by M C Beaton
“Give her her money back,” said Susan, her eyes glittering with wine and excitement, “or I’ll draw your cork.”
“I wouldn’t like to see the pretty ladies gettin’ their darlin’ faces messed up, now, would I?” said Murphy with awful geniality.
There was a fluttering in the room. Feathers on headdresses trembled, reticules were hurriedly scooped up, chairs were pushed back.
Murphy swung around. “Now, ladies,” he said. “You will just all be keepin’ to your seats until this little matter is sorted out.”
He squared his massive shoulders under his plush jacket and the ladies nervously subsided—with the exception of Amanda and Susan.
Amanda marched up to him and put her hands on her hips. “My money,” she demanded loudly, “or I will summon the watch.”
Murphy picked her up and twisted her round so that she was held powerless against him.
“I’ll just be putting this bit o’ rubbish outside where it belongs, my lady,” he said to Lady Mannering.
“Stop!”
Susan marched forward and faced Murphy. Her black eyes were fixed on him in an autocratic glare of great hauteur. Her voice had a cutting edge, and she said, “Release her this instant!”
And Murphy did as he was bid, almost unconsciously reacting to the edge of authority in Susan’s voice.
“You fool, Murphy,” hissed Lady Mannering.
Murphy hesitated and began to advance on Amanda again.
Amanda, who had skipped quickly out of his reach as soon as she was released, walked over to Lady Mannering and faced up to her, her little jaw thrust out.
“My money,” she said slowly and clearly. “You will give me my money… you… you… horrible old Friday-faced cheat!”
“I have no intention of giving you a single penny,” retorted Lady Mannering coolly. “Murphy, remove these creatures.”
“These ladies will not let you treat us thus,” said Amanda, looking confidently around the room for help. But the ladies who frequent gaming hells do not cultivate notoriety of any sort. Eyes stared at the floor, at the ceiling, at anywhere except at Amanda and Susan.
“If my husband learns of this,” whispered one lady to another in Amanda’s hearing, “I will be sent to the country to rusticate!”
Murphy glanced around the room. He saw that no one was going to come to the help of the girls.
He advanced again on Amanda.
Susan edged close to Amanda. “We must summon the watch,” she whispered urgently. “Try to keep everyone’s attention on you.”
Amanda faced Murphy. “Lord Hawksborough will be here at any moment,” she cried.
Murphy hesitated.
“Go on,” snapped Lady Mannering. “No one knows these girls are here! Do you think they would have been allowed out without a maid? Get rid of them, Murphy. There is no need to be gentle. They dare not tell anyone where they have been.”
Out of the corner of her eye Amanda saw Susan edging towards the buffet. For one despairing moment Amanda thought Susan was calmly going to start eating again. Hoping that Susan really had some plan of action, Amanda pointed to the doorway. “Look!” she cried. “There is his lordship!”
Murphy swung round, Lady Mannering opened her mouth to shout to him that Amanda was lying, and in that second Susan picked up a pitcher of ice water and threw the contents full at the blazing chandelier.
The effect on the company was the same as the effect Tam o’ Shanter had on the witches in the kirk when he called out “Weel done, Cutty-Sark!” In an instant, all was dark. Figures scrambled through the gloom. Women screamed and fought for the door.
“My money,” wailed Amanda.
Susan threw up window. “Help!” she screamed in a loud voice. “Help! Summon the watch!”
In the dim light of the back drawing room, which was lit by only one oil lamp, Amanda saw Lady Mannering wrenching at a door, trying to make her escape.
“She’s getting away,” she shouted to Susan.
She ran into the back drawing room with Susan at her heels. Lady Mannering popped a fat purse down her cleavage and stood glaring.
“Doxy! Jade! Whore!” hissed Lady Mannering.
“Where’s the money?” demanded Susan.
“I have not got any money,” snarled Lady Mannering. “Let me go!”
“She put a purse down her gown,” gasped Amanda, holding tightly onto Lady Mannering by her arms.
“Then let’s shake her down,” said Susan cheerfully.
The light from several newly lit candles sprang up in the drawing room behind them, but they were too engrossed to turn around.
And that was how Lord Hawksborough found his sister and Miss Amanda Colby. Both of them were furiously shaking a middle-aged lady until her teeth rattled.
“What on earth do you think you are doing?” demanded Lord Hawksborough. “Desist this minute.”
A large purse fell from under Lady Mannering’s skirts and Amanda scooped it up.
“Charles,” she gasped, swinging around. “We must leave. I promise I will explain.”
The rattle of the watch sounded from the end of the street. Lady Mannering succeeded in opening the door she had tried to open earlier and slammed and bolted it behind her.
Lord Hawksborough grabbed both girls by the upper arms and bustled them out into the street and into his carriage.
He seized the reins and set off down the street at a sedate trot. The watch shouted something and Lord Hawksborough reined in.
“‘Evening melord,” said the watch. “Wot’s all this about shouting and screaming down this ’ere street?”
“I do not know,” said Lord Hawksborough politely. “But there is a house a little back with its front door lying open, and there seemed to be a deal of commotion going on inside.”
The watchman touched his hat and set off at a trot.
Susan collapsed in helpless giggles. “How clever of you, Charles,” she said at last. “I declare I have never had so much fun in my life. You should have heard Amanda call Lady Mannering a horrible Friday-faced cheat. Better than the Haymarket, it was!”
“You will both maintain a decorous silence until we reach home,” he snapped, springing his horses. “I hope no one reports you to the authorities. Was there anyone left, apart from Lady Mannering?”
“No,” said Amanda, dreading the row she knew was coming. “They all ran away. An awful bruiser called Murphy ran away too, the minute Susan called for the watch.”
“I told you to be quiet,” he said in a voice now held well in check. “Please do as I command.”
“Then don’t ask questions,” said Amanda crossly.
He glared at her and set his mouth in a firm line.
Susan was still chortling to herself, but even she sobered as they reached the mansion in Berkeley Square. She at last realised her brother was very angry indeed.
He led them into a small, little-used morning room, wanting to find out all about it before Lady Mary arrived home with his mother and Aunt Matilda.
The room was chilly. Amanda remembered they had both left their cloaks at the house in Montague Street.
The room was in shades of gold and yellow. There were some fine pictures, pretty gilt chairs, and a case of pretty figurines against one wall, but it smelled slightly of damp.
Lord Hawksborough took up a position in front of the fireplace and said wrathfully, “Now, begin at the beginning and go on to the end. Not you, Susan. I wish Miss Colby to explain, first, what she was doing in a gaming house, and second, what the devil she meant by inducing my sister to go with her.”
Amanda felt drained of all emotion. She told him in a tired voice of how she had wished to make money so that she and Richard and Aunt Matilda could return to the country, so that she would not be plagued with trying to find a husband.
She told him of Susan finding the marked cards and of the melee that had ensued.
Lord Hawksborough turned eyes like steel on his sister. “I had thoug
ht you were beginning to show some sense, Susan. Of late, you have shown a certain elegance and good breeding. It began to appear that your popularity was not based on an eccentric whim of fashion but on the fact that you had appeared to be developing an attractive personality.” Susan flushed with pleasure.
“However,” went on her brother sternly, “you show that you have more hair than wit. A gambling hell! And of the worst sort. The mischief these places do is almost incalculable; bankruptcies, embezzlements, duels, and suicides.”
“Pooh!” said Susan unrepentantly. “It’s just as well I did go along. You should have seen Lady Mannering’s face when I called out the cards were marked. Famous!”
“I am very angry,” said Lord Hawksborough. “Miss Colby, if you must gamble, at least go to a respectable establishment. How on earth did you find out about Lady Mannering?”
“Lady Mary had an invitation,” said Amanda. “She did not ask for it back, and so I decided to use it. She said these gaming houses were genteel, and I did see various society ladies that I know.”
“Any gaming house that would allow two unchaperoned misses entrance is one of ill repute. I am surprised at your naiveté. You must have misunderstood Lady Mary. And how did you get there? I saw no carriage.”
“In a hack,” said Susan grumpily. For all her faults, Susan would never have dreamt of betraying a servant, and she knew the coachman had been waiting in a tavern around the corner.
Susan stood up abruptly. “It’s all very well for you to go on like a jaw-me-dead, Charles, but Amanda said if she got enough money then I could go with her to that place, Fox End, and not have to go to balls and parties. I think Amanda and I were very resourceful and brave. So it’s no use you glaring at me. I don’t see why you and Mama should sport the blunt for a Season when you’ve got two females on your hands who want none of it.
“I’m off to bed, Charles. I have drunk so much bad wine, I have a rumpus among my chitterlings.”
Susan strode to the door, wrenched it open, and banged it shut behind her with such force that the little figurines wobbled and shook in their glass case.
“You see?” demanded Lord Hawksborough. “That girl is rowdy and graceless and…”
“And very resourceful and brave, as she pointed out,” said Amanda quietly. “I shudder to think of my humiliation had she not been with me. It was quick-witted of her to… to th-throw that g-great j-jug of ice w-water at the chandelier.”
“Do not cry,” said the viscount in a gentle voice.
“I’m not crying, I’m laughing,” wailed Amanda. “Oh, it all seems so very funny now.”
He glared down at her and then gave a reluctant grin. “I confess I was startled out of my wits when I arrived, to find you and Susan shaking the life out of Lady Mannering.”
“Will it cause a great scandal?”
He shook his head. “I doubt very much if any of the ladies would dare say they had been there.”
“But why do they go? Why go to be cheated?”
“Because they are mostly inveterate gamblers. Lady Mannering makes sure they win a great deal on the first visit, provided she is sure they will come back again. On the second visit, they lose. Lady Mannering kindly offers them an IOU so that they may go on playing. Usually, some unfortunate accepts. She loses again, but then she is in debt to Lady Mannering, and so must return to clear her losses… which she never does. Lady Mannering threatens to expose her, and the lady raises it somehow by crying to her husband or pawning some of her jewels.
“Now, tell me, what exactly did Lady Mary say?”
“She… she has been pleasant to me of late. I told her I wished to find money somehow so that I could leave London.
“She laughed and told me about these gaming houses for women. Then she showed me Lady Mannering’s card. She thought she heard you arriving, so she left the room, and left me still holding the card.”
Lord Hawksborough looked very grim, and he swung around and stared down at the empty fireplace.
Amanda cleared her throat nervously. “I think Lady Mary was not malicious in her intent.”
“I think she was,” he said flatly. “I can understand her reasons, but she has gone too far.”
And yet you will marry her, thought Amanda sadly.
“Leave Amanda,” he said in a low voice. “I might forget myself again.”
She moved sadly towards the door.
“Amanda!”
He had swung round and was standing erect in front of the fireplace. He looked steadily at her, and what she saw in his eyes made her catch her breath.
“I must release myself from this engagement,” he said. “When that is achieved, we will discuss matters. Do you understand?”
She nodded dumbly, a great happiness filling her.
He walked to the door and held it open for her and stood looking down at her. Lady Mary had already arrived home and was standing by the door of the Red Drawing Room, across the hall in the shadows. Neither Lord Hawksborough nor Amanda saw her.
Lord Hawksborough took Amanda’s hand and raised it to his lips, and she shyly put up her hand and caressed the wings of black hair above his forehead.
“Go,” he said softly. “Until tomorrow.”
“Until tomorrow,” echoed Amanda.
Lady Mary slid back into the Red Drawing Room and stood with her back to the door, her bosom heaving.
Mrs. Fitzgerald looked at her curiously. “Is anything the matter? You look upset.”
“No, nothing,” said Lady Mary. “Nothing at all.”
She calmly walked over to the tea tray and picked up her cup. Lady Mary had become an almost permanent guest in Berkeley Square. She had already begun to look on the mansion as her own.
Now all this was to be snatched from her by a common country miss with a face like a fox.
Lady Mary knew instinctively, after the scene she had just witnessed, that Charles would make a push to escape from his engagement at the first opportunity.
To be jilted again!
9
Amanda awoke to a glittering day full of dappled sunlight and the sound of rushing wind. She and Susan went off early for their morning ride, laughing and joking and more at ease with each other than they had ever been before.
The money taken back from Lady Mannering had amounted to eight hundred guineas. After a long debate with her conscience, Amanda had returned three hundred guineas by messenger, for she knew that she and Susan had temporarily destroyed Lady Mannering’s source of income.
In vain did Susan point out that Amanda would probably have won that sum had the cards not been marked. But Amanda had decided she did not want to take money she was sure was not rightfully hers.
There was only one dark shadow on the sunshine of her morning.
As she was standing with Susan in the hall, she sensed a thrill of menace in the air.
Instinctively she turned and looked up at the first landing.
Lady Mary was standing there, her hand clutching the banister so tightly the knuckles showed white. Her eyes were filled with naked hatred. Amanda shuddered and turned away.
But the day outside was fresh and warm and windy, so that her feelings of fear and guilt quickly left her. Even the sight of the stocky figure of Townsend, the Bow Street Runner, heading around Berkeley Square, the sun sparkling from the crown on top of his baton, did not damp her sudden lift of spirits.
The jewels had been returned. Surely Charles had grown tired of searching for the highwaymen. He had vowed vengeance, but that had been some time ago.
Lady Mary saw the Runner being ushered into the library and quickly followed him in. She knew Mr. Townsend never stayed very long.
That would give her an opportunity to play on Charles’s feelings of honour, so that he would realise that he could not break the engagement.
Charles looked up at her, his eyes veiled. He rose punctiliously to his feet, waited until she was seated, and then sat down again and turned back to Mr. Townsend, who
was sitting opposite.
“Go on, Mr. Townsend,” said Lord Hawksborough. “You were saying you returned to Bellingham and Hember Cross.”
“Yes, my lord, I had gone through the name of every kiddey that was ever chaunted for a toby,” said Mr. Townsend, meaning that he had studied the name of every felon whose name had been published in the newspapers in connection with highway robbery. “And the more I reads, the more I comes to the conclusion that there’s amateurs behind this.
