Angel in Scarlet

by Jennifer Wilde

  “Am I so repulsive?” he inquired.

  I spread more pâté over another piece of toast. “To me you are,” I informed him.

  “Are you frightened of me?”

  “Not by a long chalk.”

  “Then perhaps you will at least agree to dine with me tonight and listen to what I propose.”

  “Since I’m here I might as well eat,” I said, “but you’re not going to say a word that could possibly interest me. My stepmother might—might have made whores out of her two daughters, but she’s not going to make a whore out of me, I can assure you.”

  “Relax, Angela. Here, let me help you into your chair. A glass of champagne?”

  “No thank you. I want to keep all my wits about me.”

  Lord Meredith smiled again and opened the bottle of champagne and poured some into his glass, and then he sat down across the table from me and lifted the glass, looking at me over the rim. The champagne sparkled, pale gold and full of tiny bubbles. I longed for a glass of it, but I didn’t dare risk it. He sipped his slowly, gazing at me all the while, and then there was a rap on the door and Blake came in, pushing a small trolley laden with silver-covered dishes and another silver bucket with a second bottle of champagne nesting in ice. His face impassive, Blake removed the covers from the dishes and placed them on the table and placed the bucket on a small folding table he took from under the trolley and set up at Clinton’s right. Clinton nodded with approval as the footman stepped back.

  “That’ll be all, Blake,” he said. “I’ll summon you if we need anything else. We’re not to be interrupted again.”

  “I quite understand, Milord.”

  He left, removing the trolley, and we were alone again and Lord Meredith was looking at me with those seductive gray eyes with heavy eyelids drooping, and I felt the power and provocation of that gaze and felt very uncomfortable and wished I hadn’t agreed to stay and dine. Sheer bravura, that. Wanted to show him I wasn’t afraid. At least I would get a fine meal out of it. There was a marvelous-looking aspic and thin slices of pink-orange salmon and golden-brown pheasant on a nest of wild rice and my favorite asparagus with sauce and a cake with creamy white icing and flakes of chocolate swirled on top. I heaped my plate. He poured another glass of champagne and continued to watch me as I ate.

  “You’ve bewitched me, Angela,” he confessed. “Completely and entirely. I’ve never met a woman quite like you.”

  “You should try this pheasant. It’s wonderful. The wild rice, too.”

  “I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind. I haven’t been able to think of anything else since I saw you five nights ago. No woman’s ever had this effect on me—and I’ve known a lot of women. I must have you.”

  “Try some aspic instead. It’s very tasty.”

  “I’m usually quite nonchalant about these things—I take a woman and I enjoy her and all too quickly I’m bored. I’ve a feeling you’d never bore me, and that’s why I’m prepared to spend a fortune to have you. Will you please stop stuffing yourself and listen to me?”

  “I’m not stuffing myself. I’d never do anything so inelegant. I’m eating with perfect decorum, using my knife, using my fork, taking small, polite bites. The salmon’s heaven, has a wonderful flavor.”

  “I had a very long talk with your stepmother, and, I must say, she drove a very shrewd bargain.”

  Solonge had used those identical words over two years ago. I ate another slice of salmon and finished my pheasant. Lord Meredith poured yet another glass of champagne. He hadn’t touched a bite of food.

  “You’ll have your own town house,” he told me. “A small one, admittedly, but quite elegant, in one of the best neighborhoods. You’ll have a maid, a butler, a footman, your own carriage and horses. You’ll have a monthly allowance, and I intend to smother you with presents. I’m always most generous with my women—love to see the glow in their eyes when I give them some expensive bauble.”

  “I don’t care for baubles, Lord Meredith.”

  My voice was icy and indifferent. He frowned. I sliced a piece of cake and placed it on the small plate provided. It was lightly flavored with some kind of liqueur and was rich and buttery, the icing sheer ambrosia. I offered some to him. He shook his head, irritated now, and that pleased me. Probably never been turned down before, I thought. With his incredible good looks, with that husky, honeyed voice and that potent male allure, he had undoubtedly been fawned over by women all his adult life, and they had spoiled him rotten. Thought he could just snap his fingers and they’d tumble into his arms. Most of them probably did, I admitted.

  “There’s no coffee,” I said, finished with my cake.

  “Forget the coffee.”

  “I’d really like some. Will you summon Blake?”

  “I told you to forget the coffee. We have things to discuss.”

  “I’m afraid not, Lord Meredith.”

  I stood up. That surprised him. He stood up, too, frowning again.

  “Your stepmother and I came to terms. She insisted we put it all down on paper. Both of us signed it. I’ve already given her a very large sum of money. You’re not leaving, Angela.”

  “You intend to hold me here by force?”

  “If necessary,” he said.

  He moved over to the door and turned the key in the lock and then dropped the key into his waistcoat pocket. The panic I had suppressed earlier started welling up inside again, but I staunchly refused to acknowledge it. The anger came back, too, and I knew that I was never going to spend another night under this roof. My stepmother had … had sold me, like I was a piece of property, and I actually longed to kill her. What joy it would give me to shove her down the stairs. I must leave. I must leave tonight.

  “You’re trembling,” he said.

  “Does that surprise you?” I asked crisply.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, and his voice was deep and throaty. “I think I’m in love with you, Angela. I’ve never said that to another woman. Never. I never thought I would.”

  “You—you don’t know what the word love means.”

  “I think I do now.”

  He was very convincing, he was, made you actually believe he was speaking the truth, but then he had undoubtedly had a great deal of practice. He moved over to me and placed his hands on my bare shoulders and looked deeply into my eyes and his own were tender, filled with lies, and I trembled more than ever, unable to control it. His hands were warm and soft and strong, gently massaging my flesh, and he lifted one of them up and curled it around the side of my neck and squeezed gently and parted his lips and lowered his heavy eyelids and then wrapped his fingers around the back of my neck, squeezing more, and I was not nearly as immune as I thought I was, as I wanted to be. He was a magnificent male and I was human, I was flesh and blood, and his sexual magnetism was overwhelming, loathe him though I might.

  “I’m going to love you, Angela,” he murmured, and his husky voice seemed to ache with longing. “I’m going to be so good to you—make you so happy.”

  I stiffened and tried to pull away and his fingers tightened on the back of my neck and he curled his other arm around my waist and drew me up against him and held me tightly and his body was strong and muscular and warm and the contact caused me to shudder and again I tried to pull away and he chuckled, holding me fast, and then he tilted his head and kissed me and I was stiff as a board, refusing to yield, refusing to bend, and his lips caressed mine ever so gently and he made sounds deep in his throat and began to kiss me ardently, passionately, his mouth devouring mine, and I struggled and he pulled me closer, rough now, masterful, holding me so tightly it hurt me, but the pain wasn’t nearly as disturbing as the pleasure, pleasure I couldn’t deny. Images of that erotic kiss in the garden of Greystone Hall flashed through my mind, but it wasn’t Lady Laura he was kissing, it was me, and sensations I never wanted to feel again flooded my being and I wanted more, still more, and I longed to curl my arms around him and give way, give in, my o
wn body threatening to betray me.

  I threw my arm out and the back of my palm touched something cold, and I realized it was the second ice bucket, sitting on the small table near his empty seat. My fingers groped and finally found the neck of the unopened bottle of champagne. I gripped it and pulled the bottle out of its nest of ice. The sound of half-melted ice clattering in the bucket caused him to draw back, his lips momentarily abandoning my own. He loosened his hold on me, puzzled, lifting his head, and when he did I swung the bottle up with all my strength, slamming it against the back of his head. His eyes shot wide open, closed, and his knees buckled. He crumpled to the floor, landing with a heavy thud, and I was surprised to see that I was still holding the bottle. It hadn’t broken. I put it back into the bucket and looked at the man on the floor, so still I wondered if he was still breathing.

  My God, I thought, I’ve killed him! I kneeled down and took his wrist between my thumb and forefinger and yes, there was a pulse, and I leaned my cheek over his nose and yes, the son of a bitch was still breathing, but he was likely to be out cold for some time and he’d have a frightful headache when he came to. Served him right. I slipped my hand into his waistcoat pocket and got the key and got up and unlocked the door and pulled it open. I paused for a moment, looking back at the handsome blond lord in navy blue brocade and lace sprawling on the floor beside the table with its gleaming white cloth.

  “Good-bye, Lord Meredith,” I said.

  I hurried down the hall then, quiet as could be, and reached my room without being seen. Quickly, quickly, I. took clothes out of the wardrobe and made a bundle of them and then I put on a long cloak and pulled the hood up over my head. I’d have to leave everything else, the rest of my clothes, all my books, all of them but one. I fetched Captain Johnson’s book on highwaymen and opened it and saw that the money was still inside, and then I stuck it into the bundle of clothes and left the room and crept down the hall until I reached the narrow, enclosed staircase the servants used. It went down to the basement and a small door that opened onto the mews in back of the building.

  I went down the stairs and unlocked the door and opened it and stepped into the mews. It was black as pitch out here, downright spooky, and I certainly didn’t relish sallying across London at night alone, but there was nothing else to do. It wasn’t safe, no, but it sure wasn’t safe for me to stay here either. Taking a deep breath, I hurried through the darkness to the thoroughfare at the end of the mews and turned and headed for Covent Garden as fast as I could.

  Chapter Nine

  Mellow rays of sunlight drifted lazily through the front windows, illuminating the large, littered, cozy workroom of Dottie’s shop with its racks of costumes and cluttered work tables and wall of shelves jammed with ribbons and feathers and braids and boxes full of beads and spangles. Like a magpie’s nest, it was. Everything seemed woefully disorganized, as did Dottie herself, but amidst all this chaos she managed to produce sumptuously beautiful, meticulously made costumes for almost every theatrical manager in London, including the great David Garrick himself. We managed to produce, for I had been working here for three months now, and Dottie often shook her head and stared dreamily into space and declared she had no idea how she had ever gotten along without me.

  Sitting at my worktable, I carefully stitched the silver and white satin floral patterns onto the creamy pink satin skirt, sighing when I thought about edging each single pattern in white seed pearls. Hours and hours and hours it would take, but it was attention to details like this that made Dottie’s creations so spectacular. Dottie employed four other seamstresses besides me, but they all worked in the loftlike room upstairs, adjacent to her private living quarters. They were all quite skillful, but Dottie couldn’t stand their incessant chatter. Kept me working down here because she liked my company and knew I wouldn’t gush and carry on when some glamorous theatrical notable came in to check on a costume.

  I had seen Mr. Garrick a number of times, a polite, quiet-spoken gentleman in his late middle-age who seemed rather drab and completely unremarkable. Davy saved all his dazzle and dynamic personality for the theater, Dottie told me. Away from the footlights, he was a placid, domestic creature who was henpecked by his wife and apt to forget things, but, ah, in his youth! He’d been something then, he had. Dottie believed some of his sparkle had vanished when Miranda James turned him down and he married that retired Austrian dancer. He was undeniably the greatest actor of the age, all flashing magnetism on stage, but in his dull gray breeches and shabby brown coat he would pass unnoticed on the street.

  Another pattern stitched on. Another one begun. Only three more left to do. It was routine work, and my mind began to wander, as it tended to do when I was working on something like this. I thought of that night four months ago when I had fled Marie’s Place, leaving an unconscious Lord Meredith in the private room upstairs. A nightmare, that had been, me utterly terrified as I ran through the dark streets, my heart beating fast, but I had made it without having my throat slit and dawn was breaking and the produce men were already setting up their stalls when I reached Covent Garden. I asked one of them to direct me to Brinkley’s Wig Shop and he smiled, removed his greasy brown cap and pointed and said he reckoned it was still right over there on Henrietta Street just around that corner. A sleepy but thoroughly delighted Megan had welcomed me with open arms and we had drunk innumerable cups of coffee and eaten a dozen cinnamon rolls and talked for hours, becoming as close as sisters almost at once.

  I had been terribly nervous and apprehensive those first few weeks, for I knew full well that Marie could have me clapped into prison as an incorrigible minor as long as I was still her legal ward, and I knew she wouldn’t hesitate, vindictive shrew that she was. I had caused her to lose a great deal of money, and nothing would please her more than to see me rotting away in a filthy cell in Newgate. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she hadn’t marched herself down to Bow Street and filed a complaint and given them a description. The Runners were probably still keeping an eye out for the wretched girl who had assaulted a lord and run off into the night, and even now I was still a bit wary when on the streets. Megan assured me my fears were foolish. London was a huge place with thousands and thousands of people, a wonderful place to get lost in. Who would think to look for me in Covent Garden? Her words made good sense, but I still wouldn’t feel completely safe for the next six months, when I would turn twenty-one. Until then I intended to keep low, never straying from the neighborhood.

  But what a marvelous neighborhood it was. With its mellow old buildings, its piazza and arcades, its colorful fruit and vegetable stands and its stalls full of glorious flowers, Covent Garden was a magical place, warm and friendly and utterly unlike the rest of London. Thronging with flamboyant theater folk and artists, it had a casual, carefree air and a special ambience all its own. Covent Garden was weathered white marble columns and worn gray cobbles, pretty young soubrettes and swaggering actors, dusty velvet curtains and carts of cabbage. The noxious smell that pervaded the rest of London was missing here and the very air seemed cleaner and more invigorating. Shabby, scampish, cozy and not quite respectable, Covent Garden was like a bit of paradise, I felt, and I was proud to be a part of it.

  The flat Megan and I shared over the wig shop was large and roomy, with a run-down, dilapidated charm and battered furniture. We were never free of the smell of powder and scorched hair, but that was part of its raffish charm, and there were eating houses nearby where we could buy food to bring up to our rooms, as neither of us cared to cook. Looking out the windows, one could see the arcades across the way and the roof of the opera house with pigeons perching on the eaves. Dottie’s establishment was but a short walk, down Southampton and around the corner to Tavistock Street. I loved rooming with Megan and loved working for Dottie, too, genial, eccentric soul that she was, and had it not been for the shadow of Newgate looming in my imagination I would have been wonderfully content with my new lot.

  One more floral pattern to s
titch on, and then time to start on the white seed pearls. A mote-filled ray of sunlight slanted across my table. I sighed and began to stitch the silver and white satin pattern onto the pink. I could hear Megan working in the stockroom beyond the curtained archway, rearranging bolts of velvet and satin and silk. She had been hired on as a super in a new production, got to wear a lovely blue satin gown with cream lace and simper on stage as a French courtesan in the crowd scenes, but the play had had a dismally short run and now she was back at Dottie’s, good-natured as ever. Those French things never ran long, she declared. Give her a good thundering English drama every time. Duels, doxies and brooding heroes, that’s what the public wanted. Bloodshed and battles.

  The stairs at the other end of the room creaked noisily, and I glanced up to see Dottie descending, holding on to the wooden railing with one plump hand and looking distracted, as usual. In her wrinkled pale violet smock, her gray hair swept up in an untidy pompadour, Dorothea Gibbons was indeed something to see. Decidedly heavy, she had a round, amiable face and a fleshy double chin. Her plump cheeks were powdered, her small mouth cherry red with rouge, her eyelids smeared rather unevenly with shiny violet-blue shadow. Dottie had been a moderately successful actress thirty some odd years ago—“During the Peloponnesian War, dear,” she declared—and saw no reason why she should stop using cosmetics merely because she was in her late fifties. Warm, generous, endearing, she reminded me of someone’s cozy, eccentric old grandmother.

  “I vow, those girls do chatter,” she said wearily, shuffling over to my table in her comfortable purple felt slippers. “They’ve almost finished with the apple-green frocks trimmed with black lace. Eight actresses wearing apple-green and black lace all at the same time, in the same scene? I feel sure Mr. Foote has made a disastrous mistake, but I don’t order the costumes, I merely make them.”