‘I want you to take her in.’ There was a pride and dignity behind the youth’s audacious demand. Even when Connor quirked an expressive eyebrow at him he didn’t waver. ‘She’s not bright, but she’s a good girl. She can cook, clean, sew. She used to dress me auntie’s hair right nice afore she got the chills and turned up her toes. Perhaps one of your ladies might like…’ He cleared his throat at a quizzical look from Connor. ‘That is…you might know of a lady who needs a good maid…’
Connor smiled to himself. Such ladies—even respectable ones—were hardly likely to take in such a young beauty and present themselves with problems keeping her out of sight of roving-eyed amorous husbands or lovers. ‘I take it you’ve tried domestic agencies?’
Sam smiled bleakly. ‘Oh, yes. Annie’s been in fine houses…with fine masters. Like I said…it’s especially them as should know better that she has to fear. She’s chaste still, but I ain’t sure how we managed it. She started in Beaumont Street and stayed just a day. Sir Percy Monk thought she might make a pretty playmate for his son. She’s got a right set of talons on her, I’ll give her that,’ he added with a limp grin. ‘Marked the blighter good and proper.’
Connor pursed his lips; he knew the boy, and his vicious, licentious reputation. He was sixteen years old and no better than his lecherous sire.
‘I want you to take her in,’ Sam repeated in a quavering voice. ‘Arthur Goodwin won’t dare cross you. He’s afraid of you. But he’ll hound me and Annie. He said as much. He said he wants her and he won’t give up…’
Connor put a hand to his forehead and rubbed, cursing inwardly for ever having left home this evening. He hadn’t come here to listen to his mistress sing. She was wont to warble in the throes of passion and that was more than enough for him. He’d come here because he knew Rachel would be attending; she’d lured him to her side, just as she had on the road earlier in the week. But for that fateful incident with the crush of carriages, he wouldn’t now be stuck in this farcical quandary. It was her fault! A weak smile acknowledged his irrationality. With a sigh he asked, ‘And you? What are you intending to do?’
Sam Smith swiped a brash hand across his nose, shrugged. ‘Oh, I’ll get by. Always do. I can duck and dive…or work in a stable. I’m a good groom…been apprenticed,’ he added with a flicker of optimism dampening his bravado.
Connor found the laugh got stuck in his throat. He looked up at his coachman, gazing off diplomatically into the night. His current groom, having retreated from holding the door, to his place at the back of the carriage when his master struck up conversation, just swivelled his eyes skywards. Connor opened the carriage door himself and merely jerked his head at the interior.
Wordlessly, the girl clambered in, unaided.
‘How did you know I’d be here?’ he asked Sam, hoping to curb the boy’s silent streaming tears with conversation.
‘I saw your lady…up at the window…’ Sam snivelled, smearing his face with a dirty palm, his auburn head jerking back at the brightly lit casement.
‘Oh…not this one, not the one who left with the other gentleman…’ Sam looked anxiously at him through red eyes, as though frightened the miracle might slip away with a stupid word. His cheeks dripped rusty water again. ‘I meant your blonde lady as was kind on the road. You seemed to like her…so when I saw her here I thought…’ He snuffled a laugh, cuffed his mouth. ‘I thought she were right brave to give that Arthur Goodwin a dressing-down. His ugly mug were a picture…’
Connor laughed, too. But for a different reason. Out of the mouths of babes… ‘Oh, that my lady,’ was all he said.
Chapter Six
‘I’ll match your call and raise you this…’
Benjamin Harley tried to freeze a betraying smile as the fistful of fifty-pound notes was waved at him. With a dramatic flinging open of his fingers, the man let loose the money and it fluttered down to settle on a cushion of similar paper already littering the baize. Quickly Lord Harley looked away lest he inadvertently exposed his steadily mounting excitement. He slanted a stare at Edgar Meredith across the cards he held fanned in a languid hand. Carefully, very carefully, he lowered them from possible prying eyes and placed them face down on the baize. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been lucky enough to hold such a promising set of pictures. His eyes slid to the pot, calculated note denominations by their visible edges; the mountain of sovereigns that had been early antes, he didn’t bother counting…there were too many.
An hour and a half ago, eight men had started this game of cards and their bets had amassed into a very tidy sum. A very tidy sum, indeed. Two players had already folded; two had adopted the studied thoughtfulness that betrayed a bluff; one was looking exceedingly nervous. And one was looking exceedingly foxed. And he held a full house; the winning hand…he was sure. He was thus determined to keep his wits about him. Resolutely, he pushed away a few inches his half-full brandy balloon in a move that was sure to have routed a weaker set of men.
‘It’s getting too rich for me,’ Nathaniel Chamberlain muttered with a sorry look at the cash that once had been his, now tucked away beneath the tipsy pyramid in the centre of the table. Neatly, he cupped his hand of cards, but didn’t yet discard them. Leaning at an angle to cosy with his brother-in-law, slumped in the next chair, he hissed low and vehement, ‘And if you’ve any sense left, Meredith, you’ll follow my lead.’
‘Fesch me a drink,’ Edgar slurred at him, and held out his empty whisky glass.
‘Don’t be a fool!’ Alexander Pemberton added his own cautions to Nathaniel’s. He stooped on creaky knees until his mouth was close to the top of Edgar’s thinning pate. Earnestly he gritted, ‘Listen to what your brother-in-law is telling you. It’s time to admit defeat. Cut your losses now…’
‘Everyone wan’s to give me a’vise. I doan need a’vise. I need a drink.’
‘I’ll buy you a drink.’
Edgar swayed his head at the soft Gaelic drawl. He frowned across a shoulder at a pair of black trousers. His bleary vision climbed past a figured-silk waistcoat in pearl grey, resplendent beneath the lapels of a charcoal, superfine tail-coat. His neck angled awkwardly so he could take in a perfectly folded cravat crowned by high, white collar points. Eventually he blinked at a face of dark, stern beauty. ‘Why…look whooze arrived,’ he crowed. “S the Irishman. His lor’ship’s lowering hisself to talk to me tonigh’. See, everyone…’ He flapped a hand about. ‘See, the dashing Major’s here in the Palm House an’ is condashending to talk to me. So you’re talking to me ‘s’evening, are you? I’m honoured, milor’. Woan play cards with me though, will you? Frightened I’ll cheat, are you?’ He started to giggle. ‘He’s chary o’ me cheating…’ He slunk sideways in his chair and elbowed Nathaniel in the ribs. ‘Thinks I’ll shteal his money…’ he hissed in a stage whisper. As though just remembering that the object of his scorn had offered to get him a drink, he contorted himself about again, and stuck out his empty glass at the Earl of Devane’s hip.
Benjamin Harley curled a lip in amusement and slid a sideways look at his chum, Peter Waverley. Peter had been busily examining Edgar’s last bid. He held up five fingers to Benjamin, denoting the additional hundreds of pounds he needed to stay in the game.
Harley’s humour turned greedy. His mind was again on the pot…and securing it as soon as maybe. ‘Shall we continue, Meredith? I’ve better sport than this awaiting me this evening. And she’s far easier on the eye…and wallet than you are when drunk…’ He managed a weak grin, for he was fretting to get play again underway before Meredith passed out or upset the table. Either way he might lose out if the game were called void. Quickly he matched Edgar’s last bet and, dithering over whether to stick, or up the ante, allowed avarice to overrule his need to bring the game to a speedy conclusion. He raised the stake by scribbling a promissory note for one thousand pounds. His eyebrows elevated meaningfully at Edgar; he then included the other men still playing in the challenging look.
Edgar fished in a pocket, then
delved deep in the other. He tried his breast pocket. The gentlemen sitting around the table watched anxiously.
‘I didn’t say I wouldn’t play cards with you,’ came mildly, yet audibly, from behind him.
Edgar continued digging for gold. A handkerchief was tossed idly on to the table, a silver snuff-box followed in a clatter, then spectacles skidded away to wink candlelight. ‘You didn’t shay anything at all to me, ash I ric’ricall. Avoided me like I shtank, ash I ric’ricall. If you’re not too grand and fash…fashdidious, si…sit down, then.’ Edgar wobbled his head at Nathaniel’s seat and hiccoughed again. Annoyed with the sudden spate of spasms rocking his chest, he ceased talking and gulped in a lungful of air. Steadily he began swelling about the neck and elevating in his chair.
‘Aye, take my place…please,’ Nathaniel said. He scraped his chair back from the table, shaking his head at Edgar. ‘I’ll not make excuses to Gloria for you, y’know. You’ll not cry off apologising for this lunacy yourself…’ Noticing his brother-in-law was becoming horribly florid and pop-eyed, he thumped him on the back.
Edgar exploded, shrunk into his seat then hiccoughed and swore. He waved a disgruntled hand at his brother-in-law, scattering a stack of sovereigns in the process. ‘Fine’ me something to scribble with,’ he directed him rudely. ‘An’ mine’ your own business…’ He turned to Alexander Pemberton. ‘Did I ask him to make m’excuses? Alibi for me only the once…only once ever has he done that…’
‘Have you got something to say?’ Connor quietly drawled at Lord Harley. He stuck a cheroot in his mouth and lit it. Having settled himself in Nathaniel’s chair, he lay back in it, long legs stretching out lazily to the central pedestal. Blue eyes raised, gazing at the furious-faced man through a haze of slate smoke, whilst Edgar, beside him, continued to mumble and hiccough and pull out his pocket linings in search of some cash.
‘It ain’t in the rules. You want to play, Devane, wait till this game’s done.’
‘Anybody got any objections to me buying Chamberlain out and playing now?’ Connor asked the few men seated about the table who were still in the game.
‘None at all,’ Toby Forster declared with a grin. ‘Too deep for me in any case,’ he explained. Having folded his hand, he lay back in his chair with an air of someone relishing future proceedings. His friend, Frank Vernon, looked at him lounging at ease, looked at his cards, then, with a hopeless groan, pitched them in too.
‘Just the three of us, then,’ Connor told Benjamin Harley and, withdrawing the cigar from between his teeth, he placed it carefully on the pewter ashtray.
Lord Harley’s face turned a dull red, then the blood drained from his complexion as slowly the full implications of this subtle manoeuvre sunk in. His frustration erupted in a muttered imprecation forced through his set teeth.
Connor smiled, amused. His eyes remained cold. ‘Come, don’t fret, Benjamin,’ he drawled silkily, while watching Edgar scratching script in black ink on to the white parchment that his brother-in-law had brought him. With a flourish the pledge was signed, the quill was lobbed back in the direction of the standish and Edgar flopped back in his chair. Connor’s vivid blue gaze was still riveted on the parchment as he mocked Harley. ‘I’m sure your lady friend will wait…unless, of course, she’s sober now and remembers you…’
‘I shall send an express to Beaulieu Gardens. Yes, I’ve decided, that’s definitely what I shall do.’
Rachel sighed. She had heard these declarations a score or more times in as many hours. ‘Send it then, Mama,’ she agreed in defeat.
It had been two days since a violent storm subsided, having lasted a day and a night, before rumbling on its way. Still her father had not returned to Windrush, neither had he sent word of what occasioned his delay. He was only a few days’ overdue and she had explained away his non-appearance and the lack of a messenger arriving with a note as being, in all probability, due to the hostile elements preventing anyone travelling north out of London.
Old Ralph had innocently contradicted that comforting train of thought. On their first venture out in the carriage along the sludgy track to the village of Staunton to pay a visit to friends, he’d cheerfully asserted that the folk of Cambridgeshire be best battening down the hatches next. The tumultuous weather was not heading south to London but blowing north-west. And, over the years, Ralph had proved himself to have an instinct for these things. He could smell snow in the air, see frost in hard bright night skies, feel a mist in his bones… Yet, still Rachel persevered with telling her mother that London might now be under siege from the weather.
In truth, she was feeling an odd twinge of apprehension over her papa’s whereabouts. Not that she feared for his safety, but she knew that sometimes, when in all-male company for too long, he allowed himself to be distracted by a carafe or two of fine burgundy…or brandy…or suchlike. But he was not often very drunk. Just once or twice had she seen her papa drowning in his cups…and it had been an alarming and degrading sight. She could quite clearly recall being appalled at the way alcohol could ravage a seemly gentleman and render him a witless wreck.
Rachel bowed her head towards the semi-circle of sunshine silks on the carpet. With a sniff she pushed all else but June’s wedding to the back of her mind. A finger hovered first over a butter-coloured hank and then moved to one of a lemon hue. Plucking up the richer thread, she passed it to Madcap Mary.
‘M’um.’
Rachel acknowledged the servant’s grunt of thanks with a quiet, ‘That needlework looks beautiful, Mary.’ She ran a finger over the delicate gold filigree loops that were forming about the hem of a snowy damask napkin. Her praises were sincere; her admiration the more pronounced for owning her own skill with a needle and thread was amateurish in the extreme. The fact that this oafish-looking young woman could produce something so exquisitely fine filled her with a sort of joyous amazement.
‘M’um. Thank you, m’m.’
Rachel watched a pleased flush tint colour into the servant’s sallow complexion and Mary anchored a floppy strand of copper hair back behind an ear with a finger as thick as a sausage.
Rachel heard her small, childlike sigh of contentment as she settled her shapeless bulk back into the armchair and her fingers flew even faster. Rachel placed a few more hanks of the same shade on the stack of pristine linen that lay folded neatly on the chair arm.
Standing up, she walked off to the window and gazed immediately in the direction of the sentinel horse chestnut trees that marched off up the driveway. The pleasant vista was absent of a human presence; then Ralph’s son, Pip, their general handyman, appeared from behind a bush. He was backing slowly on to the main track whilst methodically raking shingle. Rachel sighed and accorded her mama an idle glance. She had settled enough from fretting over her husband to concentrate on composing a list of viands required for the weekend.
In the hope of keeping her mother distracted from thoughts of her father, Rachel ventured that a haunch of lamb or a goose might make a nice change from veal or beef…
‘Your papa is not so keen on fatty meats as he was: they’re too rich for his digestion now he is grown older. Oh, I must write a note and send it with Ralph straight away to the post carrier. I swear some ill is befallen him…’
‘I think, Mama, you ought abandon that idea,’ Rachel said with an incipient smile. Spinning away from the window, she sped, dimity skirts in fists, to the door. Having yanked it open she spun about and apprised her startled mother, ‘Papa is just appeared at the bend in the road.’
‘What on earth can it be?’ June whispered, her hazel eyes round with worry in her small, heart-shaped face. ‘Why is Mother so distressed, do you think?’
‘It is nought… She is probably just chiding him over his tardiness,’ Rachel said with an unconvincing little laugh. She slid a look at Sylvie; even their youngest sister, who was wont to let family squabbles fly over her pretty head, looked subdued and a mite anxious as the commotion emanating from the library carried on unab
ated.
Another shriek, this time of a timbre that could only be described as despair, shivered the house. It had June immediately out of her chair. At the door, she hesitated, wringing her hands together, then looked agitatedly at Rachel. ‘Perhaps we should go and see…’
‘No…’ Rachel said quietly, aware of Sylvie’s clinging eyes on her, too. ‘Whatever it is we will know soon enough. Let Papa have his say, in private. We will know soon enough,’ she repeated gravely.
Her father had been home not yet an hour. Instead of the smiling dapper Papa she had been expecting to welcome over Windrush’s threshold, a man she barely recognised had shuffled wearily in, looking as though he had not enjoyed a wash or a shave for some days. His dishevelled appearance was nothing, though, to the moody cast of his features, or the droop of his posture. He looked as though a burden of cares weighed upon his shoulders.
With barely a coherent greeting for his eldest daughter, he had slowly rid himself of the encumbrances of rumpled cloaks and hat, then cut off her questions with, ‘Let me speak to your mother first, my dear. Time enough to deal with you later…’
And so Rachel, out of astonishment, had complied with that. But still the haunting sight of that grey-faced man, bristly of chin, and jaundiced of eye, dragging past her into the bosom of their house, set her stomach in knots. Something bad had happened and an inherent sense told her that somehow it affected her more than the others. More even than their hysterical mama…
A short while ago she had been reflecting on the last time she had seen her papa drunk. It had been six years ago. The same amount of time since she had listened to her mother’s grief-stricken cries resounding through the house when she learned the news of dearest Isabel. Rachel felt lead settle in her stomach. Some tragedy of similar magnitude had occurred to overset her mother to such a degree and put her papa so out of countenance. Part of her wanted to run to her room and put a pillow over her head to shut out the terror as she had done years before. But then she had been but nineteen. Now she was stronger, more mature and hiding would not do. No, hiding would not do, at all. She needed to know what disaster she must now face. On a sigh of capitulation she sombrely left the room with her two younger sisters, pale and silent as spectres, drifting in her wake.
Mary Brendan Page 8
