Truly Yours

Chapter Thirteen

He brought her hope.

Amanda felt a warmth she had not known in ages, long before the current disaster. Lord Rexford did not have to bring flowers and books. Gracious, he did not have to do anything at all. He was helping her to satisfy his father's demands, his mother's pleas. But the flowers? They must have been because he wanted to, nothing else. Charles Ashway, her onetime suitor, had sent her a bouquet after a dance, out of politeness. Rexford was not polite by any means. Ashway had never made her feel special-or atingle-not even when he came close to an offer of marriage.

Amanda wanted to throw herself into Rexford's arms, an impulse she had never felt for Ashway, not even when she contemplated accepting the offer that never came. She might have done such a hoydenish thing-her reputation was gone, what did it matter?-except the viscount was holding a gun.

Then Mr. Stamfield came home, and she did throw herself at him when he brought her parents' portraits. He turned as red as Lord Rexford's uniform coat. His lordship turned green, it appeared, scowling and tapping his cane on the floor, which made Amanda's smile grow brighter. He did care!

She propped the small paintings on Lady Royce's sitting room mantel, since Nanny refused to allow the gentlemen into Amanda's own bedroom. "Oh, you have both made me very happy! I know these are the first steps, but I was stuck in a morass, unable to move. Now we can find the owner of the gun."

The viscount stopped tapping. "What if it proves to be your stepfather's? Then the evidence still points to you. I do not want you to get your hopes too high. There is not much distinctive about the pistol. We might not be able to trace its ownership at all."

She sniffed first at the violets, then at the roses, refusing to be defeated. "But we might, and that is more than I had yesterday. And now I have the paintings, too." She lowered her eyes. "And I have friends in you, Mr. Stamfield-"

"I wish you would call me Daniel, if we are to be friends."

"Then you must call me Amanda, because I will cherish that friendship no matter what happens. And yours, Lord Rexford."

"Rex. That is what my friends call me."

The king-how fitting. Except for his swollen nose, his lordship looked regal enough for royalty, tall and strong and in command. His bearing held more authority than the foolish prince could muster, in all his medals and ribbons. "Rex." She tasted the name on her tongue, drawing out the final sibilance. "It is my pleasure to be given the privilege of first names." She had known Charles Ashway two months before they became so familiar, and then only in private.

"The pleasure is mine." Oh, how Rex wished it were, to hear his name on her lips, on his pillow. The woman was looking healthier, although she was still pale, still too thin. Jupiter, was it only yesterday that he'd pulled a limp rag out of the trash heap of Newgate? The flowers and portraits-or the gun-had brought an animation to her face that he found irresistible. The sight of her smile had rendered him near speechless. For that matter, the sight of her in Daniel's arms had made him murderous.

Daniel was grinning, so Rex gathered what wits he had after her declaration of friendship. One wrong move, he knew, and he'd be stepping into the parson's mousetrap. "Very well, we are friends. Now let us discuss our findings. Daniel, were any of the servants still at Hawley House? I have possible addresses for some who told Bow Street they were leaving."

"A stiff-rumped butler, Hareston, opened the door. Reluctantly, I might add, until I showed him a coin and Miss Carville's-Amanda's-note. A nasty piece, that one. My money is on him for the killer. He watched me every second, so I never got a chance to look for a safe or through Hawley's desk drawers."

"The safe is behind a hunting scene in Sir Frederick's office," Amanda told them, "but I do not know where the key is, or if it has a combination."

"I should have a warrant tomorrow," Rex said, "a legal writ so no one can deny us access. As soon as we have that, we can go back, and to the bank also. Who else was there besides the butler?"

"According to Hareston and another coin, Brusseau the valet left to take up a post elsewhere," Daniel said. "Hareston said he did not know with whom."

"That was fast, for a man whose last master could not give him a reference. His name is not on Bow Street's list. We'll see if we cannot discover who hired the valet. I'll put Murchison on that."

"Murchison, your valet who Nanny says does not speak?" Amanda asked.

Rex shrugged the question off. "Who else was at the house, Daniel?"

"A couple of footmen. A housekeeper."

"That would be Mrs. Petcock," Amanda explained to Rex. "She sleeps near the kitchen, so could not have heard anything."

"That's what she said, and added a few uncomplimentary words for her late employer. She is staying, she says, in hopes of being kept on when the place is rented out."

Amanda clutched the bouquet of violets tighter. "Has she heard from Edwin already then? He does not have plans to come to London?"

Amanda was disappointed, thinking her stepbrother would come to town to settle his father's affairs as soon as the funeral was over. Edwin might believe her, might help her, might give her a home with him.

"I do not think the housekeeper knows anything definite," Daniel said. "More what she wants to see happen. She hasn't been paid since the new year."

"But we had new gowns and new upholstery in the drawing room."

"The better to make a good impression on Miss Elaine Hawley's callers, I suppose. Everyone seemed in agreement that she was to marry well-not just a title but money also-to pull her father out of River Tick."

Amanda knew Sir Frederick was miserly, but she thought he had funds enough. "He had my mother's money, and my dowry, plus income from his own estate."

"Well, perhaps he kept a fortune tucked away in his safe or the bank, but he was not generous with his gold."

"No, he was never that."

Daniel suggested perhaps someone was blackmailing the baronet, bleeding him dry.

"And I frightened the extortionist away when I arrived home early," Amanda guessed.

Rex put a stop to their musings. "No blackmailer would kill his source of income. What else did you discover there, coz?"

"The butler gave me itchy feet."

"Ah."

Amanda offered to search the countess's dresser for talcum powder.

Daniel shifted in his chair. Wood creaked, so he stopped his embarrassed twitching. "You see? I'm not fit for polite company. Shouldn't have mentioned my feet."

"Or your itch," Rex added, with a narrow-eyed warning.

Amanda looked from one to the other. "But I am not missish, and we must not stand on ceremonies while discussing my case. We are friends, aren't we?"

Daniel smiled. "I knew you were a right 'un. I just felt he wasn't telling the truth. No, that he wasn't telling all of the truth. I'd wager he knows who hired that valet Brusseau in such a hurry. I never thought Sir Frederick was so well turned-out that his man should be in demand."

Rex made a note in his pad. "I'll try the butler tomorrow. Do you know if he's been paid?"

Daniel shook his head. "Not in a while. I believe he is skimming enough off the household budget to survive, but he will be below hatches if a tenant or the new owner does not arrive soon."

"What about the grooms and the footmen? Did you question any of them?"

"What do you take me for? A novice? Of course I did. The ones who were not attending the ladies at Almack's say they were all in the mews, throwing the dice. It's too far away from the house to hear a pistol shot or a solitary horseman. No one called at the house that they remembered; no one came near with a carriage or a horse needing stabling."

"Drat. Do you think they were lying, too?"

"Unfortunately, no. They knew nothing."

Amanda asked, "You are sure?"

The cousins looked at each other. "We are sure."

"But how?" she wanted to know. "People lie all the time."

"Not to us, they-" Daniel started, to be stopped with a glare from his cousin.

"It's a, uh, a scientific thing."

"It is?" Daniel and Amanda both asked.

"Yes, we made an extensive study in the Peninsula. People who he give clues. Like blinking faster, or shifting their eyes, or breathing hard. Their voices change, too."

Daniel started to rub at his ear.

Amanda was fascinated. "So you did not really torture prisoners."

"Of course not!"

Indignation cured Daniel's itch. "I would challenge anyone who claimed to my face that we did. Can't stop whispers behind our backs, but that's all it is."

"I could not see how such accusations could be true, you have been so kind. But why let the stories of cruelty last?"

Because they had not thought of the Aide's brilliant pretense of research, Rex thought. Aloud he said, "Because the rumors worked in our favor. If enemy prisoners were afraid I would slice off their, ah, ears, or Daniel would sit on them, they were more liable to tell us what we needed to know. Flashing a knife"-he pulled one from his boot in a streak of light-"or swinging Daniel's anvil-sized fists was intimidating enough. They talked. Every minute mattered when the generals were waiting to deploy our own troops or defend a position. They needed to know where the enemy was, what his plans were. If the prisoners knew, we found out."

"I did not believe anything else."

Well, she almost disbelieved the gory tales, Rex could tell from the orangish cast to her words.

"And your mother never credited a single one of the rumors."

Lady Royce knew the truth, but Rex did not wish to think about that.

Amanda was asking, "Can you show me?"

"Show you?"

"How to judge the truth."

"Hmm. The research has not been made public for national security reasons, but perhaps, since we are all friends… Look at Daniel carefully. I am going to ask him simple questions, and he is going to lie sometimes, say the truth sometimes."

"I am?"

"Yes, you are. What is your mother's given name?"

"Cora."

"There, did you see that?"

"What?"

"Watch again, more closely. Daniel, what is your mother's given name."

"C-" He saw Rex shake his head and changed his reply to Carolyn. He scratched his nose.

"Aha! You see, he blinked more."

"I must have missed it. Let me try. Daniel, what is your middle name?"

"I never tell anyone!"

Rex laughed. Amanda pleaded. Daniel looked over at his cousin who silently mouthed, "Lie."

"Ralston."

Amanda set the violets aside. "I cannot tell."

Daniel said "Good," and stopped rubbing at his nose.

Amanda turned to Rex. "Do you like me?"

"Great gods, what kind of question is that?" Rex was blinking. His voice had raised an octave. His eyes were shifting from her to a grinning Daniel to the Staffordshire dogs on the mantel.

"Yes," he croaked. "Do you like me?"

She did not hesitate, blink, or bleat. "Yes."

Blue, and Rex's heart swelled in his chest.

Amanda never knew she could be so forward. The proper young lady she'd spent twenty-two years refining seemed to have disappeared in jail. No female of breeding asked such personal questions of a gentleman she had known for two days, and without a proper introduction, to boot.

Amanda was no longer a lady in the eyes of polite society, whichever direction the trial took, so in a way she was more free to say what she thought, to think what she felt, to feel. Staring at the possibility of a sentence of death, or a short, brutal lifetime in prison, refocused one's sights. Politeness, conventions, missishness-heavens, she had no time for that nonsense.

Lord Rexford-Rex-liked her, which somehow made her less of a burden to him. She could almost believe that a wealthy, well-born gentleman might truly befriend a penniless woman of no distinction but a murder charge and a blackened reputation.

He'd brought her gifts. He'd said he liked her. The world was not entirely bleak; not when violets bloomed and honest blue eyes smiled at her.