I remembered my cold fear when Pilcher had walked in, the chilling way he’d calmly discussed with Chief Inspector Moss how he might dispatch us. Moss had been ready to let Pilcher kill three women and drop their bodies into the Thames, damn and blast him. Any sympathy I’d had for Moss had evaporated at that moment.
“You still believe Pilcher can lead you to the man who killed your dad?” I asked Daniel.
He nodded, old pain in his eyes. “I certainly want to find out.”
“I ought to have kept James from running after him,” I said in remorse. “I am so sorry.”
Daniel shot me a look of amazement. “How could you have? I’ve never been able to stop James doing precisely what he wants, and I’m his father. You would have had to throw a net over him and had half the constables sit on him before James would stay put.” Daniel leaned back, resting his head on the whitewashed wall behind him, his face drawn. “I’ll never forgive myself if he takes sick from this. I was so zealous to nab Pilcher and bend him to my will that I paid no attention to my own son. I ought to have known James would want to help. He always wants to help me, though God knows I don’t deserve it.” He trailed off bitterly.
“You let Pilcher go,” I reminded him. “You let him go without a word and turned back for James. That tells me what sort of man you are.”
“There was no choice. When I saw James go down, Pilcher suddenly didn’t matter, and neither did Naismith, or my need for vengeance. Nothing mattered at that moment except James. I also realized in that instant that my single-minded stupidity might have killed him.” He shivered.
I wrapped my hands around both of his, holding on tight. “James is a sturdy lad, and he’ll mend quickly. You’ll have him living with you now, so you can look after him, like a proper dad.”
“The reason I have him stay elsewhere is to keep him safe. I know insalubrious people, men and women both. I don’t want them near him.”
“Stop telling those insalubrious people where you live, and it will not be a problem,” I said. “Although I concede that I can speak with such loftiness because I have Grace in a house where she is safe. I would lock her in there until she’s sixty if I thought it would prevent any terrible thing from happening to her.”
Daniel sat up straight as he chuckled, the rumble of his laughter vibrating me. “Together we will wrap cotton wool around our children and keep them from harm.”
I sighed. “If only it could be done.”
Daniel touched my face. His fingertips were streaked with dirt, grime from the road, and blood, and I did not mind in the slightest.
“We will do it,” he said. “We’ll help each other keep them safe. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said, and smiled.
His lips were close to mine, his eyes warm. Instead of waiting for him to take a liberty, I leaned forward and kissed him myself.
Daniel started, and then he slid an arm around me, drawing me close as he gently returned the kiss.
Daniel’s lips were warm, but the touch of them was light, as though he feared I’d leap up and run away if he kissed me harder. I could have told him that nothing short of a hurricane could make me leave at this moment, and then it would be only to seek shelter with him where we might carry on kissing.
I tugged him closer and let my lips play upon his, my body heating. I knew in my heart I could let myself be seduced by this man, and rush willingly all the way to my ruin.
We would not have the chance for this today, however. As I rested my hand on his shoulder, liking the steely hardness of it as we continued the kiss, the nurse, or whoever she was, walked briskly into the room.
Her heels clicked on the hard floor, and she sniffed. “Well, really.”
As Daniel and I sprang apart, my fingers going to my tingling lips, we found ourselves bathed in her chill glare of disapproval. “The lad is ready to be taken home,” she said coldly. “That is, if there is anyplace decent for him to go.”
Daniel rose to his feet, his smile ready, his good-natured persona sliding onto him like a glove. “Indeed, ma’am. The lodgings I’ll carry him to are of the utmost respectability, and there he’ll be tutored by one of the best scholars from Cambridge.” Daniel clasped my hands and raised me to my feet. “Shall we take him home, Mrs. Holloway?”
“Of course, Mr. McAdam,” I said with all the dignity I could muster.
“Humph,” the woman said, and she disappeared into the back room.
Daniel and I waited until the door closed, and then we laughed until we had to hang on to each other to keep from collapsing. We laughed for relief that James was well, for the headiness of our stolen moment, and for hope of what the future might bring.
27
Daniel hired a carriage to take us home. I walked out beside him as he carried James with careful tenderness, James half asleep with the opiate the doctor had given him.
I rode with them as far as South Audley Street, where Daniel helped me down and said good-bye. As we were in a public road, I concluded our farewell with a nod, and then Daniel climbed back into the carriage, which rolled westward along Piccadilly toward Kensington.
I walked on to Mount Street, my steps tired. My worry for James was mitigated somewhat, but the adventure, which had followed hard upon my restless night, had worn me out. The long way up South Audley Street, past Grosvenor Chapel to Mount Street, nearly did me in.
But I was a cook, not mistress of my own household, and so I could not retire to bed and loll there. I’d had my day out yesterday, and now it was time to labor.
When I plodded into the kitchen, the fire was roaring in the stove and a pot was bubbling, a layer of eggs dancing in it. Bacon sizzled in a pan, and a pile of toast warmed on the stove, butter dripping down the stack. Another sauté pan held potatoes and sausage, and two loaves of shaped dough rested on a wooden board on the table, Tess just covering them with a cloth.
“Here you are!” Tess sang out when she saw me. “Lady Cynthia and I came home all right, and I told you I’d start in. Sit yourself down, Mrs. H. I’ll pour you a cuppa.”
She waved her hand proudly, indicating the breakfast preparations, including the oval covered dishes in a row, waiting for the cooking food. Mr. Davis strode in, his butler’s kit neat, his hairpiece straight, his movements lively.
“Good morning, Mrs. Holloway. Tess told us about James. Poor lad. Is he all right?”
I wondered exactly what Tess had told him, but her face remained blank and innocent.
“He will be,” I said. “He is receiving good care.”
“I am glad,” Mr. Davis said, sounding genuinely relieved. He was a warmhearted man, I’d come to know. Mr. Davis might be a stickler for household protocol and all of us doing our jobs correctly, but he’d proved to be a reasonable fellow, and I’d begun to count him as a friend.
Tess poured tea—clear, smooth-tasting oolong—and set buttered toast in front of me. I fell upon it hungrily. The bread was toasted to perfection, the butter hot and melted through.
“Well done, Tess,” I said as I chewed. “My services might no longer be needed here.”
Tess shot me a petrified look. “No fear of that. I’m off. It’s me day out. Let nothing stand in the way of a day out, you told me.”
“So I did. I was teasing you. You have done beautifully, and it is kind of you to let me rest a moment.”
Her grin returned. “That’s all right, then. I’m glad James will be well. He’s in good hands with his dad.”
“He is indeed.” I finished the breakfast and helped Tess transfer the rest of the food to the platters, which she sent up to the dining room.
I then made my way to the larder, returning with a small basket. “You take this,” I said to Tess, pushing it into her hands. “You have someone to care for, and I told you, you’ll always have help here.”
Tess stared at me in shock. “Bu
t you can’t nick food from her ladyship’s kitchen.”
I gave her an indignant look. “I’m not nicking it. These are goods I bought with my own money. I always choose something for myself from the market, a treat after a hard day. But I want you to take this to your brother. Has he got anything decent to wear?”
Tess nodded. “He’ll do.”
“I’m sure we can find a castoff in his size around here, if he needs it. Just make certain he has someplace to sleep at night, someplace safe.”
“We have a room I let for him,” Tess said, and then her voice broke. “You’re too good to me, Mrs. H.”
I held up my hands in alarm. “Please do not fly at me weeping again, my dear. I have had a long morning.”
Tess’s sunny smile beamed as she clutched the basket. “Right you are, Mrs. Holloway. I did preparations for dinner already, so you rest as much as you like. I’ll be back to help you make supper.”
I knew she would be. I was well aware that Tess could take the basket I’d just given her and disappear forever, but I knew she’d return. This house was not ours in the strictest sense, but that did not mean we hadn’t found a home here, at least for now.
I gave Tess a kiss on the cheek as I sent her off. She went, dashing up the outside stairs with enviable energy.
Mr. Davis returned to the kitchen after breakfast, at the same time the empty platters creaked down the dumbwaiter. The scullery maid and Charlie carried the dishes to the sink to clean while I sat and had another cup of tea. An efficient assistant was a fine thing to have.
“Lady Cynthia got a right ticking off for running about the streets all morning in her trousers,” Mr. Davis told me. “Her aunt and uncle are too hard on her, in my mind. Considering what some young ladies get up to these days—eloping with rakes, gambling themselves into penury, even drinking spirits—Lady Cynthia wearing trousers should be the least of their worries.”
I quite agreed. But then, Mr. and Mrs. Bywater were trying their best to marry off Cynthia and be done with her. The more eccentric she chose to be, the more difficult their task.
I remembered what Cynthia had said about the widowed state as the best one for a woman. The restrictions society put on unmarried and even married ladies made that true. It was a wonder all wives didn’t poison their husbands once they’d secured a good jointure, I thought, taking another sip of the delicious tea.
Mr. Davis closed his mouth as Lady Cynthia herself tripped lightly down the back stairs.
This morning she wore a suit of soot black with a light gray waistcoat, and she carried gray kid gloves and a tall hat. “Davis,” she said rather stiffly. “Sorry you had to listen to that scene in the dining room. My aunt hasn’t yet caught on to the fact that butlers and footmen are actual people.”
Mr. Davis gave her a formal bow. “Not at all, Lady Cynthia. I take it as a compliment that I am in the family’s confidence. I assure you, nothing said goes beyond these walls.”
Within these walls, however, Mr. Davis felt it his right to discuss anything the family said ad nauseam, but I kept this observation to myself.
Cynthia huffed a laugh. “You’re a good man, Davis. Mrs. Holloway, may I borrow you a moment?”
Davis walked away, back to his duties, breaking into humming as he made his way to the butler’s pantry. Cynthia lingered, fingering her hat.
“Do you think Mr. Thanos is up to seeing visitors?” she asked. “I’d like to look in on him—and young James, of course. See if they are well. They’re heroes, rather.”
I rose. “Indeed, I believe visiting Mr. Thanos and James is an excellent idea. Might I accompany you? Tess has managed things so well I won’t be needed for a few hours.”
Cynthia raised her brows. “I meant for you to accompany me. Didn’t I say? Wouldn’t be proper, would it—me visiting an unmarried gentleman without a chaperone, never mind he’s in his sick bed? Good Lord, the house might fall down.”
I gave her an amused nod. “Well, we can’t have that.”
I filled a basket with fresh bread, seedcake, sponge cake, apples, gooseberries, and a pot of my lemon curd as well as one of clotted cream to take to Mr. Thanos and James. Sometimes the best medicine is a bit of good cooking. Cynthia enjoyed helping me choose the comestibles, telling me to take whatever I wanted—she’d see it right with Aunt Isobel.
I donned my coat and bonnet, and we went out, Cynthia clapping the tall hat on her head and settling her gloves as any man might do.
She’d already hired a coach, as she neither wanted to take her brother-in-law’s stately landau or squash herself in a hansom all the way to Kensington. We climbed inside. I had pried the specific address of Daniel’s rooms from him as we’d ridden from the doctor’s, and I directed the driver to let us off at a house in Campden Hill Road.
The house was a modest affair, three floors high in a row of similar houses, all of them with brown brick on the upper floors and whitewashed brick on the lower. Two square windows marked each floor, the facade narrow enough that I suspected the house was only one room wide. A green painted front door with a polished knocker reposed next to outside stairs that led down to the basement level.
My instinct was to go down these stairs to the kitchen below, but Lady Cynthia stepped up to the front door and banged on it with the knocker.
Daniel himself pulled open the door. He was dressed in plain broadcloth trousers and a linen shirt with no waistcoat, these topped with an unbuttoned frock coat he must have pulled on as he hurried to the door. This ensemble was neither his working clothes nor his City gent’s suit, and I wondered if this was what he wore when he didn’t need to be anyone but himself.
Daniel seemed to have the run of the entire house. I’d expected that he rented only a few rooms here, but he ducked into the parlor to neaten newspapers he’d been reading and then led us up to the first floor to the two bedchambers there—one in front, and one in the rear.
The rear one held James. The lad was sleeping, one arm bandaged and in a sling, the other thrown across the pillow next to him. His face had regained color around his bruises, and he let out a soft snore.
The whole of myself relaxed when I saw him. He was young and strong, and had Daniel to look after him. Seeing him struck down in the street had sent profound fear through my soul, but he would be well, I knew it.
Mr. Thanos, in the front bedroom, was wide awake. He sat up in the bed against a pile of pillows, wearing a dressing gown of a deep shade of purple. He was surrounded by books, newspapers, and notebooks, all open and strewn across the covers and the bedside tables, some spilling onto the floor. He dropped a large tome onto his lap as Daniel opened the door, and he looked at us with joy in his eyes.
“Thank God,” Elgin cried. “Do tell him to let me out of this bed, ladies. I am perfectly well, but McAdam has turned nursemaid on me. We are within shouting distance of both Kensington Palace Gardens and Holland Park, but will he let me stroll and absorb the wonders of botany? Not a bit of it. I shall die here, I know it.”
Elgin’s color was high, his eyes sparkling, and he did look well, but I remained cautious.
“Poisoning is no light matter,” I said to him. “Especially by arsenic. It can linger in the system for some time. We must make certain it dissipates and does not cause you sickness because you rise too quickly.”
Elgin’s eager hope died into glumness. Cynthia drew a chair close to the bed, sat down, leaned the chair back, and propped her boots on the coverlet. “Not to worry, Mr. Thanos. I’ve come to cheer you up. My uncle hopes you’re feeling better and says he’ll be ready for your museum outing whenever you recover.”
“Ah well,” Elgin said, looking a bit mollified. He peered at me. “Jove, I didn’t realize you knew all about poisons, Mrs. Holloway.”
“I am a cook,” I answered. “I make it my policy to know about everything a body can ingest. Arsenic is unfortunately
prevalent in many aspects of life.”
“That’s heartening,” Cynthia remarked. She took the basket from me, set it on the bed, and began rummaging through it. “We’ve brought you some jolly nice cakes, Mr. Thanos, and Mrs. Holloway’s excellent lemon curd. We’ll chew through these in a trice as you tell me what you are working on.”
Elgin brightened. “Ah—it is a new model of the known universe. I am not certain whether the bright but nebulous objects seen through the strongest telescopes are gas clouds within our own galaxy, or something beyond it. Proving they are the latter is the devil, though. I have calculated . . .”
He sifted through papers, shoving them at Cynthia, who plucked them up and peered at them as though she had any idea what they meant.
Daniel and I left them to it. I kept the bedchamber door open as I went, of course—I would be lax in my duties as a chaperone if I did not.
After we took another peep at the sleeping James, Daniel led me back down the narrow staircase to the parlor. The room was comfortable if small and a bit cluttered—this was most definitely a bachelor’s house.
“Sorry I didn’t lay on any tea,” Daniel said as he waved me to a sofa that was free of newspapers. “I didn’t realize you would come so soon.”
“Of course we would come,” I said as I seated myself. “Lady Cynthia and I are naturally worried about our friends.” Sunlight poured through the front window, brightening the room. “I do hope you have a cook or housekeeper to look after you.”
Daniel shrugged. “I have a woman come in the mornings to get us breakfast.” He sat down on the sofa next to me. “Otherwise, I fend for myself. There’s a decent inn up the road, and I fetch food from there.”
“It is a fine house,” I said, glancing about. “If a bit far from things. Why haven’t you brought James here to live before this? There’s plenty of room.”
Cozy, I thought. Two rooms on each floor, a bit of garden in the back, leafy trees on the street.
“I only hired it a few weeks ago,” Daniel said with the beginnings of a smile. “I hadn’t realized it would become a convalescent home.”
Scandal Above Stairs Page 27
