Baleful Godmother Historical Romance Series Volume One

by Emily Larkin

  Icarus went to bed with his stomach uncomfortably full. Perhaps it was the food, or perhaps the exhaustion of riding twelve miles on horseback, but he dropped almost instantly to sleep.

  He fell asleep in Basingstoke, but woke in Vimeiro, face down in a creek. Someone knelt on his back. Hard fingers gripped his hair, knuckles digging into his scalp. He fought, bucking and twisting until it seemed that his heart would burst with effort, but he couldn’t break the rope that bound his arms behind him, couldn’t dislodge the man on his back, couldn’t tear his hair free.

  “C’est vrai?” a voice snarled in his ear. “Dis-moi! Tell me!”

  The knuckles pressed harder into his scalp—and shoved his head underwater.

  Icarus bucked and fought. Water filled his eyes, his nose, his mouth, his lungs. He was choking, drowning—

  He woke abruptly, lurching upright, fighting with the bedclothes, lungs heaving, a scream in his throat.

  The room was dark, and for a panic-stricken moment he thought he truly was back in Vimeiro—and then reason caught up with him. His arms and legs were unbound. He was in a nightshirt, not a uniform. He was in bed. He was dry.

  Icarus dragged air into his lungs. With heroic effort, he managed not to vomit up his dinner.

  After a moment, he lay back down. His body shook uncontrollably, deep wracking shudders, and his throat felt as raw as if he’d been screaming. He wiped his face with trembling hands, smearing away sweat and tears.

  Slowly, his breathing steadied. Slowly, his heart stopped its frantic, futile pounding.

  At last, the shaking died to mere tremors. Clumsily, Icarus reached for the tinderbox and lit a candle.

  The tiny, golden flame showed him the bedchamber: beamed ceiling, four-poster bed, drugget rug.

  There were no bodies. No harsh-faced French soldiers crowding round.

  And no creek.

  Icarus fumbled for his watch on the bedside table. Two o’clock. The longest sleep he’d had since Vimeiro.

  Chapter Six

  November 9th, 1808

  Basingstoke, Hamptonshire

  Letty woke at dawn. She rang for hot water. The landlord’s daughter, Sally, a cheerful, round-faced girl, laced her into her stays.

  “Do you know if Mr. Reid—if my husband is awake?”

  “He were up before anyone this mornin’. In the parlor, he is, readin’.”

  Letty stood still while the girl fastened the buttons at the back of her gown. “Did you hear any odd noises in the night?”

  “Noises? What sort of noises, ma’am?”

  Letty frowned at herself in the mirror, trying to find words to describe the noise that had woken her. A cry? A scream? “I thought I heard someone shout.”

  “Shout? It’d’ve been someone on the street, ma’am. Jug-bitten.” The girl fastened the topmost button. “And your hair? How would you like it dressed?”

  “A knot, thank you.”

  Sally undid the plait, brushed out Letty’s hair, twisted it into a knot, and anchored it with hairpins. “There you are, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.” A glance in the mirror, a twitch of her cuffs, and she was ready to face Mr. Reid.

  Letty went down one flight of creaking stairs and entered the parlor. Reid was in an armchair by the fire, legs crossed, reading. He closed his book, stood, and bowed. “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.” She examined his face. Reid looked no more or less exhausted than he had yesterday. “How are you? Sally said you were up before anyone this morning.”

  “I’m an early riser.”

  The Plough laid on a simple breakfast: eggs, sausages, and a pot of tea. Letty ate with relish; Reid picked at his food, and pushed his plate away after eating one egg and half a sausage.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Letty said, putting the plate back in front of him.

  “I’ve eaten my fill.”

  “You may think you’ve eaten your fill, but you haven’t,” she said firmly.

  “I assure you, I have.”

  “I assure you, you haven’t.”

  They matched stares. Beneath his weariness, Reid looked annoyed. “I’m not your child or your employee, Miss Trentham. You can’t compel me to eat more than I wish to.”

  “But as your wife, I really must insist on it!”

  Reid didn’t smile at this sally. He pushed his plate away again.

  Letty placed it back in front of him. “Mr. Reid,” she said bluntly. “I don’t have to help you. I’m doing you a favor—a rather large favor—a favor that could see me ruined! In return, all I ask is one very small favor from you: that you eat more.”

  Reid’s expression became saturnine. “Blackmail, Miss Trentham?”

  Letty pursed her lips and considered this accusation. “A bargain. I help you find your traitor; you humor me by eating more.”

  Reid blew out his breath. He picked up his knife and fork again. “How much would you like me to eat?” he inquired, with sour politeness.

  Everything that’s on your plate. “At least one more egg, and a whole sausage.”

  Reid ate precisely what she’d told him to eat. His plate was still half-full when he’d finished. Letty watched him lay down his knife and fork. His hands were large, with strong, lean fingers. Fighter’s hands. Hands that could hold a man pinned to the wall.

  Her gaze lifted to his face. The sun had been only an hour in the sky, and already Reid looked exhausted, lines of weariness etched into his skin. “What time did you get up, Mr. Reid?”

  He glanced at her, and away. “I’m an early riser.”

  That’s not an answer, it’s an evasion. Letty frowned at him. “Did you hear someone crying out in the night?”

  “No.”

  The landlord’s daughter bustled cheerfully into the parlor. “Would you like anything more, ma’am, sir?”

  “No, thank you, Sally.” Letty placed her napkin on the table and pushed back her chair. “My husband and I are going for a walk.”

  * * *

  Basingstoke was a market town, and Wednesday was market day. The street that the Plough lay on was quiet enough, but the main square was chaos and commotion. Half the folk of Hamptonshire had apparently come to sell their produce, and the other half to buy it.

  Letty peered through her veil. The square was crammed with stalls and barrows and carts and livestock of every description, and people, hundreds of people, all of whom seemed to be calling out to one another.

  “Good Lord,” she said.

  Reid halted, and looked slightly daunted.

  Letty stared around the market square. The impression of bedlam didn’t ease.

  “Someone here must have seen Mr. Green!” she said firmly. “It’s simply a matter of finding them.”

  Reid’s eyebrows twitched up, but he didn’t say what they were both thinking: As easy as unearthing a needle in a hayrick.

  They eased their way into the market, pressed close on all sides by housewives, tradesmen, and farmers in leather waistcoats and hobnailed brogues. Letty could scarcely hear herself think.

  “Excuse me, we’re looking for a friend of ours. A young man named Green. He was released from service here last month. His employer was a Mr. Dunlop. Have you perhaps seen him, or heard of him?”

  Reid asked the question until he was hoarse, but none of the busy vendors or their customers knew of Mr. Green.

  At noon, they returned to the Plough. Luncheon consisted of last night’s raised pie and curd pudding, reheated. They ate silently. Letty kept an eye on Reid’s plate. When he made to put down his knife and fork, she said, “You haven’t finished your pie.”

  Reid shot her a narrow glance, but didn’t argue. After he’d chewed his way through the rest of the pie, he laid down his cutlery. “Satisfied?”

  “Yes. Now do let me serve you some of this delicious pudding!”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he said nothing.

  Reid ate three mouthfuls of curd pudding, and then put down his spoon. “
I can’t eat any more.” Letty heard the truth in his words.

  He eyed her for a moment, and placed his bowl to one side, waited another moment, then folded his napkin. Letty wasn’t sure whether to be offended or amused. Am I such a dragon?

  If Reid had looked weary at breakfast, he looked exhausted now.

  “Would you like a nap?”

  Reid stiffened in his chair. An expression of affront crossed his face. “No, thank you.”

  Letty sighed inwardly. Dare she bully him into a rest? “Then let’s return to our task.”

  * * *

  They worked their way outward from the square, asking questions of the butcher and the baker, the apothecary, the tailor and the cobbler, the wainwright and the cooper, even venturing into a fragrant brewery. Letty found the experience interesting. These were the sorts of places—brewery, bakery, cooperage—that the children who grew up in her mother’s foundling homes were apprenticed in.

  No one they spoke to had heard of Green. The overcast sky became darker, the clouds denser and lower. A damp, chilly breeze plucked at Letty’s cloak and stirred her veil. She watched Reid closely. By late afternoon, he was gray beneath his tan.

  “I have to rest,” Letty announced. “All this walking! I need a cup of tea. That inn looks the very place.”

  Reid didn’t protest.

  The inn in question was a humble establishment, with faded paintwork and a lopsided sign, but the coffee room was empty, and a fire burned in the grate, and the serving woman’s apron was almost clean.

  Letty pushed back her veil and examined Mr. Reid. He looked as if he needed more than a cup of tea. “A pot of tea, please, and an ale for my husband.”

  The ale did revive Mr. Reid. He looked much less gray by the time he’d drained the tankard.

  “We haven’t asked here,” Letty said. “Perhaps this is where Dunlop and Green stayed.”

  “I asked at all the inns on Monday.”

  “We should ask again,” Letty said firmly. “Someone may have lied.”

  “Why would they?”

  Why, indeed? Letty sighed. “Dunlop turned Green off in Basingstoke, which means he stayed in Basingstoke; he’d hardly throw the man out of his carriage as he passed through town.”

  Reid rubbed his face. “Maybe he did.”

  “In which case, someone would have noticed!”

  The briefest and faintest of smiles crossed Reid’s face—and instantly vanished. “I should have asked Dunlop where he stayed. At least, we’d have a starting point.”

  “Do you think he’d have remembered?” Letty said dryly. “He couldn’t even remember that sergeant’s name—and the man lost an arm!”

  Reid shrugged.

  Neither of them made a move to leave. It was warm in the coffee room, and cold outside. The door to the corridor stood open a crack. The serving woman’s voice floated in. “We don’t want no one like you workin’ here.”

  “Oh, but please—”

  “If you want a roof over yer head, go to the workhouse.”

  “Green could be in the workhouse,” Reid said, with a frown. “Or an almshouse.”

  “Yes.” Letty’s attention was only partly on Reid; most of her attention was on the conversation taking place out of sight.

  “But it wasn’t my fault!” The speaker was a young woman. Desperation and truth rang in her voice.

  “I don’t care whose fault it were. Yer not wanted here. Out!”

  “Excuse me,” Letty told Mr. Reid, pushing up from her chair and hurrying from the room.

  Only one person stood in the corridor: the serving woman, her mouth pinched tight, her hands fisted on her hips. The door to the street was just swinging shut.

  Letty hastened outside. A woman stood on the flagway, wrapped in a cloak, a carpetbag at her feet, her head bent in despair.

  “I beg your pardon,” Letty said. “I couldn’t help overhearing . . .”

  The woman looked up. She was very young, dark-haired and slender, with a pale, tearstained face that might, in other circumstances, have been pretty.

  “What is your trouble?” Letty asked gently. “Can I help?”

  The girl’s face twisted. Tears started in her eyes. “No one can help.”

  “I think I probably can help you . . . but not unless you tell me what’s wrong.”

  They stood in silence for a long moment, while a cold wind whistled down the street. Then, the girl looked away. “I’m pregnant,” she said bitterly.

  Letty nodded, unsurprised. “What did you mean when you said it wasn’t your fault?”

  The girl looked back at her. “I meant that his son raped me, is what I meant!” she said fiercely. “But Sir Malcolm wouldn’t believe it—turned me off!—and my aunt won’t believe it either! No one will believe me!”

  “I believe you,” Letty said.

  The girl’s fierceness drained away. The despair returned. “What use is that?”

  Mr. Reid emerged from the inn. Letty waved him back with a flick of her hand. The girl didn’t notice.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen, ma’am.”

  “What about your parents?”

  “Dead last year,” the girl said, wearily. “That’s why I went into service.”

  “Housemaid?”

  “Up at the manor.”

  “Well, it so happens that I’m in need of a maid myself for a few days. That will give us time to come up with a solution to your problem.”

  “There is no solution!”

  “There most definitely is. For a start, you need somewhere to live until the baby’s born.”

  The girl stared at her. “Where?”

  “Not the workhouse!” Letty smiled at her. “Come now, be my maid until Friday—I’m in desperate need of one, I assure you.”

  Incredulous hope was dawning on the girl’s face. “You mean that, ma’am?”

  “Of course, I mean it! Now tell me, what’s your name?”

  “Eliza Marshall, ma’am.”

  Letty beckoned to Reid. “My name is Mrs. Reid, and this is my husband.”

  Eliza bobbed Reid a shy curtsy.

  “Eliza has agreed to be my maid while we’re here,” Letty informed him.

  Reid received this news impassively. He acknowledged Eliza’s curtsy with a polite nod.

  “We’re staying at the Plough,” Letty said. “On Beadle Street. You know where it is?”

  Eliza nodded.

  A sudden thought struck her. “Er . . . do you know the family who runs it?”

  To her relief, Eliza shook her head.

  “Good! Tell them you’re Mrs. Reid’s maid. There’s a room hired for you. Make sure the fire’s kindled, and ask for your dinner if you’re hungry.”

  Eliza picked up the carpetbag and hugged it to her chest. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I shall see you in an hour or two, Eliza.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am!” Eliza bobbed another curtsy, and scurried off.

  Letty watched her out of sight, and turned to Reid. He was looking at her, his expression inscrutable. “Pregnant?”

  “Raped by her master’s son and turned out. And her aunt won’t help her.”

  Reid glanced at the inn. “That’s the aunt?”

  “I assume so.”

  Reid made a sound, part grunt, part snort, wholly contemptuous. He glanced in the direction Eliza had gone. “And when we leave here?”

  “I shall send her to Holborn. There’s a lying-in hospital there, a very good place—a charity I support—and Eliza may stay there until the baby’s born. The child can go to a foundling home—a good one—and then all that will remain is to find Eliza another position.” Letty forcibly stopped this train of thought. “But that can all be dealt with later,” she said briskly. “For now, let’s visit the workhouse and see if Mr. Green ended up there.”

  Chapter Seven

  Green hadn’t found his way to the workhouse, or to any of the almshouses. Dusk was darkening t
he sky. The wind carried the occasional drop of rain. “We’ll try all the inns tomorrow,” Letty said. “I know there’s no logical reason why anyone would lie, but there’s no harm in checking, is there?”

  Reid glanced at her, and clearly decided that the question was rhetorical.

  A gust of wind almost lifted Letty’s hat from her head. In its wake, the rain began to come down in earnest.

  Miss Trentham, England’s greatest heiress, never ran; Mrs. Reid did, clutching her hat with one hand and holding her skirts up with the other. She arrived at the Plough puffing and laughing and feeling like a girl again, and clattered breathlessly up the stairs to her room, where Eliza waited to help her out of the damp clothes.

  The Plough had begun to feel almost like home, comfortable and familiar, with its warm, low-beamed bedchambers and snug parlor. Dinner was giblet pie and rice pudding. Letty, who’d never eaten giblet pie before, found it surprisingly tasty. Mr. Reid—with an expression of silent long-suffering—ate almost half a plateful, but refused the rice pudding.

  Upstairs in her bedchamber, Letty allowed Eliza to unbutton and unlace her, and then sent the girl to bed.

  “But your hair, ma’am. Don’t you wish me to brush it out?”

  “I’ll do it myself tonight. Go to bed. You look exhausted. And don’t worry! You will not be turned out into the street.”

  Grateful tears filled the girl’s eyes. “How can I ever thank you enough, ma’am? You’re an angel!”

  “I can assure you I’m no angel. But I’m an orphan, myself; I know what it’s like. Now, off to bed, my dear!”

  Eliza bobbed a tearful curtsy. “Thank you, ma’am. Good night, ma’am.”

  Letty brushed out her hair, plaited it, and changed into her nightgown. An angel? No one in the ton would call her an angel. Cold, yes. Proud and standoffish. In the words of one of her rejected suitors, an unfeeling bitch.

  But not an angel.

  Letty climbed into the high bed. She didn’t immediately blow out her candle, but lay watching the candlelight flicker over the walls, enjoying the coziness of the bedchamber and the sound of rain pattering against the window panes. I wish I could stay here forever. It was wonderful being plain Mrs. Reid. Wonderful not to be hemmed about by servants, wonderful not to have people toad-eating her whichever way she turned.