Page 57 of Seduced By a Scoundrel

Chapter Thirteen

Mrs. Copperwhite’s musicale was worse than Sybil could have predicted.

So much worse.

Mrs. Farraway was a cantankerous old woman who enjoyed having people do her bidding. She was snobbish and often cruel.

But also useful.

Because she was Mrs. Copperwhite’s godmother and therefore invited to every musicale. And as Miss Copperwhite was in possession of a number of love letters written to her brother from a Lady Venetia, Sybil also needed to be in attendance. Lady Venetia, who did not wish to be ruined or married to a man who sought to blackmail her into a wedding. And yet she was the one Society would brand unreasonable and solely culpable. As if she was the only one writing racy, scandalous letters. As if Mr. Copperwhite had not replied in kind.

She had dismal taste, clearly, but that hardly demanded a lifetime of penance to a man such as him. He had ignored her for two years, and now that she had come into an inheritance, he’d popped back up, all oily flattery and not-so-subtle threats.

He was clever enough not to keep the letters at his home, which Emmeline had already searched.

He was not, however, clever enough not to brag about it.

And so, Sybil’s current mission was to bow her head meekly as the companion Miss Grey while following dozens of unnecessary orders given solely to remind her of her place. That was the real reason Mrs. Farraway hired a companion.

Sybil fetched her shawl from the front hall, then her smelling salts from her reticule, then returned the shawl because it was far too warm by the fire and she ought to have known better. She fetched a glass of wine, a plate of cheese with dates and figs. She moved Mrs. Farraway’s chair away from the fire to the window and then back again, being scolded for scratching the floor. “Miss Grey, do stop woolgathering. I asked you to set up my chair in the conservatory for the performance.”

She hadn’t asked for any such thing.

But as the conservatory was in another part of the house and that served Sybil’s true purpose, she nodded meekly. “Yes, Mrs. Farraway.”

Another lady smirked, enjoying the show. There was nothing a gathering such as this loved as much as someone being taken down a peg. Several pegs. Surely there were no pegs left.

And then the whispering abruptly changed tone and cadence. It lightened, like a dozen songbirds had suddenly congregated in the parlor. Sybil turned, frowning, toward the new guest.

Keir Montgomery, Marquess Blackburn.

He bowed to the room at large, finding her immediately. His green eyes were steady and clear. Sybil did not alter her frown, even though people did not frown at a marquess, especially not companions like Miss Grey. He had threatened to follow her here, but she had not believed him. No one came to this musicale without very good reason. She had a very good reason. Keir did not.

He would remember that when his ears began to bleed.

“My chair, Miss Grey,” Mrs. Farraway snapped. “At once.”

Keir was the one frowning now. She shot him a quelling glance. If he ruined her cover, she would murder him, plain and simple. No one knew Lady Sybil in this part of London.

“Of course, Mrs. Farraway.”

Sybil expected Keir’s frown to drop away entirely at her docility. He would be beside himself with the evidence that she could, in fact, be demure. That she could curtsy with her head bent modestly. That she could be no trouble at all.

Instead, his eyes narrowed.

Rather alarmingly.

Sybil turned on her heel and darted away.

Miss Copperwhite was more clever than expected.

And it was annoying.

Sybil made sure Mrs. Farraway’s chair had two cushions, a shawl against the chill from the windows, was near the candles but not too near the candles, and next to a table set with a goblet of sherry and a silver bowl of hard candies. Then she hurried up the stairs, keeping clear of the household staff. A pause behind a potted tree, a moment to flatten herself behind a cabinet carved with lilies, and then she was inside Miss Copperwhite’s bedchamber.

Everything was frothed with lace, from the curtains to the coverlet. The ceiling was painted like the sky over a Roman villa, feathery olive branches, doves, Corinthian marble columns. There was a writing desk under a window, a chamber pot behind a screen. A hundred usual hiding spots for heirlooms or private journals or coins.

None of those places hid a packet of explicit love letters.