A Gentleman’s Game
Page 20
“You expect that one should have no outside life.” This served her right for all the times she had used Secretaries don’t… as an excuse.
“When you accept money in exchange for letters you write me, we are not speaking of an outside life.”
She fumbled for words. The plan for her to write letters all the way to Epsom had seemed a victory for both her and Nathaniel. Now Sir William made it sound sordid.
“I should have discussed my debt with you,” she ventured.
But that was not the answer either; he was not interested in her private affairs. And until the trip to Epsom severed her from his household, she would have continued to search his papers, trusting in secrets rather than coin to pay her debt. The money she had asked of Nathaniel was only so she need not spy further for Aunt Annie.
When she thought of it that way, Sir William underestimated how sordid the whole matter was.
The folded corners of the letter in her hand pressed sharply into her skin. An introduction to someone unknown, supposedly, but it was really a good-bye. She had not realized how much it would hurt to be thought well of and then…not.
His lack of faith in her was justified, and that hurt too.
She had abandoned the habit of looking in the glass when she was scarred. How long since she had seen herself clearly?
Sir William’s broad hands played on the sleek rims of his chair. “We cannot afford to be weak, Miss Agate. When one is hurt, the jackals come sniffing. They smell blood and they want a taste.”
“The jackals have been sniffing about me for a decade, Sir William. Your son offered to help me escape them.” Her throat felt tight, and her scars ached no more than her heart. “He helped me find my family again.”
“Then you have a place to go once you leave my employment.” His voice was not unkind. In fact, his eyes were sad under his heavy brows. “I do not wish you ill, Miss Agate. But I have no use for someone I cannot trust.”
She smoothed out the folded letter she had creased in tight-clenched fingers. “I understand, Sir William.”
“I shall have your things sent to you.”
“Do not trouble yourself. I left behind nothing that I want back.” How lightly she had stepped through the world, owning little, knowing few. In Newmarket, she had thought to grow a few roots, but it was not to be. Her life was not truly her own, and she could be plucked from her setting at any time. A weed.
She had to try to plant one last seed first. “Your son is a good man, Sir William, and a good leader. I told you nothing but the truth where he was concerned. I do not know what has come between you, but I know he wishes it gone.”
“He has always been better at wishing than at taking action.”
“I have not found that to be the case.” With a curtsy, she excused herself and left the parlor. The door shut behind her with an oily click.
How easy it was to find oneself on the other side of a closed door.
* * *
She waited dully in the entryway for a long moment. What was she to do now? Sir William was probably giving her a chance to compose herself, but he would emerge at any second. And she could not bring herself to step out the front door in view of the grooms. Not when she would not be traveling on with them.
Just when she had decided to exit through the kitchen and walk home, Nathaniel thundered down the stairs with a fistful of papers. “Ah, good. Done speaking? Are you ready to leave?”
“I have been let go,” she said.
He leaped down the final two steps in one stride. “How do you mean, ‘let go’?”
“I mean it in the usual way. Your father does not wish to keep me in his employment anymore. He—he gave me a letter of reference.”
Nathaniel lost his hold on the papers. As one piece fluttered to the floor, Rosalind recognized it as a banknote.
“This was why he wanted to speak to you?” He smacked the heel of his free hand against the green-painted wall. “Damn it. Damn him, damn me. I am so sorry. That is detestable.”
Had his anger flared at her, she would have stepped back from its burn. But he lashed himself instead. He blamed everyone but her.
Even though it had been her idea to exchange money for travel and a few positive words. Her Aunt Annie who had combed the newspapers between Epsom and Newmarket once Rosalind failed to send a few letters.
Of the two of them, she was the only one who had done wrong and lost something. He could carry on.
“You’ll be all right,” she said. “You don’t need me to finish the journey now.”
He leaned forward, peering from end to end of the entryway. Then seizing her arm, he pulled her up the stairs after him until they rounded the first bend and were shielded from view.
“Here,” he whispered. “This is a hundred pounds. It was going to be our stake—but you need it now. Put it in your pocket.”
“No.” She made fists of her hands, letting the money rain over them and fall to the stairs. “No. I didn’t get to Epsom. My letters didn’t help you. They hurt you.”
She stared at the colorful notes on the worn tread of the stairs. “Your father made everything sound so dirty.” As though she were a whore. A liar. A cheat.
When in truth she was only the last two.
Nathaniel sighed. “I want you to have the money. It’s my fault you lost your post.” He looked angry and wretched at once.
“That’s just not true. You got this far on your own.” She matched his quiet tone. “I lost my post on my own.”
He leaned against the wall and let his head fall against it. Thud. Thud. “You don’t want to allow any connection, do you?” Blue eyes pierced her. “Take the damned money, Rosalind. Please. Think of it as thirty pieces of silver if you must, but just take it. I always meant you to have it, whether we arrived at Epsom or not. Ever since you asked for it, I thought of it as yours.”
He wasn’t only talking about the money. She knew that. And she wasn’t used to this: to wanting something and being entrusted with it simply because of her desire.
She shook her head. “As though asking is enough to get what one wants, whether one deserves it or not? That might be acceptable for almonds. Not this. Not…” Not you.
She could not ask for anything more from him. Not when there were so many things she could not tell him.
I never truly worked for your father.
I came to Epsom as an alternative to prying through your family’s papers.
You have a sister about whom you never knew. She is just the age of my youngest brother, Elder.
The words unspoken were like stones. They caught in her throat, choking her.
“It’s not my money,” she said. “It cannot be mine.”
He looked at the discarded banknotes, then slid down the wall to sit on a stair. “I want to help. I just…I just want to be of some use to you, Rosalind.”
“You are not mine to use, Nathaniel.”
“Am I not? What is yours?” His tone went harsh, all the fiercer because of its near-whispered intensity. “I’m not yours. The money isn’t yours. What is?”
Nothing. Not even my own self.
There was just space enough to sit down beside him on the stair. Even so, she felt too much distance between them to even take his hand. “Asking isn’t enough to get what one wants.”
“Of course it’s not.” He leaned back on his elbows, letting the stairs hold him up. “If it were, I would have been on the way to Epsom without having to bribe you into chaperoning me. And my father would have remained in Newmarket, trusting me to do well.”
Looking tired, he fixed her with eyes devoid of their usual spark. “And if you chose to come along after all, you would have been proud to introduce me to your family and their friend. You would have said, ‘Yes, be my suitor. Even though you have no real home and your work is tenuous, court me.’”
There was not enough air in this tiny box of stairs and walls. Rosalind shuddered in her thin gown, eyes sandy and throat dry.
“I wish you could have those things.” She forced herself to stand. “I should go.”
“Why? No one is expecting you.”
“Because if I don’t go right now, I’ll beg you to stuff me into a trunk and take me to Epsom with you.”
“I’ll go get an empty trunk.” He made as if to get up, but she caught his hand.
“No, Nathaniel. I can’t see you again.”
“Is this that ridiculous notion you have that secretaries don’t have suitors? Because it’s not true. And you’re even not a secretary anymore.”
She dropped his hand and walked down a few stairs. Bending awkwardly at the waist—Carys’s gown was tight about her ribs—she gathered and smoothed the banknotes. Even the first one that had fallen. All of them.
Once they were in a neat stack, she folded them and extended the handful to Nathaniel. Politeness should have brought him to his feet when she stood; politeness dictated that he would take what a lady sought to offer him.
He only watched her face, ignoring her outstretched hand. It seemed they would wait in silence forever, the seated statue and the standing one. As she stood on a lower stair, their faces were at the same height.
And he began to smile. “You could be, though. You could be a secretary. You could come to Epsom, and I needn’t even stuff you into a trunk.”
She set the money down beside him, not breaking his gaze as she bent. “I can tell you are having a diabolical idea. What is it?”
“I find myself”—he folded the banknotes and tucked them into his waistcoat pocket—“in need of a secretary.”
Her mouth fell open.
“Shocking, is it? But you see, I am on an important journey and must keep careful account of racehorses and servants alike. How am I to do that without the help of a secretary?”
Her feet shifted and fumbled on the steps, finding the next riser down. “That’s silly. You haven’t needed a secretary thus far.”
He dropped the hearty mien for a moment, his expression softening. “But I have, Rosalind. I didn’t come a step of the way without you.” His smile was sweet and a little sad. “Not that I ever thought of you as anything but a Rosalind. Still, if I have to call you secretary, I will. I’ll say what I must, do what you wish, so that you can finish the journey.”
Extending one hand, he added softly, “If you want to, that is. Only if you want to.”
That hand had touched her, loved her, brought her to pleasure. And then it had become part of an embrace, tucking her to his heart as long as they dared.
What had he said to her? You push back to see if I’ll stay. Something like that. And he had kissed her again and said he’d stay.
And he had.
“I’ll stay,” she said.
By those two short words, she meant far more.
Maybe he understood, for the smile that crossed his features made her heart reel, dizzy with delight. For a moment, his fingers closed over hers.
And then he released her, all business—though that smile kept tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Then you’re hired, Miss Agate. The wages are terrible and the hours are worse. Your employer is prodigal and presumptuous and—”
“Passionate? Perplexing? Plays the piccolo?” She turned to lead the way down the stairs. “Whatever he is, I am sure I can handle it.”
“Very true, for you’ve worked for Sir William Chandler. Come along, then, Miss Agate. We have a new city to visit and a Derby to win.”
Twenty
As Sir William navigated the steps of his crested carriage with the help of his arm strength and two servants, Nathaniel descended the town house steps at Rosalind’s side.
As always, he helped her to settle into Farfalla’s saddle. Then, with her nod of approval, he led the mare before the open door of the lacquered carriage.
The wheelchair was jammed between the carriage squabs. His father was seated with feet flat and knees canted out. Between his legs was a walking stick on which his broad hands were clenched. “What’s this?” grunted Sir William, settling back onto the squabs. “Are we taking Miss Agate back to the Eight Bells?”
“Why should we take her there?” Nathaniel feigned surprise. “No, Father, my secretary is traveling to Epsom with us.”
The baronet’s gray head tilted to one side. “Your secretary?”
“Indeed. You gave her a letter of reference. How could I help but hire her?”
Snort. “Nonsense. You don’t need a secretary.”
“Nonsense. You all but told me I did by sending one along on this journey.” It was pleasant to echo the baronet’s own words, but with a twist into something positive. “And now I’ve found I can’t do without her.”
At his side, Nathaniel felt rather than saw the startled movement of Rosalind’s shoulders. “No need for a waltz in the saddle, Miss Agate. It’s quite true.”
She fidgeted again. “As a dutiful secretary, I should never gainsay my employer’s opinion.”
Sir William craned his neck, his deep-set eyes searching the pair of them. “So that’s the way it is.”
“That,” Nathaniel said with some relish, “is the way it is.”
“And what do you think about this, Miss Agate?”
She hesitated before replying, her pause so long that Nathaniel looked up at her. Chin lifted, she finally said, “I think it’s only right that I should finish what I started.”
“And so he has hired her as his secretary,” muttered the baronet. “Good Christ almighty.”
Nathaniel smiled. “Did you hear that, Miss Agate? He is inspired to pray. I haven’t heard him pray for thirteen years.”
“It is a Sunday,” she said mildly. “Maybe it’s the influence of the date rather than our own sterling characters.”
Sir William shook the cane. “Off! Off with the two of you.”
Nathaniel arched a brow. “‘Off with the two of you’ as in ‘off to Epsom’? Or as in ‘off to a faraway location’? Because I’m quite willing to honor the former request, but not the latter.”
Sir William sat back, his face dropping into the shadow of the carriage’s deep velvet interior. “To Epsom, of course. We’ve already dawdled far too long. Let us get back on the road.”
Nathaniel bowed. “Very well. Your wish, my command, et cetera.”
As he closed the carriage door, he thought he saw grudging respect cross his father’s features. The contrary old scoundrel.
* * *
Rosalind had snapped up the opportunity to travel onward with Nathaniel and the servants with whom she’d come to feel so comfortable. Yet as the procession set off, familiar yet a little different this time, she felt awkward about the journey.
Was it Sir William’s presence that changed matters? Another carriage was added to their company. And though the baronet couldn’t see them from its plush interior, his nearness was like a weight. Lombard held Pale Marauder on a shorter line; the outriders hung closer and kept their hands on their weapons. Nathaniel didn’t whistle.
Maybe it wasn’t Sir William’s presence at that. Maybe it was London itself. Used to traveling at a drifting pace alongside Nathaniel and Bumblebee, Rosalind now had to keep her head and her seat as she guided Farfalla through the congestion at London’s heart. Farmers’ carts were replaced by hackneys and drays that squeezed into spaces far too small for safe passage, reins in a tangle and horses in a lather. The bark of a friendly sheepdog had seemed loud a few days ago; now she wouldn’t even hear a dog over the sound of carriages on cobbles, of shouts and whinnies as everyone tried to go every direction at once. Buildings walled in the streets on both sides, and a roil of foot traffic covered the
pavement.
Had it always been like this? Were her parents used to such clamor? Was Nathaniel? For the first time since leaving Newmarket, Rosalind kept her balance by thinking of next instead of savoring the now.
After hours, the traffic gradually began to thin. The stone under Farfalla’s hooves gave way once again to earth. The noise about them softened and fell as the walls of buildings were cleaved by the welcome sunlight of late afternoon.
Rosalind’s hands loosened on Farfalla’s reins. Only now did she realize her hands had been clenched so tight as to ache.
Nathaniel and Bumblebee fell into stride beside them. “Glad to be through the thick of it?” At her nod, he added, “In another week, carriages and carts will fill the road all the way to Epsom.”
“That many people want to see the Derby?”
“Nearly everyone in England wants to see the Derby. Only a fraction have the time and coin to make the journey.”
Her brow creased. “You did tell me once that horse racing was a world of its own. I had no idea it was such a large world.”
“Not such a large world as all that. The people involved in the race are few compared to the people who only want to celebrate. Derby Day is…” He trailed off, studying the Thoroughbreds on their lead lines. “It’s rather like a fete for all of England.”
“I like fetes,” she said simply.
I like your kisses. I like when you tell me, ‘I shall have a man at my feet’—as long as there is a hope that maybe someday he will be you.
He shot a glance at her, smiling. “I like fetes too.”
The familiar calm settled between them. Rosalind was about to comment on it when Nathaniel added, “I’m sorry we couldn’t stop at midday today. There’s no good place to halt a large company within the city, and I wanted to press on. We’ll stop soon for the night. At that point, Sir William will probably want to take charge of everything.”
Indeed, he was right about this. They halted for the day at the Queen’s Noggin, a tidy inn with enormous brick chimneys proclaiming its great age but a fresh white coat of stucco over the exterior. Almost before the crested carriage could halt, Sir William had worked the door open and was calling for the innkeeper.