Ros took the seat beside Jemima and briefly touched her withered hand. ‘That, my sweet,’ he said quietly, ‘is a very good question. But rest assured that in challenging me, Quinn will soon discover that he has met his match. I do not take kindly to being manipulated in such a cowardly manner and I will find a way to ensure that Quinn pays for his arrogance and for his treatment of this poor girl. On that score you have my solemn promise.’
Chapter Ten
Upon seeing the distressing sight of her poor sister’s near-dead body in Lord Glynde’s bed, Jemima’s first thought was that he must have abducted her himself and had somehow hoodwinked Lord Torbay into believing otherwise. With no further use for Annabel, he had regretted his impulsive action and now wanted to paint himself as the hero of the hour. Jemima strengthened her resolve as she gripped her sister’s icy hand, determined not be so easily taken in, her contempt for the only man whom she had ever taken the slightest interest in absolute. Presumably he had befriended her, pretended not to be repulsed by her disability, in order to inveigle his way into the investigation.
So distressed was she by Annabel’s condition and the ease with which Lord Glynde had manipulated her that Jemima didn’t give much thought to what he might have to gain by such desperate behaviour. No doubt his reasons would prove political. But as her horror slowly subsided, the ability to think rationally was restored to her and common sense quickly reasserted itself. Of course he had not done it! The idea was preposterous. He didn’t even like Annabel. He had made that much abundantly clear at their mother’s soiree. Besides, he would hardly have invited Lord Torbay into his rooms if he had been keeping her hidden there. This was the earl’s second visit of the morning and if Annabel had been there when he first called, Lord Glynde could not have concealed a delirious woman in such a comparatively small space and been sure that she would remain quiet.
Jemima felt ashamed to have doubted him, albeit momentarily, and could tell from the disappointment shadowing his expression that he understood the nature of her thoughts. Jemima gave a stoic shrug, thinking that was that. Lord Glynde would take no further interest in her and it would probably be just as well. Fanciful notions with no basis in fact were in danger of taking root in her brain, and as a general rule Jemima was far too sensible to hanker after what could never be.
‘You will move her to Grosvenor Square?’ Jemima asked, her voice sounding flat and most unlike her own.
Lord Torbay nodded. ‘She cannot stay here.’
‘Of course not, but—’
If Ros’s landlady or anyone else connected to the household sees her, the secret will out.’
‘Yes, I quite understand.’ Still unable to confront the censure in Lord Glynde’s eye, she turned towards Olivia. ‘I would like to remain with her. She will need to see a familiar face if…’ Her voice broke but she swallowed down her anguish and endeavoured to remain strong. ‘When, she recovers consciousness.’
‘Naturally you must stay.’ Olivia patted Jemima’s shoulder. The desire to give way to emotion was compelling, but if Jemima gave the impression of being a helpless female, incapable of weathering the tragedy of her sister’s situation without wilting, Lord Torbay would exclude her from an investigation that she very much wanted to be a part of. She might not share Annabel’s beauty but she had a sharp brain and might actually be able to make useful suggestions. She brushed away an errant tear that had managed to trickle down her cheek and composed herself.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I am much obliged to you and will be no trouble.’
‘How will you explain your absence to your mother?’ Olivia asked.
‘Let’s allow Aitken to worry about that,’ Lord Torbay replied, saving Jemima from the trouble of addressing a problem that had not previously occurred to her. Of course her mother would raise objections to Jemima being the guest of a woman whom she had taken in dislike for no reason other than that she resented her position as Lord Torbay’s countess. They had already decided that she could not be told that Annabel had been found, where and under what circumstances. Papa would indeed have to make excuses for Jemima that would satisfy his wife. ‘We had best concentrate our efforts upon getting Annabel back to Grosvenor Square first.’
‘Quite right,’ Lord Glynde said. ‘Will you carry her, Jake? Here’s a blanket we can wrap around her to disguise her identity. I’ll go ahead and ensure there is no one suspicious loitering outside.’
Jemima and Olivia between them draped the blanket around Annabel, who was wearing the same dress that she had worn to Lady Barlow’s picnic what seemed like an eternity ago but was in fact only five days. Annabel remained unconscious and worryingly pale. Her hands were cold yet her brow was beaded with perspiration and her breathing remained erratic. Jemima refused to dwell upon the increasingly likely possibility of her sister dying and instead opened the door for Lord Torbay so that he could carry Annabel through it.
The carriage had stopped immediately outside Lord Glynde’s lodgings. The coachman had opened the door and let down the steps, and Lord Torbay quickly transferred Annabel into the conveyance and lowered her gently onto the seat. Olivia and Jemima climbed in after her. Jemima sat with her sister’s head resting on her lap as to the two gentlemen, grim-faced, sat opposite with Olivia between them, looking anxiously on.
‘It will be all right,’ Olivia said softly. ‘We will not permit her to die.’
Jemima nodded, too full of emotion to speak. Her sister’s beautiful face looked waxen, ethereal. How could she survive? Olivia might be able to use her position as a countess to right many wrongs but she was not omnipotent, and Annabel’s ultimate fate did not rest in her hands.
Each time the carriage wheels hit a rut, Jemima was convinced that the shock would be too much for her sister’s fragile body and that it would all be over. Thankfully, the ride was a short one and they reached Grosvenor Square without mishap. There appeared to be servants everywhere, silent and efficient, as Lord Torbay alighted from the carriage and Lord Glynde carefully passed Annabel into his waiting arms. Olivia and Jemima followed behind as Annabel was taken up the magnificent staircase to a guest room.
‘Thank you, Jake,’ Olivia said once he had laid Annabel on the bed. ‘You can leave Jemima and me to make her comfortable.’
‘Papa will arrive soon, I expect,’ Jemima said, glancing up at the earl. ‘Please let me know when he does. He will probably want to speak to me as well.’
‘Of course.’ Lord Torbay sent her a reassuring smile and quietly left the room.
A maid appeared with a jug of warm water and a nightgown draped over one arm. Together the three of them managed to remove Annabel’s soiled clothing, wipe her limbs, pull a brush through her tangled curls and the nightgown over her head. Jemima gasped when she observed bruises on Annabel’s slender arms and, more alarmingly, on her thighs, their meaning obvious even to an unmarried woman of Jemima’s tender years. She glanced at Olivia, whose expression darkened and whose eyes softened in sympathy.
‘This is a terrible business,’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Perhaps it would be as well if she does not recover,’ Jemima replied softly, brushing stray strands of her sister’s hair away from her brow as she watched her sleeping restlessly. ‘The sparkling future that meant so much to her will be denied to her now. No man will want her if he discovers…’ She swallowed. ‘And it would be deceitful not to tell him.’
‘Hush, don’t think about such things now,’ Olivia said soothingly. ‘This is not your sister’s fault. Let’s just hope that she wakes up, then we will hear from her own lips what has happened to her. Things look bad now, I will admit, but I dare say a solution can be found.’
Jemima nodded, thinking that Annabel was partly to blame for her dilemma, even if she had been unaware what she had agreed to in arranging a clandestine meeting with Quinn on Hampstead Heath, which presumably had been the case, or she would not have wandered off alone. Annabel disliked her own co
mpany and would not have settled for it voluntarily. Especially not when there were young men in attendance vying for her attention. That aspect of her behaviour on the day in question had always seemed suspicious to Jemima.
‘Her breathing seems more regular,’ Olivia remarked, ‘and she is no longer mumbling. Those are probably good signs.’
The maid who had helped put Annabel to bed returned to the room with news that Jemima’s father had arrived.
‘Thank you, Susan. Come, Jemima, we shall be needed downstairs. Sit with Miss Aitken, Susan, and send word immediately if there is any change in her condition.’
Susan bobbed a curtsey and took up the chair that Olivia had just vacated.
Olivia and Jemima left the room together and made their way to the drawing room, where they found Jemima’s father in heated conversation with Lord Torbay and Lord Glynde.
‘This is a damned rum affair,’ her father said, looking shocked and discomposed. ‘I can’t begin to think…’
‘Papa!’
Jemima ran into the room and tried to embrace her father, but he was having none of it. Showing affection in any guise was not his forte. She had been naïve to suppose that Annabel’s dire situation would cause him to relax his rigid stance. He simply patted her shoulder and continued to look distraught. Jemima noticed Lord Glynde frown at his blatant disregard for her feelings, and wanted to tell him that she was accustomed to being invisible to both of her parents, even if she had never been in greater need of a kind word than she was at that moment. She felt vulnerable, insecure, and although she was aware that no reassurance would be forthcoming from her father, she looked for it anyway. Today his disinterest in her mattered very much indeed. Yesterday, he had spoken to her as though she were an adult, confided in her, and she had dared to hope that their relationship would improve, but it seemed evident now that nothing had changed.
‘You should not be here,’ he said gruffly.
‘You are offering to sit with your daughter, Mr Aitken?’ Olivia asked in a tone that he would not ordinarily tolerate from any female. He shot Olivia a look of deep disapproval but refrained from issuing the acerbic response that Jemima was accustomed to hearing on the rare occasions when she had dared to challenge his authority.
‘I would like to see her, naturally, and I am most grateful to you for bringing her back here so discreetly, Lady Torbay. Indeed I am.’ Papa shook his head. ‘I cannot begin to imagine what problems this situation would have caused for the coalition if they had chosen any other day to invade your rooms, Glynde.’
Jemima was obliged to avert her gaze, lest her expression gave away her deep disapproval of her father’s reaction. Naturally he put the considerations of the government first. When did he not? But his favourite child had been abducted, violated, poisoned and left for dead. She might still very well die. Surely that mattered to him more than the balance of power in Westminster?
‘I will take you to see Annabel, Papa,’ Jemima said curtly.
Papa nodded, excused himself and followed her from the room. He made no effort to engage her in conversation as they ascended the stairs and Jemima was too angry with him to offer words of comfort that he clearly had no use for. Susan looked up and smiled at Jemima when they entered the room.
‘There’s been no change, miss,’ she said, dipping a curtsey and quietly leaving the room.
‘Dear God!’ Papa glanced at Annabel’s pale countenance and finally showed a reaction, albeit briefly. His mouth fell open and his eyes watered. He quickly regained his composure, crouched beside the bed and gently touched Annabel’s cheek. ‘This will be the death of your mother,’ he said.
Jemima wanted to point out that Annabel’s possible death was of more immediate concern, but restrained herself. ‘That is why we didn’t send word to her,’ she said instead. ‘We wanted your guidance. However, I beg permission to remain here until she wakens. She will need to see a familiar face and we both know that Mama would not cope well with the situation.’
‘No, she would not, but I cannot imagine how I will account for your absence.’
‘Tell her that Fiona Farrell asked me to remain with her. She was Annabel’s closest friend, has no siblings, so it is reasonable to assume that she will be feeling lonely and upset.’
‘Your mother will struggle to manage without you.’
‘No, Papa, she will not, and we both know it. As a general rule, she barely remembers that I am alive.’
‘Even so, it is your duty to wait upon her.’
‘My priority is my sister’s well-being.’ She sent her father a look of cool determination. ‘I intend to remain, Papa, with or without your consent.’
‘Jemima! You forget yourself.’
‘On the contrary, I have never had a better understand of who I am. One of us must do the right thing by Annabel. It cannot be you, and we are already agreed that Mama will be next to useless. There is no one else.’
She expected a backlash for expressing such determination, but it did not materialise. When his authority was directly challenged—something that Jemima had never before dared to attempt—he rapidly backed down.
‘Very well,’ he said curtly. ‘Stay for a day or two. She ought to waken within that period, and then we can decide what to do.’ He ran his hand down his face, looking strained, older than his years. ‘Did he…was she—’ He shook his head, tears that would embarrass him glistening as he swallowed repeatedly, wanting to know. Afraid of what he would hear.
‘I think she must have been,’ Jemima said gently, sitting on the edge of the bed and touching her father’s stiff shoulder. ‘She has bruises…well, you know where.’
Papa allowed himself a single sob and quickly regained his composure. ‘No one must ever know.’
She wondered whom he thought she was likely to tell but refrained from comment, just as she so often did when she disagreed with something one of her parents said.
‘I must rejoin the gentlemen and decide what is best to be done.’
‘I will come too,’ she said, ringing the bell to summon Susan’s return.
‘That isn’t necessary.’
‘It is entirely necessary, Papa.’ Jemima sent him an implacable look, grimacing as she clenched and unclenched her withered hand. She knew just how painful the simple gesture could be and only indulged in it when she was angry, using the discomfort to help temper her words. ‘Who knows, I might even have one or two suggestions to make.’
Papa sent her a look that could almost have been respectful. ‘Have it your way,’ he said. ‘It seems you have developed a rebellious streak and will do as you like anyway.’
He left the room ahead of her. Jemima lingered until Susan returned and then followed him down the stairs.
*
Ros paced the length of Lady Torbay’s drawing room, hands clasped behind his back as he endeavoured to rein in his simmering rage. Perversely that rage was not directed at Quinn, who had used both Annabel and him to enhance his political cause, but at Aitken for his dismissive attitude towards Jemima. The chit had shown immense courage and behaved with great presence of mind in a situation that would have seen most young girls reduced to fits of the vapours. She clearly craved her father’s approval and a few words of reassurance, but Aitken had treated her as an annoying irrelevance.
Ros sensed that hers would be the voice of reason and common sense that prevailed within the Aitken household. She would be the fulcrum upon which the family balanced during this testing period, but Aitken was too blind to realise what a quick brain his elder daughter possessed. Ros had never had much respect for Aitken who, political to the core, thought only of his own survival. At that moment, he actively disliked him.
But it was not Ros’s concern—he had greater problems to wrestle with. Had it not been for providence, Annabel’s body would have been discovered in his rooms and he would have had one heck of a job to prove his innocence. He would not have been able to, he conceded. Hi
s man was away, had been since before Annabel’s abduction, so there was no one to vouch for the fact that he had not been harbouring an unwilling female in his rooms. No one apart from Mrs Gaunt, and her word would not be sufficient to absolve him from blame when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. He’d had a narrow and fortunate escape and ought to be thirsty for revenge.
He was. But for Jemima, not himself.
‘Trying to wear a hole in my rugs, Ros?’ Jake asked, a hint of amusement lighting up his otherwise austere expression.
‘Sorry.’ Ros threw up his hands and lowered his body into the nearest chair. ‘It’s all such a mess.’
‘I think it telling that Fiona Farrell suggested Annabel might have settled her interest upon you,’ Lady Torbay said. ‘How did Quinn know that? I mean, he must have been aware, and that awareness probably caused him to launch his plan, yet he was not present at Mrs Aitken’s soiree on the only occasion when you met Annabel.’
‘It could have been coincidence,’ Ros replied. ‘Quinn would know that my voice on the Irish situation carries a fair bit of weight in Westminster, or it could be as we already suspect, that they are getting to my father through me. The pater probably would cave into Quinn’s demands rather than see my reputation ruined and the family’s good name tarnished.’
‘Most men of honour would react the same way,’ Lady Torbay said, nodding.
‘Or it could be that someone at Mrs Aitken’s soiree, someone supposedly loyal to the coalition, noticed Annabel’s reaction to you and mentioned it to Quinn,’ Jake suggested.
‘Then he badly miscalculated.’ Ros’s expression turned to flint. ‘I will not submit to blackmail. If Annabel had been found still alive in my rooms I would have married her and made the best of it.’
‘Fortunately it has not come to that,’ Lady Torbay said, shuddering. ‘It would have been a terrible mésalliance.’
Ros inclined his head. ‘I could not agree more but the situation transcends the desires and personal aspirations of one man.’
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