Dangerous Gentlemen

by Beverley Oakley

  A final question struck Hetty as she turned to leave. “Who was with her? She couldn’t have come alone.”

  Jem shrugged. “Reckoned it were Miss Partington’s sister ‘til I saw that Miss Lissa—that’s her name—were dressed shabby, like a governess or summat.”

  “What!” Hetty swung around. “A young woman? It’s not possible. We have no relatives in London.” But already an odd thought had taken root. In the past few weeks she’d begun to piece together things she’d never thought to question before. “Come, Jane, we must hurry home and find Araminta.”

  “We must get them gloves on the way, miss, else Lady Partington will start asking questions.”

  “Just quickly, then,” Hetty acceded reluctantly, knowing how much her maid liked to browse at all the pretty things the shopkeepers showed them.

  However, mixed fortune came their way when they stepped into Hetty’s favorite glove makers on Bond Street. A lady who had her back to them as she scrutinized a selection of finely stitched gloves turned at their arrival, and Hetty found herself face-to-face with a duplicitous creature she’d hoped never to set eyes on again.

  “Why, Hetty, I barely recognized you!” exclaimed Lady Julia, brazen as ever, for no blush of shame swept her cheeks as she greeted Hetty with every apparent pleasure.

  Hetty could hardly believe it. Lady Julia, the faithless swine who’d taken Cousin Edgar on his final boating jaunt before he drowned; the scheming minx in whose arms a furious and jealous Hetty had seen her beloved cousin writhe in passion less than six months ago. The jezebel was smiling as if they were bosom buddies.

  “Indeed, you are greatly improved in looks. And how is your cousin?”

  For one shocked moment Hetty thought Lady Julia referred to Edgar. She bit back the retort that of course he was being looked after by the angels, thanks to Lady Julia’s wickedness. “I presume you mean Cousin Stephen?”

  “Of course I do.” Lady Julia’s tinkling laugh rang out as she patted her swollen belly. “You must tell him the child is due in November. He’ll want to know, I’m sure.”

  To Hetty’s chagrin, Lady Julia looked blooming. Her flaxen hair was demurely arranged beneath a becoming floral-festooned bonnet that made Hetty feel hers was vastly overdone. Lady Julia, like Araminta, had always put her in the shade.

  “I’ll pass on your greeting,” she muttered, tugging Jane’s sleeve as she turned to leave but Lady’s Julia’s laughing response gave her pause.

  “You’re a great deal more gracious than your sister, Miss Henrietta, for when she stepped in here not ten minutes ago she gave me the cut direct.”

  Hetty swung back from the doorway. “Araminta was here?”

  “With her poor relation, by the look of it.”

  Hetty hurried back to their townhouse, but though it was late in the afternoon, her sister was not at home. “Gone on the promenade,” said Betty, who attended their mother and had come down from The Grange. “Best ask your mama who with, miss.”

  But when Hetty burst into her mother’s room and put the question to her, Lady Partington went blank. “Araminta told me about half an hour ago that she was going walking with you, Hetty.”

  Hetty’s fears increased. She was not looking forward to approaching her father with a query that hinted at something she must not know—but she needed to understand Araminta’s involvement with a young lady Jem had said she so greatly resembled. She really did fear also that Araminta, who had no idea of what she was dealing with, may have approached the situation with regard to the letter in quite the wrong way.

  Her father studied her silently over his newssheet when she found him in his study.

  “A young lady who looks so like your sister as to be remarked upon? Here?” He harrumphed as his eyes flicked from Hetty’s face back to the newssheet. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my dear.”

  Clearly he’d long since decided silence and obfuscation were the only ways to deal with potentially awkward situations like this. Defeated, Hetty returned to her room, where she paced up and down, chewing her fingernails and wondering what to do.

  After a while, Hetty became aware of a figure standing on the pavement beneath a plane tree on the other side of the road. The young woman’s poke bonnet concealed her face but her figure and dress proclaimed her of middling rank and perhaps around Hetty’s age.

  Hetty went to the sash window and peered out. The movement immediately drew the attention of the young person across the road and, in addition, a surreptitious wave.

  Pushing up the window, Hetty put her head out and squinted. A passing carriage obscured the girl and when it had gone, so was the girl. Then Hetty realized she was crossing the road, indicating for Hetty to meet her at the railing beside the portico. She’d know Hetty would need to be accompanied anywhere beyond her front gate but a clandestine meeting right by the house might be permitted.

  Snatching a shawl, Hetty hurried down the stairs and emerged on the pavement, saying without preamble, “You know where Araminta has gone, don’t you? You were with her earlier.”

  The young woman nodded. She bore a greater resemblance to her sister than Hetty had at first thought, though her expression had a more serious cast to it. The well-shaped nose and brow, the full upper lip and the arched brows above flashing green eyes were, however, the same.

  “Why were you with Araminta? And who are you?” The questions tumbled out. Hetty remembered seeing this girl in the village church though she’d not remarked upon any particular resemblance. She’d been younger then, so perhaps her features had not matured.

  “My name is Larissa and I met your sister by chance when she first came to London a few weeks ago. Today, to my surprise, she sent a note around asking me to accompany her to a secret meeting in a coffeehouse.” The girl’s expression gave nothing away. “I’m a governess and my young charge is being fitted for a new gown. As she’s going in company with her mama, I was spared the ordeal.” Only her lips stretched into something resembling a wry smile. “Miss Araminta said I was to keep the visit secret and it was my intention to simply return to the household where I’m presently employed…only I was concerned.”

  Hetty trembled. This was confirmation of her own fears. Araminta was unprepared. She had no idea what and who she was dealing with. “Did you accompany Araminta home? Where is she now?” She gripped Larissa’s hand but the girl shook it off.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “That’s why I was concerned—”

  “But you said you were with her. Was there anyone else there? Well, there must have been since she was meeting the footman, Jem. Wasn’t she?”

  Larissa nodded. “He’d come to show her a letter, it turned out, and when she read it she clapped her hand to her mouth and said, ‘Oh my goodness, what a shock!’”

  “What did the letter say?”

  Larissa shook her head. “She didn’t say and I wasn’t going to ask her right there.”

  “Then what happened? Did Jem turn nasty? Has he done something?”

  The girl hushed her alarm. “No, but he was mighty put out when she took the letter. He said that wasn’t the agreement so she fished in her reticule and handed him half a crown. She was very cross when that didn’t satisfy him.” Larissa frowned. “After that it was very strange.”

  “Strange?” Hetty’s alarm was growing by the minute. “Why? Tell me what happened.”

  “Well, after he took back the letter, Miss Araminta jumped up and flounced through the room, with everyone looking at her as she said over her shoulder that she reckoned a fine lady would be believed over a mere footman, and to consider himself lucky that he wasn’t going to swing.”

  “But where did she go?” Hetty was nearly beside herself now.

  The furrows of Larissa’s brow deepened. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? You were with her!”

  “Yes, I was, but then Jem said something to me. He was angry and I tried to placate him so he wouldn’t make
a scene, only he wasn’t ready to be placated, although at least he didn’t jump up and do anything so foolish as to grab a lady in a public place.”

  “But you must have followed Araminta. Where did she go? Where is she now?”

  Larissa looked helpless. “I can’t tell you. I followed her, of course, but when I stepped onto the pavement she was nowhere to be seen.” She bit her lip. “I thought it was very odd that she’d leave, unaccompanied, much less leave me there alone, but she’d been in high dudgeon and I’ve observed her over the years, so perhaps it wasn’t so surprising.”

  Hetty made no remark to this acute observation. “So Araminta simply disappeared and you came back here, hoping she’d returned? What, perhaps by jumping into a passing hackney? I saw you across the street. Why didn’t you make yourself known earlier?”

  A blush swept the girl’s pale cheeks. “Papa—I mean, I was instructed very clearly that I must never make myself known here.”

  “You could have sent a message,” Hetty muttered. “You could have given it to someone in the kitchen.”

  Larissa shook her head. “There’s some who know me and they’d report it. Lord Partington would be incensed if he knew I’d had anything to do with any of his daughters. And now I really must return to my employer. However, I was gravely concerned for Miss Araminta and wanted to tell you everything I knew.”

  There was no point in trying to detain or even question her, for it was quite clear Larissa was Lord Partington’s daughter. Hetty digested this painfully as she watched the girl leave, her serviceable boots showing cracked and worn beneath the hem of her dull, plain skirt. She’d thought she’d hate her, this girl who represented her father’s failings and her mother’s unhappiness. Until recently, Hetty had been able to bury her head in the sand and pretend ignorance of life’s painful realities.

  Now she understood the dangers too clearly to do nothing.

  She cast a worried look at the sky. It would soon be dusk. The long summer twilight was in her favor but Hetty’s hands were tied. What could she, a single, innocent female, do to solve a mystery she wasn’t even sure was a mystery? What if Araminta had done exactly as Hetty had done? Assumed subterfuge to indulge her fascination for a gentleman she was being warned off?

  The thought made her feel ill as she trod the back stairs to her bedchamber.

  Was Araminta at this moment wrapped in the arms of the man who had been Hetty’s lover?

  Regardless of propriety and the inherent danger, she had to find out.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sir Aubrey stretched out his long legs as he savored the last of his cheroot before tossing it into the fire. There was little else to savor these days, he thought sourly.

  He reached for the decanter at his elbow and shakily poured himself another measure of whisky.

  Since depositing that alluring, too-innocent-for-anyone miss with her cousin and older sister earlier, he’d felt as if the sun had gone out of his life.

  “Leave it!” he snapped to the unwary parlor maid who, clearly not realizing he was in the room, had drawn the curtains, highlighting the fact that everything bright and joyous was beyond his library and out of reach.

  Out of reach. His Henrietta would be forever out of reach. She had taken far too bold a risk for one in her position and she’d singed her wings and come crashing down to cold, base reality. She now must realize there was nothing he could or would do.

  Unless, of course, there were consequences, though he’d been careful, as always. When he took a wife it would be to further his own comfort and to sire an heir, but never would he willingly sire a bastard.

  He only prayed to God there would be no inconvenient repercussions so Miss Henrietta Partington would be spared an unfit husband such as himself.

  He was roused from his torpid languor by a rapping on the library door, which was pushed open by the recently dismissed housemaid. The cheery smile she’d turned upon him when he interrupted her earlier was replaced by a look bordering on trepidation. Good. Women should be afraid of him. He was not a nice man. Only if his appetites for the fine life were indulged was he prepared to show his more charming side. Margaret had said it. She’d cited it as a reason for leaving him—the fact he was not the sunny-tempered charmer she claimed her cousin Lord Debenham was.

  Well, Debenham was the least sunny-tempered gentleman of his acquaintance but clearly he knew how to put on a good show. Sir Aubrey did not believe in dressing up the truth. If he felt out of sorts, he’d take himself off elsewhere until his mood had passed. He was not given to playacting.

  Unlike the deceiving wench Miss Henrietta Partington, who clearly was nothing like he’d believed. He had a deep-rooted contempt for deception. Margaret had deceived him. She had received him with pretended pleasure but she had deceived him into imagining that he was pleasing his delicate wife.

  And now, if Miss Henrietta hadn’t already taken deception to the greatest heights possible for a young woman in her position, surely she’d gone one step further, he thought with horror as she was shown in. Despite the heavy veiling, it could be none other.

  Come to persuade him to alter his mind and…what? Marry her? Take her to bed?

  He narrowed his eyes as he prepared his defenses, trying to armor himself against the arousal her clasped hands and trembling form unleashed in him. For although he could see nothing of her face, he could well imagine her soft hetty eyes appealing to him from her pretty round face, an affecting performance enhanced by a suitably trembling lower lip. How he longed to nip that lip and how fiercely he had to rein in his desire.

  “I cannot receive you, Miss Partington,” he said in a voice intended to repulse her with its lack of warmth. He hated himself as much as he longed for her.

  “Where is Araminta?” she burst out.

  He had not expected this. She was halfway across the room, her eyes boring into him with real concern now that she’d raised her veil.

  Forcing distance into his tone, a feeling he was so far from experiencing as to be laughable, he strolled to the window and stared into the street.

  “Why, you are more of a play actress than I’d have given you credit for, Miss Henrietta. You do the profession proud.”

  It was close to a direct insult and he expected she’d take grave offense. Instead she covered her hands with her mouth as she gasped, “So she really isn’t here with you?”

  He couldn’t tell if she was more upset or relieved. Certainly both registered in the look she sent him and the way she sank against the back of the sofa.

  With a sense of righteous indignation, he went on. “Did you imagine I followed up our phaeton ride with the type of assignation I’ve enjoyed with you, Miss Henrietta? Why, that notion seems to upset you. Don’t forget, my dear, you pretended to be someone who’d entered a profession not known for its discernment. A business transaction that takes no account of the heart.”

  He told himself he didn’t care that she looked as if he’d shredded her heart in two. Hadn’t she done the same to him?

  “I would never have given myself to any other man!” she cried. “I told you the reasons. But perhaps I was too glad of an excuse to give myself to you when you were the only man I’d…I’d felt any little bit of feeling for.”

  “That’s as may be…at the start,” Sir Aubrey muttered, thinking of how appealing she’d appeared when he’d first taken her, trembling but oh so eager, into his embrace. “What about your feelings for Lord Debenham? I found you in his arms, too, don’t forget.” He knew he was being unfair but he had to make her hate him.

  “If you are so off the mark as regards to my thoughts on Lord Debenham then you have absolutely no idea as to what danger my sister could be in.” She looked ready to claw his eyes out. “You think I’d go willingly to your…enemy? Why, I…I abhor the man!” She took what he assumed were meant to be menacing steps toward him while he stood his ground, willing her to give up the fight at the same time as hoping she’d hurl herself into his arms. />
  He shrugged. “What am I to think? Disciples of Venus do not seek out men they love.” He snorted the word with derision. “When you threw yourself at me with such feeling after I supposedly rescued you from Debenham, I was quite touched. I certainly was not suspicious.”

  “Suspicious?” She looked at him askance. “I told you the truth when I said he attacked me. Are you really unaware of my feelings and what I’ve been trying to do for you?”

  He laughed out loud at this. “My avenging little angel, are you, Miss Henrietta Partington, daughter of a viscount and cousin to a man who has accepted conventional wisdom that I am a villain. Oh, I’ve heard it all. The whispers that I’m a wife-beater, a man who chased Margaret into the arms of another when my brutality could no longer be borne. There’s worse, of course, and I had, until recently, assumed you would know nothing of that, however your cozy association with Lord Debenham has persuaded me otherwise.”

  She looked confused but poised for attack.

  “Now that I see what circles you frequent, I understand how very useful you might be to those enemies of mine who are trying to secure the evidence needed to convict me of crimes of which the court of gossip long since convicted me.”

  She nodded. “The Castlereagh affair. Some think you a Spencean. That you should swing.”

  Now it was his turn to be both surprised but, more, disappointed. “So you’re well versed in the story, are you? That’s what you were looking for when I discovered you in my bedchamber, isn’t it? Evidence to convict me. You’d been sent by your cousin, or perhaps Lord Debenham.” Disappointment burned him within. He gave a short laugh. “You were so terrified I truly was guilty you sacrificed your virtue, thinking I might take your life. Well, the joke is on you, Miss Henrietta, because you will find no evidence. You sacrificed your virtue for nothing.”

  “That’s not true!” she cried, rushing forward, and for one glorious moment he thought she really was going to throw herself into his embrace. How much easier it would be to proceed if the passion were elevated. They were well matched. Or so he had thought.