Harriet shuddered. “I will never forget how it felt to hit him that way. It was terrible, Sir Frederick.”
Since his joshing didn’t ease her, Frederick suggested she retire to her room and ask the housekeeper give her a mild dose of laudanum which would compose her for sleep. She must not make herself ill again. Harriet, agreeing her bed would be welcome, excused herself. The party broke up soon after and, after sending off a note of regret to the hostess to whom they were promised, the household had a quiet night.
Frederick, on the other hand, strolled first to his rooms and then, once he knew Yves was sleeping under Cob’s watchful eye, on to White’s. The porter at the door stared at his black eye but asked no questions. Members of the club were not so polite. The story of the fight by the river was already making the rounds. It had grown to a tale of a veritable riot, but Frederick laughed that to scorn. A handful of bully boys out on a spree, he insisted.
“A handful?” asked Cleary. “I heard boat’s full—three, at least.”
“Yes, but such very small boats,” said Frederick, not looking at the speaker but scanning the room as if for someone special. “Veritable teacups of the boat family.”
“Life is always so interesting wherever you are, Sir Frederick,” said the man, an oily note Frederick didn’t like in his voice.
“You think it interesting to find yourself sporting this?” Frederick pointed to his face. “I can think of many far more interesting ways to spend an afternoon than fighting with river rats. They weren’t even clean,” he added on a pensive note.
“I wasn’t thinking of the fight. I was thinking of your latest, er, lady. Quite a talented piece of work, is she not?”
The tone had changed from oily to biting and Cleary now had Frederick’s foil attention. “She plays far better than one’s average amateur, as she proved at Lady Cowper’s not long ago, but she has had the benefit of tutoring by some of the best musicians of our time, and she loves her music.”
“There’s that as well,” agreed his tormentor, nodding judiciously. “Perhaps the lady is a trifle too talented. Tell me, has she published her satires on the continent? Were they well-received? When does she intend to publish here?”
“So far as I know, she has no such plans and has never had an ambition to earn a living by her pen,” said Frederick, wishing he had at least a glimmering of what was in the wind.
“Tom Moore says she could,” said a kinder voice, chuckling. “Quite a way with words, he says.”
Sir Frederick looked around to see who spoke. He immediately pulled himself together. This man was not one he could fob off. “Moore was so complimentary?” he asked, feeling his way. Then he remembered Harriet’s story about the woman who had snubbed her, the biting wit when she’d described the role of the diamond necklace that defined where cleanliness stopped. Surely Harriet hadn’t been so foolish as to write up bits and pieces describing important members of the ton!
“Moore laughed himself silly,” said Lord Winthrop, an amateur poet of some status and an aristocratic light in London’s literary circles. “Said he couldn’t wait to meet the author.”
Oh, Lord, she’s done it now. She must actually have written about the ton! thought Frederick ruefully. “I see no reason why he may not—assuming he’s sober at the time!” he said, and the group’s laughter at the caveat broke the tension. Most drifted off to games of chance or to other conversations, but not Winthrop and not Frederick’s tormentor, Cleary.
“Don’t think everyone’s so tolerant,” said the latter suggestively.
“No, there are some,” said Winthrop, “who feel she went too far when she said the Regent’s generation was too fond of Maraschino and tended to creak when they bowed. It is felt to be too clearly a dig at Prinny himself.” Winthrop met Frederick’s eyes. It was a warning.
“I can see where some might think that, particularly those who found themselves showing to a disadvantage elsewhere in her words, perhaps?” asked Frederick with still more caution.
Winthrop’s eyes twinkled. “You have never been a stupid man. I’ve always wanted an opportunity to tell you how much I admired the facility with which you pulled the wool over most everyone’s eyes during the war.”
Frederick glanced at Cleary, who listened avidly. “Not yours?” he asked.
“No,” said Winthrop gently. “You see, I remember how you jumped into a fight to trounce that Gooderson bully at Eton when he was determined to bring one of the new boys to heel. Gooderson weighed a good twenty pounds more than you did and must have been three inches taller.”
Frederick looked sharply at Winthrop. “I’d forgotten that ... was that you?”
“Yes. I was very nearly ready to give in to the bully’s demands when you took over. Thank you. I’ve been meaning to say that for years.”
Frederick’s ears felt hot. “Forget it. It was nothing, a trifle.”
“It wasn’t a trifle to a very young boy who was homesick and very much out of place amongst such very male society.” Winthrop grimaced. “You see, my father died when I was but a babe. I was raised by my mother, my aunt, my grandmother, and four older sisters. Needless to say, I’d not had much contact with the rougher side of life.”
“It was a very long time ago.”
“What did he mean, you pulled the wool over our eyes during the war?” asked Cleary belligerently.
Frederick had been ignoring the man who hovered near. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he insisted, holding Winthrop’s eyes and silently insisting the subject be dropped. After a moment Winthrop shrugged.
When Cleary got no response to his demand for information, he suggested, “Still think you should do something about your latest lady. Drop her, maybe?” Again he got no verbal response to a suggestion, but Winthrop looked at him as if he were a toad. Cleary, his ears burning, stalked off.
“Don’t think you have a friend there,” said Winthrop thoughtfully.
“No, he’s never been a friend. I don’t know why he’d change at this late date. Winthrop,” added Frederick, “will you do what you can if you hear more talk of her writing?”
“I’ll help gladly,” said the younger man warmly. “You haven’t seen it?”
“No. I suspect, from what I know of Miss Cole, it wasn’t supposed to have been seen by anyone. I’ll find out tomorrow.”
He joined a table and played late. Because of that he slept in, so that Joanna was the first visitor to enter Halford House the next morning and inquire about Harriet’s health. “So she spent a good night and is feeling more the thing? In that case, please announce me,” she said.
Harriet was not only up but had eaten and was now in the music room. “... with as many servants as can manage to find jobs nearby, doing more listening than working,” added the butler a trifle acidly.
Joanna gave him a commiserating smile and suggested gently that if she were to be announced, perhaps Harriet would stop practicing and perhaps the servants would return to the work for which they were hired. She was announced with alacrity.
“Joanna, you should not be out and about so early!”
“I, too, went to sleep at a ridiculous hour last night and couldn’t lay abed this morning.” Joanna fiddled with the slim roll of paper. “Besides, I had an early morning caller.”
“It must have been a true early bird.”
“No,” chuckled Jo, “merely a bluestocking who actually believes that proverb about early to bed. She’s already wealthy enough to suit her and has her health, I’m sure, but she has a great desire to be wise ... which, come to think of it, she may very well be. Harriet, do you think the adage may have something to recommend it? Ah, but forget that nonsense. Were you aware some of your scribbles have become all the rage—except where you are being taken to task by people who feel the pinch of your words?”
Harriet paled to an ashy tint. She dropped into the chair behind her, staring at her old friend from painfully wide eyes. “My ... scribbles...?”
“You did
n’t know. I thought as much.”
“I wondered yesterday, and then forgot when ... but surely not...”
“I tell you they have spread far and wide.” Jo handed Harriet the pages. “See for yourself, my friend. These are copies, of course, but I recognize the style from the letters we’ve exchanged. You give yourself away in every line.” Harriet was afraid to unroll the stiff paper. She didn’t want to find her own words staring at her from the sheets. Jo took them back, untied the ribbon, and spread out the top one.
“Well?” she asked.
Harriet read a handful of words, turned her head. “Mine.”
“How did they come to circulate in the ton?”
“If you think...!”
“Relax, Harriet. I know very well you’d not do it yourself. Who knew of them?”
“So far as I know, no one.”
“Where did you keep them?”
“In a wooden chest I’ve carried with me everywhere for many years now. It’s upstairs in the back of my armoire.”
“Shall we go see if your work is still there?”
Harriet, reluctantly, led the way. They found the chest unlocked, and Harriet noticed the scar running off at an angle from the keyhole. She ran her finger along it. “Someone forced this.”
“But who would do such a thing?”
Harriet began emptying the case. She reached the bottom and hadn’t found the satire. “Could the comte have had my papers searched and those vignettes stolen in order to discredit me? Maybe to force Madame to rid herself of my contaminating presence?” she asked.
“How could he guess there would be something so damaging? You appear to the world as an intelligent and perfectly respectable female—except, of course, for your predilection for Frederick’s company!”
Harriet blushed. “Don’t. Please. Jo, what am I to do?”
“You’ll stare blankly at anyone who asks about your writing and change the subject.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do,” said Frederick from the doorway. “The word is too firmly established that Harriet is the author.”
Harriet, involuntarily, took a step toward him. Then she remembered herself, remembered she had no right to ask for his comfort or his care—in fact, had forbidden him the right to offer such. Frederick, however, had no scruples. At the hint she wished it, he came to her and drew her into his embrace, pressing her head against his shoulder.
“It’ll be all right, Harriet,” he whispered into her hair.
“How can it be?” she mumbled into his coat.
Joanna, guessing at the half-heard exchange, said, “Frederick is correct. A nine day wonder at most, Harriet.”
“But what am I to do?”
“I still think she gives a questioner a look of blank incomprehension,” said Jo.
Frederick grimaced. “Do you think she’ll get away with that when she meets Tom Moore or Lord Winthrop?”
“When would she ever meet Moore?” For the moment, Joanna ignored Frederick’s reference to the poet.
“I had a note from him this morning. He requests an introduction—and promises he’ll not have drunk a drop. Last night, you see, I was told he wished to meet Harriet. I said I saw no reason why he should not—assuming he was sober. Word must have traveled like the wind to have reached him so quickly.”
“And Winthrop?”
“He was Moore’s petitioner. He, too, wishes to meet the new rising star upon London’s literary firmament.”
“He can’t have said that!” said Harriet, raising her head to look up at Frederick.
He smiled at her, glad to see she wasn’t totally downcast. “He said exactly that. It’s the way he always talks about literature, you see.”
“Surely not.”
“Oh,” said Joanna, “but he does. What a delightful subject for your viciously wicked pen, love.”
Harriet stiffened. “I’ll never write anything like that ever again,” she insisted.
“Have you seen them?” Jo asked Frederick.
“Not yet.”
Jo shuffled through the pages and found the one describing Frederick. With a grin, she handed it to him. He skimmed it, his cheeks reddening, looked down at Harriet’s pale gold head with a rueful expression in his dark eyes and handed the page back to Jo. “Something else, perhaps? I don’t think I quite properly appreciate that one!”
Harriet pulled away, startled from her preoccupation by his tone. She looked up at him, looked at Jo, looked at the thin sheaf of pages her friend held. She extended a hand. “Give those to me!”
“So that you can burn them? It will do no good. There are a dozen copies, at least, floating about London—and perhaps still more, moving, via the Royal Mails, to every corner of the land.”
“That need not be another. Give it to me, Jo.”
“No, Your Grace” said Frederick, “give it to me. I don’t wish to be put to the bother of tracking down another copy so that I may see if there is anything of too damaging a nature. If there is, then we’ll have to think of some means of defusing it.”
Jo handed them over, and Frederick slipped the roll into a pocket in his coattails. Harriet watched them disappear, still wistfully wishing she might burn them. She remembered what had been written about Frederick. It was the least accurate portrait of them all. Her hurt that he hadn’t bothered to hear her name properly, complicated by her infatuation, had colored her words, distorting reality far beyond what was allowed a proper satirist.
Jo broke the silence, asking quietly, “Can anything be done if she’s libelled someone?”
“Oh dear. Perhaps someone will sue!” suggested Harriet, a new fear rearing up to plague her.
“I doubt anyone would go so far. It would only make more of what is surely only a tempest in a teapot,” soothed Jo.
“Only time will tell, but I, too, doubt anyone would be so foolish as to draw attention to what they must hope may soon be forgotten. Harriet, you are still tired, are you not? I think perhaps you should rest again today.”
“Perhaps I will.” Harriet looked longingly at her bed. To cower down under the covers seemed a delightful escape from her problems. It had been one thing after another for months now. Firstly, Françoise’s irritating suitor had become an acute problem and, because of him, Madame was made ill. Then, her stupid feelings for Sir Frederick had settled into a constant nagging ache to plague her. Her playing in public had become an issue, one she’d lost, and, now, her ridiculous scribbles had come to light to haunt her. She wondered what would happen next to bedevil her.
Harriet returned to invalid status and had two full days of peace. She rose early the third morning feeling very much more herself and wondered why she had played the fool for so long.
“It is merely that when one is not feeling well, things are blown all out of proportion,” said Madame as she and Harriet drank their morning coffee together. “Now you are well again, and I am thankful. I should not have asked that you accompany Françoise out to that river cottage place. I should not have done so because you had been so recently ill, but I am very glad I did, if you had not been there, Harriet, Françoise would have been lost to us.”
“I think I had a relapse that day—and then that stupid satire.” Harriet shook her head. “Who can have found it and why?”
“Do you truly not know?” asked Madame, and Harriet met her gaze, her look questioning. “But that has been obvious from the beginning, that. Her precious ladyship, Françoise’s new grandmother, dislikes the both of you intensely. She dared do nothing to harm Frani. Therefore, she did what she could to harm you. I suspect she searched your box to find love letters or some incriminating document of that ilk. What she found was—or so she thought—much much better.”
“Joanna tells me it will be nothing but a nine days wonder. Three of those nine have passed,” said Harriet with a certain dryness. “Do you think I might remain ill for another six? Just think, it would all be forgotten, and I might forget it as well.”
“I
believe the nine must be passed where the ton may at least see you if not speak with you. They will only postpone their curiosity until you do appear, so playing least-in-sight is not the answer.” Madame straightened. “Today I would enjoy a ride in the Park. Her Grace will join us, of course, and, I think, Lady Cowper? She is very grateful that you played for her musical, and she owes you a service in return, does she not? I will write her a note requesting her company.”
“You think to surround me with respectable women and hope that will take the sharp edges off the curiosity?”
“Something of the sort,” admitted Madame la Comtesse. “It will not hurt you to be seen with one of the patronesses, and you did not say anything about Lady Cowper so she’ll wish you no harm.”
“It would be better if I could be seen in the company of one I had harmed,” murmured Harriet.
“What? One you’ve harmed? But you’ve harmed no one. Me, I have read your words, you see. They are quite humorous, I think.”
“I should never have written any of it. When we were in Calais I thought of them for the first time in years. I remember thinking that I should find and destroy them—and then I went to sleep and forgot them again. How much trouble could have been saved if I had not!”
“What is done is done. Bring me my traveling writing desk, my dear. I must write notes to Her Grace and to Lady Cowper.”
“And then you must convince me that it is truly best for me to be seen in public. I’ve thought that perhaps I should return to the continent. I am certain that among your acquaintances there is one whom you might convince that, if they would only hire me, I would become an indispensable member of their staff.”
“Nonsense. You are an indispensable member of my staff, and I cannot part with you. Instead, we must see this threat of scandal is scotched—is that correct, scotched?”
“Yes. I cannot think where the expression comes from, though. I wonder ... from scorched, perhaps? Or scratched? Or the mixing of both?”
“While you wonder, Harriet, retrieve for me my desk!”
A Reformed Rake Page 26
