“Perhaps too well,” she said. “I think his anger yesterday afternoon was more honest.”
“He is being courteous. Finding his way.”
“He reminded me tonight of…of Reginald.” She swallowed a lump and looked at him, making out his frown in the flashes of passing lights. “You paid his debt, he said.”
“And he shall pay me a portion every quarter out of his salary.”
“Such an amount, Shaldon—what sort of position will he hold to allow that? He’ll be tempted to more foolishness, or…”
“To theft?”
Shame welled in her, the heat of it rising into her cheeks. “I’ll instruct Guignard to give you the painting if you’ll forgive Quentin’s debt and allow him to keep all of his income.”
“The painting you stole from me?”
She held her breath, waiting for more and finally sighed. “Yes.”
She would still be a thief, but she must at least try to give her son more of a future. And then she would find her own way.
And if her son was foolish again? A young man never had money enough.
If Guignard copied the painting before handing it over to Shaldon, she could sell that and add to her son’s income.
“I am not opposed to the idea of selling the painting as you planned, but I believe it would be better to find an auction house that will take it on. A bidding frenzy might drive the price up.” He squeezed her hand. “We will share the profits.”
“You would allow that?”
“I’ve said so.”
“Allow me to profit from my theft?”
“Your diversion kept the painting out of the hands of the thieves who assaulted my men on the road to Cransdall. Think of it as a commission.”
A commission? She could perhaps pay off her son’s debt, perhaps even arrange enough income that Quentin could someday marry.
But a public auction? “What if the Duque shows up to bid on it?”
“If the cost to the Duque is high enough, I might consider allowing him to attend.”
“Surely, by now, he suspects as you do that there’s no treasure to be found.”
“He’s a powerful opponent, but not the wisest of men. Do you remember Captain Llewellyn, the sea captain who threatened Graciela?”
“Yes.” She had heard the story of Captain Llewellyn’s villainy, though perhaps not all of it.
“He was allied with the Duque whilst pretending to be a friend to Graciela’s father, Captain Kingsley. And Captain Kingsley spends part of his time hunting for sunken Spanish treasure and pirate caches.”
“As well as privateering,” she added. Graciela had brought a fabulous dowry into her marriage from Captain Kingsley’s efforts. “You said he copied the coordinates.”
He nodded. “Captain Kingsley presented me that painting years ago. Taken from a ship bearing treasures pillaged by the Duque de San Sebastian during one of his sojourns in New Spain.”
Her breath caught. “He robbed the Duque of his treasures? Good heavens.” So, the feud was a very long-standing one, with many players and tentacles.
“He relieved a great villain of his stolen booty. And I paid for that painting.”
“And the treasure map.”
His lips quirked. “I never believe such stories.”
Well, and the Earl of Shaldon had treasures aplenty. No need to dive into the waters of the West Indies. “Has the Captain arrived back yet?”
“Not yet. I have a man in Portsmouth waiting to escort him here as soon as he comes into port.”
Bringing Captain Kingsley swiftly to London would be a great kindness to Graciela, but there were probably other reasons, reasons of state, to convey the captain to London so quickly.
These men and their endless plotting—her head ached thinking about it. And, no matter that Shaldon insisted otherwise, Quentin would become enmeshed in their games, her son who was reminding her so much of the father who had managed to get himself killed.
“You didn’t tell me what sort of position you had in mind for Quentin.”
“There are a few possibilities. What do you recommend, Jane?”
She’d had regular reports on her son, yet…what sort of man was he? “I don’t think I know him well enough to say. But…out of London, certainly.”
“Out of England?”
She sat up. If Quentin took a position out of the country, could she go with him, or at least live nearby?
The carriage turned a corner and she recognized the terrace of homes on Gerrard Street.
Shaldon said he’d enjoyed their tryst very, very much. Though he’d done no more than put an arm around her and hold her hand tonight, he would want to come up.
She wanted that also.
It seemed she’d lost control, not just of the painting, but of her good sense.
She straightened her spine. The first order of business was to not indulge herself with Shaldon again. She would be very firm with him tonight.
He escorted her to her door and a footman admitted them; a footman attired in the Hackwell livery, a footman who hadn’t been there that morning.
Shaldon took her hand, turned it and bent over it, pressing his lips to her palm. The warmth of his kiss permeated the delicate cloth of her gloves and sent a shiver through her.
“I leave you in good hands, my lady,” he said. “Until later.”
And then he left. The footman closed the door, and Jenny appeared from the shadows to walk up the stairs with her.
“His lordship scampered off quick enough,” Jenny whispered. “Good that you’ll get your rest tonight, my lady.”
Jane stopped on the landing and pinned the girl with a fierce look.
Jenny curtsied. “Begging your pardon, my lady.”
Her pardon, indeed. She stormed up the stairs, not sure who to be angrier with: Jenny, Shaldon, or herself.
Chapter 15
Penderbrook watched the Shaldon carriage roll away, and then looked up at the door of his lodgings. It had been quite the day. Every morning for the last several days he’d awoken awaiting the challenge, wondering who might loan him a pair of pistols.
And then she’d shown up on his doorstep.
Shame and elation were all mixed together in his head. Shaldon’s glove had been soft enough, but the Earl’s dressing down had been direct. Honorable men did not risk more than their means. Honorable men did not insult ladies, especially one’s mother who had sacrificed her own happiness for him.
The undercurrent was clear enough even for him—he could be a little thick at times when ladies were involved. Shaldon had saved him, and not because of Charley’s request to help him. The old man was courting Lady Jane. His mother.
He wanted to laugh. He could be stepson to the great Earl of Shaldon, a by-blow to the lady, true, but look how Shaldon had brought his own by-blow, Bink Gibson, into the fold.
Lady Jane had named his father as one Reginald Dempsey, a name he’d never heard before.
He glanced up and down the street. Lights still glowed in windows. It was early yet. Perhaps he could float the name Dempsey to someone discreetly at White’s and find out if anyone knew the family. He’d heard that Charley had returned to town. Perhaps he would be there, having a drink and catching up with the fellows.
* * *
Attired in another of Madame’s sheer nightgowns, Jane sat at the dressing table plaiting her hair.
She’d sent Jenny off to bed. She should take herself to bed, but…
Until later, he’d said. What did he mean? Would later be tonight? Or tomorrow?
He’d roused something in her, the irritating, insufferable, inscrutable man, and then he’d run off without satisfaction.
She paced to the fireplace, back to the bed, and then to the window. Distant carriage lamps bobbed down the street, moving from Covent Garden to Mayfair, others traveling in the opposite direction.
In the past several months while living at Shaldon House, she’d been more a participant in ton life t
han ever before. If she left England, she’d leave all of this behind. She truly didn’t want to go.
If Shaldon truly would share the profits from the sale of the painting, she might have enough to live well without pinching pennies and economizing.
Could he really mean it, or was it just a way of bending her to his will?
Could he really care for her?
The next Lady Shaldon would take on at least two grand homes that required running, an army of servants to manage, social and charitable duties, four stepchildren and assorted in-laws and grandchildren, and a lord who promised to importune her in the bedroom.
An irritating, insufferable, and inscrutable lord. Also, nosy, managing, and manipulative.
No, no, she must count on securing her own future with a high auction price.
Many of the best in London were mad for art. The Duke of Wellington was a passionate collector. Perhaps if the work was properly restored, he would outbid the Duque. Wellington was as much a creature of competition and vanity as the rest of his peers. For him, obtaining the painting might be another victory over an ally of Bonaparte.
Tomorrow, she would meet with Guignard and discuss the matter. Or…
She walked back to the window and looked out. It had not been more than thirty minutes since she’d stepped out of Shaldon’s carriage. London was still very much awake. At the modiste’s shop, Madame would be up working on her accounts or a last-minute, urgent order. Guignard had planned to spend the night there.
The little Frenchman had rested the whole day. She wanted to know where he’d stashed her painting.
She tore through the clothes press, pulled out a chemise, tossed aside her stays, and found her traveling gown—the one gown she could get into on her own.
If Ewan tried to stop her, she would simply draft him to come along as an escort. And then he could run off and tattle on her to his lordship.
* * *
Penderbrook slipped past a table of whist players, took an empty chair near a stack of the day’s papers, and ordered a drink. The crowd tonight was thin, some of the members trickling off to their country estates as the coronation festivities wound down.
It had been Charley, a true friend, who’d got him accepted as a member here, yet he’d found other friends from his days at school, some of them as lowly as himself.
“Join us?” a fellow called from the whist table.
“Not tonight,” he said. “Has Everly been in?”
“Haven’t seen him.”
His drink arrived. He picked up a paper and scanned the reports of the King’s proposed travel to Ireland.
Shaldon had mentioned a possible position abroad. He wouldn’t want to find himself in Ireland though. Paris, Vienna, or Italy would be acceptable.
A shadow fell over his newssheet and he looked up.
“Fortune has favored you today.” Major Payne-Elsdon’s eyes gleamed in the lamp light. He took the opposite chair at the table. “Yet you’re not joining the play.”
He glanced over. One man was scribbling his vowels and departing. He doubted they’d want the Major replacing him. The man was widely believed to cheat, but no one had caught him out at it and no one wanted to duel with him. It was a certain thing that Major Payne-Elsdon would not delope with his shot. He would aim straight for his opponent’s heart.
“No,” Penderbrook said. He turned a page and skimmed the contents, unseeing.
The waiter appeared and Penderbrook shook his head at another drink.
“Come, Penderbrook. You’ve paid me off. Let me buy you a drink.”
A chill rattled through him, a trickle of sweat sliding down the back of his neck. Like a damned rabbit he was when around Payne-Elsdon, always wandering into a trap. Everything with the man was a potential snare.
He glanced at the clock and set his paper aside. “I beg your pardon. Early day tomorrow.”
Bowing he headed for the door, but Payne-Elsdon’s voice rang out. “Off to join your new lady, are you?”
The room hushed, and he pivoted, bile rising in him.
“What a surprise to find you’re Lady Jane Montfort’s by-blow. By whom, I wonder?” Payne-Elsdon stood. “Now that she’s Shaldon’s bit, perhaps she’ll give you a noble by-blow brother.”
The hush around him was like a death watch. The events of that day and the one before flashed in his mind’s eye, Shaldon’s words echoing also. Honorable men did not insult ladies. Honorable men did not risk more than their means.
Lady Jane had given him life, and life was all he had to risk for her.
“Payne-Elsdon, you will cease defaming the lady.”
“Or else?”
Heat rose in him. Certainty. It was, as Shaldon had said, time to step up and be a man.
“Look around,” he said. “You, Payne-Elsdon, are not welcome at anyone’s table. You measure your losses until the stakes are large, and then you always win. And one wonders how that can be. Though no one has caught you out…yet.”
He waited. Payne-Elsdon smiled. “Your mother is a whore who left you on a parson’s doorstep.”
More sweat rose on his neck, belying the icy rage in his belly. “Lady Jane is no whore.” He took a deep breath. “You and I will meet, Payne-Elsdon.”
Under his oily mustache, the Major’s lip curled. “Then I claim my rights as the man challenged. It shall be swords. Otherwise, I defer to all your wishes and await word from your second.” He chuckled. “Best write your will. Shaldon won’t rescue you this time.”
“And you’d best loosen your neck cloth to make room for the noose. You might kill on the Continent with abandon, but your Spanish Duque won’t rescue you from English justice.”
He was aware of the aura of shock all around, the sudden quiet, and then the scrapes of chairs being pushed back, all the fools rushing to make notes in the betting book.
His world had come crashing down, but so be it.
* * *
“Good heavens, Ewan.” Jane pressed the corner of her shawl to her nose, holding the hackney’s stench at bay. The odor of strong cologne and stale tobacco she could stand, but the smell of recently cleaned vomit was almost too much.
“Best I could do.” Ewan glowered at her in the dark.
Oh, she couldn’t see his eyes, but his tone was unmistakable. He’d followed her out of the house and then she’d bullied him without mercy until he’d fetched this squalid conveyance.
“Hmmph,” she said, hiding her relief that he’d done her bidding, not simply thrown her respectfully over his shoulder and forced her back to the house on Gerrard Street.
Shaldon would have no doubt sanctioned such a maneuver.
Traffic snarled around a brightly lit townhouse where a society event—a rout, a supper ball, a musicale—was being held. It was not a house she was familiar with but passing the throngs of gaily dressed ladies inspired black thoughts.
She was outside looking in again—the opposite was true of course, but with the stench of the coach swamping her, her mind was muddled with memories. Reginald had favored a strong cologne, and he’d smoked endless cigarillos.
And the vomit…heavens. She’d been sick from the moment her son was conceived and for entire months thereafter.
How funny that she could remember how Reginald smelled, but not his face. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried, but all that came to her was her father’s popped eyes and his cold voice ringing out clearly.
My daughter, a trollop, chasing after a whoreson. And what did it get you but a bellyful and your brother dead because of you. You’ll be a pariah, Jane, shut out. Respectable society won’t have you near.
Heart pounding, she grabbed the seat as the hackney lurched through one crush and then screeched to a stop at another holdup.
Nausea rose in her, tightening her chest, constricting her breathing.
He’d been wrong, her father. Respectable society had accepted her. Whether they still would after her affair with Shaldon became known, as it certainly must, wa
s questionable.
As Lady Shaldon, her chances of acceptance would be better. She’d wear a countess’s coronet and be wrapped in the earldom’s respectability.
And she could almost feel the Earl of Shaldon’s arms around her. Would it be such a bad choice?
The hackney rolled a few feet and then stopped again.
The thick fetid air was clouding her judgment. She reached for the door. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.” Stumbling out ahead of Ewan, she let him settle their fare while she caught her breath.
He offered his arm, still glowering, and they went down a mercifully quiet side street. Two unmarked black coaches had stopped in front of a darkened mews. No lights lit the interior, no grooms perched on the back. The coachmen sat poised to drive off.
The hair on her neck prickled, and she squeezed Ewan’s arm and stopped him.
Quiet voices reached them. A gentleman walked out, darkly clad, his tall beaver hat hiding his hair, a woman on his arm. A lone street lamp caught sparkles from gems at the lady’s throat, the silky swirl of her gown, and the gold of her hair. And the man’s face.
Her heart thumped wildly, her breath catching. She pulled Ewan into a shadow and watched the Earl of Shaldon take the Duquesa de San Sebastian into his arms for a passionate embrace.
Her legs sagged under her and she settled onto a step.
“My lady.” Ewan glanced over his shoulder, and turned back to her, his face grim.
“Shh.” She took great gulps, trying to breathe.
He plopped down next to her, warm and sturdy and mercifully speechless. They waited as coach doors closed and horses clomped away.
* * *
The family party had finished by the time Shaldon returned home. His eldest, Bink Gibson, and youngest, Lady Perpetua, and their spouses had left, and the other ladies had also retired. His heir, Bakeley, and his youngest son, Charles, lounged in the library, a half-empty bottle of brandy at hand.
“No Lady Jane tonight?” Bakeley asked.
Avenging the Earl’s Lady: Book Five, Sons of the Spy Lord Page 13
