mother and brother, her hands clasped tightly together in front of her. She seemed to be grinding the thumb of one hand against the palm of the other. “Nothing of importance. I wanted air. I had a headache. I thought a walk on the terrace would clear it, and then I could go to sleep. But Beauchamp was there and started all sorts of nonsense.”

  Braithwaite’s eyes narrowed with something very like fury. Michael doubted it was directed at Maria, but the girl did not know that. Her creamy skin whitened, and she spun away from him only to be brought up short by her mother.

  “What sort of nonsense?” Braithwaite demanded between his teeth.

  “Taking my hand, trying to kiss me, declaring his love while trying to drag me away to his wretched curricle.” Her voice shook.

  “What did you do?” Lady Braithwaite asked, in a very tight voice that Michael realized actually covered concern for her daughter.

  “I pulled away from him, of course!” Maria retorted. “As a lady, I knew I wasn’t meant to slap him, but I threatened him, and he looked quite bewildered. Then Mrs. Davenly came screeching out of the house along with Lady Wickenden and they all made a huge fuss. And then Lord Wickenden came and sent us all to bed, which was a great relief to me.”

  Lord Braithwaite’s shoulders relaxed with clear relief. As, oddly, did Michael’s, although he was conscious of a desire to punch the presumptuous Mr. Beauchamp on the nose.

  “Oh, Maria,” Braithwaite said in frustration. “Why did you not simply go back inside as soon as you saw he was there?”

  “I told you!” Maria exclaimed, pacing again. “I thought he wanted to talk to me.”

  “Beauchamp is an ass,” the dowager countess proclaimed. “But even he would not have prepared for an elopement without encouragement.” Her eyes narrowed. “He is not the admirer who caused you to stay with Gillie Wickenden rather than coming north with Serena last week?”

  “Of course not!” Maria exclaimed. “That was Lord—” She broke off with an impatient shrug, and Michael wondered if she had suddenly remembered his presence.

  “Lord Underwood,” her mother guessed. “Please tell me he is not aware of this folly?”

  “He was not present, if that’s what you mean,” Maria muttered.

  “Though who knows what Mrs. Davenly has told him.” The dowager countess glared at her daughter. “What a mess you are making of this, Maria! Though to be sure, I should never have come north without you.”

  “It doesn’t matter what she tells him,” Maria said tiredly. “For I have quite decided I do not wish to marry him after all. I feel like a tiresome child in his company.”

  “And so you encouraged Beauchamp instead?” Braithwaite asked, as though struggling to understand.

  “Not in the slightest!” Maria insisted, looking more hunted than ever. “He sought me out and chattered away, but I barely replied to him. I most assuredly did not encourage him!”

  “Then you wish us to believe he was trying to abduct you?” the counted demanded.

  “No!” Maria said, dashing her hand across her forehead. As she lowered it to seize her other hand again, a narrow line of blood trickled down her palm. Her family, clearly, noticed nothing.

  Michael had had enough. He stood abruptly, and three pairs of eyes swung on him with varying degrees of astonishment. Even Braithwaite seemed to have forgotten that Michael had practically lived in the library since his arrival a week ago. The countess appeared both chagrined and furious.

  Michael avoided looking at Maria as he walked around the table and approached them with a bow. “Forgive my presence. But since I cannot undo it, please allow me to voice the opinion that this supposed gentleman merely twittered at Lady Maria for so long that she stopped listening. She did not flee at first sight of him because she had not registered him as a threat.”

  He glanced at Maria who was staring at him, her haunted eyes widening. “He did waffle on all the time! Oh dear, he must have been declaring all sorts of love and other rubbish, and I merely smiled and nodded and said Oh yes at all the wrong moments.”

  Lady Braithwaite stared at Michael. “Have you met the gentleman in question? Were you present at the Wickendens’ party?”

  “Your ladyship knows that I was not,” Michael replied calmly. “But I have observed men like him before. As for false scandal spreading about Lady Maria, any fool could see she is as innocent as a kitten, and anyone attempting to make it appear otherwise would only make herself a laughing stock or worse. Especially if this so-called witness is a known busybody and gossipmonger. If Lady Wickenden stands your friend, I cannot imagine the Conway name does not rise above any malice.”

  Lady Braithwaite’s nostrils flared. Clearly, she resented his interference. “You have observed society like ours, too?” she asked sarcastically.

  “Yes,” he said baldly.

  “He’s right,” Braithwaite said, frowning. “I think the whole incident deserves no more than that I scare the wits out of Beauchamp at our next meeting. We’ll say no
more about it, Maria, except for the future, please pay attention. And…strive for some common sense?”

  Maria bowed her head, clearly desperate to get out of there. The hem of her dress trembled as though she were shaking. Then she walked out, not fleeing as Michael more than half-expected, but with some dignity. She even raised her head halfway to the door.

  Michael inclined his head to the dowager and the earl and returned to his desk. After a moment, while he picked up his pen, they followed Maria out.

  “That young man grows above himself,” Lady Braithwaite said.

  Michael imagined he was supposed to hear.

  “On the contrary,” her son replied with a mixture of amusement and appreciation, “he is proving invaluable to me.”

  *

  Michael put down his pen at six o’clock, happy with the speech against slavery he was writing for Lord Braithwaite. Of course, Braithwaite would change it to suit his own style and to appease where he needed to, but Michael had no doubt it would be made. Braithwaite was the orator Michael would never be. But Michael was also the writer Braithwaite wasn’t. They could be a good partnership, for Braithwaite was a man of sound principles with a burning desire to change things for the better.

  Of course, as far as Michael was concerned, he did not go far enough. He was, after all, an earl. But Michael would not give up on him. They’d had many interesting discussions since their first association.

  Michael made his way to his chamber, a guest room close to the earl and countess’s private apartments. It was, without doubt, the most luxurious accommodation he had ever been able to call his own, but he had quickly made it his. Not that he had brought all his books to Braithwaite Castle, where he did not expect to be beyond another week or ten days. But the history he was writing was scattered over the desk and locked away in the top drawer were his more secret projects.

  Before washing and changing for dinner, Michael worked on the next pamphlet. It was almost ready for printing. Tonight, he would investigate the possibilities of doing so in Blackhaven.

  As he buttoned his evening coat—which looked very much like his morning coat only without the mends in the elbow—he noticed that Judith had fallen on her face.

  Judith didn’t approve of likenesses, or foolish sentimentality, so he had no other portrait of her but the one his friend Kincaid had sketched. Michael had made a frame for it and kept it in his rooms, taking it with him when he traveled.

  He lifted it from among his papers and propped it back up on the desk. Kincaid had caught the seriousness of her expression, the faint frown of concentration that often looked like discontent. Judith was as eager as he to change the world, which is what had brought them together. He had never met another woman like her. They had been betrothed for a year now. Soon, hopefully, now that he had this lucrative post with Lord Braithwaite, they could be married.

  Not that Judith approved of his position. “It makes you his slave,” she had declared. “Perpetuating the same old injustice of power through birth. He is not half the man you are. Why should you work for him?”

  “Because I have rather less than half the money he has,” Michael had replied dryly. “A tiny fraction in fact! And he needs the work I can do for him.”

  “A nobleman,” she had said with revulsion. “He will despise you and use you for your talents and cast you aside when he can engage someone less expensive to do his dirty work!”

  Of course, Judith was wrong in just about everything about the earl. Although Michael himself hadn’t expected a great deal of Braithwaite—except the promised salary—he had turned out to be not only sensible, but intelligent, passionate, and almost visionary. Nothing Michael had been asked to do had gone against his principles, and he had faith that the work they did together was making a difference. Judith would come around.

  After locking his desk drawer, he left his bedchamber and made his way toward the dining room. Over the week he had been here, he had learned to time his entrance to about thirty seconds before dinner, so that he could avoid preprandial small talk in the drawing room.

  As he entered, he noticed with satisfaction that everyone was already present, including Lady Maria beside her sister Lady Torridon, and a rather dowdy, middle-aged woman he suspected was the governess of the youngest sisters.

  Michael bowed to the room in general and went toward the governess.

  “Oh, I haven’t introduced you, have I?” young Lady Braithwaite said with the attention to lesser mortals that was one of her endearing qualities. “Miss Harker, this is Mr. Hanson, who assists my husband in his many duties. Miss Harker is governess to my youngest sisters-in-law. I imagine you will meet them after dinner.”

  The banishing of the children was one of the many things Michael found strange about great households. He had been brought up with seven siblings who all ate together with their parents from the moment they could hold a spoon. It had been riotous at times, but mostly it had been fun. He wondered, unexpectedly, how much fun Lady Maria’s childhood had been. He wondered if he imagined that odd haunted look, and if the nervousness that made her dig her fingernails so hard into her palm that she bled, was brought on only by scolding.

  But as he speculated, he sat down by Miss Harker, and they briefly discussed their relative positions. Although she looked quite harassed, she seemed very fond of her charges.

  “Have you educated all the earl’s sisters?” he asked.

  “Alas, no, I have only been here for the last year. I understand there have been many governesses before that.”

  So, he could not pick her brains about Maria. Pity.

  “I imagine the young ladies were all very lively and quite a handful,” Miss Harker said tactfully and seemed to appreciate his understanding smile.

  And then it was time to go through for dinner. As usual, Hanson hung back to let everyone else precede him. Lady Maria, on Lord Torridon’s arm, was chattering away to her laughing companion, allowing Michael a glimpse of what he guessed was her usual charm and vivacity. She was breathtaking.

  He was about to follow Miss Harker, who had been called upon to settle some dispute between Lady Torridon and Lady Tamar, when Lady Maria doubled back as though she had forgotten something.

  Instead, she stood directly in front of Michael and gave him her hand. “Thank you!”

  Michael blinked. “For what?”

  “For what you said.” She smiled, depriving him of breath for the second time in the same minute.

  He remembered he was holding her slender, gloved hand and released it. “You’re welcome,” he said, and then she was gone.

  *

  With the scolding past, even if her transgression was not forgotten, Maria could finally enjoy her family reunion. She exchanged news with her sisters, cooed over their babies and Gervaise’s, and waited for her mother’s frosty glare to melt.

  Mr. Hanson had looked astonished when she had thanked him, as if he had done no more than give up his chair for her. He could not know that intervening so bravely and so effectively with Gervaise and Mama had raised him to hero status in her eyes. Only her siblings had ever defended her to the countess before, and even they had quailed. Mr. Hanson had spoken up quite calmly and matter-of-factly, as if he were not risking a rebuke of his own, and even his position.

  Intrigued, she frequently found her eyes drawn to him during dinner. He sat on the other side of the table from her, between her mother and Miss Harker. Mama, of course, never addressed a word to him, so his only conversation was with Miss Harker, who seemed perfectly comfortable with him.

  After dinner, as she followed Eleanor and the other ladies out of the drawing room, she couldn’t resist glancing back over her shoulder. Mr. Hanson had risen as though he meant to leave the other gentlemen. She suspected he always did.

  “Stay and have a glass of port, Hanson,” Gervaise said.

  Mr. Hanson hesitated, then sat back down.

  “Do you find Mr. Hanson an asset to the household?” she asked Elean
or, sitting beside her at the pianoforte. The others were deep in conversation by the fireplace.

  “Actually, yes. He is a huge help to Gervaise, which means he can be home without working. He never intrudes—Mr. Hanson, I mean—but is happy to make himself useful. I caught him sorting out some dispute between the footmen the other day.” She spread her hands across the keys and glanced up at Maria. “I hear he spoke up for you this afternoon. I suppose that is why you are curious,”

  “I suppose it is,” Maria agreed. “I didn’t expect it. And the funny thing is, I think he was right. About me not listening to Beauchamp. I honestly never heard him say anything about eloping.”

  “I know you would never consider such a thing,” Eleanor agreed. “Well, not with someone like Beauchamp, at any rate!”

  “Or anyone else,” Maria insisted. “Actually, I don’t want to marry anyone, respectably or otherwise.”

  Eleanor cast a quick glance at the dowager countess. “One fight at a time, Maria,” she murmured. She began to play a little haltingly, for she had only recently begun to learn the pianoforte. “I am sure Mr. Hanson was quite right about your not listening to him. But the thing I doubt is that you went outside because of a headache.”

  Maria met her gaze. “He was throwing stones at my window. I thought it was Alice and Helen, but you must not tell Gervaise, let alone Mama, or they will be in trouble next!”

  Eleanor said, “Maybe they should be, Maria. It’s their safety, not their… imprisonment that Gervaise wants.”

  “I know, but… Dash it, Dawn—I mean Eleanor, everyone needs a little fun. They never go without me, and we never go far.”

  “Please don’t do it at all in London,” Eleanor begged. “And as for the country, well, you already have experience of the dangers that entails.”

  Maria eyed her with a mixture of affection and resentment. “I don’t remember you always being this sensible.”

  “I led a different life to yours.”

  “Yes, you did,” Maria said thoughtfully. “Were you happy, then?”