Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Volume One

by Emily Larkin

  Letty met Reid’s gaze and nodded.

  “Anyone else?”

  “No!” Grantham snarled, his color high.

  Letty nodded again.

  Reid released Grantham’s reins.

  Grantham dug his heels into his mount’s flanks, shoving Reid aside. “You have the manners of a yokel!”

  Letty watched him ride off. The Honorable Reginald Grantham didn’t look ashamed of himself; he looked puffed up with righteous indignation.

  What an unpleasant man. She looked at Reid, expecting to see contempt on his face. He was frowning.

  “Cuthbertson?” she asked.

  “Colonel Cuthbertson.”

  “A colonel? It wouldn’t be him then, would it?”

  Reid said nothing. He continued frowning.

  Letty nudged her mare into a trot, then a canter. Reid kept pace with her. After half a mile, she slowed to a walk again. Reid fell in beside her.

  “You want me to visit Marshalsea Prison.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “Yes.”

  Letty halted. “Mr. Reid, surely you must realize that I can’t.”

  Reid halted, too. He looked at her without speaking.

  Letty listened to the clatter of a phaeton driving past on the carriageway—and the sound of her lie reverberating in her ears. Of course she could visit Marshalsea. Anyone could.

  “Think of the scandal!” she protested. “The gossipmongers will have a field day!”

  “Only if they know of it.”

  Go secretly? Letty stared hard at him—the gaunt, tanned face, the silver eyes. “Are you after my fortune?” she demanded.

  Reid blinked. “Me? No.”

  “If I accompany you to Marshalsea, will you give me your word that you won’t compromise me, or damage my reputation in any way?”

  Reid’s eyebrows drew together over his nose. “Miss Trentham, I have absolutely no interest in your fortune.” There was hauteur in his voice—and a clear, bell-like tone of truthfulness. “I don’t want a wife. Any wife. If you accompany me to Marshalsea, I won’t compromise you, or damage your reputation—or allow anyone else to do so.”

  Letty eyed him narrowly, and then nudged the mare into a canter. Thoughts jostled in her head like dancers at a ball. Should she go secretly to Marshalsea Prison with Mr. Reid? Could she?

  After five minutes of mulling, Letty knew that she could; the question was, did she dare? She slowed to a trot, trying to sort through her emotions. Reluctance. Fear. A prickle of excitement. A faint itch of curiosity.

  You’re so cautious, her cousin Julia had said once, trying to persuade her to go to a not-quite-respectable masked ball at Ranelagh, and when Letty had replied, My fortune is ten times yours; I have to be ten times more cautious than you, Julia had laughed and said, Nonsense! And while it hadn’t been nonsense, perhaps she was overcautious, because Julia had gone to the ball and not been caught by a fortune hunter.

  Letty let the mare drop to a walk, and glanced at Reid. His expression was unreadable.

  Dare I go with him?

  Julia would have dared, without hesitation.

  Letty halted.

  Reid halted, too, and met her gaze straightly. He said nothing. No arguments, no persuasions, no entreaties. He didn’t look tense or taut or exhausted; he looked almost calm.

  They stared at one another for a long, silent moment.

  “Meet me outside Hatchard’s tomorrow at two o’clock,” Letty said.

  Reid nodded. No flicker of surprise crossed his face.

  He knew I’d agree.

  Chapter Three

  November 2nd, 1808

  London

  Letty met her friend Miss Torpington at Hatchard’s bookshop at one thirty, and sent her own maid home. They browsed the books for twenty minutes, and then Miss Torpington departed. Letty assured her that her maid was in the shop. The lie clanged unpleasantly in her ears, but Miss Torpington didn’t hear it.

  Letty watched her friend disappear from sight and felt ashamed of herself. She almost hurried after Miss Torpington and told her the truth—that her maid had left and she would be glad of an escort back to Hill Street—and then she thought of Mr. Reid and his three executed scouts and blew out a breath. For their sakes, for Reid’s sake, she would do this.

  She waited two minutes, drew a heavy veil out of her muff and arranged it over her hat, and boldly emerged onto Piccadilly. Mr. Reid stood outside, like a guardsman at parade rest. His gaze flicked to her—and stayed. Veil or not, he had recognized her.

  I hope no one else does. Letty crossed to him. “Mr. Reid.”

  “Miss Trentham.” He gave a curt nod.

  “This afternoon I’m Miss Smith.”

  Reid gave another curt nod. He glanced behind her. “Your maid?”

  “My maid thinks I’m with a friend, and the friend thinks I’m with my maid.”

  Reid transferred his gaze to her veiled face and nodded a third time. He held out his arm. “Shall we?”

  Letty had placed her hand on a man’s arm hundreds of times before. Thousands of times. But this time it felt reckless and dangerous. She had the sense that she was about to walk along the edge of a cliff—and that falling was a distinct possibility.

  * * *

  Marshalsea Prison lay in Southwark, on the far side of the Thames. The hackney carriage Mr. Reid hailed was the most dilapidated vehicle Letty had ever ridden in. The seats were stained, the floor filthy, and there was a strong odor, a mingling of sweat, urine, onions, and some other scent that her nose couldn’t identify.

  Reid didn’t appear to notice the stains or the smell. He sat silently, his attention directed inwards. He didn’t attempt to engage her in conversation.

  Letty cast him a sidelong glance, seeing the firm mouth, the resolute jaw, the jutting cheekbones. He was a very different man from Grantham. No weak, blustering nobleman’s son, but a career soldier, sharp-eyed and intelligent and tough.

  And obsessed. Obsessed with whatever had happened in Portugal.

  Letty turned her attention to the view out the window. They were passing through a London she’d never seen before, much shabbier than Mayfair, shabbier even than Holborn, where her mother’s lying-in hospital and other charities were located. The streets teemed with hawkers selling from barrows and baskets. People thronged everywhere. Letty stared at them, fascinated. These were London’s coal-haulers and dustmen and bricklayers, its rat catchers and rag-and-bone men, fishwives and washerwomen. Perhaps even its prostitutes and pickpockets.

  The streets became shabbier, the hawkers fewer. An extremely unpleasant smell forced its way into the hackney. The vehicle rattled across London Bridge. Letty’s nervousness increased until it felt as if she had a nest of mice tucked beneath her breastbone.

  She glanced at Reid again. He was still sunk in his thoughts, a tight frown on his brow.

  The hackney entered Southwark. Beneath the nervousness, Letty became aware of a peculiar sensation, a sensation she’d never felt before: an oddly exhilarating tingle in her blood.

  It took a several minutes before she found a word for it. That exhilarating sensation was freedom. The hackney might be filthy, her destination might be a prison, but for the first time in her life, she was actually free. Free of servants, free of chaperonage, free of being an heiress.

  The hackney drew to a halt.

  Letty gazed out the window. She saw two large buildings, one old, with crumbling whitewash and small windows, the other built of brick, with high windows and columns at one end. “Which one is Marshalsea?”

  “They both are.”

  Reid handed her down from the hackney and paid the jarvey, requesting the man to wait for them. Letty’s heart began to beat slightly faster. She glanced cautiously around.

  The street wasn’t busy, but neither was it empty. Men and women loitered. Urchins played in the gutter. A scrawny dog slunk past with its tail between its legs.

  Reid gave her his arm. He seemed not in the sligh
test intimidated by their surroundings. His face was bony and weary, but his posture was erect and his gaze alert. She watched him briefly examine the street, his silver eyes flicking from face to face, doorway to doorway.

  Together, they crossed the dirty roadway. Letty wanted to clutch Reid’s arm tightly; she made herself rest her gloved hand lightly on his sleeve. She was conscious of people watching them, assessing the cost of her cloak, her shoes, her muff, her veiled hat.

  A voice in her head noted that she should feel afraid, but she wasn’t. Nervous, yes. Apprehensive and uneasy. Curious. But not afraid. Not with Reid at her side.

  Reid was dangerous. More dangerous than any man on this street.

  * * *

  They entered the prison. Icarus felt Miss Trentham shiver as she crossed the threshold. She gazed around the narrow cobblestone courtyard.

  “Anyone may enter Marshalsea,” Icarus told her in an undertone. “But not everyone may leave.”

  Miss Trentham nodded, and shivered again.

  Icarus led her across the courtyard. The man he’d been before Vimeiro would never have brought a well-bred young lady to a place such as this. The man he was now felt nothing more than a faint twinge of shame, easily ignored.

  On the far side of the yard, they passed through an iron-bound door, and then a second. Icarus greased each turnkey in the fist.

  They climbed a flight of narrow stairs and walked along a dark corridor lined with doors, most of which stood open.

  Dunlop was in the third room along, a cramped space with two beds and four inhabitants.

  Icarus halted in the doorway. Miss Trentham’s hand didn’t tighten on his arm, but he sensed her tension.

  He tried to see the room as she did: the crooked blinds, the battered table and lopsided stools, the two beds with their tangle of dirty sheets. A washstand with a cracked pitcher and bowl stood in one corner. The smells of chamber pot and unwashed male, tallow candles, tobacco smoke, sour ale and pickles filled his nostrils. God knew he’d seen worse in his life, smelled worse, but Miss Trentham wouldn’t have.

  Icarus experienced another faint twinge of shame. I have sunk very low to bring her here.

  Of the four inhabitants of the room, one lay snoring, two sat at the table with tankards of ale at their elbows and greasy cards laid out between them, and the fourth hunched on a stool by the window, stitching a threadbare waistcoat.

  Icarus stepped half a pace into the room.

  The man at the window glanced up, then returned his attention to his stitching.

  Dunlop didn’t look up. He was focused on the cards. His face was unshaven, his shirt open at the throat.

  “Dunlop,” Icarus said.

  Dunlop tilted his head back and blinked blearily. “Tha’ you, Reid?”

  “Yes.”

  Dunlop grunted, and looked back at his cards.

  Icarus was aware of Miss Trentham standing stiff and silent beside him. Was her tension due to revulsion, or fear?

  Get this over with, fast.

  He reached into his pocket, brought out a handful of guineas, and clinked them loudly in his palm.

  Dunlop looked up. So did his fellow card player. So did the man darning at the window.

  Icarus clinked the coins again and held his hand open, letting them all see the golden guineas. “A word with you, Dunlop.”

  Dunlop glowered at him for several seconds, then threw down his cards.

  “Gentlemen, if you wouldn’t mind giving us some privacy?”

  For a guinea apiece, neither man minded. One took his tankard, the other his sewing, and they both left the room.

  Icarus closed the door and turned to Dunlop, still glowering at the table. “Vimeiro,” he said, conscious of Miss Trentham standing at his elbow.

  Dunlop lowered his head pugnaciously. “What about Vimeiro?”

  “My rendezvous with the scouts. Who did you tell about it?”

  Dunlop’s eyes flickered. He was thinking; Icarus could almost see the cogs turning slowly in his head.

  “Who, Dunlop?”

  “Wellesley.”

  “Who other than Wellesley?”

  Dunlop’s gaze tracked across the room. More cogs turned slowly. “Matlock was with Wellesley. He heard.”

  “Who else?”

  “No one.”

  Miss Trentham stirred slightly. She shook her head.

  “Who?” Icarus said.

  Dunlop pushed up from his stool, staggered, and caught his balance. “Get out.”

  “Not until you tell me who else you told.”

  “Fuck you,” Dunlop said, pushing his chin forward belligerently. “And fuck your money.”

  Icarus placed the guineas back in his pocket. He took a step towards Dunlop. “Who else did you tell?”

  “Go to hell! Think I’m afraid of you? Wellesley’s golden boy? He thought the sun shone out your—”

  Icarus caught Dunlop by the throat and took two swift strides across the narrow room, lifting him, slamming him back into the wall.

  The man on the bed stopped snoring.

  Dunlop’s heels scrabbled frantically, half a dozen inches off the floor. His fingers clawed at Icarus’s gloved hand.

  Icarus counted to ten in his head, while Dunlop choked and gurgled, and then let him slide down the wall. He eased his grip on the man’s throat. “Apologize to the lady for your language, Dunlop.”

  Dunlop inhaled a wheezing, desperate breath. His face was puce. “Bastard!”

  Icarus tightened his grip again, held Dunlop off the floor again. He counted five seconds, while the man on the bed resumed snoring.

  This time, when he eased his grip, Dunlop apologized.

  Icarus bared his teeth in a smile. “Now, let’s consider my question again. Who—other than Wellesley and Matlock—did you tell?”

  Dunlop hissed a swearword.

  Slow learner. Icarus flexed his fingers, tightening them, forcing the man’s chin up. “Who?”

  “Green,” Dunlop said truculently.

  Icarus put up his eyebrows. “Green?”

  “My manservant.”

  Icarus remembered the man—young, wiry, quiet. “Where is Green now?”

  “How the devil should I know? Turned him off in Basingstoke last month. M’ pockets were to let; couldn’t afford him.”

  Icarus glanced at Miss Trentham, standing by the door, veiled and aloof and utterly out of place. His conscience gave an even stronger twinge. She should not be witnessing this.

  Miss Trentham gave a short nod.

  He turned his attention back to Dunlop. “Anyone else?”

  “A sergeant. He was looking for you. I told him where to find you.” Dunlop croaked a laugh.

  “Which sergeant?”

  “How should I remember a damned sergeant’s name?”

  Icarus tightened his grip again. “Which sergeant?”

  “The one who lost his arm at Vimeiro,” Dunlop said in a sullen, breathless voice.

  The aftermath of Vimeiro was a blank. He’d been out of his mind with fever, with torment. If a sergeant had lost an arm, he didn’t know who he was. “Leishman? Day? Houghton?”

  “Houghton.”

  Icarus grimaced inwardly. Poor Houghton. “Who else did you tell?”

  “No one.”

  He glanced at Miss Trentham. She shook her head.

  Excitement flared in his chest, hot and fierce. Dunlop was lying. This is my traitor!

  “Who else?” he asked, flexing his fingers around Dunlop’s throat when what he really wanted to do was rip the man’s head off.

  “Cuthbertson,” Dunlop wheezed. “He already knew.”

  “Not one of the villagers?”

  “No.”

  Icarus glanced at Miss Trentham. She nodded. That wasn’t a lie.

  “One of the French?”

  “No!”

  Miss Trentham nodded again.

  The excitement died in Icarus’s chest, leaving him hollow again. Not my traitor.
/>   “Anyone else?”

  “No, curse it!”

  Another cool nod from Miss Trentham.

  Icarus released Dunlop and stepped back. “I entrusted you with a message for General Wellesley’s ears only, and you told not only Wellesley, but Matlock, and your man Green, and Houghton, and Cuthbertson?”

  “Cuthbertson already knew,” Dunlop said sullenly, massaging his throat.

  Every muscle in Icarus’s body vibrated with fury, with disgust. “A flogging would be too good for you.”

  Dunlop spat at him. The spittle landed on the floor alongside Icarus’s left boot. Icarus glanced at it contemptuously, turned his back, and crossed to Miss Trentham, cool and aloof in her cloak and veiled hat.

  He fished the guineas from his pocket again, slowly and insultingly selected one, and dropped it on the floor. He held out his arm to Miss Trentham, opened the door, and escorted her from the room.

  When they were several steps down the corridor, Dunlop shouted after him, “Go to hell, Reid!”

  Too late, Icarus told him silently. I’m already there.

  Chapter Four

  The hackney trotted back towards the Thames. Letty stared out the window but it wasn’t Southwark she saw; it was Mr. Reid pinning Dunlop to the wall.

  Such casual violence, performed as effortlessly as breathing.

  She glanced at Reid. He was sunk deep in thought, his brow furrowed.

  Her gaze dropped to Reid’s hands, clenched in his lap. They looked like gentleman’s hands, clad in leather gloves, but they weren’t; they were fighter’s hands, large and strong and brutal.

  She knew she should be repelled by him—but she wasn’t.

  Reid was tougher than any man she’d ever met. He was more a man than any man she’d met. He was dangerous. And because of those things—perversely, and against her better judgment—she was attracted to him.

  He’s not attracted to me, Letty thought wryly. She was nothing more than a tool to Mr. Reid.

  The hackney crossed London Bridge. A foul smell pushed its way into the carriage again. “What’s that smell?” Letty asked.

  “Smell?” Reid blinked, and looked up. “The tanneries.”