True Pretenses: Lively St. Lemeston, Book 2

by Rose Lerner

  “Yes, but are the sweets good?”

  “Charles Baverstock told me it was fit for the gods, and Mrs. Miskin says everything is newfangled and Frenchified.” She sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing Jamie didn’t stay. He would be sure to see no reason not to stop there, and Mr. Pilcher the baker would be so insulted.”

  “My brother loves sweets too,” Ash said. “When he was a boy, he used to beg me to buy him acid drops whenever we passed a barrow.” Rafe hadn’t done any such thing; he had stolen the drops himself, as soon as he was tall enough to reach. He’d been a precocious little thief, and Ash had been terribly proud and shown his little brother off to his friends as a prodigy. How horrified proper Miss Reeve would be if Ash told her that!

  “Will your brother be joining you in Lively St. Lemeston?” she asked. “Or—will you be leaving soon?”

  “I hope he will be,” Ash said. “I think you’ll like him—that is, if I’m not presuming. He’s about your age, and a good deal taller than I am.”

  She laughed and rolled her eyes. “My aunt and I should be happy to receive him.”

  Perfect.

  “Here we are,” she said, stopping before a neat white building. Her footman raised the knocker and rapped with a sound like the clanking of chains.

  Ash reminded himself that this was the ultimate swindle—a street urchin striding into a workhouse like a fine gentleman, the patroness on his arm. He was Daniel in the lion’s den, and it should have exhilarated him. But he’d played this swindle before. He’d been far too lucky that last time, left a scale unbalanced behind him. This was pushing his luck, and that was something he’d learned never to do.

  Well, there was a twisted satisfaction in that, too. In courting destruction as if it were a woman you couldn’t resist when she’d already emptied your friends’ pocketbooks and broken their hearts. Ash would have stepped off the cliff’s edge a long time ago, if it weren’t for Rafe.

  The door was opened by a pigtailed adolescent girl. Ash followed Miss Reeve inside and let the workhouse door close behind him.

  Chapter Four

  It was smaller and neater and less crowded than the London workhouses Ash remembered from his childhood. But it had the same strange smell of cleanliness without luxury or personality: brown soap, starch, human bodies and cheap food. It was too early for the able-bodied who couldn’t feed themselves. They would come in January and February when it was coldest. Now it was the old, the mad, the simpleminded, and men and women too sick or crippled to work, all pressed up against each other in one space like odds and ends shoved out of sight in the back of a drawer—and, of course, the children, forced to care for them all.

  There was a little girl of eight or nine feeding an old woman in one corner. Ash saw her notice Miss Reeve, her posture changing at once from impatient boredom into something careful and correct. “Here you go, Mrs. Sykes,” she said, her voice syrupy sweet and pitched to carry. “Nice gruel, your favorite.”

  Ash hid a smile.

  Then another child of perhaps eighteen months toddled over and reached for the spoon. The girl snatched it away, and the child reached for it again. Ash saw the child’s mouth open wide, he saw the girl’s darting look of terror at Miss Reeve—

  Even before the child’s first wail had run out of breath, he was swooping her up. “There now,” he murmured, nestling her against his coat. “Don’t cry.”

  “She’s no trouble,” the girl said stridently. “She nearly never cries.” Her eyes were wide with fear.

  “Of course not,” Ash said, pretending everything was ordinary. His heart pounded in his chest. “You seem like a very well-behaved baby, don’t you?” He wrinkled his nose at the child in his arms, and she giggled.

  “Her’s too young for the workhouse,” muttered Mrs. Sykes.

  “Is not,” countered the girl. “The overseers said she wasn’t.” She reached for the baby, her plain, square face made plainer and squarer with determination. “I can take care of her.”

  Ash handed the child over. “I’m sure you can. You look very responsible for your age.”

  “I am. I be ever so responsible, and I can take care of her.” She settled her sister on her hip, even though the child was really too big for her to hold comfortably.

  Miss Reeve appeared at his shoulder. “Mr. Cahill, may I present Mary Luff and her sister Joanna? How do you do, Mary?”

  Mary made a clumsy curtsy, lunging a little at the end to prevent Joanna from slipping out of her grasp. “Very well, ma’am, thank you.”

  “Mary is a great help to Mrs. Bridger, the house-mistress, aren’t you?”

  “I try, ma’am.”

  Miss Reeve smiled. Mary watched her face intently for any possible cue as to how best to ingratiate herself. Ash’s stomach turned over. He didn’t want to be here. He wavered between asking to hold Joanna again so that Mary could finish feeding Mrs. Sykes in peace, and trying to distract Miss Reeve from the children as quickly as possible. The longer those in authority noticed you, the greater the chance they would do something to muck up your life.

  Miss Reeve walked away, and Ash followed. “Some of the overseers think we ought to send Joanna to a nurse in the country,” she said. “They think it would be more healthful for her there.”

  “Surely it’s better to be with her sister.”

  “I wish I knew.” She sighed. “At a certain point you have to pray you’re making the right decision.”

  “I don’t imagine you’d have liked to lose your own brother,” he said, an edge in his voice. He wasn’t doing a good job of distracting her. He shouldn’t have agreed to come here.

  “But I could take care of Jamie. If I weren’t able to, perhaps I ought to have set aside my own comfort and let him go. His own welfare must have been paramount.”

  “Yes, a two-year-old child, for his own welfare to be taken from his family and sent to strangers.” Could she hear his voice shake? He was shaking a little all over, wasn’t he? Just a fine tremor; maybe she wouldn’t notice. “Would a nurse in the country have loved him and cared for him as you did—and not only while she was paid to do it, but forever? Can you be so sure it would have profited him in the end? Absolute devotion isn’t so common a thing in this world that it should be held cheaper than a little clean air and fresh milk.”

  She looked at him with approval. As if he had taken a political stance she liked. As if it were an academic question.

  He laughed self-deprecatingly. “I’m sorry. I’m rather fond of my own brother, you know. I didn’t mean to talk your ear off.”

  She put up a hand to her ear. It was a lovely ear. A shell-like ear, even. He had always thought that an odd phrase, but he could see it now—the creamy smoothness of the curve, the warm pink glow as it caught the light. If he leaned in, would he hear a mysterious seashore thrum from within her? “Oh, don’t apologize,” she said, smiling. “My ears are very well attached, I promise you. Let me introduce you to Mrs. Bridger.”

  That night Ash woke from a nightmare, despairing and soaked in sweat. Your blanket is too thick and the windows too snug, he told himself. It’s not a portent. You’ve had that dream like clockwork since you were a child.

  It was a simple enough dream. The place varied, and his own age in it, but the core of it was that he couldn’t find Rafe. He was looking and looking and could not find Rafe.

  Usually when he woke, Rafe was there. It was easy to know Rafe was there because he snored, a fact Ash was secretly grateful for no matter how he teased.

  But it was a portent this time. Rafe would be gone soon enough, gone forever. Ash wondered how long he himself would last after that, and what purpose he’d find to drag him through his days. Maybe he’d die in a workhouse like the one he’d seen today, charming the staff into granting him small and useless privileges.

  He threw back the covers. Chill air rushed in, welcome
and unpleasant. He ought to wait a few days longer to be sure of Miss Reeve. He lit the lamp and wrote to Rafe anyway, and told him to come.

  Even if Rafe were in Arundel and received the letter at once, he would have to journey to London and take the stagecoach from there to lend credence to coming from Cornwall. He could not possibly come sooner than Wednesday, and the coach never arrived in Lively St. Lemeston before one and often not until three.

  Yet on Tuesday Ash found himself in the Lost Bell coaching inn at half-past ten. There he sat, reading the Lively St. Lemeston Intelligencer and buying drinks for the local population, until the stagecoach rattled in at a quarter past two and disgorged a number of disgruntled passengers, none of whom were Rafe.

  On Wednesday he toured the powder mill and put off arriving at the Lost Bell until noon. He shared a dinner table with a large family breaking their journey to Brighton, then removed to the coffeehouse across the street, where he sat by the window pretending to cherish an infatuation with the owner’s daughter Imogen, a pretty black woman with dark eyes and a Sussex burr. Fortunately she enjoyed the attention, willing to be bought a mug of chocolate and carry most of the conversation besides, in between tending her pots and beans. For a couple of hours he was absorbed easily enough in her brother’s apprenticeship at the Honey Moon, the difficulties inherent in the importation of coffee, her father’s trying insistence on double-checking her figures, and gossip about Miss Reeve’s great rivals, the Dymond family.

  “He’s devoted as can be to Mrs. Sparks, Mrs. Dymond now of course. I never much thought of marrying, but to see how he looks at her—”

  The coach rolled into the yard across the way with a great squelching and splashing.

  “Oh, are you waiting for somebody on the stage?”

  He turned back to Imogen with an effort. “Yes—my brother. I don’t know if he’ll arrive today. We’re usually inseparable, and I haven’t seen him in a few weeks.”

  “Isn’t that sweet? Do you spy him?”

  Ash knew Rafe was there even before he ducked out of the low coach door, last of everyone. He knew because all the passengers looked happy and in charity with one another. Ash could get along with anyone, but Rafe had an instinctive knack for bringing people together and raising their spirits. He pointed. “That’s him. My brother Rafe.”

  She took Rafe in appreciatively. “You don’t look much alike.”

  He laughed. “No, he got all the looks in the family.”

  She grinned at him. “I don’t imagine you do too bad yourself.”

  Ash pretended not to see the invitation in her words. “Thank you for your kindness in keeping me company, Miss Makepeace.” He stood, smiling, and offered her a shilling tip.

  “Oh, you needn’t.” Her tone said she’d take it if he pressed, but wouldn’t mind if he took it back either. The coffeehouse must do well for itself.

  He pressed it into her hand, almost wishing he could offer her more than a flirtation, and see if she liked to accept it. But he never took more than someone could afford to lose, and a girl who had decided she could afford casual tumbles would know he ought to have a foreskin. It wasn’t a good risk. He didn’t mind, except when he was feeling particularly lonesome. There was no reason he should feel lonesome now. Rafe was here.

  He hurried outside, and in spite of everything, when Rafe broke into a smile at the sight of him, Ash was happy. Rafe gave him a great bear hug that lifted him an inch or two off the ground and set him down. His eyes searched Ash’s face. “How are you?”

  A small, mean impulse made Ash smile unconcernedly back and say, “Never better. You?” Rafe looked disappointed, hurt, even a little angry. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair for his brother to want to leave and to want Ash to want him to stay.

  Then Rafe’s smile broke out again. “I’m very well. Where are we staying?”

  The safest place to talk privately was in the open, so once Rafe’s luggage had been dropped at the Drunk St. Leonard, Ash took his brother on a walk to Wheatcroft. “…It isn’t even a swindle,” he finished his explanations. “Or rather, she’s in on it with us, if she agrees. All you have to do is marry her and see that the settlement is arranged to her satisfaction, and she’ll give us a slice of that lovely fortune.”

  Rafe frowned. “But she’ll be married to me. I’ll be married to her.”

  “She doesn’t want a husband. You’ll buy your commission and you never have to see her again. If you like, you can even send her a condolence letter from the War Office in a few years.”

  “But if she marries again, she’ll be a bigamist—”

  “Who’s ever to know? Just keep away from Sussex and don’t use the name Ralph Cahill again.” He knew perfectly well that the best way to reassure was to listen patiently to Rafe’s concerns, agree with all of them, and resolve each to Rafe’s satisfaction. It was easy to do with a flat, but nearly impossible with his brother.

  Why should he have to swindle Rafe? Why on earth was his brother fretting over bigamy, of all things? If there was ever a crime that harmed no one…and it would all be moot once Rafe and Miss Reeve made a love match of it. But of course he couldn’t say that.

  “I won’t,” Rafe said. “I’m going to use my own name after this. Our name.”

  Ash blinked. “You’ll use Rafe Cohen? To buy your commission?”

  Rafe looked at his feet, grimacing. “I haven’t decided on the army for certain. I know I’d have to profess Anglicanism. But it’s only a formality. You…would you mind?”

  “Of course not,” Ash said, startled. “I wouldn’t mind if you changed your name, either. You’ll have a lot of petty prejudices to contend with, else.”

  Rafe shook his head. “I want to be who I am, Ash. Can’t you understand that?”

  Ash was stung. “This is who I am. I’m a swindler. So are you. You’d still be you with a different name.”

  “I don’t want to be a swindler anymore. I told you that. I just want to be Rafe Cohen.”

  “Do you now?” Ash smiled his mildest smile. “And will you tell your fine new officer friends that Rafe Cohen was a housebreaker? That Rafe Cohen’s mother was a whore? You can set up shop as an honest man all you like, but you’ll have to lie to do it.”

  Rafe’s face darkened. “You’re the one who wants me to be an officer.”

  Drek, Ash thought. Drek drek drek. This was what happened when he lost his temper. If he wasn’t careful Rafe would run off and enlist before he even met Miss Reeve. He wouldn’t have to convert to serve in the rank and file. “Yes,” he said promptly. “Yes, I do, and I’m sorry. I lied with all that ‘never better’ claptrap. I’m on edge. You know Rafe Cohen is my favorite person in the world; anybody would want to be him.”

  Rafe slung an arm around his shoulders. “Thank you, Ash.” His voice was thick. “I don’t—I’m not proud of what we do, not anymore, but I’m proud to be your brother. We were dealt a bad hand. I don’t blame you for how you brought me up.”

  It was a harder blow than blame would have been. To be magnanimously forgiven for his hard-won, improbable accomplishments—he thought suddenly of the two little girls in the workhouse, and Miss Reeve’s question. Would Rafe have been better off if Ash had given him up? Would he have been happier apprenticed to some low trade, plodding through his simple, hungry, honest life?

  They came round the bend and saw Wheatcroft. The house sprawled—or rather, reclined elegantly, looking enormous even with a good five minutes’ walk between them and it. Ash let the view sink in. Lights beckoned in the windows, and a faint homey noise drifted towards them.

  He and Rafe hadn’t been “dealt a bad hand”. They had never been in the game. Now Ash was going to give his brother an interest in that house and all it stood for, and better than that, Rafe wouldn’t seem a jot out of place. That was nothing to feel guilty about.

  The house didn’t need any em
bellishment to make it seem tempting—and if it did, Miss Reeve ought to do the trick. But for good measure Ash turned up his coat collar and rubbed at his arms—it’s cold out here, and warm and dry in there. “Why don’t you meet her?” he said. “You can decide then.”

  Rafe shrugged. “Why not? Here, take my muffler.” He dropped it around Ash’s neck without waiting for a reply. “You never dress warmly enough.”

  Ash sighed.

  Lydia was in the Little Parlor window seat again, alternately staring at the garden and at the ever-growing pile of unanswered correspondence on her writing table.

  She had responsibilities. She had stayed at Wheatcroft while Jamie went off to a house party, specifically so that she might discharge them. And yet she couldn’t open those letters. Some of them carried condolences. Some were from people who hadn’t heard the news yet, and would ask after her father’s health.

  Tears swam in her eyes, merely at the thought.

  Read a magazine. Plan your contribution to the Gooding Day auction. Do something. Do anything but sit here feeling sorry for yourself. Her father would be ashamed of her.

  A tear spilled over and dripped down her cheek. Ugh! She hated the slippery feel of it. She hated how dry and sore the skin under her eyes felt when she wiped it away.

  Two figures appeared on the drive. The shorter of the two looked like Mr. Cahill, which was a silly schoolgirl fancy as they were much too far off to tell.

  But when they drew nearer, it was Mr. Cahill. So she hadn’t been looking for him, or hoping to see him, or thinking about him at all. She had only recognized him, because her eyesight was good. Who was that with him? His brother, perhaps.

  She felt a glimmer of satisfaction at having her guess confirmed when their cards were brought in to her. “Please ask my aunt to join me, and bring some tea,” she told Pennifold. “Once Mrs. Packham is here, you may show them up.”

  She examined her face very carefully in the mirror. Would they be able to tell that she had been crying? She thought not, in this light. But ever since that first day with Mr. Cahill, ever since he’d seen her cry, when he met her eyes she felt as if he could see everything, as if he knew her. As if all the ghosts of thoughts not acted on were tangible and solid to him.