But not for long.
The next to approach them was, improbably, Jess Fitzroy, riding a superb grey. He swept off his hat to Susanna and said cheerfully to Ben, ‘Good afternoon, sir.’
‘Very good for you,’ returned Ben, ‘if you have nothing better to do than ride in the Park.’
‘Oh, all in the way of business,’ replied Jess, not a whit disturbed. ‘I not only have information for you which cannot wait, but I have also been gathering even more as I made my way around the Park.’
‘Urgent or not, the business must wait until we return home,’ replied Ben. He was quartering the Park with his eyes and, when he finished, said affably to Jess, who was smiling at Susanna, ‘You could do me a service if you would, Jess. You could take Miss Beverly for a short walk, for I believe that I see another person who has urgent business with me approaching. She will not wish to listen to a dull recital of Stock Exchange prices, I am sure.’
Now how did she know that he was not telling the truth? Susanna had a mind to refuse him and see what he said to that. Forestalling her—as usual—Jess said cheerfully, ‘Are you sure that Miss Beverly wishes to take a stroll around the Park?’
‘Nothing would please me more,’ said Susanna before Ben could answer. She was tired of having others anticipate her wishes for her.
‘Very well,’ said Jess, dismounting and throwing the reins of his horse to one of Ben’s attendant grooms, before handing Susanna down from the carriage.
‘Do you wish me to walk Bucephalus with us, Miss Beverly? Or would you rather take a turn without him?’
‘Oh, let him walk with us,’ said Susanna, gratified that someone had taken the trouble to ascertain her wishes. ‘He is very beautiful, is he not? Have you had him long?’
Jess took the reins from the groom. ‘Alas, he is not mine, Miss Beverly. He is Ben’s…I mean, Mr Wolfe’s. He allows me the use of him.’
Susanna noticed, as she had done before, that Jess Fitzroy had the speech and manners of a gentleman, something which intrigued her. How had he come to be Ben Wolfe’s faithful dogsbody?
‘Where did you meet him?’ she asked, apparently idly.
‘In India,’ Jess responded frankly. ‘I was an officer in the regiment in which he was a sergeant. I was lucky to have him. I was a raw fool and he saved my bacon once or twice in several frontier skirmishes. He left the army shortly after that and set himself up in business.’
He paused, before adding, ‘I respect you enough to be honest with you. I was a fool, do not ask me how. I was duped by others and ended by having to resign my commission. There I was, penniless, with no family, other than the knowledge that my grandfather had been the natural son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and that I was his only descendant. I had no prospects, no near relatives, and nowhere to go. Ben found me, offered me work and I have been with him ever since. I owe him everything for he saved me from being a pauper.
‘Do not be deceived by his manner. Oh, he is hard, I grant you, but he is true, as true as a new-minted golden guinea. On the other hand, if you are not true—then look out is all I can say!’
‘You can say that, Mr Fitzroy, even after he tried to kidnap Miss Western?’
Jess smiled wryly. ‘I did not say that he was virtuous, Miss Beverly. Virtue is quite another matter and is rarely found—even amongst those who claim most loudly that they possess it.’
Susanna said nothing for a moment. She honoured Mr Fitzroy for being frank with her so she asked him another question.
‘You spoke almost dismissively of virtue, sir. Does that mean that neither you nor Mr Wolfe practise it?’
‘On the contrary: but acts of kindness individually performed do not in themselves constitute virtue, as I am sure you understand. Mr Wolfe looks after people—but in doing so not all his acts are virtuous. The world in which we live is a cruel one, and the good do not survive in it if their only defence is their virtue—more than that is frequently necessary.’
Susanna did not ask him what ‘more than that’ might entail. Her own experience had taught her that much of what he had just said to her was true. She had been good and her goodness had not prevented Mr Mitchell from ruining her—quite the contrary, it had made it easy for him to do so.
A sudden thought struck her. A thought which she did not wish to share with anyone until she had examined it carefully. Her life had been growing increasingly difficult until she had met Mr Ben Wolfe. From that moment on everything had changed.
She had been introduced to Madame and all her fears for her immediate future had disappeared. And then, suddenly, mysteriously, her fortune had been restored to her, and she was again Miss Susanna Beverly, the heiress, no longer a poor dependant on the charity of others.
Jess Fitzroy had said that Mr Wolfe looked after people, and he had undoubtedly looked after Jess. Had he looked after her? Who else knew her who was powerful enough not only to discover Mr Mitchell’s theft of her inheritance, but was also able to restore it to her?
And if her reasoning was correct, how did that affect her feelings for him? She must be grateful—but might he expect more from her than that? And if so, what? By helping Jess, Ben had gained a faithful servant and an honest henchman—what might he expect to gain from helping her?
A man who was not virtuous—even if true—might have a hidden reason for his charitable acts. She looked sideways at Mr Jess Fitzroy and half-thought of saying something on these lines to him.
Reason told her that might be foolish—he was Mr Wolfe’s faithful servant, not hers. On the surface he was everything a gentleman ought to be, but she must not forget that he had kidnapped her on Mr Wolfe’s orders and it was to him he owed allegiance.
‘You are quiet,’ Jess said at last. ‘But then, I like a quiet woman.’
Susanna laughed, and her laughter drove away her darker thoughts. ‘You did not think that I was quiet when you snatched me from the street—on the contrary.’
‘Ah, but you were defending yourself, were you not? And that is what I meant by goodness not being enough. To have acted like a perfect lady would not have helped you in your dealings either with me or with Mr Wolfe. He admired the manner in which you stood up to him and refused to be put down. And then, when all was settled, you reverted to being a perfect lady and allowed yourself to be good again.’
‘You tempt me, Mr Fitzroy, to ask you whether you learned your deviousness from Mr Wolfe—or did you always possess it?’
The look he gave her was an admiring one. ‘And you tempt me, Miss Beverly, to remark that you needed no lessons in that line from Mr Wolfe since from the first moment you met him you also were deviousness itself. That is why he admires you.’
So Mr Wolfe admired her—and what was she to make of that? She was about to answer Jess—or, rather, ask him another question—when she saw that they had walked in a half-circle and were almost back to their starting point.
She could see Ben talking earnestly to a man in dark unfashionable clothing who was sitting beside him in his carriage. She thought suddenly that Jess’s arrival in the Park might not have been accidental, even though Ben had twitted him on it.
‘You have honoured me by giving me your confidence, Mr Fitzroy,’ she said at last, discarding her question, ‘and I will not betray it. I had, I must admit, wondered about your name. You do not have a great look of the Royal Family.’
‘No, indeed, and that is a relief. I take after my grandfather’s wife or so my father told me. And, yes, I would prefer it if you did not inform Mr Wolfe of what I have said of myself—or of him. And now that is enough of me.’
‘Oh, I have learned to be close-mouthed in a bitter school,’ Susanna told him, ‘for if I did not look after myself, no one else would.’
Jess did not inform her that she, like himself, now had a benefactor in the unlikely person of Ben Wolfe, for he had been forbidden to do so. He would not be surprised, though, if Miss Susanna Beverly did not work that out for herself quite soon. He was not to know that
she had already done so.
After that they talked idly until Jess, seeing that Ben’s visitor had disappeared, walked Susanna back to his employer’s carriage again, mounted his grey and bade them adieu.
His business apparently over—and Jess disappearing into the middle distance, doubtless to carry out more of his errands—Ben gave Susanna his full attention. His first sentence proved that, even when apparently conducting business, he still had time to watch what was going on about him.
‘Jess had plenty to say to you,’ he remarked drily as he drove slowly along, ‘and you seemed to be equally loquacious. Was it the weather or the current on dits which occupied you?’
‘Neither,’ said Susanna briskly. ‘The weather has been unchangingly temperate recently, and I know little of any on dits. Instead we enjoyed a short philosophical conversation on the nature of virtue.’
‘Of which Jess knows a great deal, I am sure,’ remarked Ben, a trifle ironically.
‘Oh, one need not practise something in order to discuss it,’ retorted Susanna. ‘Otherwise it would be difficult to discuss anything—paintings or poems, for example, seeing that most of us are neither painters nor poets.’
Few men, and no women, ever spoke to Ben Wolfe in such a downright fashion. He gave a short laugh and said, ‘I shall make it my business, Miss Beverly, to choose my words very carefully when I discuss anything with you. You would have made a good career in the world of business had you been a man.’
He had almost said ‘been lucky enough to be a man,’ but had revised that statement before he made it for he was sure that Miss Beverly would have had said something sharp in reply. He thought that she was happy to be a woman even if, in many ways, she possessed the kind of acuteness which was commonly thought to be confined to men. Besides, he had absolutely no wish for her to be a man!
‘Is that intended to be a compliment, Mr Wolfe?’ she asked him gravely.
‘Many would think it so.’
‘But am I to think it so?’
The look she gave him as she said this set Ben groaning inwardly. He wished that they were alone, not in a crowded Park with idle, curious and malicious eyes upon them. He would have kissed her for her impudence, there, at the corner of her smiling mouth. And then he would…he would…
Stop that, he commanded himself sternly. This is neither the time nor the place…
And stop that, too. I have no wish to be any woman’s slave—even one as clever and desirable as Miss Susanna Beverly.
‘I meant it as such,’ he came out with at last, Susanna meanwhile wondering why it took him so long to answer her.
‘Then I will accept it as such.’
‘And in the meantime,’ he ground out, ‘you will oblige me by cutting that obnoxious puppy, George Darlington,’ for he had just seen George tipping his hat and smiling at Susanna for all the world as though he had not recently attempted to assault her in Lord Exford’s study.
‘You know, Mr Wolfe,’ Susanna told him after doing as he wished, ‘I don’t really need a duenna when I am with you. You perform that service so admirably I wonder that you do not take it up as a profession!’
He replied to her in kind, ‘I would if it paid as well as being a financier in the City.’
‘I must remember that,’ she said, ‘if I lose my fortune again and need to find a well-rewarded occupation.’
‘You did not lose your fortune, Miss Beverly, you had it stolen from you. Remember that if you begin to feel mercy towards those who robbed you.’ His voice was both stern and forbidding.
‘You surely do not mean that my mother—?’
‘Your mother, from what you have said of her, turns a blind eye to her second husband’s actions. I cannot believe that she was completely unaware of his misappropriation of your inheritance.’
In fact Ben, from his investigations, knew that what he was saying was true. Equally, Susanna, with a sinking heart, was sure that what he was telling her was the truth because he had been her unknown saviour.
For a moment she debated whether to tell him that she was aware of that, but decided against it. If he wished to keep his secret, then she would take no steps to make him aware that she had discovered it.
Jess Fitzroy is right. I am as devious as he is. Knowledge is power, as the old saying has it, and although I cannot yet conceive what power over him this knowledge gives me, I will continue to keep my secret—as he keeps his. Like it or not, what frightens me the most is the knowledge of the attraction he has for me so that simply sitting by him excites me strangely.
And the most exciting thing of all is that that is another of my secrets, from him and the world.
Thus, side by side, they drove back to Stanhope Street, chatting amiably together, neither of them giving the slightest sign that what was growing between them was slowly becoming so powerful that they would be unable to deny it—either to themselves or to the other.
Once back at Madame’s Ben refused an offer of early supper. ‘Alas, I must decline,’ he said, ‘I have another engagement, made only this afternoon. What would please me is if you would both consent to dine with me on this coming Friday evening. Pray forgive me for asking you at such short notice.’
‘Not only do we forgive you,’ said Madame, ‘but we shall be delighted to attend as we have no other engagements—is not that so, Miss Beverly?’
‘Indeed,’ said Susanna who, beneath her quiet acquiescence was all agog at the prospect of dinner with Mr Wolfe. If his country home was The Den, what was his London home called? The Lair, perhaps?
She hugged this gleeful thought to herself as Madame discreetly questioned her about her ride with Ben and she as discreetly answered, amused, as always, at the distance she had come from being the naïve girl whom Samuel Mitchell had cheated so easily.
Chapter Nine
‘I say, Gronow, ain’t that Ben Wolfe? Who let him in? All sorts of stories goin’ around about him. No one knows who the devil he really is.’
‘Best not let him hear you say so,’ returned Captain Gronow, looking up from his game of whist to rebuke the speaker, his partner, James Erskine. ‘He’s a devil of a fellow for anything you care to name: rapier, sabre, pistols or fists. What’s more, he’s a member here. That Indian nabob, Wilson, put him up for membership and he was accepted before the on dits started their rounds. Whatever else, he’s the dead-spit image of his supposed father, the late Charlie Wolfe, but on which side of the blanket…who knows or cares?
‘In any case, your turn to play—you haven’t forgotten that we are playing at whist and not at gossip.’
Since Gronow possessed all the athletic attributes which he claimed for Ben Wolfe, James Erskine flushed and played the card which he had been holding in the air. ‘Only asking, old fellow, only asking,’ he muttered.
Ben, watching them from where he was propped against the mantelpiece, a glass of rather inferior port in his hand, would not have been surprised to learn that he was the subject of their conversation. Only that morning Jess Fitzroy, as tactfully as he could, had told him of the unpleasant rumours about him circulating around London.
‘So that was why I caused such a commotion in Hyde Park yesterday,’ he had said. ‘I might have thought that it was the splendour of my turnout, but no. Try to find out where this nonsense came from—who started it on its way.’
‘Difficult, that,’ said Jess, shrugging his shoulders. ‘I’ll do my best, though.’
Ben had said no more. He thought he knew who had started the lie on its way, but he wanted hard evidence before he took any action. He drank down the remains of his port and turned to speak to his friend, once his patron, Tom Wilson, who was standing near him.
He had only exchanged a few words with him when someone tapped him aggressively on his shoulder, causing him to turn in the opposite direction—to discover that he was facing George Darlington.
‘You wish to speak to me?’ he asked. He kept his voice low and his manner courteous. He had no wish to embarra
ss Tom Wilson to whom he owed a great deal, including his membership of White’s.
George, however, was suffering from no such constraints. ‘I have no wish to speak to you,’ he said roughly, treading on the word wish. ‘But I am compelled to do so in order to ask you what you are doing here in a club reserved for gentlemen. You, being neither a gentleman nor entitled to the name you pretend to, have no business here.’
‘Steady now, young fellow,’ exclaimed Tom before Ben could answer. ‘He is here because he has been properly elected at my sponsorship and that of Lord Lowborough with whom we were both acquainted in India.’
‘Oh, India,’ jeered George, ‘one might claim to be anyone in India, eh, Father?’
George’s father, Lord Babbacombe, who had been a little way behind his son because of handing his hat and greatcoat to a footman, said approvingly, ‘Indeed, that is so. We order matters differently in England as this fellow will soon discover. I shall make a complaint immediately to the committee and ask them to revoke his membership forthwith. To my certain knowledge he is an impostor. Charles Wolfe’s only son, Benjamin, died in childhood.’
‘A fate likely to overtake your son at a somewhat later stage in his life,’ ground out Ben through his teeth, ‘since I am giving him notice that I shall be sending my seconds to him to arrange for us to meet on the field of honour so that I may repay him for the insult which he has put upon me.’
‘You may send as many seconds as you please,’ returned m’lord, ‘but no son of mine, nor any other gentleman, will soil his hands by engaging in an affair of honour with a cheat and impostor. Be warned, sir, I shall shortly be laying before the proper authorities evidence of your crimes. I say nothing of the fact that you have spent your time since you returned to England attempting to ruin me financially. That has nothing to do with the case, other than to prove that you have no shame and that the word honour on your lips demeans it.’
‘Attempting to ruin you,’ said Ben, his eyebrows rising. ‘I believe that I have gone further than that—for a reason which you well know and which I shall not mention here.
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