by Liz Carlyle
Frederica’s lips trembled, but her composure held. “The f-father,” she corrected, lifting her chin a notch. “And I’m sorry for it, though I daresay regret does me no good now.”
Rannoch nodded. “It does not,” he agreed. “Have you told him?”
“Told Rutledge?” Frederica’s eyes flared wide. “Lord, no!”
Weighed down by grief and responsibility, Rannoch rubbed one finger up and down the side of his nose. “Aye, well, that’s a bit of a problem, is it not?” he finally said. “We’d best fetch him down here. And then, as much as it pains me to say it, I think you know what must happen next.”
“No!” Frederica’s bottom lip began to quiver. “No! He doesn’t want me. He won’t marry me.”
Rannoch’s short tether snapped. “Oh, no?” he snarled. “I’d not be making a great wager on that, lassie.”
He almost jerked to his feet, but his wife’s hand again stayed him. Frederica blinked back tears. “Wh-at I mean, sir, is that I won’t marry him,” she snuffled. “I won’t do it. I’m s-sorry, sir. But I cannot compound one bad mistake with another.”
For a moment, Rannoch sat, quietly seething. Bad mistake was a rather apt description of Rutledge’s whole existence. But it was Evie who took the lead. “Freddie, we will not let him mistreat you,” she said, leaning intently forward. “I swear to you, he won’t.”
Freddie looked startled. “Why, I never dreamt he would!”
Rannoch snorted. “Then you’ve more faith in the rascal than I.”
Evie’s blue eyes turned on him, dark as a stormy sky. “Many young men have black reputations, my love.” She fairly bit out the words. “Some of those reputations are deserved, but a vast deal are not.”
And once upon a time, Elliot, yours was blacker than any.
Those words he heard without his wife having spoken them. Theirs was a close marriage, and he knew her well. And again, she had him with her damnable logic. He crossed his arms stubbornly and glowered back. But he also shut his mouth.
Evie turned again to her cousin. “Then why will you not marry him, Freddie? Really, I’m not at all sure you have any choice.”
Frederica’s shoulders sagged. “Well, I do not think he is deliberately cruel,” she answered slowly. “Indeed, I think he can be rather kind. But he is so full of charm, and far too handsome. And I could not bear a husband who flirts, gambles, keeps whores, and runs with low company, no matter how charmingly he did it.”
Evie eyed them both quite skeptically. “Very plain speaking, my dear,” she said dryly. “Rather too plain.”
Rannoch plunged back into the conversation. “Frederica, we would be irresponsible guardians if we did not force this marriage,” he said. “Evie tells me you insist upon shouldering half the blame and—”
“Oh, at least half!” Frederica interjected, staring up at the ceiling and sniffing.
Rannoch shook his head. “Well, God knows I’d like to be spared the details. But what’s done is done, and now you must pay the piper. You and Winnie will leave for Essex immediately after Zoë’s ball. I shall wait upon Mr. Rutledge at his lodgings. A special license will be arranged.”
Knowledge dawned on Frederica’s face. “No!” she cried, bracing her hands on the chair arms as if she might leap up. “No! He does not want me, Elliot! Why must you make me do this? Indeed, you cannot make me.”
“Cannot—?” echoed Rannoch in a lethally soft voice.
Evie’s fingers dug at once into his knee. But Freddie would not be still. “You had a child out of wedlock!” she accused him. “You were no saint! So how dare you tell me how to live my life?”
Rannoch felt his face color. “I am a man, dash it,” he growled. “Society permits men a measure of latitude. And though I love Zoë with all my heart, I take no pride in the circumstances she suffers for my thoughtlessness. It is a hard, hard burden my child must bear. And you bear it, too, Frederica.”
Evie leaned intently forward. “Would you wish your child to go through what you have gone through, my dear? England is a judgmental place, and you know it as well as I.”
One tear slipped from Freddie’s eye and rolled down her chin. “Oh, yes, I do know!” she said softly. “So s-send me away! Let me go home. To—to Figueira. It is a far better place than this. Legitimacy does not matter there, for no one gives a jot which side of the blanket you were born on.”
Evie jerked back as if she had been slapped. “Oh, Freddie,” she whispered. “Do you feel we were wrong to keep you here? We had only your welfare at—”
“Enough!” roared Rannoch. “Freddie is saying things she cannot possibly mean. Portugal is out of the question.”
“Why?” Frederica’s voice was strident.
Rannoch jerked from his chair. “Your homeland is again at war, in case you’d not heard.” His voice was edged with a fury he could not hide. “A bloody civil war, not apt to be soon settled. Just as it was at the time of your birth, Portugal is unstable and unsafe. That is why your father’s fellow officers brought you out of the bloody place to begin with. And that is why you will remain under my protection until you are either wed or dead. Is that clear?”
Just then, the door flew open, and Gus started into the room. “Oh, hello!” he said, jerking to a halt by the windows. “Terribly sorry! I was just coming in to fetch a—good God, what’s happened to George?”
“He fell,” snapped Elliot.
“What, through the window?” Unwisely, Gus laughed. “That’s almost as queer as old MacLeod’s doings! Did you see what he was carrying through the house? A horsewhip! Curled up on a salver, neat as the morning post!”
Elliot stood and, with a leisurely grace, turned to face him. “Speaking of that horsewhip,” he said grimly, “I wonder if I mightn’t have a use for it yet.”
Gus blinked. “Beg pardon, sir?”
“Come here!” barked the marquis. “Freddie, out. Gus, sit.”
It was not a request. And Frederica looked happy to go. As she rose to leave, Gus stared at her swollen eyes with grave apprehension.
“What the devil’s wrong with Freddie?” he asked as soon as the door clicked shut.
His booted feet spread wide, Elliot stood looking down at the young man. “She is with child,” he gritted.
“Dear Lord!” Gus blinked uncertainly. “You cannot be serious.”
“I am quite serious,” Rannoch snapped. “And I hold you responsible.”
Uncertainly, Gus half rose from the chair. “Why, good God, sir!” he choked. “I take great umbrage at that! How can you think it? Of either of us? That’s—that’s appalling.”
“Oh, Gus,” said Evie witheringly. “That isn’t what he means.”
Rannoch sat down and stared at Gus. The silence which surrounded them was a heavy one. “I’ll tell you what’s appalling—that an innocent girl cannot be protected from such wickedness beneath her own roof,” said the marquis. “You got us into this, and now I’ve half a notion to make you marry her.”
“Sir, that’s a bit harsh,” Gus sputtered. “I had nothing to do with it, and I should very much like to put a bullet through the scoundrel who did!”
Rannoch’s eyes narrowed. “Then go with God when you do it, Augustus,” he said grimly. “Because he’s got a near-perfect aim, and yours won’t be the first grave he’s dug.”
Evie’s hand fluttered to her forehead as if her head pounded. “Gus,” she said softly. “The babe belongs to Rutledge.”
Gus looked fleetingly mystified. “Rutledge?” he said, as if he’d never heard the name before. “What—old Hell-Bent? And…and Freddie?”
Rannoch jerked from his chair. “And Freddie,” he confirmed, moving restlessly toward the hearth. “And now she says she won’t marry him.”
“There must be some mistake.” Gus’s voice was weak. “He would never do such a thing.”
Rannoch’s face was a mask of anguish. “He did it, and now I bloody well ought to drag him in here with a knife to his throat,” he bi
t out. “I ought to make him do right by that child. But I cannot bear her tears. She says he’ll make a bad husband, and I cannot say she’s wrong. Oh, God, Gus, have you any idea how badly I want to do murder for this?”
Evie rose to her feet. “Sit down, my dear,” she said, urging her husband back into his chair. “We must think only of Freddie, and how to mitigate the damage.”
“I would to God I knew how,” muttered Rannoch.
Evie began to walk back and forth along the carpet. “Frederica has asked to be sent away,” she said quietly. “That isn’t the solution I’d choose, but it has much to recommend it. Perhaps we should engage in a little subterfuge.”
Gus let his shoulders slump. “Anything!”
Evie smiled weakly. “Perhaps we could send Frederica to Flanders? That, at least, is safe. Uncle Peter will take care of her, and we have many loyal friends. My parents’ house is not leased at present.”
“And what is the subterfuge in that?” asked Rannoch.
“In London, we will put about the rumor that she is going away to wed someone on the continent.”
Rannoch looked doubtful. “Who?”
Evie shrugged. “A distant cousin? An old family friend? We’ll be vague, and imply that the connection was formed whilst we were abroad.”
Gus relaxed a little. “We might pull it off.”
Evie turned and crossed the room again. “Gus, Winnie, and Michael can take Freddie to Bruges in a week or two, ostensibly to finalize the wedding plans,” she suggested. “Then, as soon as Zoë’s season is over, the rest of us will join them.”
Rannoch shook his head. “Evie, love, the rumors will start the moment she returns with a babe and no husband.”
A look of grief sketched over Evie’s face. “Freddie cannot return, Elliot,” she said quietly. “At least, not soon. I shan’t leave her, of course, until the child is born. Afterward, I’ll visit when possible. And after a year or two, we can kill off her husband in some tragic accident.”
Gus was warming to the topic. “Then she can return to her family to be comforted,” he said. “It does make sense.”
Rannoch gave them both a sour smile. “We can try it,” he said. “But this will put an end to any chance she might have had of making a good marriage.”
Evie’s face fell. “Yes, it’s one thing to mislead the gossip mongers, and quite another to deceive a prospective husband. But as for rumors, who is going to ask questions?”
Gus laughed bitterly. “Rutledge won’t.”
Rannoch gave a disgusted snort. “Not bloody likely,” he agreed. “He’ll just be so damned grateful we didn’t come a-knocking with a tight noose and a special license, he’ll be beside himself. And I have no doubt the scoundrel knows better than ever to darken our door again.”
Chapter Six
In which Mr. Kemble’s expertise is Direly Needed.
For three decades, the brokerage house of Goldstein & Stoddard had been situated within spitting distance of the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England, in the heart of London’s financial district, a place as different from Mayfair as chalk from cheese. In the City, streets bore sturdy, hardworking names that hinted at their earliest purpose: Cornhill, Threadneedle, Poultry, and the brokers’ haven, Exchange Alley. Stoddard’s sat in Lombard Street, so called for its first residents, Lombardian moneylenders who had arrived in the thirteenth century and proceeded to make themselves, and a few fortunate others, wildly rich.
Very little corn or poultry was traded in the City nowadays, but in Lombard Street, not much had changed. Old Goldstein was long dead, but a succession of able Stoddards had trod up the firm’s marble steps, the most recent of whom was Ignatious, who had a voice like steel wool and possessed, not the traditional English green thumb, but something better: a forefinger of solid gold. Stoddard was at present using that finger to count out a pile of banknotes.
“Yes, yes, all there,” he rasped to the gentleman seated by his desk. “Three thousand exactly.” With an expert flick of the wrist, Stoddard whacked the edge of the stack on his desktop and thrust it at a clerk near his elbow. “Take it to the counting-room, and enter it in the cash book.”
When the clerk left, Stoddard laid aside his spectacles and scowled at his client. “Really, Mr. Rutledge,” he chided. “You court the thieves with all that poking from your pockets.”
“Oh, blister it, Stoddard!” Rutledge opened his arms expansively. “Do I really look the sort some craven cut-purse would trifle with?”
Stoddard let his eyes drift over the cynical lines of Rutledge’s face, the coat stretched across broad shoulders, and the dust which coated his heavy boots, noticing that the butt of a knife could be seen peeking from one leather turndown. And today, despite his outward indolence, there was a strained, brittle look about his eyes. “No,” he finally admitted. “You don’t look worth the damage you’d likely do.”
His client roared with laugher. “See, that’s why I hired you, Stoddard. Your brutal honesty.”
With an acerbic smile, Stoddard drew a fat leather ledger from a distant corner of his desk. “Then let’s get to it,” he said. “We’ve several matters requiring your immediate and undivided attention.”
Rutledge sat up a little straighter. “Well, I’m here, devil take it! In short, Stoddard, am I not your bloody slave?”
The older man flicked a sardonic glance up at Rutledge. “Would that that were so,” he murmured, pushing forward a fat document. “Now, here is Lloyd’s latest trust deed. The changes are minor, but—”
“Good Lord!” Rutledge scowled at the papers. “Am I to read all that?”
Stoddard, to his credit, did not roll his eyes. “When you’ve this much money at risk, yes, especially if you mean to continue on as a subscriber at Lloyd’s. Let me warn you again that insurance underwriting is a risky investment. I should sooner put you in the funds, or perhaps gold.”
Rutledge stretched lazily. “A faint heart never filled a fellow’s purse, Stoddard,” he remarked. “I mean, we may lose our drawers tomorrow, but we’ve had a devilish good run so far, wouldn’t you say?”
The older man smiled dryly. “Indeed,” he said. “So if that’s decided, let us move on to other matters. As I’d hoped, Tidwells’ has made a quite nice offer for the Queen of Kashmir—if, that is, you are still bent on selling her?”
“Lord, yes, shed it,” he said, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I won it quite by accident, you know, and whilst it’s been vastly diverting to own a boat—”
“A ship,” corrected Stoddard a little impatiently. “It is a merchant ship, Rutledge, not some leaky sailing skiff.”
“Aye, well,” answered Rutledge, shrugging. “Anyway, let ’em have her. I don’t care to keep up with it any longer, do you?”
“Shipping,” harrumphed Stoddard, “is not my field of expertise.” And then he shoved a second pile of papers across the desk and handed Rutledge a pen. “Capital allocation, however, is.”
Lightly, Rutledge lifted his brows. “What’s this?”
“I mean to reinvest your proceeds in American steel,” said Stoddard impatiently. “You are carrying too much risk, Mr. Rutledge, as you always insist upon doing. The Baltimore and Ohio is creating quite a demand for steel. A steady, dependable demand.”
“More of those railroads, hmm?” said Rutledge doubtfully. “Reckon they’ll ever come to much?”
“You’d best hope so,” snapped Stoddard. “Twenty percent of your capital is invested in them. If, however, you wish to piss away your money with better certainty, sell out, and go back to your pernicious gaming hells.”
Taking up the pages in his left hand, Rutledge smiled, showing two rows of flawless white teeth. “Never left ’em, Stoddard,” he said good-naturedly. “Do you think pixies left that three thousand pounds under my pillow? Besides, if we’re honest about it, what is your office here but a large, opulent dice box? And our underwriter friends across the street—” Here, the young man gestured in the direction
of Cornhill. “Aren’t they just a gang of bookmakers? Well dressed, aye, but Lloyd’s is—”
“Bookmakers—?” sputtered Stoddard.
Rutledge smiled wider still. “Gambling, Stoddard, is gambling. And it matters very little where a man does it or what he calls it.” Then, as if he barely read them, Rutledge’s eyes flicked up and down the pages, one after another.
But he was reading them, every bloody word, and Stoddard knew it. And he knew, too, that Rutledge was not half as reckless or blithe as he wished people to think. Though why the man would not keep a decent haircut and a better wardrobe when he could so easily afford it was beyond his broker’s understanding.
In the silence of the office, the skritch-skritch of Rutledge’s pen continued as, here and there, he paused to sign. When at last he was done, he leaned back and crossed one knee over the other in a gesture which should have seemed effete but instead looked faintly dangerous. “Next chore, Stoddard?”
With an impatient motion, Stoddard punched the bell on his desk. “I work for you, Mr. Rutledge,” he said as the clerk snatched up the papers and scurried away again. “Pray do not look at me as if I am your governess.”
“Never had a governess, Stoddard,” he said on a yawn. “Not yet, anyway. How much d’you reckon an especially fetching one would cost?”
Upon leaving Stoddard to despair of his client’s future in private, Bentley headed across town to his club in Pall Mall, where he hoped to find a measure of peace. The Traveler’s Club was one of the few upper-class establishments in which a man could actually relax. Bentley liked the eclectic clientele the club drew—and, after all, they had let him in.
On the steps, he surrendered his slipshod ways just long enough to draw out his handkerchief and give his boots a desultory dusting. Once inside, he tossed his top-coat to a waiting porter and headed toward the morning room. It was not crowded. He took a seat at an empty table by the massive bank of windows, resisting the urge to prop his boots up on the polished surface.
At the next table, several fashionably dressed young men were chatting over tea and newspapers. His young friend Lord Robert Rowland was amongst them, along with his elder brother, the Marquis of Mercer. They murmured civil greetings. Mercer even motioned him toward a chair. Feeling decidedly unsociable, Bentley shook his head. They shrugged and returned to their conversation.
