Page 20 of Better Off Wed

Something like amusement flickered into his eyes. “Whatever it is, indeed. And yes, we are. Last winter, you attended an officers’ dance with your brother. Such entertainments are a rarity for men like us, and you were so…so…” With one long-fingered hand, he sketched an aimless circle. “Suffice it to say, you are not likely to have been forgotten by anyone who was in attendance, ma’am.” A fresh flush of color rose to his cheeks. Much more of that and she was in danger of being flattered in earnest. “That night I glimpsed you only from a distance, so when I saw you tonight at the pub, I didn’t trust my eyes. That’s why I stepped closer. And then you…dropped the, uh—”

“The watch,” she finished for him, tugging her reticule from behind the pillow on the sofa where she had secreted it earlier. She loosened the drawstring on the little silk purse, slipped a hand inside, and withdrew the timepiece. The gold gleamed dully against her palm.

“I am sorry,” he said, and there was sincerity in his voice. “When I saw it, I was caught off guard. I had never considered there might be a connection between someone I knew, however slightly, and the famous—”

“Surely you mean infamous?”

“Lady Sterling,” he finished with a sidelong glance at her mischievous interruption. “The name slipped out before I could think of the consequences to you, or to”—now his eyes swept the room; she knew the precise moment when they landed on the bed—“us.”

“And are you really also Lord Sterling?”

A muscle ticked along his jaw. “I am.”

He had offered his military rank with far more confidence and pride than he confessed his title. But both were undoubtedly his. She was too accustomed to ferreting out facts to doubt it.

Until that moment, he’d been forthcoming, surprisingly so. But it seemed she and the stranger each possessed a pair of names and identities they preferred to keep separate, even secret.

“How did you come to connect this to me?” she asked, hefting the watch. When he extended a hand, she reluctantly surrendered it to him again. Her fingers brushed against his as she slid the watch onto his palm.

“It was…described in the newspaper,” he said, turning the watch toward the firelight and making it gleam. “The report said Lady Sterling had stolen it. From Lord Penhurst. Last night at Vauxhall.”

He was a poor liar, thankfully. But even if that series of tiny hesitations had not given him away, she would still have been suspicious. “Which paper?”

His gaze was once more directed at the carpet as he began to pace along the hearthrug. “I, er, I don’t remember. Someone had left a few pages lying about, and I only had a glance at it.”

No newspaper had carried a description of the watch, because Lord Penhurst and his mother would not want one bandied about. Of that, she felt certain.

Time, perhaps, for Lord Sterling to understand that Lady Sterling was no ordinary thief.

“The newspapers do report that Lady Sterling picks gentlemen’s pockets,” she said. “What they don’t know is why. Too many men—rich men, powerful men, yes, but even ordinary men—consider themselves entitled to women. Entitled to women’s time and attention. Entitled to their persons. Any woman might struggle to free herself from a man who holds himself in such high esteem and the so-called fairer sex in contempt, of course, but women in service are particularly vulnerable.”

He listened intently, but said nothing, so she went on. “Imagine if you had a sister who, through no fault of her own, was forced to seek a post as, say, a governess in a house like this one, with an employer who persisted in speaking of lewd matters before her, merely because he liked to see her blush—merely, in other words, to remind her of his power over her.”

“Such a man ought to be horsewhipped for his impertinence.” Lord Sterling’s fingers curled tighter around the watch chain. As he moved, the watch dangled from his hand, swinging erratically. “And as it happens, ma’am, I do have a sister. But I assure you I would not have to be related to a young woman in order to understand the difference between right and wrong.”

Laura did not try to hide her irritation. She was tired of being surprised by him—even agreeably. “Far too many men can only be bothered to remember women’s humanity when it is placed in relation to other men. To them, a woman’s true value is as a man’s sister or wife or mother, and if she is none of those, then what worth has she? Very little, in their eyes. But even women with male relations often lack resources or are rejected by their families when they find themselves in circumstances such as I have described. Many have nowhere else to go. Even the law is against them, for all that they are victims of a kind of robbery. No one to listens to their tales of woe…except Lady Sterling.”

His gaze distant, he nodded his understanding.

“Lady Sterling believes that gentlemen who behave in such a fashion ought to be repaid in kind. So, she takes something from them: something of value, yes, something to help the poor, displaced domestics, but also something that makes each man feel as vulnerable as the woman, or women, he’s assaulted. And she leaves with him a reminder that she is the one in power now, because she knows something about him he would much rather she did not.”

Just as I now know about you, my lord.

“You threaten to expose their behavior.” His cheeks were pink with a sort of secondhand embarrassment.

For a soldier, he really was too entirely sweet and naïve. “Sadly, too many of your fellow men would sooner brag about their lechery than feel chagrined by its discovery. But such men invariably have some other…foible, shall we say? Something they wish to keep secret from the world.”

At the mention of a secret, his pacing footsteps quickened.

“For example, that watch,” she said, nodding toward it. “It was stolen, but not by me—at least, not first. It belonged to the Duke of Langerton, who married Penhurst’s cousin a dozen years or so ago, much to the dismay of her aunt, Lady Penhurst—she was kin but not kind, as they say, and appalled to see a poor relation elevated so high. Soon thereafter, the duke, who was positively ancient, died. His son, the present duke and a most unpleasant man, raised a great fuss and tried to disinherit the young duchess. All signs point to the fact that Lady Penhurst stole the watch, hoping to make matters even worse for her niece. It is indeed a family heirloom—just not Lady Penhurst’s family.”

As she spoke, Lord Sterling resumed studying the timepiece from every angle, as if it could somehow confirm her story. “A dozen years ago. You would’ve been a child. How can you know all this?”

“When a potential client asks Lady Sterling to intervene on her behalf, I make it a habit to learn all I can, the better to plan. I have read, researched, interviewed, even spied. I have disguised myself as a maid, an old woman, even a lady of pleasure.” She paused, sensing dismay in his reaction to those words, though he held his tongue. “Whether Penhurst himself knows the provenance of that watch, I cannot say,” she continued. “But he knew his mother would be furious with him if she discovered something had happened to it. That’s why he never pawned it to settle a gaming debt or used it to pay for some other illicit pleasure. I doubt even he was foolish enough to reveal that it was missing—certainly not to someone who could have put its description in the papers.”

Lord Sterling swung the watch upward and caught it in his fist, making the chain chink softly against the cover. “However it came about, his mother knows,” he said after a moment. “And she was furious with him. Furious enough to berate him about its loss within earshot of the servants.”

Lady Penhurst’s reputation among her servants was hardly better than her son’s. Laura could easily believe the woman had revealed too much in a fit of temper. And what a foul mood she would have been in, for early that morning, the baroness had also received a calling card—Lady Sterling was nothing if not thorough—and a note hinting that if her son’s behavior did not improve, she would find the resulting scandal quite distasteful.